I want to talk a little bit about what
it's like to own an electric vehicle a
lot of folks are probably starting to
think about electric vehicles you are
starting to see them on the road there's
still not that many of them and so a lot
of folks are probably wondering A) What
it's like to own an electric vehicle
what's the range like what's the
features and technology like so I want
to go through some of the experience of
owning owning a Tesla. Specifically...
specifically, this is a 2017 Model S I'm sure
a lot of the learnings carry over to
model three and the upcoming model Y,
but I want to take you through just some
of my personal experience this is by far
just the slickest car in terms of what I
really care about which is the user
experience. The experience of actually
driving it, the experience of being in it
that being said you know there's always
things that could be improved things
that could be better but, by far the
experience of owning car and driving the
car is so far ahead of anything I've
ever experienced before and I think
that's partly or even mostly because the
car is software first. Most cars that you
are familiar with whether it's a Honda
Subaru you know Ford it really starts
off as a car first and a lot of the
mechanical components whether it's the
engine the drivetrain the transmission
you know how the car is set up is very
mechanical and I've often felt that the
software is an afterthought so the user
experience of the screen the maps and
navigation on many cars I've driven the
maps in navigation or absolutely
unusable the music system just is kind
of just enough to get
you connect it to Bluetooth so you can
use your phones usable UI to play
Spotify or whatever and so most of that
software is just complete garbage or
press search to find a particular
tracker file using the up and down
arrows to scroll. And so the Tesla user
experience is very different
the Tesla user experience is definitely
software and it's software that's really
well designed I think the easiest
analogy to explain it would be that you
know prior to the iPhone coming out and
you know everyone had cell phones but
the cell phone experience wasn't wasn't
that great and when the iPhone came out
it was kind of like, oh my gosh like this
is so much better, and that obviously
swept the world. And that's really what I
think the Tesla user experience is like
the car has amazing acceleration you
know this has been widely reported you
step on the gas and the car just goes
incredibly responsive in terms of
acceleration and incredibly responsive
in terms of breaking all of the core
characteristics that you care about in
terms of driving the car absolutely has
so when you first get an electric car
there's definitely a switching mental,
kind of range anxiety. As I said I've had
the car for a little over two and a half
years I think in my entire time I've
never run out of electricity and I've
only really experienced range anxiety
once where I kind of was pushing the
distance that I could go I think each
year that have had the car a the range
anxiety goes down and be the amount of
chargers that are available kind of out
there in the world has gone up you know
I can go skiing up in Maine I can go to
New York I can drive across country if I
want to the charging infrastructure has
gotten really really good that being
said you know you definitely watch
how many miles you have left. The one key
habit or thing that you change is you no
longer go to the pump, and so you know at
night when I come home I plug in the car
I don't even plug it in every day I know
some people plug it in every day I plug
it in every third or fourth day and that
tops up the car while I'm sleeping you
know I get in the car in the following
morning and the car is good to go I
would say if you are getting an electric
car you know my one, not even regret but
like if I were to buy another electric
car I would definitely max out the range
of what's possible on the car you just
end up you know appreciating that extra
range and so while it's not not a big
deal I got the lower end 75 kilowatt
battery pack for this model as if I were
to buy another electric car I'd
definitely go for a long-range battery
pack a couple core reasons to get an
electric vehicle and especially a Tesla
first is safety
number one safe car in the world just
incredibly well-constructed second
consideration is just fuel economy
you're not burning gas you are getting
your electrons delivered directly into
your car and so if you care about
climate change carbon footprint a great
reason to get an electric car and it
saves you money third reason is
technology and that's definitely one of
the reasons that I got the car is I love
leading-edge technology and owning a
Tesla is really unlike any other piece
of technology you are constantly getting
updates and in the two years that have
had the car it's just gotten better
every every pretty much every week the
new features just in the last two years
so when I got the car the car didn't
have these
features and then over the last two
years you know I'd wake up in the
morning and there'd be a new software
update and the car would have a new
feature a new capability that it didn't
have before easy entry seats Spotify
navigation on autopilot the car will
automatically get on and off freeways
automatic lane changing automatic wipers
the car is constantly getting updated
with these new features with new
technologies and it's just amazing to
see to see the updates and to see the
improvements in the software and how the
car drives. I first got the car
honestly, the autopilot wasn't very good
I mean it was incredible that the car
could do anything and so from kind of a
pure black and white perspective it's
just amazing that you can be in a car
and it can keep the lane and he can kind
of drive you on the highway but there's
all sorts of issues. Two years ago you
know you'd switch lanes and it would be
like... My god... the car would like, flip you
to the left and the right and you're
a little bit nervous it's definitely
still not perfect you know I think true
you know autopilot from one location to
another location it's probably going to
take take a little while to get that
technology perfected but literally every
every week every month that software is
is learning it's getting better and it's
improving each each time honestly each
time we drive the car it's able to do
turns that it had trouble before it's
able to recognize stop signs and
stoplights that it wasn't able to
recognize before and so again little by
little the technology is getting better
autopilot wouldn't be kind of a reason
to get a Tesla but it is an incredible
benefit of having one it's getting
better and better
and I do think it definitely reduces
strain when driving longer distances I
don't know any other car I'm sure
there's one out there but I don't know
any other car where there's a mobile app
that's actually useful for the
interaction of the car so Tesla makes a
fantastic mobile application it lets you
interact with the car in multitude of
ways you can lock it and unlock it on
the model three it can actually be used
as a key to to get you access to the car
on the Model S which I'm driving now it
can both lock and unlock the car it can
warm up the car the seats it can tell
you where the car is you can put the car
into valet mode if you loan the car to
your kids you can actually put a speed
limit on the car so that the car can't
be driven too quickly you can put a 50
mile an hour speed limit so your
teenagers don't go joyriding your car
and it's just really nice to be able to
have that interaction there's a number
of advanced features like advance summon
where you know if it's raining you can
call your car from a parking lot and it
will drive to you like KITT from Knight
Rider again the software is not perfect
you know getting software perfect it's
incredibly hard but the software is
definitely better than any software
experience I've seen on any other car by
a long shot
getting it to this level of simplicity
is incredibly difficult. So what are some
of the drawbacks, some of the things I
don't like about model S especially
now that I've had the car for two years
what are the some of the things that you
know folks should know about owning an
electric car for you know a couple years
first is that the hardware gets older
and so some of the features
that are released on to the latest and
greatest models of cars you know, I'm not
getting every single feature or every
single enhancement that's a little bit
frustrating because you'll see whether
it's Elon Musk or new news releases or
model 3 drivers getting certain features
early 2018
Tesla changed out the computer to be a
faster computer which is great but
people who bought a car in late 2017 had
the older computer and so some of the
features that I'm sure work on newer
generation cars are kind of laggy or in
some cases don't even work on my car
again it's software but sometimes it's
software mixed with hardware and so so
things like the web browser don't work
anymore not the end of the world
obviously don't need to browse the web
while I'm driving the car there are
other features that are announced like
Tesla theater where you can kind of
watch movies and have Netflix again not
something I necessarily do but each
feature you're like huh mate what I use
that you know maybe that kind of be neat
just something to extent that's no
different than than an iPhone or an iPad
where you know the latest generation of
iPhone may have certain features or
certain functions that older generations
don't necessarily get something like an
iPhone maybe you can upgrade your iPhone
every year I think it's a little bit
harder to upgrade your car every year
hey I love Elon Musk and and he's always
talking to customers and he's kind of
listening to what people want from their
vehicles but one drawback is he's also
making promises that he doesn't always
keep in terms of timelines and updates
and things of that nature
you know Oh full self-driving is going
to be working in 2019 well
it's 2020 it's it's not it's not it's
not working yet
you know there's certain upgrades that
that he said would be ready months or
even years ago they're still not ready
so just you know cool it on the Twitter
promises I don't mind that self-driving
will take a while like I want it to be
right and I personally don't have
expectations that it will be done this
year or next year it's going to be an
incremental getting better and better
and better
so just you know having fair
expectations of when things are coming I
think would make the experience a lot
better the last thing I'll say about
owning a Tesla is that it's incredibly
fun I think I've never owned a car
that's been so much fun to own both from
the driver experience the updates the
software the app, owning a Tesla just is
a ton of fun it's great for the
environment it helps get you onto the
movement of electrification of the
automobile and it's just incredible
blast to have and couldn't recommend it
more highly to anyone thinking about a
new car thanks so much for joining me
today I hope you'll continue the journey
and
join me next time
