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Today I visited the Tesla dealer in Toronto on Lawrence east of the DVP with @Onyx Z32 and my brother. Initially we just went to see it and look around but the opportunity came about to actually test drive the car; so we did.
The Tesla rep immediately asked us if we knew anything about the car and apparently I would be classified as someone pretty knowledgeable about the car based solely on the fact that I have heard of Tesla and I know it doesn’t have an engine in it… most people don’t even know that much.
As many of you know, I daily drive a 2009 BMW E90 M3 and for the purposes of this review I will compare the Tesla Model S to my M3 since they are somewhat similar.
The car we drove was a silver Tesla Model S… it was also the P85 model which is the highest in the line having 415hp or so. This car did not have the air suspension. It did have the glass roof.
Because the car has no engine there is a rather large storage area in the front under the hood. I had a friend (josh) and my brother along and both comment that the rear seats were very roomy and among the most comfortable they had ever sat in. they were clearly roomier than my 3 series, probably comparable to a 5 series. The trunk was also very roomy, at least as large as my BMW’s.
When we got in the car I did have to ask if it was in fact actually on. The rep turned the car on and I didn’t know whether the car was in accessory power or on… weird.
There are no buttons or knobs anywhere on the dash. Just a massive web-connected touch screen display that is better than an Ipad. You control the steering, suspension, moonroof, HVAC etc. etc. with this display. I didn’t toggle with it much but suffice to say it’s totally fucking awesome.
The car is very spacious. Even though it is RWD there is no tranny tunnel so you have all kinds of extra room for your knees. They embellish this a bit by leaving the whole centre console area bare. I am told you can purchase a unit that has some compartments and maybe cup holders in it or whatever. I would go that route because all of the open space is kind of useless.
The rear view camera is very wide and easily the best I’ve ever used. I have rear view cameras on my Town & Country van for my family and on a Cadillac SRX I use as a company car. Both of those rear views blow ass compared to this.
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So driving… I was expecting to be really weirded out by the pedal feel and throttle response. I didn’t know what to expect and like most people my only reference for an all-electric vehicle is a golf cart. This is nothing like that.
3 seconds after pulling on to Lawrence Ave all I could say was WOW!!!
I guess Tesla uses a power inverter to tune the feel of the acceleration and they basically make it feel like a standard gas-powered throttle response except for a few things… there is no transmission, which means there is no shifting gears, which is weird, super weird… My M3 has DCT which is arguably the best paddle shifting set up out there save for Porsche’s PDK (which I haven’t driven). I am sure I would miss the shifting but I also thought I would miss manually shifting going from 6 spd into DCT on the M3…. I didn’t. And I would bet that after a while owning the Model S that you would think shifting gears at all (manually or flicking a paddle) is stupid too. Maybe it is… probably in fact.
How fast was it? Well… the Model S weights 1100 lbs more than my M3, which by the way has a 415hp V8. And I have dinan exhaust, dinan pullies, dinan intake and upgraded software… when driving the Model S there were 4 full size adults in the car, so easily an extra 600 lbs of passengers or about 450 lbs more than just me… the Model S being all-electric is very torquey and felt much faster than my M3 even with the 1100 + 450 – 1550lbs more than I usually have in my M3. The electric power is perfectly linear all the way up to lose your license speed (which I did hit on many occasions in the Model S).
We did a standing 0-120kph… amazing.
But you know what’s more amazing? In the BMW that 0-120kph run would cost me about $3 in gas… everytime. $90 to fill the BMW to get 450kms, $4 in electricity in the Model S to get the same mileage. that 0-120kph stunt was basically free. It doesn’t really hit you at that moment, but it sure does when I put gas in the M3 every couple days.
On the highway, instant torque. More than enough for any reasonable person. Yes it would be nice if there were even more on tap (I’m spoiled) but that’s just a brief software upgrade away…. No need to change injectors, intake, exhaust, cams, blah blah blah… this doesn’t have any of those.
The demo car was set to stop accelerating at 130kph… I hit that on an off ramp…. It wasn’t hard.
How does it handle? The ride is better than it needs to be. This is not an M3 so it didn’t have steering feel or the feedback from the tires and suspension like an M3 but it’s not supposed to. It’s infinity times better than a regular 3 series though.
It had average tires on it and I didn’t really push too hard on the thing from a suspension perspective but even though suspension wasn’t as aggressive as my BMW it was very very good. Again better than it needed to be. You can adjust the steering feel, which I initially thought was too heavy but then we adjusted it to comfort mode and it was much better.
I did a couple 100 – 0 stops and they were very good but not necessary. Decelerating, enabling the regeneration of the batteries is the way to go.
A big part of the sales pitch from Tesla is the fact that there are basically no items to fail. No exhaust to rust and rattle, no combustion engine to get carbon build up and require servicing, no oil to need changing etc. etc.
Without getting into the real specifics my experience convinced me 100% that the Model S is a total game changer. Their charging network is growing fast and if you can charge at home the car is perfectly capable 98% of the time… maybe more.
Fully optioned out with the P85 pack and all the other crap the car gets into the $130,000 cdn range + HST, base P85 being $103,000 or so but you get a $8000+ tax credit with it. That’s a lot of money for a car. If you’re in the market for an 550i or an S550 Merc or ANY sedan that isn’t a BMW M car or an Audi RS car or a Merc AMG car… and probably even if you ARE in the market for one of those… this is the better car almost always.
Would I buy it? Not right now. I’m an unapologetic asshole and I want to rip gears and be loud and obnoxious in my M3 for a while. I’ll grow out of that as my kids grow into it. When I do. Tesla all the way.
I also believe that most BMW M car buyers or Merc AMG buyers or anyone else in that part of the market is mostly buying status and never actually use everything they’re buying. In that case, which is the norm, the Model S is easily, EASILY the better car. Any honest BMW or Merc technician will tell you that the big euro cars are great but crazy expensive to run. Even in warranty they will spend several days or weeks a year in for service… $300+ oil changes, expensive premium gas… as they fall out of warranty they will cost several thousand dollars a year to service things that don’t exist on the Tesla.
All that coupled with the fact that Tesla isn’t using the traditional franchise model for distribution, opting instead to sell direct through their dealers or galleries, is a clear sign that things are about to change in a big way.
We spent the rest of the day speculating just how disruptive Tesla is going to be… no oil filters, spark plugs, exhausts, starter motors, alternators, headgaskets to break and none to have to buy. There will be no room for aftermarket parts jobbers when the road is mostly filled with full electric cars… and it will be.
The only good reason not to buy one is the lack of charging infrastructure but people will get over that easily. Much easier than we think. I would.
