Thanks for the link, Ali. Interesting reading. I have to say that much dave2010 says indicates to me that he failed in his considerations on the suitability of a Tesla for his personal needs. Something I paid particular attention to before I committed to buying my car, exactly the same model he has. In particular, if I lived north of Inverness, I probably wouldn’t have chosen a Tesla, infact I probably wouldn’t have chosen an all electric car at all.
Regarding some of his criticisms, I completely disagree with his take on the indicator control. It is on the left steering wheel stalk and in contrast to his findings, I am particularly taken with the smooth easy efficiency of the control. I commented to my wife how much I liked it. I agree on his observations regarding no rear screen wiper, but I can live with (without) it. So far, I have no complaints regarding the automatic wiper function and it can be set to manual if preferred. Likewise with the lights which can be set to auto including auto main beam dip, but this can also be set to a separate manual control so lights work automatically apart from the main beam which can be kept at manual which is how I use it. Surely it is to be expected that if the battery is fully charged, regenerative braking will not work in the sense that no recovered energy can be diverted back into an already full battery. The actual braking is still there, so the ability to drive on the throttle alone and not need to touch the brake pedal remains. Yes, cruise control is a bit different compared with what I previously was used to, but I regard it simply as a feature that requires familiarity of use. I regard the automatic slowdown and distancing when travelling in a line of traffic to be a useful safety feature that I like. The sat nav does use GPS to recognise speed limit changes, but a recent upgrade also gives the speed sign recognition feature. So far I’ve not had a problem with this. Sat nav verbal commands are given in Mike’s and feet. Again, it’s a matter of familiarity and adapting with learning. Shouldn’t be a problem IMO.
dave2010 probably just needs to educate himself better on how his Tesla works and to do a bit of experimenting on how to set it up for his personal convenience. The handbook is 180 pages long and I read it right through before I took delivery of my car and subsequently I’ve read several sections again, often more than once. The Tesla is very different from a conventional car and there is much learning to do, probably more than I’ve ever had to do from the day I first started to drive. It’s worth the effort IMHO, because the more I learn and practice, the more I like my car