I have ridden in an X, a couple of Ss, and a 3. The lack of sound is weird, and personally, I am not about to give up my stick shift car, but if you enjoy the sensation of being pinned to your seat back while the scenery starts coming at you very quickly, Tesla have a definite appeal.
EPA testing indicated that my daughter’s standard performance 2 WD Model 3 makes only 258 HP, so I was not expecting much from that heavy car. Electric motor torque makes it feel much quicker than you would expect.
As for paint flaws and mis-aligned body panels, yes, they are not perfect. Jaguar has nothing to worry about in that department, but they are comparable to the five BMWs I have owned and way better than a lot of American ICE cars.
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Heh heh, I remember back in 81 when I got my diesel Olds during the gas shortage days, range anxiety was a big deal. You had to be able to get from one station to the next that had fuel so the Olds had a 27 gallon tank. At 24 miles to the gallon with the diesel, that meant you could drive over 500 miles without having to re-fuel. Made a big difference getting to the relatives and back for a 400 mile round trip without having to find a station along the way. On the way to Florida from Minnesota, first fill up in Kansas City where there were lots of trucks. Of course then it was 15 minutes and a mens room stop and on your way again for another 500 miles.
Most electric motors are rated at their continuous hp output, for short sprints, they can produce much more than that, then they have to be allowed to cool off.
When electric motors replace diesel or gasoline engines in stationary applications, the electric motor’s rating can often be 1/3 or so of the ICE rating because of the electric motor’s ability to go into overload mode for short periods. When people ask me how much electric motor horsepower would be needed to replace a 200 horsepower diesel engine, I first as them how many gallons per hour that engine is actually consuming in the application. If it’s a continuous load like a pump and it’s burning 10 gallons per hour, you better put a 200 horsepower electric motor on it.
An electric motor’s efficiency curve is fairly flat so there’s little energy use penalty for oversizing the motor, in fact often they are more efficient when running at 75% load than at full load.
The nearly flat efficiency curve of an electric motor is the reason that driving slower dramatically increases an electric car’s range. Cruise at a steady 30 mph and a Tesla S can go nearly 400 miles on a battery. On the other hand, my Yaris won’t get 80 mpg no matter how slow I drive it, the loss of engine efficiency at very low horsepower outputs offsets the low amount of power it takes to cruise at slow speeds.
I saw a different Model X yesterday.
Yesterday, 3 Model S’s (one of which had the turbine wheels! ), a Model X, and a Model 3.
The only one I haven’t seen around here in a long time is the Roadster.
Yeah, I remember back in the 80s - gas was expensive and Toyota and Honda were whipping Detroit’s but with their fuel efficient engines. Marketing’s response was to put in a big gas tank and tout the ‘cruising range.’ Kind of like the QE II!
Friday evening, while driving on the highway in stop and go traffic, I saw a car carrier full of Model 3’s pass on the opposite side.
I luv the front end. Not expecting to see many in the frozen north, but hybrids are plentiful. Nothing like fossil fuels to keep you warm in sub freezing temperatures in poorly insulated cars. Don’t expect to ever own an electric unless we move farther south.
Living in rural Maine might keep you out of most sedans anyway.
Hey, guess who Carl Yastrzemski’s grandson plays baseball for? I know that’s Ted Williams in your avatar, but Yaz was Bosox too.
The Orioles after looking it up. 
Am waiting for a Taco hybrid. That’s the closest we can get to electric here.
Wife saw her first 3 yesterday (San Francisco area), texted a photo of it. The S and X models have been a dime a dozen (not literally, but they’re all around) in this area since released. On cross country trips the past two years their incidence falls off just over boarder and beyond Nevada we spotted only a dozen ore so, mostly around major cities. Oddly, once out of the state we saw more Teslas than Prii (whatever the plural of Prius is).
I see the S everywhere I go in Chicago and the northern suburbs, and I’m not even on the roads that much. Seen a few X models, and a lot more 3s lately. My favorite S fun fact: it accelerates faster on the road than if you were to drop it out of a helicopter.
Saw an X in Phoenix today.
If you haven’t seen these before, the acceleration reaction videos are always fun:
I travel on interstate daily for work commute, i see at least 2 or 3 every day. I actually seen inside one as passing by recently and the tesla model i seen (not sure exactly) had a big tablet sized tv in the middle of the dash. It honestly resembled those new refridgerators lol. But yes they are definitely all around metro atlanta. And they look great. I can say I havent seen a wrecked one yet tho. Every one i have seen was super clean.
That’s hilarious. Just after writing earlier today, I was out and saw an old guy in a 3 get in a tight spot in traffic. He floored it and blasted off, and he looked scared sh*tless.
I saw a Tesla pulled over by the cops today.
Electro-magnetic interference? 
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I’ll assume the Tesla owner got caught speeding 
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I wonder if he was “charged”?
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