If you’re tired of me talking about my car, please skip this post!
Otherwise…
So last week I did another long -but not quite as long as the trip up the coast- in the Tesla and today I did another long -but not quite as long as the previous two- trip.
Some thoughts: I-95 around these parts has a double line on the left side which is going to be used, very soon I imagine, for the “express lanes”, ie lanes where cars pay to theoretically bypass the worst of rush hour traffic. While we have two lines between the far left lane and the one immediate next to it on the right, eventually that space between the lines -a large space, by the way- will have cones within it separating that lane from the others.
My Tesla’s Autopilot seems to really get confused with the double lines and, likely, the space between. When in Autopilot, you hit the change lane indicator (right or left), and the car will make sure there are no cars in the lane you want to go into and will make the lane change for you.
However, when I wanted to switch from the second to the last left lane to the furthest left lane and past the double lines, the car seemed to freak out a little. On the screen would appear a note saying “Attempting lane change, prepare to take over” and once the car gave me a red alert (the screen literally went red) and stated something to the effect that Autopilot had disengaged and I had to take over.
Once I was on the far left lane, the Autopilot kept wanting to switch lanes and get back into the second to the last lane from the left, ie beyond those double lines. It was like the Autopilot sensed we were in the wrong place and kept asking to switch lanes. Perhaps it thought I was on the wrong lane, moving toward a head on collision?
Regardless, it was quite aggravating.
Yeah, yeah. First world problems and all that.
Still, using Autopilot remains, with the above exception, a delight. In the trip I took two weeks ago today (the longer of the two trips) we didn’t have to deal with any weird double lines with big spaces between them and the car moved more than well: It did the trip on Autopilot quite well.
The trip was about an hour and a half, give or take a few minutes, to Naples and we did some shopping before heading to the convenient Supercharger the city has in a covered parking lot. We charged the car up and walked around the place as it charged, seeing some restaurants -but truthfully not all that much more around there that day. We did go to some more shops afterwards, had a nice lunch, and saw the beach before heading back home.
I might have been able to make the trip there and back with the full charge but I suppose I’m still a little skittish about the car’s range, even though I had something like 140+ miles left of range when I started up the charge.
Today, the trip lasted one hour there and another hour (of course) to get back. No need for a Supercharger but, as mentioned above, I did have to be careful with the double line/future express lanes.
Out of curiosity, I went on Tesla’s webpage and did a dry run order for their upcoming Model Y. I’m thinking that will be our next vehicle but I was curious to see what the specs on it are.
Incredibly, I found the car in the configuration I wanted would cost around $55,000, or about four thousand more than my Model 3 was (though with the trade in, I wound up getting it for considerably less).
Still, the fact that Tesla is offering an SUV that has a range of 300 miles with full charge (mine, at full charge, has a range of 310, only a 10 mile difference!), and offer it at a price that isn’t that much higher than a Model 3 when I bought it is something.
Yeah, the price is still a little high and I’m hoping it will continue to come down in time.
The big question: When will the Model Y be available? According to the Tesla website:
Model Y production is expected to begin in late 2020 for North America, and in early 2021 for Europe and China. Standard Range production is expected to begin in early 2021 for North America, and in early 2022 for Europe and China.
So I suppose you can theoretically get the long range version of the Model Y (the more expensive one) by late 2020.
Don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to it!