It is VERY nice–kind of flashy for us, but we’re getting used to it. $78k MSRP-$7500 tax credit-$5000 GM rebate-$1k Costco rebate. Worth looking into if you don’t want a Tesla. And this is with full Nappa leather, full glass roof, heated rear seats, speakers in the headrests.
A probably useless answer, as I only have experience with an AWD Tesla in the snow. If I’m going around a corner in the snow, and purposely give it too much throttle, the rear slides out a bit, and then the computer brings it all back under control. Same if I’m at a stop and give it too much power, which on ice might be a very small amount of power, the car might start to move sideways, but it never gets there. It just goes straight, perhaps slowly.
It is much, much better than the “traction control” I’ve experienced on older cars, which just cuts power. Newer traction control might be better.
There are also all weather tires, which are kind of a cross between snow tires and all season tires. Best I can tell, it’s sort of a snow tire tread, and a compound that stays grippy in the cold, but doesn’t melt in heat.
Swapping to snow tires is annoying, but I like winter driving on them so much more than on all seasons that it’s worth the trouble to me. Of course, I could be climbing a mountain on a snow covered road, so I want all of the advantages I can get.
It’s probably worth it to get an AWD if snow performance is a concern, which can be a bad position to be in if budget is an issue.
I was reminded this weekend of another bad application for EVs. My BIL and his wife flew somewhere, and the first rental they were given was an EV with only about a hundred miles range on it (it wasn’t clear whether that was the capacity, or just what it had left on the battery).
They had no idea whether their hotel had a place to charge (we were staying at the same hotel, and I never saw any charging station). It would have been a disaster.
There may well have been public EV chargers somewhere, but we all went to pretty much the same places, and I never saw any.
Yeah, that’s a bad idea to rent out EVs without good info. That’s a bad mark on the rental car company, not on EVs. It is very similar to when my elderly in-laws were stranded in Cali because of the Southwest Airlines meltdown and I went with them to rent a car to get back to WA and they gave had a real-wheel drive Mustang and a good front-wheel drive sedan and my FIL asked which to get and the agent said “the Mustang is a premium so I would go with it”. I stepped in and said something like STFU…that’s a bad suggestion! If they had also said, “take this EV”, it would’ve been equally bad.
Not really on-topic, but my husband was doing a lot of travelling, a few years back, and one week they gave him a Mustang. He LOATHED LOATHED LOATHED that thing. Controls in weird places etc. The one thing he liked about it was that it was bright yellow - so he could always find it easily in the parking lot.
Unlike all the white or gray SUVs that otherwise dominate the planet…
Speaking of rental agencies and EVs, Hertz is certainly regretting buying all those Teslas and other EVs…
https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/hertz-bet-big-on-tesla-now-its-ceo-is-out-of-a-job.html
There is no standardization of controls across manufacturers. Between us we have three cars, Windshield wiper stalks on both sides of the steering wheel, how to wash the windshield works three different ways. Different setups for cruise & radio on the steering wheel for each of 'em, too.
When I was doing a lot of domestic business travel I had gold status or whatever with I think Hertz. I would pay for a cheapie and get upgraded to the best they had available. I got a convertible Mustang once and I hated it.
How do they say it, “a show horse, not a work horse”?
I laughed so hard at this I had to quote it. As a Tesla owner, I feel like I have standing to ask if maybe Elon’s recent tantrums have extended to product naming now.
Haha. Great typo.
Our local Tesla dealer is pumping them out. The sales person told me that they sell 200/month. The closest other dealers to us are SLO and Camarillo so it covers a bit of ground but still. You can’t go two minutes driving around town without seeing one.
Interesting. This report just came out summarizing that inventories are high but demand is not; at the same time, with the recent discounting, profit margins aren’t but they have been, and so Tesla will be raising prices.
https://www.investors.com/news/tesla-stock-ev-giant-ready-to-hike-vehicle-prices/
More than once I’ve come out of the grocery store and fruitlessly yanked at the door handle of someone else’s white Model Y.
You live in Seattle? So many Teslas!
@Pork_Rind and I are in Santa Barbara. My Y is stealth gray. Once you have one, you notice them of course.
We have twin cars.
Not that bad here, Tesla-wise. Here, it’s white SUVs.
We did see a fair number of Teslas on the highway this past weekend (between DC and NJ).
I wouldn’t have thought that was possible, since as I understand it Tesla door handles fit flush with the door until someone approaches with the key*, at which point they pop out so you can grab them. Am I wrong about that?
*Or the phone that was paired with that particular Tesla, since they don’t use traditional keys.
You are wrong about that. They unlock when you approach the car with a paired phone. You push in the back of the handle to release the mechanism and pull from the front. There can be multiple phones linked to a car and multiple cars linked to a phone.
You are given two keys with a car that look like credit cards. Those are two give to valets or to use if you lose your phone. Most keep one in their wallet.
The Model S does that (or used to at least) but the Model Y and 3 have flush handles that we poors have to push on manually.