Tag: Tesla

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

I had to bring my car into the service center to get the tire fixed. While I was there, doing a little work, I had the chance to interact with service personnel, but more fascinating was watching others do the same thing.

I saw some older people that were happy with the cars, but struggling to use the technology. Maybe some of the car reviewers have a point here with the paradigm change.

One older gentleman was struggling to get his new phone to sync as a key. He struggled with getting email logged in, a general problem with older people. He couldn’t figure out his email, and I mentally applauded the rep that was trying to help him get logged into email on his phone so that he could authorize it as a key.

Another lady had come in for service, which she’d called to schedule. When the tech asked her to check her mobile app for instructions and approvals, she said she never looked at the app. In fact, she wasn’t carrying her phone in her purse. They worked with her to look up her account and get her car in for service.

What was more interesting to me was that this was an integrated system, with one rep handling the walk-ins for both service and car pickup. I saw 6 people processed in the first 30 minutes by one person. At other dealerships, I’d see 10 or more people wandering around, with about the same level of inefficiency.

My Service Experience

When I realized my tire was leaking air slowly, I knew I’d need to do something. I reached out to the roadside service group, but they only offered a tow to the service center or a tire shop. Since I’d paid for a repair, I was looking for some credit. A tow to the repair center is less useful to me than just driving over and waiting.

The roadside people were too busy to schedule anything in the next few days, so I decided to try the service center. I tried to schedule through the app, but I couldn’t find appointments this week in Denver. I could have driven to the Colorado Springs location, and I was tempted, but I decided to call the Denver location first. I talked with a tech who told me to come in early one day and they’d fit me in.

I arrived and since I didn’t have an appointment, was told to call them. The only person outside at opening time was busy with a customer. I called and was told a tech would be outside in a few minutes. About 3-4 minutes later a  rep walked outside and grabbed me. I explained the issue and he checked for tires. He told me if the patch didn’t work they wouldn’t re-patch it. I needed a new tire, but he said he’d credit the patch cost.

He scheduled me and said it would likely be about an hour as they slipped me into the schedule. I sat down with my laptop, worked about 40 minutes, and my car was done. I approved the charge in the app and paid and was on my way.

All in all, a good service experience, and in general, faster than I’ve had in the past if I just show up.

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

Earlier this week my wife and I got in the Model Y to head out to coach volleyball. We left the house and started down our road. I noticed a new icon on the display, right below the gear selector. It looked just like the low tire pressure icon in the BMW.

I swiped over to check the tires, as usually this is cold weather changing pressure in one tire that might have a very slight leak. In this case, 3 tires showed 37psi and 1 was at 32psi.

Hmmm, I drove a little further, but was worried. I stopped at the next stop sign and my wife got out to check. She said it was flat, and this time I saw the reading at 25psi. We turned around and crept home.

We could hear some air leaking, so we grabbed our stuff and jumped in another car. I figured I’d deal with it later.

UPDATE: The tire was leaking air slowly, about 3-4PSI overnight, so the patch didn’t hold. Another post looks at what I had to do.

Roadside Service

When I got to the gym, I had a few minutes, so I opened a flat tire roadside assistance call with Tesla. I figured that the tires must be under warranty, but realized later that was silly. I had to talk with a parent and athlete, so I missed Tesla texting me right back. They pinged me within 2 minutes, and then when I didn’t respond, actually called about 10 minutes later. I couldn’t talk and they didn’t have an estimate for a cost, so I closed the call and said I’d call later.

When I got home, I looked online and most people noted the tires aren’t under warranty from Tesla, as they wouldn’t be from Toyota, but the tire company might do something. Lots of people seem to look to Discount Tire or a local company, but I didn’t want to mess with things. It seems Tesla is in the $50-100 range from previous reports, so I opened a new service call.

This time I responded to the text, and the agent had me confirm which tire, the size, and the model of tire. They said no loaners we available, but they could tow it to a shop the next day (or the Tesla service center). Or I could wait two days for mobile service.  We have other cars, so I did the 2 day thing. Plus, I didn’t want to spend a bunch of my day at a tire shop.

They gave me an $80 estimate for repair or a little under $300 for replacement. I figured we just try and see.

The Mobile Service Experience

The next morning I got a text from the tech that said they could come out that day. We arranged for an early afternoon meeting. He texted again when he was about 30 minutes away and then when he pulled up. I walked outside and he had started to jack up the car.

He added some air and then got the tire off and he could see where a hole was in the tire. The hole is right in the left middle channel below, and he thought this could be fixed.

What was neat for me was that the mobile van came equipped to fix things. This is a tire shop on wheels, able to dismount and mount tires on wheels, as well as balance them as needed. He didn’t even turn off his engine, and completed the job in about 20 minutes.

He put the tire up and removed it from the wheel. He talked me through the process, noting that the patch goes on the inside for Tesla, not a plug like some places do. I’ve had tires plugged, so I was surprised.

He was hustling, so I couldn’t get a great picture, but there is an inner liner of foam around the middle of the tire inside. This reduces noise. He removed some, and then added a patch with a plug that pushes through from the inside. It was neat to see, and he then cleaned things up and added back a little foam.0

The tire was remounted, balanced, and dropped on the car. He filled out paperwork on his laptop, measured the wear on all tires, and then set things up. He also told me that if I get winter tires, he could come out and do the tire swap across wheels for about $100-150. I need to check what the local shop might charger, but that might be worth it to me. Especially to not have to drag tires to another place.

Not the cheapest way to get a tire fixed, but quick and convenient. I was happy to pay $80 instead of the $50 I’ve had a shop charge, or even a no cost repair but losing time traveling and waiting.

I’m surprised more places don’t do mobile service.

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

I can’t remember where I learned this, but I saw someone that explained how to report bugs to Tesla in their software, or I guess, the hardware. I didn’t think a lot of it initially, but the last few weeks I’ve been using this every time something weird happens.

The way this works is you activate the voice control by pressing the right steering wheel button. When the software responds, say “Bug report” followed by the issue.

For example, the other day I was returning home and going down the country road that leads to my neighborhood. This road has a lot of hills, some steep, and I use cruise control sometimes to keep a steady rate. Sometimes, not always, as I go up a hill, the car will brake before cresting the hill. At times it’s light braking, going from 45 to 43. At times it’s heavy, and has slowed to 35 or slower.

That’s not fun.

I immediately hit the right hand button on the steering wheel and said, “Bug report phantom braking on hill”. I click the button again and it acknowledges the bug report submitted to Tesla. It also says I can schedule service if something is wrong.

I have started to make this report as often as I get phantom braking. What I’m hoping is that every one of these reports includes the telemetry from the car. Knowing when the model is not appropriately managing car functions should help with better training.

If it gets used.

I’m taking a leap of faith that Tesla is looking at this feedback. Not each report, but in aggregate. Certainly test experiences with Autosteer years ago and now show an improvement. I’m hoping that giving them more data points will continue to improve things.

There’s a quick video of my showing this.

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

It’s been just over two months since I’ve owned my Tesla Model Y. I took delivery on Sept 7, 2021. As of Nov 6th, I had xx miles on the car.

We Love the Car

My wife loves it, and tells everyone new she talks to. I tend to feel the same way. This is my favorite car of all that I’ve owned. We’ve owned a lot of cars, and while I really enjoyed driving my X5 and the 911, this car beats them all in my mind.

Here are a few things.

The Fun Parts

Anytime you want, you can pass a car or get ahead of someone at an intersection. It’s so fast and exhilarating to press hard on the accelerator and get pressed back into your seat.

It’s also fun to realize that I never need to pop by the gas station and spend $50 to fill up. Actually $50 didn’t fill the X5. It was usually closer to 70 if I bothered.

I love that the car automatically remembers where and what media I was listening to and starts it when I get back into the car. I tend to drive the most, and I love this. It’s also easy to start and stop things, even on screen.

The voice control, especially for nav and reading/responding to messages from family is better than any other car.

Autopilot is nice as well. I’ve used in on the highway, and it’s neat to sit there, be able to talk to someone and not worry about drifting into another lane if I change the music or look at my wife. I definitely feel this is a nice assist for me.

I also am enjoying the Energy view that shows me the usage and predicted range. As I go about my day, this becomes a bit of a game to try and be efficient (when I’m not pressing too hard on the accelerator).

I also love not having keys. I go into the gym with my phone and come out and don’t have one more thing to tote around.

The Practical Parts

I was at SQL Saturday Orlando 2021 and was talking with someone about the car. As we chatted, I realized that I was going to put gas in the rental car the next day, and I hadn’t been to a gas station for fuel in a couple months. A fun realization.

I charge the car most nights, and this is usually just a few dollars. Here’s a sample of charges across a week:

• 46.4 kWh – $5.71
• 11 kWh – $1.38
• 37.1 kWh – $4.65
• 24.8 kWh – $3.01
• 31.3  kWh – $3.80
• 5.9 kWh – $0.83
• 9.8kWh – $1.24

That’s a bunch of electrical numbers, but what does that mean for driving? The total here is $20.62 worth of electricity. Not a big cost, but this is the charging cost at home for 606 miles. In most of my cars, this would be a fill up and a half. For my BMW X5, this would have cost about US$100. Even in our old Prius, we’d be looking at US$40-45.

I also don’t need to every stop along the way for gas. I have a full tank every time I leave the house, or at least I could. That’s a really practical feature.

It’s getting cold in Colorado, and I’ve started to need the heater and seat heaters a bit. One really practical thing is that the heat starts coming out right away. Even better, I can turn on the heat before we walk outside, which gets the battery going and makes it pleasant when we get in. I’m looking forward to this in really cold temperatures.

I haven’t used it much, but one really great feature is the ability to lower the rear seats from the trunk (or hatchback for me). I was at the hardware store, was getting ready to load things, and could reach over and lower the seats from the rear. In most other cars, I’d have to walk to both sides of the car, opening both rear doors and lower the seats.

The Bluetooth connectivity has been rock solid, allowing me to get media from my phone or make calls easily. Mapping is fantastic, and I’ve used voice to set up routes much easier than I have with any other car. I haven’t tried sending from my phone, but I need to.

The profiles are also great. When I get in the car, it connects my phone as the priority device, sets the seat, and remembers my settings. While lots of cars change the seat, this changes everything to my settings.

The Downers

This isn’t a perfect car. In fact, I think sometimes the aim of making this car “smart” has backfired.

First, cruise control. There is no radar, or supposedly not, so this should be maintaining a speed, unless there is something in the way. This mostly works, but not like other cars. The cruise sometimes slows too much, especially as a car is turning ahead of me, but is very slow to start adding speed after someone completes their turn.

Next, some phantom braking. I get the cruise changing with cars reacting, but it also slows a bit on hills. We have plenty in Colorado, and some are a little steep. The car will slow a little at times, maybe going from 45 to 42, but other times is dramatically brakes. Not emergency braking, but it will drop from 45 to 38, which is dramatic in under a second. It’s like a kid panicking slightly because they can’t see what’s over the hill.

This also happens on curves. There are a few semi-sharp curves, but something that most people wouldn’t slow for. Even if you were more careful, you’d likely go from 45 to 41 or 40, but not below that. The Tesla will sometimes slow even more, especially if another car is in the curve. If they were in my lane, I’d understand, but if they are in an adjacent late, either traveling with me or against me, the car reacts in a strange way.

I’ve gotten used to this, and am more careful, but this is a strange reaction for other cars. To me, this is asking for a safety issue in traffic as other cars would not expect braking.

I’ve had braking a couple times on the highway, as someone merges out of my lane to get off and slows, but I’m continuing on. The car will think there is an obstruction and slows. These issues are why I rarely use Autopilot. I’m not confident I can trust it, even while I’m focused on the road.

The other item that I don’t like is the auto high beam headlights. It works OK in city traffic, but it thinks my gravel road is too reflective and won’t put on the high beams. Not so good in the country with wildlife around.

This also has happened a few times where the lights stopped switching. I couldn’t seem to get them to respond until I stopped, moved into Park, and then started driving again. It’s happened a few times and I’ve turned off the auto feature for my profile. I’ll manually handle the lights.

The other thing that I noticed is that sometimes the safety features get turned off. I get turning off Autopilot for someone not paying attention. However, I was avoiding a deer and crept along the side of a road, on the line. The car gave me some correction on the wheel and beeped at me a bunch. Since this took me a bit of time to get back on the road, the car decided it was turning off the lane departure avoidance feature.

That seems like the opposite of what we want. If someone might struggle to stay on the road, don’t stop trying to help them.

I have started reporting these situations as bugs, so we’ll see what happens in the future.

Costs

I talked about charging above. While the car is relatively expensive ($52k v the $40k average new car), the “fuel” cost is about 20% of what I used to spend.

I’ve purchased a few accessories, and I’ll detail those in another post. I think about $250 or so in “stuff”, which helps customize the car. A lot of that would be spent in any car.

No other expenses in the first 2900 miles, though I will need some winter tires to be safe in the snow. I’m looking to use the existing wheels and just flip tires, but I’m guessing this will be about $1200 for tires. We’ll see.

Summary

It’s still an exciting car. I enjoy every time I get in and that car is “running”. I enjoy (and am getting used to ) just leaving the car when I’m done without needing to turn something off.

It brings a smile to my face.

I do think it’s the best car I’ve owned. It is the newest, and one of the few “brand new” cars I’ve owned, but still, it’s great. I haven’t been in the BMW since I got it in September. I keep thinking I should take that car out for a spin, but really, why?

I love the one foot driving, being able to cruise or blow past people is great. It feels like a luxury car, with Porsche performance.

And I get lots of data. Not even sure what to do with it, but that’s for another post.