Saying goodbye is hard!

[thewinelake]

So my lease is at an end. I did wonder about extending it for another 12 months, but the price would have gone up a fair amount. So I started looking around and have ended up with a Tesla of all things. Only affordable as done as a company car (and even then, the first year or so will be expensive BIK).

 

However, it's very sad to see this car go. It never really put a foot wrong (other than having the chrome trim fall off). Skoda suggested that I might pay £13k for her - which I felt was a little too much.

 

I'm beginning to think I'm mad ;-)

[4StringBass]

I just couldn't say goodbye to mine so bought it at the end of the lease.  Delighted that I did, love it

[BriskodaJeff]

Congrats on the new car winelake. Always a difficult decision to make. It would be interesting to hear a comparison of the Tesla against the Superb once you have had a chance to get used to the new one.

[Gizmo]

2 hours ago, BriskodaJeff said:

It would be interesting to hear a comparison of the Tesla against the Superb once you have had a chance to get used to the new one.

 

+1

 

 

 

[thewinelake]

My initial thoughts (in addition to the obvious bonus of being clean) after having had it (Model S 75D) for about 10 days:

 

+ Very relaxing to drive the Tesla, whether on short trips or long. Quietness and regen breaking both help.

+ Incredible responsiveness

+ Nice to wake up to a full (ish by Superb standards!) tank every morning

+ Very smooth TACC (=ACC on Superb) and the AutoPilot is nice for the motorway, with hopefully more coming (although one is still required to be alert and have hands on wheel)

+ No specific requirement for servicing

+ I think the Tesla will last for a very long time 

+ Compared to other EVs, Supercharging stations make Tesla viable for long trips. Hopefully CCS roll out across Europe will help, but there's a long time to go, and etiquette needs to be established (something most Tesla drivers seem to be very good on).

+ The Tesla-owning community is very welcoming, even if it has "fanboi" tendencies.

 

- It's width and preciousness make me anxious in narrow roads and some car parks. And forget 6'6 width restrictions until you're VERY comfortable with the car

- Lack of CarPlay irritates (the built in nav is not a patch on Waze - Waze coming to CarPlay transformed my opinion of it)

- Service Centres are (obviously) more widely dispersed than Skoda garages-

- Worry over reliability of some components (door handles, heater)

- I think the sound quality of the Canton is marginally ahead of the Tesla Ultra HiFi (esp. while the car is stationary)

- Auto wipers are a bit ropey (but getting better)

- Various proximity alarms are over-alarmist

- Not as spacious as a Superb (what is?) but actually not that bad.

- Although the idea is that the fob can be used in proximity unlock mode, the general feeling is that (due to rise of relay theft and the absence of an on/off switch on the fob) this is not a good idea, and furthermore that PIN to drive should be used. Makes me yearn for a good old-fashioned key!

 

I' not really appreciated before that in terms of luxury and refinement, the Tesla should not be thought of as a £70k car, but more like a £45k car with a £25k battery added on.

 

So far it makes me realise how great the Superb is, but the smile on one's face driving the Tesla shows that it's a very different experience!

 

[Superb170]

Now that's a change from a Superb!  Good luck with the Tesla.

[thewinelake]

1 hour ago, Superb170 said:

Now that's a change from a Superb!  Good luck with the Tesla.

It certainly is, although nothing similar is as good! Many thanks.

[widdershins]

What's the build quality like on it?  I'd read comments about poor paint finishes, terrible panel gaps, scratches, and so on.  and that was from Tesla supporters who'd bought them!  I saw they were bringing out a new RHD model Tesla 3 (probably a similar trim level to my old Fabia 3 ) in 2019 which was slightly smaller and about 30 miles less range than the S.  The thing that puts me off it is the lack of an instrument panel.  It appears you only get an iPad like touchscreen in the centre of the car. 

[zappahey]

On 18/12/2018 at 12:40, thewinelake said:

Skoda suggested that I might pay £13k for her - which I felt was a little too much.

 

 

I've thought about keeping mine at the end of this year, what was the age and mileage on that?

[thewinelake]

3years 30k 2.0 Business SE (so leather, DSG, parking sensors) with metallic paint and Canton stereo upgrade.

Strangely, I suspect ULEZ in London will help it  retain short term value as its Euro 6.

 

BTW, the BCA estimate for repairs came in pretty high (a bit over £500) as their panel touch-ups are very pricey (wheels were cheap though)

[thewinelake]

11 hours ago, widdershins said:

What's the build quality like on it?  I'd read comments about poor paint finishes, terrible panel gaps, scratches, and so on.  and that was from Tesla supporters who'd bought them!  I saw they were bringing out a new RHD model Tesla 3 (probably a similar trim level to my old Fabia 3 ) in 2019 which was slightly smaller and about 30 miles less range than the S.  The thing that puts me off it is the lack of an instrument panel.  It appears you only get an iPad like touchscreen in the centre of the car. 

On mine, the build quality appears to be OK. A friend of mine came along to the presentation and felt that the paintwork was substandard compared to the golden age of Mercs last century but thought it was typical of modern cars - so on a par with Skoda.

Panel gaps seem OK to me.

So I think they've improved quite a lot.

However, there are a lot of nice touches that you get with a Skoda that you'll never get on a Tesla. Things like umbrellas and velcro boot supports, pop out torch, etc. It is pretty minimalist for such an apparently expensive car (see my earlier comment on this).

A few things take getting used to - both the EV nature and the Tesla nature. Many systems are still buggy (eg. Spotify) and the lack of CarPlay continues to frustrate (funny - I used to be very disappointed by CarPlay, but came to love it in later life). I'm investigating getting an Android tablet + dongle just for CarPlay.

There is very much a "fanboi" faction among Tesla owners. Any criticisms tend to be met with "well, yeah, but it's a great car to drive and we're saving the planet" ;-)

[widdershins]

Thanks for that, I've been keeping one eye on the EV market for a year or two.  I think Hybrid and EV will be on my list of things to consider for next time I change cars in about 5 years or so.  If the Tesla 3 had a nicer instrument panel or HUD it might have been a contender.  EV's are supposed to have better reliability and lower maintenance costs which would increase the appeal as a second hand car, though battery longevity and replacement costs might show up as a concern once we see more older EV's on the road.

[thewinelake]

Yes, Teslas ought to be cheap to maintain, but their support for and encouragement of third party garages is pretty pathetic. Servicing is not required for warranty, but is required for finance. It consists of very little, but they want £500 to do it. There's a great indie garage in Coventry that owners flock to from all over the country!

Repairs of modest damage to the body is ludicrously expensive. I think this is partly down to the aluminium construction.

Parts are hard to get hold of and expensive.

All teething problems, I guess. I thought I was quite a late adopter, but there's still plenty of exposed "bleeding edge"!

[widdershins]

My biggest concern would be the battery TBH.  Given the price of the batteries, when you buy a second hand Tesla how could you tell if the battery had an easy life up to that point or had been ridden hard and put away wet all it's life?  I'm assuming that it's just a giant lithium based phone battery, and like those, heavy discharging to zero shortens lifespan more than small regular topping up charges?

 

I'm sure that as the technology evolves logging and monitoring of the batteries use characteristics will develop and prospective purchasers will be able to get a pretty accurate report either from the car or from Tesla on current condition and future life expectancy based on data gathered from ,000's of other Tesla batteries.  I would certainly hope so given the replacement cost.

[thewinelake]

Actually the battery is not a problem. Covered by 8 year unlimited mileage guarantee and some have done 100’s of thousands of miles.

i think the battery pack consists of bundles of cells like AA batteries....

[widdershins]

Yes, but if it's a lithium based battery my understanding is that the closer those are run to empty the more the lithium comes out of solution and plates the electrodes.  Once recharged it doesn't return to solution so the power the battery can hold diminishes slightly.  Admittedly it will more likely be a problem with a car like a nissan leaf which has much less range, but if an EV is owned by someone who is careless about how they look after the battery, and only ever recharges it once it is nearly empty, then over time the range will reduce.  The battery will still work so would probably not meet the terms for a warranty claim, but a second owner  who buys it at 4 years old might find they have a car with a 150 mile range rather than the 250 a similar age and mileage EV might get with a different owner who didn't run it right down every time.

 

Do Tesla give new owners instructions on the care and charging of the battery to obtain best long term performance?  I'd also heard that if the Tesla is being recharged in cold weather some of the charging current is used to heat the battery so it can charge properly, and that in summer the opposite the a/c is turned on and coolant pumped throgh the battery to prevent overheating.

[Jaytip]

On 04/01/2019 at 02:46, widdershins said:

Yes, but if it's a lithium based battery my understanding is that the closer those are run to empty the more the lithium comes out of solution and plates the electrodes.  Once recharged it doesn't return to solution so the power the battery can hold diminishes slightly.  Admittedly it will more likely be a problem with a car like a nissan leaf which has much less range, but if an EV is owned by someone who is careless about how they look after the battery, and only ever recharges it once it is nearly empty, then over time the range will reduce.  The battery will still work so would probably not meet the terms for a warranty claim, but a second owner  who buys it at 4 years old might find they have a car with a 150 mile range rather than the 250 a similar age and mileage EV might get with a different owner who didn't run it right down every time.

 

Do Tesla give new owners instructions on the care and charging of the battery to obtain best long term performance?  I'd also heard that if the Tesla is being recharged in cold weather some of the charging current is used to heat the battery so it can charge properly, and that in summer the opposite the a/c is turned on and coolant pumped throgh the battery to prevent overheating.

I picked up an American chap from the airport and we got talking Teslas. I told him id love one for my next taxi but was worried about battery degredation and he told me a Tesla with 300K on it had been tested in the US and the battery had only lost 3%.

Sounds pretty encouraging to me.