Gadgetory

Tesla so far seems to have inspired two main constituencies owners of the Model S who turn into an ugly mob if you dare to criticize the car and an equally vocal core of doubters who think the car is overpriced unsustainable and not the answer to anything I fall smack in the middle the great car that needs a clear-eyed look the Model S is what Tesla makes a four-door sedan aluminum body all electric of course we'll get into that in a minute you've got two seats in the front kind of two and a half seating in the second row and optionally two rear-facing seats with little racing harnesses on them for your sporty kids approach the car and you get the first taste of a constant predictive theme the door pulls surface to meet your hand walk away and they disappear as the car locks there are no lock poles no place for a key now normally I'd get in this car and immediately draw your attention to the amazing 12 inch LCD instrument panel but that's almost boring compared to its friend the head unit if you can call it that it's actually bigger than your head a 17 inch vertical format touchscreen that has almost every control of the vehicle embedded in its interface no other car does this let's look at the layout first you can do a split screen like you see I have here top and bottom you can switch which one of those at the top and then when you hit this row of buttons at the top that changes what's in the upper screen you go to your media settings am/fm HD radio satellite radio is optional no optical disk in this card no nonsense like SD cards or a hard drive I think they've made the right choices on media USB ipod and bluetooth streaming of course media apps currently consists of slacker for web streaming and TuneIn for broadcast streaming you want Pandora launch it on your phone and bring it up as a Bluetooth stream it's not integrated in the car which seems a step out of pace with the rest of the world now navigation is an interesting and kind of complex story as you can see here if I go to full screen big gorgeous Google map you'll have this in your Model S as a map for reference that'll show you where you are but you won't have turn-by-turn navigation unless you get an option that brings that in that will give you an a via some Garmin technology which shows up on the left side of the dashboard as well so there's map base navigation and search and turn-by-turn optional it's an important difference now destination is really elegant here you search like you search for anything else out there on the web and once you find the result you want you just say I want to go there by pressing it and off you go the nav rake doesn't nag you to confirm and reconfirm that you want to go there like almost every other car on the market does thank you you've got an energy screen for you range and efficiency geeks most of us won't use that this is the craziest thing in this car the only car in the world that'll let you surf the web and I mean full screen there's no block out while you're driving this is a full live browser I can go to Cameron's Facebook page while I'm on the freeway he likes that I'm not sure I do where this browser is restricted is its lack of flash support so no YouTube streaming no C net videos no streaming from the Pandora site another restriction of sorts is that we are working off a built in connection that's impressive but its 3G while other makers like Audi and GM are already transitioning to 4G we need Tesla there as well your rear camera is the best in the business big and high def this is absolutely amazing you can pick up a leaf or a pine needle that you're about to run over on the downside though it gives me no indication where things are there are no guidelines for distance or where my wheels are lining up that to me is a failing because this is a distorted wide-angle view it's not a true natural ratio when it's looking like that the last area of this amazing interface is down here under control this is all the stuff that used to be buttons in your older car you want to operate the sunroof there's nothing up here to do that you go to this actual software control you can move this slider or you can just pick up a preset like Vince or all the way open or anywhere in between whether this menu based car is forward progress or lateral innovation will largely depend on your relationship with displays versus controls I kept yearning for a few more buttons and knobs but only if done well like the mercedes stall on the steering column and window controls on the door panels something else only a Tesla has a firmware change log something like two dozen updates have been pushed out to these cars already in the manner of updates to your smartphone and they aren't just minor things recent firmware upgrades have added he'll hold breaking a new streaming radio service new options for cars with air suspension and even creep when you lift off the brake now in case you've been living under a rock let's review a Model S is a pure battery electric car not a hybrid or a range extender it's in kimball of combusting anything no jokes about some highly publicized fires you charge it primarily by plugging it in but it also regenerates power when you use the brakes or coasts it's rear-wheel drive only at this point via a single motor that sits between the rear wheels and turns their drive shafts via a single speed reduction gear the battery is this massive flat metal mattress of a thing that underlies almost the entire car and these cars come in two battery capacities the 60 model cars have a range of 208 miles the 85 model cars have a larger battery and 265 miles of range between that battery and the motor lies the inverter an inverter converts the DC the direct current that is stored in that battery into the AC the alternating current which this motor wants that motor then spins through this one speed gearbox you don't shift anything this is a reduction gear it turns the very high rpms of this motor into more usable rpms out to the axles and the road wheels because we have a P in front of our 85 model designation we have a harder inverter that can flow more current to the motor allowing even greater acceleration the numbers 416 horsepower 443 pound-feet apart rear wheel drive 0 to 60 is 4.2 seconds which is pretty impressive for a car that weighs over 4700 pounds the mpge or miles per gallon equivalent is 18 now how long it takes to charge one of these things is a question with many answers from basically empty to a full charge on our big battery car would take an absurd 76 hours on a normal 110 outlet with the standard onboard charger in the car now plug into a 240 volt 24 amp outlet in you're down to 14 hours to 40 40 amp and you get down to 8 hours if you have a dedicated 240 volt 40 amp wall connector you can option a second charger in the car and that gets you down to four hours or find one of Tesla's superchargers out on the road and you can get 150 miles of charge in 20 minutes I said not simple driving the Model S gets different even before it moves as we saw you unlock it by approaching it you start it by pressing the brake pedal there's no switch set the parking brake by putting it in park the two are never separate and its blessedly free of any sport mode buttons and layers and settings that have become a game of 3d chess on most other performance cars you want to go faster you push the pedal Conaway it should be it's very simple now because we've got the big boy here with the hot rod inverter it's just got tremendous power no matter what part of the speed range you're trying to accelerate from zero twenty forty sixty doesn't matter it's always a grim the ride quality is really outstanding benefiting from that big heavy battery down in the belly let's face it our sport suspension is none too harsh I don't think and it's interesting you would think this big 17-inch display is gonna be a massive distraction for some reason I find that it's not it's good clear interface hey now I'm not an idiot I'm not gonna sit here and browse the web while I Drive I guess you could do that Tesla doesn't stop you notably missing on a Model S is any driver assistance tech adaptive cruise blind spot warning lane departure prevention forward collision warning self parking assist all not spoken here those and all-wheel drive are of course things Tesla will need if they want to fully compete as a mass-market brand about the only drive controls you can fuss with on this car the steering mode comfort standard or sport changes the weight and the ratio and the regenerative braking is an interesting performance tool if you have that too standard it's actually quite heavy when you lift and you get a nice regenerative drag which is a great tool for getting in and out of corners when you learn how to play with it okay let's price our Model S we of course of a P 85 basically top of the stack and weird about eighty seven thousand dollars with destination - the federal tax credit of 75 hundred but I'm not factoring in any state credits because they range from zero to thousands depending where you live now the options to make it truly CNET style first of all we have Performance Plus sixty five hundred bucks gets you a sports suspension staggered wheel width and another six to twelve miles of range but that package also requires you get the 21 inch performance wheels for forty five hundred dollars more and requires you get detect package for 3750 that brings in full maps and navigation LED running and cornering lights keyless access memory seats and mirrors and a power liftgate Performance Plus also requires you get the smart air suspension for twenty two fifty for automatic leveling and height dual chargers to speed up your recharge or fifteen hundred bucks park sensors insultingly are not included on this car and they nickel and dime you five hundred bucks for those front and rear and finally ultra high fidelity takes you to twelve speakers including a powered sub and for twenty five hundred bucks that's actually not bad market price all in word about a hundred and eighty six CNET style though you can add a lot more for creature comforts in some yes this car is out of reach of most people and yes it takes anywhere between fifteen and fifteen hundred times longer to re-energize than a gas engine car but spend the day with it and all the other cars on the road with their noisy oily boxes of explosions under the hood and seven eight or nine compromises known as gears in the transmission just seem very old I can't say this is the future but I can say I'd enjoy it if it were