Test driving a Tesla
Computer controlled cars are the wave of the future but for now I’m passing
Even the name Tesla conjures up excitement and intrigue: the mad scientist that captured electricity, the ambitious tech founder that dabbles in space and underground transport, and somehow also manages to attract Hollywood tabloids. I was wondering what all the hype was about and why it seems so many people absolutely must drive a Tesla. So, on a recent trip to Hawaii, I rented one- a model 3. It was simultaneously futuristic and ordinary- super easy and maddeningly difficult. Here’s how it went.
The Tesla looked good when I first saw it- sporty lines in vivid blue. When I opened the door, I was greeted by a sleek white dashboard with a computer tablet placed pristinely near the middle. No gages, knobs, bells, and bobs. Think clean lined uber modern desk with a computer placed square in the middle, gleaming quietly with unknown powers.
The Tesla, with its heavy white leather finishes, felt luxurious, but also somehow reminded me of a Prius inside. My husband and I took off and went zooming around the island. The Tesla is a nice ride and handled well around the coastal roads of Oahu. We weren’t fully briefed on the battery situation, but we figured that there would be plenty of places to charge the car. We were wrong.
The Tesla is a hundred percent electric, like a giant smart phone on wheels. As we saw the power dipping into the 20-something percent range, we got serious about finding a power charger. This is not a device that can be topped off by one of those batteries you can carry along in your pocket. And I’m not sure what happens if a Tesla runs out of juice on a freeway. But I know there’s no gas can to the rescue.
There are some great apps to find chargers. But what we hadn’t understood was that most if not all were not super chargers- i.e. they were all super slow. We’re talking six hours to charge the whole battery. This is a major buzz kill when you are trying to go out riding around paradise without a care in the world. On top of that, many of these charging stations are in parking garages that cost money to pull into and sit there on the charger. There was a free charger we found at the community college outdoors- thank you Hawaii CC- but it was a ghost town out there and there was nothing to do while the Tesla recharged. While we had a supercharger converter with us that could plug into an outlet- we were staying in a condo, and it was not clear whether we could use it overnight.
Then, on a lovely Sunday, early evening, when we had driven all the way up to the tip of the North Shore, the Tesla locked us out with the key card inside. It was at this time that we did some more internet research and found stories of passengers getting locked inside a Tesla when the owner stepped away. There are no handles on the inside of the doors. Instead, the Tesla is like a Philippe Starck designed bathroom- it looks super cool until you realize you are not sure how to get to a toilet and you really need to pee.
The Tesla can be controlled remotely with a paired phone or through its interior touch screen computer- and so the idea is that you can always control it. This should work great if you own it. But if you don’t own it, you may not have the account and the pairing required- we didn’t. Luckily my husband had his phone, and we were finally able to have the owner remotely unlock the car from an hour away. But his phone could have just as easily been locked in the car along with the key card.
In the end, I really loved the Tesla, and more than that, I love the idea of the Tesla. It’s smart. It’s trustworthy in a computer type way- like an excel spreadsheet that you know can do a lot of complicated equations without you ever checking its work.
That being said, the Tesla is continually depleting its battery because its computer is always on. So, it can also leave you with a slight sense of foreboding if you think about things like what your computer may be dreaming about when it’s sleeping….
I’m looking forward to a time when the Tesla comes to more remote locations with its comprehensive network of chargers- but until then- and until I have a dedicated charger for overnight topping off- I will enjoy reading about the Tesla from afar.
