Tesla P85D Experiences

[rage2]

B18C's shit was flying everywhere when I was doing the launches.

[sexualbanana]

Originally posted by Tearin

One new issue to offer up is the cupholders. Apparently only the first or second year of the Model S (they don't really have model years) had spring loaded cupholders, and I guess with the g forces EV cars can produce, it was puncturing a few peoples styrofoam coffee cups and making a mess (I know, first world problem).

Hippies shouldn't be using styrofoam cups, anyways.

[CanmoreOrLess]

Wireless charging is available as well on all electric and Volt like cars: https://www.pluglesspower.com

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by CanmoreOrLess
Wireless charging is available as well on all electric and Volt like cars: https://www.pluglesspower.com

You pay for 7-12% more electricity for the convenience.

It would also take 24hrs to fully charge a P85D from empty. Hence, this only works for cars with <20kwh batteries.

[01RedDX]

.

[LOLzilla]

Good thread. Thanks for posting it up. Where do you get the car serviced if you have issues?

[rage2]

Local service center is opening soon they say, but they've been saying that since 3 years ago. I think they just send rangers out to fix shit right now.

[flipstah]

Originally posted by rage2
B18C's shit was flying everywhere when I was doing the launches.

He finally got one! Yay! Every time I saw him, he kept dreaming about it.

[B18C]

Originally posted by rage2
Local service center is opening soon they say, but they've been saying that since 3 years ago. I think they just send rangers out to fix shit right now.

They are opening a store in Chinook in the next couple months so I'm hopeful a service centre isn't far behind.

Right now they send out rangers if we have any problems.

[B18C]

Originally posted by flipstah


He finally got one! Yay! Every time I saw him, he kept dreaming about it.

Yup. I was just waiting for the dual motor to come out and then warmer weather. Took delivery in April.

[flipstah]

Originally posted by B18C


Yup. I was just waiting for the dual motor to come out and then warmer weather. Took delivery in April.

Awesome to hear.

You're a good example of dreams coming true! I'll bug you about it if I see you again. Should be fairly soon

[rage2]

His P85D was the one I reviewed if you missed it.

[msommers]

After reading this thread and the other last night, Killarmos has some crazy level of hate for Tesla. Like they're going to steal his BMW pillow he holds while sleeping.

[Tearin]

Warning, what I am going to say is going to be a bit more controversial than some of the other comments I've made, and may stir up a heated discussion. Just remember that this isn't about Tesla per se, it's about the rollout of a few new autopilot features on their cars, which we may or may not be ready for. But the governments were the ones responsible imo to allow or stop this rollout (not the car manfacturers), so let's keep that in mind when posting, just in case this does get heated (for sure if any fatalities occur in the next while, there will be more than just this thread online that will have heated discussions, esp as it may be the Tesla driver that injures others (Tesla's being quite the strong car and the target of a lot of "press").

Last night they pushed the rest of the Autopilot features to those of us with the hardware (late 2014+) [and of course, my car just went in yesterday to get Opti on it (d’oh - won't get it back till Sunday at earliest, then I'll post about the full autopilot features).]

[ASIDE - And before we get dragged into arguing about and/or resisting ANY change, and/or arguing whether advancing autopilot features is bad, the fact is, the next steps are being taken. Put another way, all change is resisted by some...imagine it's 50 years in the future, every car has a great autopilot system, we are stacked together travelling at 150kph with 2' between cars, etc, and a few automakers says to everyone, "lets all go to manual driving" as it's more "fun" (who knows why they would do it - it's moot to this point). Anyways, recognize that that would be a change back to what we have now, yet everyone would resist that too, and much much much more strongly as it puts controls back into the hands of drivers who may have never driven manually...change is always resisted, so I am not arguing about the change, but I may be arguing about the execution of this change, as I really want this to be successful for Tesla and the rest of the car manufacturers as it is another step forward to fully autonomous highways (as a minimum).] So onto my comments:

From the first half day of comments online, it looks like they got rid of the analog looking speedo which is something that I strongly disagree with (I want/need to see rate of change of the "needle" - even if it's a digital needle/LED type of readout). I have always hated a single number digital readout for the speed, unless it was a secondary readout, say on an HUD. I knew this chnage was coming, but I had hoped that the leaked info was wrong and that they would give us the feature to chose the analog looking gauges when we weren't using Autopilot. Maybe if we ask nice we'll get it back…course by then I'll already be used to the new one, and won't care as much...

Further, it looks like the lane correct auto steer feature is too "jerky" - some have said it's akin to a new driver overcorrecting. Also it looks like one of the ways of getting it out of auto steer mode, is by cranking the wheel "hard" (can't comment on the word "hard" till I get the car back), but they say that the maneouver to disconnect also also causes mild lane veering (again, "mild" is a relative measurement, I'll post real numbers like the feet of veering, and at a few speeds in case it's variable). So I'll have to wait till Sunday to see/test it.

Now, when I bought the car I had never planned to use the autodrive features on the road in the rain or in winter so those things won't be catastrophically dangerous to me but maybe others will try to do so, and fail, with catastrophic consequences - this car is a 5000# weapon (actually, I have never used my cruise in rain or winter, but I know people who have, but usually only till they "learn" the hard way that they shouldn't), but, even if using it only in the summer, jerky responses will be another thing that I won't be happy about [similar to my prior comments about me not liking the fact that "regen braking" shows my taillights too much to drivers I have passed or worse yet have changed lanes in front of]...if the car does indeed make "jerking" motion (which also isn't going to be good for drivers around me either)...so I might not use it unless they can fix some of this, depending on it's severity...and in the interim I might just have to be happy with only using the "lane keep" feedback steering shimmy and the new un-piloted parking (which is probably like 10 year old tech in other cars) and sure, I might try an auto lane switch maneuver once in a while just to be impressed or to show off to a passenger what most cars might be like in 20 years, and I might use the same feature when merging, IF it's easy to activate while driving. So, today, based on others initial testing, until some of this is sorted out I can't see me using the most autonomous and advanced of the auto driving features for anything except maybe for merging, and unless that feature is also really good and seamless to activate, that would be probably be something I'd also rarely use (most everything else I feel happy using we already had - like the collision avoidance autobraking from prior Tesla software - which also I haven't tested fully yet to see how late and how hard it brakes (the test will be to find an abandoned area and drive towards the back 1/4 panel of one of my other cars (which would be ready to drive away at 90 degrees to me), and me to try to also veer around the back of the car as it drives away if I had too, which won't be fun, as trying to steer when the car is already in ABS lockup won't get me very much steering capability - maybe I'll use a blanket/sheet instead of another car and see if the sensors echo back thinking that it’s a car and autobrakes… …so, you can see why I haven't tested this yet), anyways, I can say that I have had rain obstruct the lanemarker lines with some lane keeping vibration testing I tried a few months ago (didn't respond), and I've had the pre collision auto-warning beep a few times while merging and even got to the stage of showing the big red crash symbol on the gauges (hard to miss), when a car was stopped ahead of me in the merge lane (let's not get started on that pet peeve - we share the road with all levels of drivers and need to be prepared for stuff like this all the time)...but again, many cars have had this collision avoidance tech for many years, so it's not like anyone needs to hear about those experiences, so I hadn't shared those before - imo it works like it should compared to other cars I've driven, based on a small smaple size so far, I'd say the anticollision warning is 90% accurate, a bit overly sensitive imo, picks up on things other than cars and warns you about them...but in day to day driving, it hasn't autobraked on me yet, either when I need it to (havent needed it yet) nor falsely).

What causes me concern is the potential to abuse the autopilot, causing legislators to mandate no one having autopilot till all cars have well sorted out autopilot systems (20 years out?). The system is at "early adopter" stage, and not all other systems may be in place to support it and make it work great. The system relies on well painted lines on roads, well maintained sensors on our cars, and smart and attentive people being behind the wheel. And the "risk specialist" in me knows that we aren't all smart and no way are we all attentive behind the wheel (and autopilot will make that worse; it's the "moral hazard" of giving us autopilot). So even with the already known limitation in autopilot (rain and snow dangerous, and won't actually work if lines on road aren't visible, dirty, etc). I'd hate to have the car taking me around a corner and the lanes dotted line "disappears" and the autopilot disengages. I bet it isn't going to be a seamless recovery for even an experienced and attentive driver, and I think everyone should know 1) when it tends to disengage, 2) what it feels like, and 3) what it's like when recovering from it, BEFORE they can go on the road (I've always said to take your kids to an empty parking lot at night on a snowy day and show them what the ABS feels like so they don't freak out when the pedal starts shaking), so, given the different things that need to happen to test the "lane keep" with disappearing lines, it'll be very hard for me to test on a real road, so that I know what it feels like and how far the car drifts after it loses the road line, before it recovers or turns over control, as it's hard to find a spot where there are missing lines in corners...

So, given the sh!t storm that took place when the guy drove the Tesla over the driveshaft and punctured his cells and had the fire, imagine what will happen if major accidents start to occur due to missing lines on roads and inattentive people. Personally it's almost like you need to be more attentive and ready to anticipate when to take control back from the car, knowing that the car might get you slightly off line before it disengages/gives back control. I want it to give me warning and hence control back, long before the lines on the road get obscured by say dirt or gravel, and even then, it won't be a fun transition I bet, and everyone around me on the road might not like the drifting and potentially jerky correction....So, with all the extra autopiloted cars on the road now, I predict some of the most advanced features might not last very long before the DOT pulls em, or, for Tesla, requires them to modify the autopilot to maybe require more positive feedback from us than simply having the steering wheel sense that we have at least one hand on the wheel (I think that is how it works, again, car is in shop for the weekend - have to test next week but this is what the Tesla forums are saying). So again, take some of this with a grain of salt, as I haven't tried it out yet, this is second hand info based on one day of peoples use, and I do feel to make any strong analysis or predictions, I of course need to get my own "seat time" - and ironic use of that phrase, as "seat time" is about all I get to do, just sit there, when testing some of this stuff - no brake, no accelerator, light steering wheel touch.

So I'm hoping it's working better than some folks are reporting (there will always be overly critical naysayers), so that we do get to ramp up the move to autonomous driving, but I am highly skeptical that everyone will use it properly, and a bit worried that there may not be enough safeguards built in, etc, to prevent accidents (say for instance those Mercedes "nod off" sensors might make sense in the Tesla too now). Time will tell how bad this might get, and just like in the past, every unique Tesla accident is going to be over scrutinized again, but change of this magnitude has to start somewhere, it's just that I'm not sure every "pilot" out there is ready for "auto pilot". So again this is more a comment on the more advanced autopilot features and their rollout (think lane change/merge), and less on Tesla specifically.

Being able to actually get in my car and use these features today, without any extra training, or watching videos, or a simulator, or parking lot testing and certification (aka an "advanced" drivers licence) might be a bit much and a bit unexpected. I didn't expect any training like this when we got cruise control, or ABS, or auto collision avoidance, but maybe think like lane keep and lae switch should come with a one hour training class before being activated on cars, if only for potential future liability reasons, and to maybe make sure it doesn't automatically get turned off by the DOT once there are 2 or 3 accidents in the next while with autopiloted Teslas (or other cars). Heck, maybe before the average person gets a 400Hp+ car (or a 2.8 sec car) we should also have to take an advanced license, but that would be a whole other thread. So this is just my 2c and I am only speaking as a current P85D Tesla owner whose driven a few other high end cars with other systems (wish we had heat radar and HUD), and these are my initial thoughs before having testing the latest from Tesla fully to see how sorted out and integrated it is.

Also, last I heard, service centre might be January for Calgary, and most who are following this thread probably know the Tesla is in Chinook already (at the North end - white 70D parked there with Chris's business card in the window)...and I guess the store is still "imminent". I understand the lease is signed with Chinook, so that's good news as the more Teslas that sell, the sooner we actually get to the plateau to warrant a service centre...so right now it's Rangers here one week out of the month working on our cars...

[01RedDX]

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[rage2]

I think we should do an on road comparison of the Tesla vs Mercedes autopilot. I know the Merc version is very well sorted, but it doesn't have lane change. Interested?

[Tearin]

I'm game.

I've experienced some of the "lower end" 2014 era autopilot features on a CLA AMG, but nothing where I could push the limits of collision avoidance, etc. Just blind spot and the usual stuff. And on that note, I really think they missed the ball not putting a blind spot indication on the mirrors, and just using the old instrument cluster that had small white bars at the bottom of the speedo, almost invincible when driving with your head up. They say they didn't want it, it was intentional, as they think their system is better. Ah, change. Let's hope this is something they improved with the new autopilot instrument cluster - I hope they made it more visible when someone is there, even if my blinker isn't on...

[rage2]

The CLA doesn't have autopilot. It's the C class and up that gets it. I'll get benyl and his E63S Wagon that has it and we'll write up a full comparison. Shoot me a PM with your number and we'll figure out a time and place.

[Tearin]

PM sent. And ya, I guess I shouldn't call the CLA stuff "autopilot" . They're more driver assistance stuff, but not autopilot.

[speedog]

If you've ever driven the #1 Calgary-Medicine Hat, then you'd probably be more then willing to have autopilot features.