Why I Won’t Miss My Tesla
I traded my Tesla Model 3 for a Jeep this week, and I felt a little sad saying goodbye to it. I drove Teslas as my primary vehicle for 4 years, and there are lots of great things about them, but there are also many reasons why I won’t miss my Tesla.
I was very ready to let it go by the time trade in day came, and here are some reasons why:
- Blind spots- Tesla got cocky with all of their cameras and made a car in the model 3 with big blind spots, making it difficult to crane your neck and look behind you. I like to trust my own eyes and not rely solely on cameras.
- Back up camera inconsistency. The backup camera would sometimes give alerts, sometimes show red, yellow, green zones, sometimes inches, and basically randomly change what it was doing.
- Seats- not comfortable. The driver’s seat headrest is not adjustable and it’s tilted forward, so you can’t lean your head back at all, unless you go to the side, around the headrest. The butt part of the seat is not great, just average. There’s no lumbar support.
- Lane departure and safety features- also inconsistent. Sometimes you can cross a double yellow line and get screamed at, sometimes nothing. Sometimes Tesla brakes for a car that’s not even close to being a hazard. Also- the sound Tesla makes when it perceives danger is horrible- shrill, and grating. You’d think that if Elon can put in endless fart sound variations, he could give drivers the option to customize their warning sounds.
- Home location and locking- There is a nice feature called walk away door lock when you have a phone key connected. Unfortunately, Tesla has a tendency to forget your home or to turn off walk away door lock randomly. This means that when you’re home without a key on you and you want to grab something from the car, it might be randomly locked even though you thought you’d set it otherwise. This gets frustrating over time.
- Low to the ground. It’s kind of a low and sporty car. If you’re tall like me, it can get tedious getting up and out over time.
- Windshield wiper fluid- do not spray wiper fluid onto the windshield while driving with the window open- you’ll get wet.
- Self driving- I though this was really cool in the beginning, but it gets tedious fast to have to tell the car you’re awake and alert every 20-30 seconds bu jiggling the steering wheel (which often throws it out of self driving mode), or twiddling the scroll wheels, which affect the cruise control speed or music volume. I used this feature in the beginning and then turned it off and just used the traffic aware cruise control.
- Navigation- Tesla has native navigation, which is cool. What’s not cool is that there is no awareness of accidents, congestion, slow downs like Waze or G maps have. Another thing you’d think Tesla would have figured out. On trips through congested areas, I ended up using G maps so I could get alternate routes around traffic.
- Braking- I like the Tesla for the TACC, but I wouldn’t let it brake for me when coming to a full stop. I found it too grabby in any of the braking modes. I would always take control and brake myself.
- Moon roof- The tint didn’t protect me from the heat on hot Summer days in NC.
What I’ll miss about the Tesla
- Smooth ride
- Great acceleration and handling
- Excellent sound system
- Simple and intuitive touch screen and steering wheel controls
- Real wood on the dashboard. A cool touch
- No gas stations! Charge at home
- TACC was great, but most modern vehicles have this
Other Things About Driving/ Owning a Tesla
Tesla Horror Story- Locked In!
I got locked inside my Tesla once in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. The charge got down past zero (my fault for letting it get low and then missing the charger exit and having to double back). When I reached the Tesla charger, the car’s battery was too low to accept the charger plug. As I sat in the car trying to figure out what to do, the car powered down and I was locked in!
It was very scary and I was banging on the windows trying to get someone to open the door from the outside. When I got someone to try, they couldn’t do it.
I came close to panicking, realizing that I could asphyxiate in there.
Finally, I pulled down the back seat, crawled into the trunk and was able to open the trunk from inside.
We could not get a charge on the vehicle though, even with a tow truck driver who had a Tesla battery charger. I ended up paying $900 to have the driver take us 100+ miles to the Tela dealer, where we arrived at 3 am and Ubered home.
Through this ordeal I call Tesla roadside service and they said they couldn’t help me.
When I asked for help with the tow bill, they also declined.
Tesla Buying Experience is Tops
I just traded in my Tesla for a Jeep that I had picked out prior to arriving at the dealership. It took me 4+ hours to complete the process!
I’ve bought two new Teslas. I ordered them on the Tesla app, got financing for one through the app, and when I went to pick up my cars, I was in and out of the dealership in 30-45 minutes.
They have nailed the buying process. Better than Carmax or any other dealership I’ve worked with by far.
Conclusions
I enjoyed my Tesla experience. I’m glad to have driven them for 4 years. I will go electric again, but it may not be with Tesla, especially given the backlash on the car owners from some of Elon Musk’s actions and words.
I’ll probably try a Rivian or other electric car next. Tesla doesn’t have my loyalty, becuase of the lock out incident, and just the general beta mode glitches I experienced in my years driving them. We early Tesla drivers were guinea pigs, opportunities for Tesla to collect data and improve.
With the tax incentives and the savings on gas and on repairs, Teslas are a great option and I recommend them. I’ll look forward to more variety and competition in the electric car sphere in the coming years so that we have more options. I went with the Jeep because I needed towing capacity and range. Hopefully there will be more truck options in the EV world soon that compare with gas powered. Anything but that hideous and overpriced Cyber truck!