[MartinCron]

This whole thing seems like pointless hair splitting between the Model S being very bad for road trips or only moderately bad for road trips.

In either case, take the train or rent a car. The car seems perfect for day to day driving.

[ericd]

A bunch of annoyed Model S owners recreated the trip recently in a convoy of 6-8, they all made it just fine without towing, etc. It doesn't seem bad for road trips in between the correct segments, of which there are more every month.

[Shivetya]

So some product enthusiasts get together to prove someone who has little experience with the product how wrong he was. Might have well as used Tesla engineers for all the credibility that has.

As in, enthusiasts are the last people I would care if they could do something. I have seen enthusiast get over a 1000 miles from the tank of a Passat but I would not vilify anyone else who could not.

Having read a few stories on both sides of the issue, including Consumers Reports own issues with the range displays provided by the car its clear that this car is only for enthusiasts / first-adopters at this stage.

It has quirks, guess what, quirks don't cut it in the transportation business. People just expect things to work. If your gasoline powered car started up cold and said you had only ten miles range and twenty minutes later reported sixty would you just shrug it off?

It really comes across that Tesla has some work to do on accurately representing the potential range of the car at all times. Read the Consumer's report story to understand the confusion that they ran into, now tell me, what do we expect from a reporter who hasn't driven the car until the day he was writing the story?

http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2013/02/tesla-model-s-w...

[ericd]

When it's unusually cold, I expect some conservatism, which translates into charging more than I think I probably need to. It's a universal that a piece of technology will operate worse in extreme conditions than in optimal ones (I'd say 15 degree weather counts). The Model S' specificity probably hinders it in this case, since people would naturally build in some buffer in the cases where they have to read an imprecise readout. Since the range readout is so precise, the expanding range is definitely a kink that needs to be worked out.

Edit: My gasoline car will sometimes show my tank as almost empty when I first turn it on, but over the next 10 minutes, will slowly but magically reveal much more gas in the tank. I don't think it's unacceptable to have any kinks whatsoever in a car... they're pretty common actually. It's just that we haven't yet learned to deal with these ones like we have with the gasoline ones.

[MartinCron]

this car is only for enthusiasts / first-adopters at this stage

This is so totally correct, and I don't get why Tesla isn't OK with that message. Even though it absolutely isn't right for everyone or every situation, they are still selling them as fast as they can make them. Mainstream problems are for mainstream products. They don't apply here.

[ericd]

Unless you consider luxury car buyers to be strictly enthusiasts, I don't think that it is only for enthusiasts at this stage. Except for speed of refueling, it's objectively better than comparably priced luxury cars in almost every way. It didn't win the car of the year awards due to its novelty, if you look at the performance testing breakdowns for roundups including BMW's, Audi's, Maserati's, etc, it did exceptionally well by any standard.

[senthilnayagam]

be a expert of or be a novice I am ok with both but dont fake being a expert and cast aspersion when you dont know the jackshit like "regenerative braking"

[MartinCron]

Phrases like "made it just fine without towing" and "between correct segments" just support the conclusion that the Model S is only moderately bad for road trips :)

Which is fine, if money were no object, I would have an electric city car for daily use as well as a big luxury car with heated seats and a huge gas tank when I wanted to go on road trips.

[ericd]

The towing remark was to say that it wasn't exactly borderline for any of the 8, that the reporter was the exception rather than the rule.

Meh, the segments cover every trip I take frequently on the west coast, and the same will be true on the east coast once I-95 is covered.

[whatusername]

IF you don't charge it fully (or charge it over-night)

I live in Australia and go bush/camping a fair bit. I'm not getting a Tesla for raodtrips any time soon. But If I was to drive MEL->SYD in it -- I'd be recharging in full at each super-charger along the way (assuming they existed)

[kybernetikos]

I might have got the wrong end of the stick here, but I think he did. He wanted to test the super charger network, and then found after leaving the car in the cold overnight that although it had originally said he had the range to make it to the next supercharger, it now said that he didn't. Because of that he compromised and tried to top up with juice from a normal charger. That was the charger he didn't fill up completely from, where he did an unplanned and unexpected charge for approximately an hour (or approximately three quarters of an hour if you believe Tesla). Either way, he hadn't wanted to charge there in the first place, was keen to be moving again and believes that Tesla staff gave him the OK, telling him that the missing miles would come back once the car was going again.

[whatusername]

From Tesla's original post: "For his first recharge, he charged the car to 90%. During the second Supercharge, despite almost running out of energy on the prior leg, he deliberately stopped charging at 72%."

And the graph of battery levels shows what level he recharged to. http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/most-peculiar-test-drive

If he had charged to 100% for that last Supercharge - I wonder if the result would have been different.

[kybernetikos]

looks like you're right.

[bigiain]

For what it's worth, you weren't really going to go "bush/camping" in any of the Tesla Roadsters alternatives either. It's a high-end luxury sportscar. It's no more or less suitable for bush/camping trips than a 5 series BMW or an Audi A6.

And while it's clear it's not a suitable car for GT touring type roadtrips, it wouldn't be _too_ hard for a local Tesla dealer to set up a pair of Supercharger stations 280-320km outside both Sydney and Melbourne to make that trip viable - hell, with a decent espresso bar and a better-then-typical food establishment at each, they might even pay for themselves...

[whatusername]

Fair enough. (I drive a Navara camping - I wouldn't take a 5 series)

I'd probably want 3 superchargers for the Hume (Wangaratta, Gundagai, Goulburn is my rough placement) (In large part this is because MEL -> CBR is probably too far for just one recharge - ie: Frankston to Tuggeranong is 737km)