Curious what this crowd thinks, Tesla Model S

[flipwils11]

Wondering if anyone on the board has seen a model S on the road yet in your area, or if you've checked out their website and looked at the car and options. I've seen several near me, one on the way to work this morning. I'm a V8, RWD, manual trans kind of guy so the Tesla is pretty far from what I would consider (it's also way outside my price range). But damn if it isn't a sexy as hell looking car.

I optioned one out on their website, selecting the 400+hp configuration, and a bunch of other fancy options and it quickly got to $125k.

Just curious what others think. The range at 250 or so miles actually isn't bad, especially for around town commuting. Long distance though would get annoying with the stops and waiting hours between charges.

[proffesso]

i love it, would own one if I could afford it

the range thing I dont get though, 250 miles (400km/s) is a XXXtload of range...how many people are driving are than that a day?

cost wise, yeah its certainly up there, hopefully the next version or two will drop that down a lot.

would own one as an everyday car, and something fun for weekends

[mk-Zero]

There are craploads of those here in Orange County and every time I see one I'm still stunned at how damn good looking they are. Oh yes I would drive one, but they're out of my league...

[flipwils11]

Their cost calculator on the website is very interesting. It's very careful to position the cost as monthly, net of the savings on gas. You have to read through how they're doing the calculation to see their assumptions, including gub'ment incentives. If you click over on the tab to the right when you're building it and it's calculating the price you can see the cash price which is how I saw that I hit $125k.

It's a pretty smart way to pitch the savings and overcome cost objections when you net out several thousand dollars in gas a year. And (currently) electricity is damn near free I guess, will be interesting to see if that changes as demand shifts in the next 10-20 years.

[DMAT]

Wonder if this thread was spawned by 60 minutes coverage of the Model S last night

They dubbed engine sounds in for the model S even though its electric

I think forza 5 had the same problem for the model S too, no clue what to do regarding engine sound.

[askbob]

I caught the 60 Minutes piece on Elon Musk of whom I've read about before. Did you catch the part where he is envisioning recharge stations that are free of charge(no pun intended)?

Also the 5 BILLION dollar battery plant they are building? Impressive visionary this guy.

[JK Racing]

There are craploads of those here in Orange County and every time I see one I'm still stunned at how damn good looking they are. Oh yes I would drive one, but they're out of my league...

+1, I see them daily on my commute between Orange County and Riverside.

[GoMachV]

I have seen one around these parts and I agree- dead sexy! I will never be able to own one but I can still dream

[abailey21]

I got to drive one at work, I loved everything about it, even if it was less than 5 miles.

If I can convince the wife and I get this new job there might be one in my near future

[flipwils11]

I got to drive one at work, I loved everything about it, even if it was less than 5 miles.

If I can convince the wife and I get this new job there might be one in my near future

Interesting, any other impressions? Must have nice torque from the electric motor drive.

Does it have a transmission, i.e. is there a need to shift or is it direct drive from the motors?

[dldiaz]

My wife's best-friend bought a base model Tesla for a little under $50K. It is less powerful and has less range (I think around 140 miles) compared to the high-end version, but she loves it.
She drives it to work every day and plugs it in every night. No problems.

The car has a very cool iPhone app that can turn on the A/C or heater for you, pinpoint the location of the car on a GPS map, honk the horn (to help you find it in a parking lot), and many other things.

I would totally get one!

[markbt73]

I've seen a few around here. I like it a whole lot more than the Prius, I can tell you that... but then, I'd sooner restore a Yugo than buy a Prius.

I love internal-combustion engines and manual gearboxes, but I guess if the future of the automobile looks kinda like Tesla, that'd be OK. I'm less sure about the connectivity of it (and many other new cars, actually). I hate the idea of a car being able to be "hacked."

[Sixtysixdeuce]

Does it have a transmission, i.e. is there a need to shift or is it direct drive from the motors?

It's more of a transfer case. No clutches, converter, anything like that. Just gears.

EVs are finally coming into their own. Kinda sucks for those of us in the repair biz, as the high voltage systems mean the car is dangerous all the time, not just when things are turning. More than one technician has been maimed or killed by the HV hybrids.

Having said that, even at it's high price, the Tesla will mitigate a significant portion of it's high price tag over time. While it's certainly not a "zero emission" hippie pipe dream car (unless you have your own field of solar panels/wind generators), it does produce less, and, more importantly, has a substantially lower fuel cost. At ~$0.12/KWh, the Tesla would save your typical 15K mi/year commuter about $2k per year versus a low-20's MPG sedan/crossover/small SUV. If you drive further or your gasoline powered vehicle was less efficient, obviously the annual savings is even higher. Enough savings to justify the $70K+ price tag? Probably not, but then, people who buy a Tesla are not exactly hurting for money.

[alien3t]

There are craploads of those here in Orange County and every time I see one I'm still stunned at how damn good looking they are. Oh yes I would drive one, but they're out of my league...

+1, I see them daily on my commute between Orange County and Riverside.

i pass 3-4 a day in teh carpool lane from 91-405 every day. but since riding 2 wheels, i still go past them.