Voice of the DBA

Tag: car update

  • A Worse Computer; A Better Car

    A few weeks ago, my wife and I purchased a Lucid Gravity for our second EV. We’ve owned a Tesla for almost five years, and it has been an amazing car. However, we decided that we spend a lot of time driving, and we wanted something a little more luxurious. The Tesla has a bit of a stiff ride, and it’s not quite as lush a car as some others EVs that have come out since we bought our Model Y. After trying a few different brands, we were excited by the Lucid and decided to get one.

    Like the Tesla Model Y, this is really a computer on wheels. A lot of software and screens drive the vehicle, though it’s not quite as minimalist as a Tesla vehicle. There are physical buttons and controls in various places, and more than one screen. Some things work better, and I like that.

    However, some things are worse. While researching online to learn about the car, we saw someone post this: The Lucid is a better car, but a worse computer. The Tesla is a better computer but worse car.

    I agree with that. One thing I’ve learned in owning two and other modern computerized vehicles is that software is hard. Even something as basic as Bluetooth can be a hassle and operate inconsistently in different vehicles. I’ve also learned that product managers and engineers don’t always think deeply about the end-user experience. Perhaps the Lucid developers are under pressure to get features out, but it seems that I’ve encountered more than a few things that could (should?) have been built differently. Or would have if a little more thought were given to the end-user experience, especially given how easily software can be configured with toggles and switches. I’m always amazed when more things aren’t switchable in software.

    Yes, I know software takes time, and it is hard. My tenure at Redgate has given me appreciation for the challenges of deciding what to build, test, and release. I’ll write about some of the Lucid decisions on my blog, as there are a few things from the software development perspective that make me scratch my head. It’s not just me, as I’ve known people who have had Fords, Cadillacs, and Volvos who complained to no end about their teething pains with the software.  A few were ready to abandon the cars. I don’t feel that way, and I know I’m an early adopter. I have some tolerance and patience for the things I think aren’t built well.

    Overall, the car is amazing, very comfortable, and brings a smile to my face, but there are a few software conveniences I got used to in the Tesla that are missing in the Lucid. It’s definitely a worse computer.

    But a much, much nicer car. And, as the delivery guy noted, this is the worst version of the car I bought. It will only get better over time.

    If you think about a Lucid, use my referral link. We’ll both get some credit.

    Steve Jones

    at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

    Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.

  • Car Update: August 2026

    It’s been some time since I provided a car update, so I decided to showcase a few things I’ve learned about my cars since the last one. In this post:

    • A Second EV: Lucid Gravity
    • Efficiency and Tires on the Tesla Model Y
    • Serendipity with a Suburban

    This is part of a series of thoughts on cars, just for fun. These are my thoughts and opinions based on my experiences.

    Our Second EV: Lucid Gravity

    We bought  a Lucid Gravity after driving it one day. We’d driven a few other EVs and then stopped by the Lucid dealer because we had an hour and it was close. We weren’t expecting to be impressed by the car, but we were. In fact, we immediately stopped thinking of the other cars.

    After a few hours of debating it, we bought one in the airport while waiting for a flight. It’s amazing to see how much easier it is to buy from Tesla and Lucid than other deals.

    It’s the nicest car I’ve ever owned, and it’s an EV with great acceleration and handling. It’s also got a squashed steering wheel, which I am surprised I like. It’s easy to control and has a nice space to rest my wrists.

    Lucid squashed steering wheel

    There are some weird things with software, and I have already learned how to “reset” the car. It took me a few minutes to get it right, which is weird. I have to press the brake and then press two buttons on the steering wheel. This didn’t fix the issue I was having with switching profiles, but it was an interesting experience to reboot the car.

    One of the things I love is the cooled and massaging seats. I might get tired of this over time, but I have a bunch of different settings and there are a few I’ve enjoyed on our drives.

    If you think about a Lucid, use my referral link. We’ll both get some credit.

    Efficiency and Tires on the Tesla Model Y

    In about 4 years of driving the Tesla Model Y, covering almost 60k miles, I had a long term efficiency of around 250Wh/mi. That’s just a bit below the rating for the car. I think I did very well, driving mostly at 45mph and lower in chill mode.

    A friend sold me the spare 18” wheels from his Model 3 when he got rid of his car. I put them on mine, mostly because he had better tread than my summer tires. I didn’t think much of this until I checked the efficiency one day.

    I was in the 205Wh/mi range with the smaller tires. Now, the software doesn’t have a setting for 18” tires on the MYLR, so I left it at the 19” stock tires, so possibly there is a calculation error, but I got > 10% efficiency improvement from changing wheels and tires. Smaller, lighter tires, but still. That’s crazy.

    As we looked for new cars, I was aiming for the smallest tires I could get, both for replacement cost and efficiency.

    Serendipity with a Suburban

    In 2006, I bought a 2001 Chevy Suburban for $6500. The car had 101,000 miles on it and we were slightly nervous, but with a family of 5, we wanted a car that would carry all of us skiing and on trips. The AC died the next year, but that car has served the family driving all over CO, WY, and NM for many years. Each of my kids had driven it, one even banged into a concrete barrier in the snow.

    I felt this was the best car investment we’d made over the years. I sold it in 2026 with 250,000 miles on it. We’ve basically done regular maintenance (oil, brakes, tires) and replaced minor parts across the roughly 150,000 miles we’ve owned it. The car was old, had rust on it, and in the hot CO summers, it was a car my wife used carrying the dogs from client to client.

    2001 Suburban in 2026

    She wanted something better.

    I had been periodically looking for a good deal when I stumbled on a 2010 Suburban with 203,000 miles on it, It was a 3 owner car, no accidents, lots of records of service.

    It was listed $6500 (I paid $6200).

    I made my wife cut short work one Sat and we drove down to a dealer, getting there just before they closed. A bit of a test drive and we bought it that night. So far, about 8k miles in, it’s performed as well as the old one.

    And it has AC.

    Still feels like a good deal and a good choice. 20 years later, same price.

     

     

  • A Tale of Two Drives

    One of the things I haven’t thought about much with my Tesla is range anxiety, even in winter. However, I recently had two almost identical trips with vastly different temperatures. This post looks at what I learned.

    This is part of a series that covers my experience with a Tesla Model Y.

    The First Drive

    In early April I took a day off to go skiing. I used to do this often based on weather, picking sunny and cool days. However, in 2023 I’m more schedule driven. I had to do this particular day because I had the free time.

    I woke up and it was about 12F outside. The forecast for Keystone for the day was a low of 1F and a high of 41F. A wild day, so I set out from home. I’d charged the car to 90% the night before, which was a failure on my part. The car had been set to 90, and I had meant to change this to 98, but forgot.

    I drove up, stopping a few times for coffee, food, and the restroom. I arrived at the resort parking lot with 35% charge left. It was 7F, and I was a little worried about skiing, but I assumed it would warm up. This also meant I’d used 55% of my charge getting up to the mountain.

    It was a nice day, and I enjoyed skiing, leaving around noon. At this point it had warmed up to 34F. I actually showed 36% on the battery driving home. When I mapped going home, the car recommended a charging stop in Idaho Springs for about 5 minutes. Since I planned on lunch from Beau Jos, that was fine.

    I parked, walked to the gas station to get a soda and then picked up my pizza. I charged for about 12 minutes, getting 27kW added. More than I needed. I arrived home with 37% left. With all the stops, I ended up going 221.4 miles on 91% charge.

    Possibly I could have made it on a single charge.

    A Spring Ski Day

    A few weeks later, I went again. This time it was around 50F when I left home. I arrived at the resort, where it was about 25F, but warming quickly.

    This time I’d charged to 96% the night before. I got to the parking lot with 49% left. Around 47% used. When I left for home, same lunch stop but not charging, I felt comfortable. I pulled into the garage with 22% left on an 80F day near my house. This trip was 217.7 miles.

    Summary

    There is a huge difference between a 30-40F day skiing and a 10-20F one. The car definitely loses some range in the cold. It’s worth paying a little attention here, but I probably could have avoided Super Charging, or at least done less, if I had charged more at home before the first trip.

    In terms of comparison, the drives up were roughly the same, same stops. I used 55% in extreme cold and 47% in cool weather. 8% difference here.

    The drives back had a few different stops as I ran different errands, but 36% returning from the mountains in the cold. In warmer temps, it was 38%. One thing to note is that the return trip in the cooler weather was more like the going up in warmer weather. Coming home the second time the AC ran a bit.

    I got this car because it had the range that I thought would let me day ski without an inconvenient charging time on the way home. I don’t know other EVs would do that, but with the Tesla Superchargers in Idaho Springs, Silverthorne, and Park Meadows on my journey, I had some leeway to stop quickly. Even in cold weather, and skiing in 15F weather is rare for me, I likely could have made this without stopping.

    However, life is life. Sometimes things don’t go your way. The charging stop wasn’t inconvenient at all since I needed a restroom and lunch. I actually got the notification from the car it was charged enough while walking to get my lunch.

    EVs are interesting, and they have a different paradigm. I have ceased thinking about range almost all the time, but I do plan differently than I do with ICE cars.

  • Tesla One Year Review at Nineteen Months

    Well, not one year. More like 18 months, but close enough. I’m writing this at just over 17 months of ownership, from Sept 2021 to Mar 2023.

    This is part of a series that covers my experience with a Tesla Model Y.

    The Highlights

    I never need gas and I have a full tank of fuel every morning. That’s the practical me, the real highlight is that the car is so fast it’s a lot of fun to drive. I stop by gas stations regularly for my diet Coke addition, and the few times I use a gas car, it’s strange to have to pull up to a pump and get fuel. In fact, I sometimes drive next to the little store and then realize I need to move the X5 because it needs gas.

    The car is fast. Acceleration is still exciting when I use it. Mostly I drive in chill mode as I don’t need the speed, it’s surprising to passengers, especially the dogs, and I sometimes bounce my own head off the headrest. However, when I need it, it makes merging into traffic easy because I can quickly match speeds with others.

    The car giving me access to data and controlling it from remote places is cool. I could start it for my wife when her phone died. I can heat/cool it from the gym or ski slope before I get to it. I have seen the UI change across 18 months to add features, like dog mode, like moving the camera display for turning, music controls, etc. I like this.

    Autopilot is great. I use it in certain places, and it keeps the car moving down the road, through bends, letting me watch the road, but not have to focus so much. It’s really nice when I’m tired that it reduces the stress of driving quite a bit, especially over distances.

    However, mostly, it’s just transportation that just works. I enjoy driving it, and there are times my wife and I are both wanting to drive it. I miss it when I’m in the X5, or the Suburban, or in a rental. At times, I wish we’d gotten an electric UTV instead of another gas one, but I’m not 100% sure Polaris has figured out the process of building a reliable electric car, both with batteries, motors, and software.

    The Issues

    Autopilot isn’t perfect. First, it doesn’t change lanes. I could subscribe and get that feature for a price, and perhaps I’ll do that sometimes, but it also has issues. Phantom breaking is much better, but it still flips out in a few places in Colorado. The stretch of C-470 from I-25 in the South going west to Kipling has a few places where the car reads the exit lane speed limit and slows from 70 to 55 quickly.

    There also are a few places with sharp curves of cresting a hill where it doesn’t handle things. It also sometimes accelerates and brakes like a new driver, being late to do both. I tend not to use it with my wife because she gets annoyed. As a driver, I can predict these places and I’m ready.

    Climate control isn’t perfect. Overall it matches temp well, but the lack of vents in the back, either in the console or side pillars, mean there isn’t great control in the rear. The lack of two fans or vent controls  in front also means that sometimes either the driver or passenger has to compromise with more or less fan than they might want.

    The front defroster also doesn’t work well in sleet. Most of the time it works OK, but my wife struggled with it in a bad sleet/rain/snow storm. I think this wasn’t engineered as well as much of the car.

    No having a rear wiper is annoying. It hasn’t been too much of an issue, but a couple times I wish I had one. It rarely rains in CO, so this might be a bigger issue in other places. The view out the rear is poor as well, which is annoying. With the cameras, I haven’t found this to be dangerous.

    In line with that, I wish I had a way to pop out the door handles, like the Model S. In snow, or at night, I can’t always find them easily, especially while carrying stuff. Rather annoying.

    It rarely happens, but sometimes the app loses connection to the car and I can’t open the doors. I have to kill and restart the app. Not a big deal, but it does happen. I also don’t always have my keycard with me, so I get slightly worried this might cause an issue at some point.

    Lastly, a trim piece in the car broke and was replaced under warranty. It needs to be replaced again Sad smile

    The Costs

    What has this car cost me? Here’s a breakdown:

    • Fuel: $919.80 in electricity (ish, my logger was down a bit). This is for 28k miles. My 100mi cost is $3.28. I’ve also spent about $87.44 at Superchargers.
    • Windshield fluid – 5 bottles at around US$4
    • New Rims – 1058.96 (busted one in a pothole. A single one from Tesla was $400 so I just got a new set aftermarket)
    • Winter Tires – $465.18
    • Flipping tires – $270 (3 slips. summer->winter->summer->winter)

    Of these costs, the tire costs would have been roughly what I’d have done in many other cars. Rims, hard to know. I could have bent one in any case, though the weight of the EV probably made this more likely.

    Maintenance has been about $20. Fuel is low. My 100mi cost in the BMW is easily $14-15 or more. That would have been around US$4k. That’s $3k savings.

    Registration is adding a new $8 sticker for EVs in my county, which I wouldn’t pay for a petrol car.

    Summary

    My wife and I were driving recently after a snowstorm. The car started beeping because it thought I was getting too close to the curb, but I was far away. However, the white snow had piled up and likely reflected enough to worry the car. Annoying. It also slowed the Autopilot during a light snow storm because it couldn’t see. Again, annoying.

    However, we both think the car is still the best one we’ve owned. We enjoy it immensely, even with a few quirks. The dog mode alone has been a large value add for us.