[Harshal.Bhosale]

Originally Posted by HKap

...
If they can start off by installing 2 or 3 charging points at every petrol station, then we won't have any range anxiety issues. Eventually the petrol station owners are going to have to make the switch to electricity. They either start now or risk losing relevance. They could even sell/rent space out to companies that want to set up charging infra. If the will exists, this can be done in under 2 years across the world.

This is a brilliant idea, and should be pushed all across. Only problem is, a lot of these ubiquitous charging stations are useless Level 2 slow-charging AC stations (requiring 6 to 16 hours for a full 0-100% charge). If all the chargers at gas stations and such are built out to be DC fast charging (>150 kW is the key), then the charging issue is solved forever. I guess businesses that install these are either unaware, or financially constrained, or both, because 1000 Volt, 200-400 amp DC fast charging stations with dedicated transformers are very very expensive compared to just setting up a 240 V cable with a charging terminal.

Originally Posted by HKap

I've driven the Model 3 performance (about a year ago) and the M340i more recently. The acceleration of the Tesla was next level. It's almost as fast as a Porsche Taycan Turbo The steering and chassis feedback also feels better in the model 3. The only things I would miss are

1) The inline 6 engine and exhaust sound
2) Interior build quality.
3) A cabin insulated from the wind/road noise
4) The adjustable bolsters on the driver's seat


The things I love about the Tesla

1) Acceleration - that unending wave of torque
2) The tech - It's literally an iphone on wheels!
3) All 3 heated rear seats (all competitors offer only 2 outer heated seats)
4) The cabin heats much faster than a regular gas powered car. Invaluable when the mercury plummets to ridiculous levels (-35C)
5) The traction control is amazing and also the weight distribution is 50:50 so you can still drive the RWD Tesla in winter/snow.
6) The glass roof!
7) No maintenance. (I plan to hang on to the car for at least 8 years)
8) OTA updates - keeps the car new and fresh
9) Auto pilot for now and full self driving at a future date (let the car do mundane stuff like taking the family to the grocery store... if the wife doesn't feel like driving)
10) Much more cabin room when compared to a 3 series. Its a flat floor so I can easily have 4 adults and a kid in the car.

I miss the sound too, man, I miss the sound! About the only reason I'm planning to switch my humble Fiesta sedan for a similarly priced '99-2005 manual transmission Mazda MX-5 Miata convertible or something similar, to have a fun sports car as well as a practical do-it-all electric beast!

#3 - yes, the heated seats are a boon - and with the recent software purchase option, voila, even the SR+ can now have all 5 seat heaters activated for $300 (not sure about Canadian price). It's free for Long Range models though, I'm sure you've read into all that.

#4 - Yes, its a quicker climate system due to resistive heater, and also mobile app climate control is a huge boon in the winter! I've experienced two winters now, and I usually start the climate just 5 minutes before getting into the car (seat heater + climate) - it also tells the interior temperature of the car, which is very helpful to know especially right now in summer, because the outside temp might be nice and pleasant but inside the car might be unbearably hot due to greenhouse effect (I don't have any window tints yet, planning to get some soon).

Here's what I'm talking about - 37 deg C right now inside the car, even though outside is a pleasant 22 degrees but sunny.


#5 yep even I briefly considered the LR RWD just because of the lightning-quick traction control, but gave in to the #NeedForSpeed and got a LR AWD

#10 oh yeah definitely more room than any comparable sedan - and more luggage space too! In our 2000 mile Detroit-Ontario-NY-DC-Detroit family trip last summer, none of us were uncomfortable beyond the obvious tiredness from being on the road for long stretches at a time. Only discomfort can be, lack of under-thigh support due to the higher floor and comparatively lower H-point. (i.e., H-point is correct in where it should be, but the floor rises higher due to battery). I believe the Model Y has better comfort in this regard due to all the seats mounted on 3-4 inch stilts.

Originally Posted by HKap

The federal rebate is 5k CAD for electric vehicles under 55k. So Model 3 SR+ qualifies for the rebate but the LR and performance don't. It's this rebate that's tempting me to go for the SR+. The price difference between the SR+ and LR works out to about 15k and about 25k between SR+ and the performance. I'm not sure if its worth the additional 25k. The rebates are much better in Quebec and British Columbia(additional 8k). Ontario does not have any state rebates. It was 9k till Doug Ford became the premier, now it's zero .

My usage is going to be mostly in the city and the occasional road trip. What's the winter range loss for you? Do you have the LR or SR+?

Oh I see, definitely makes sense to get a SR+ for you considering the rebates and your usage scenario. However, do bear in mind that the range loss is easily 30% in the winter (I easily lost a third of my range, meaning my 310-mile car becomes effectively a 200-mile car at normal highway speeds). There's a caveat here though that I noticed while driving in Canada last year - the speed limits on most roads there were 100 kph (i.e. 62 mph), while in the US its 70 mph meaning I usually drive at 75-80 mph. That causes a lot more range loss as well, meaning on some colder days I can easily see 40% range loss. If you drive below 70 mph most of the time then your range loss is minimized and its just the battery+cabin heating losses (you can mitigate the cabin heating losses by turning off climate and staying warm through extra layers of clothing/seat heater etc, but you cannot control the battery heating - that's automatic).

I did a long trip in the winter this year, from Detroit to Charleston SC, and although the temps were warmer as I kept going south, I had below-freezing temps at least in Michigan and Ohio - and this is where I noticed the 30-40% range loss depending on my speeds. Mind you I still had comfortably spaced charging stops, but this is because of the LR battery pack - I would've had to drive much slower and turn of the cabin heaters (rely on just seat warmers) if I had an SR+ for that trip. In fact, during one leg of the trip, I did precisely that in order to reach the next Supercharger instead of the one the navigation was telling me to stop at, as the next one suited me better for a dinner stop.

Lastly, regarding LR AWD vs Performance - Performance has only one thing I so desperately want - Track Mode V2 with its adjustable front:rear bias (this makes it possible to turn the AWD Model 3 into a RWD with track-optimized Stability Control, allowing for more yaw angle to be achieved and thus proper controlled drifting action.)

I've been tweeting like crazy at Elon for a while now, requesting him to make Track Mode an optional purchase for AWD owners, but I guess my tweets never reach the top of his feed lol (and anyway, providing that option will probably alienate Model 3 Performance Owners and reduce the sales of this high-margin variant so they might never do it).

But acceleration-wise, the AWD is plenty fast, anything beyond that is just silly and usable only to impress people.

[HKap]

Originally Posted by Harshal.Bhosale

#10 oh yeah definitely more room than any comparable sedan - and more luggage space too! In our 2000 mile Detroit-Ontario-NY-DC-Detroit family trip last summer, none of us were uncomfortable beyond the obvious tiredness from being on the road for long stretches at a time. Only discomfort can be, lack of under-thigh support due to the higher floor and comparatively lower H-point. (i.e., H-point is correct in where it should be, but the floor rises higher due to battery). I believe the Model Y has better comfort in this regard due to all the seats mounted on 3-4 inch stilts.




Oh I see, definitely makes sense to get a SR+ for you considering the rebates and your usage scenario. However, do bear in mind that the range loss is easily 30% in the winter (I easily lost a third of my range, meaning my 310-mile car becomes effectively a 200-mile car at normal highway speeds). There's a caveat here though that I noticed while driving in Canada last year - the speed limits on most roads there were 100 kph (i.e. 62 mph), while in the US its 70 mph meaning I usually drive at 75-80 mph. That causes a lot more range loss as well, meaning on some colder days I can easily see 40% range loss. If you drive below 70 mph most of the time then your range loss is minimized and its just the battery+cabin heating losses (you can mitigate the cabin heating losses by turning off climate and staying warm through extra layers of clothing/seat heater etc, but you cannot control the battery heating - that's automatic).

I did a long trip in the winter this year, from Detroit to Charleston SC, and although the temps were warmer as I kept going south, I had below-freezing temps at least in Michigan and Ohio - and this is where I noticed the 30-40% range loss depending on my speeds. Mind you I still had comfortably spaced charging stops, but this is because of the LR battery pack - I would've had to drive much slower and turn of the cabin heaters (rely on just seat warmers) if I had an SR+ for that trip. In fact, during one leg of the trip, I did precisely that in order to reach the next Supercharger instead of the one the navigation was telling me to stop at, as the next one suited me better for a dinner stop.



I've been tweeting like crazy at Elon for a while now, requesting him to make Track Mode an optional purchase for AWD owners, but I guess my tweets never reach the top of his feed lol (and anyway, providing that option will probably alienate Model 3 Performance Owners and reduce the sales of this high-margin variant so they might never do it).

But acceleration-wise, the AWD is plenty fast, anything beyond that is just silly and usable only to impress people.

I believe the new seats V2 (second half of 2018) are a touch higher than V1. Besides, my family isn't the tallest family around so I'm not too worried. I'd consider the Model Y but it seems it isn't as much fun as the Model 3.

The other advantage is see with the LR is the charging speed. With V3 superchargers, it can take upto 270 kW vs 150 kW on the SR+.

Let's see if I can muster up the courage to spend 69k + taxes for the LR vs 52k + taxes for the SR+.

If not, I'll be stuck with 0-100 in 5.6 seconds vs 4.6 seconds.

[manjubp]

No doubt, Tesla brought the lot of positivity to EV, they built some of the great cars. However in general, all big revolution has relatively late comers dominated the market. Just like IPhone or Android OS. I don't discount in next 5-10 years, there would some company, may be one of the Germans or Japanese or someone who will dislodge the Tesla from their present day leadership position.
It is matter of volumes, how can they scaleup and still maintain the quality and customer service, of a small company. Everyone will catch up with technology.

[SKC-auto]

Originally Posted by manjubp

However in general, all big revolution has relatively late comers dominated the market. Just like IPhone or Android OS.

The late comer or outsider here is Tesla disrupting GM, Toyota, VW. Without Tesla we all will be of the opinion that EV is used only for golf carts. All ICE manufacturers will keep doing what they did best by spending billions on R&D to increase ICE efficiency by 1% every 10 years.
Toyota by pasting a green diesel sticker on their Innova's and Fortuner's.

[Harshal.Bhosale]

Originally Posted by HKap

The other advantage is see with the LR is the charging speed. With V3 superchargers, it can take upto 270 kW vs 150 kW on the SR+.

True that, the trans-canadian Supercharging network is gonna be all V3 so you'll have much better V3 availability than most of the US.

Originally Posted by HKap

Let's see if I can muster up the courage to spend 69k + taxes for the LR vs 52k + taxes for the SR+.

If not, I'll be stuck with 0-100 in 5.6 seconds vs 4.6 seconds.

Haha like I always say, you can choose any variant of any new Tesla, and you're guaranteed to get a good car!

Oh by the way - you might wanna accelerate your purchase decision by a bit if you have an opportunity like I did (Tesla might be in pushing hard for getting better Q2 2020 sales numbers i.e. by the end of June due to COVID sales slump, so this would only work if you can take delivery before June 30th):

When I was looking for my car, I was contacted by the sales guy saying that they have a few brand new vehicles in inventory that they were looking to get rid of quickly before the end of the quarter (Q1 2019 was very critical for Tesla and they did a MASSIVE sales push) - and that they were offering up to $3770 discount on them. All of them were either Dual Motor or Performance versions, with varying wheels / colors / interior colors.

This was the main reason for me jumping up to a Dual Motor (or frankly even pushing me towards clicking the buy button for a Tesla) - if not for the "price adjustment" + the $3750 tax rebate, I would not have sprung for a $50k+ brand new car knowing the depreciation hit I would be taking.

Also I ended up getting Enhanced Autopilot while paying for only base Autopilot (this is moot now since base AP is free), so effectively I have a shot at getting FSD for $4000 right now if I want to (instead of the normal $7000). This was due to a glitch in their system, the car was a December 2018 build being sold in March 2019, and was flashed with the previously sold version called Enhanced Autopilot whereas their billing system was updated to charge only for base AP.

[HKap]

Originally Posted by Harshal.Bhosale

Oh by the way - you might wanna accelerate your purchase decision by a bit if you have an opportunity like I did (Tesla might be in pushing hard for getting better Q2 2020 sales numbers i.e. by the end of June due to COVID sales slump, so this would only work if you can take delivery before June 30th):

They did offer me around 2500 off in December. I still have a few months to go on my existing lease. Also, I expect the economy to go into a proper lull in the next few months so don't want to go out and hang myself to dry at this point.

[extreme_torque]

As always in Australia we get the long end of the stick. The cheapest Model 3 here is over $70k and the one I want, which is Performance Model 3, it is $110k without options or autopilot :(

[Venkatesh]

Tesla Model S Performance and Aston Martin DBS drag race

https://youtu.be/gH039AfH_rk