Car Buying Notes: Something New, Something Blue

I said there was some bigger news from the weekend. I wasn’t lying. Saturday I brought home a 2024 Tesla Model Y Long Range.

I’m pretty pumped about it so far. However, even with my two test drives and literally hours of watching videos about how to drive Teslas, I’m still deep in learning curve mode.

The purchase, or lease actually, happened pretty quickly after two months of research. And obviously a little quicker than I had expected. Prepare yourselves for a classic, lengthy, D’s Notebook breakdown of the process!

Thursday is S’s day off. We had an exciting day planned featuring a Costco run. The Tesla dealership is basically next door to our nearest Costco. I figured I would swing through the Tesla lot on the way, since S hasn’t been involved in this process at all. Well other than giving me a budget and approving my choice. I guess those are pretty important aspects. What I’m saying is she hadn’t gone a test drive or watched any videos with me, just knew I was neck-deep in research for the last eight weeks and would pretend to care when I was all fired up and dropped EV knowledge on her.

Thursday she beat me to the punch, though. “Can we drive by the Tesla place?” she asked as soon as we left our house.

Of course we can!

Our dealership stores a bunch of their inventory across the street in a dying mall’s parking lot. We drove up and down the four rows of cars stationed there, and I pointed out the differences between the models, the colors I was interested in, and what wheels I preferred. As a bonus, two big carrier trucks were parked with a bunch more cars to unload. It was also the first time I’ve seen a Cybertruck in person.

Ugly.
As.
Hell.

Anyway, we browsed for a few minutes, went to Costco, and then back home. S asked me how many cars in the configuration I wanted were available. I pulled up the inventory list and showed her. She thought about it for a minute then said, “Well, we probably need to get one this weekend because of our schedule the rest of the month, so go ahead and do it.”[1] I tried to play it cool, although I’m sure I looked like a kid on Christmas morning who sees some big boxes with his name on them.

Every blue Model Y LR with 19” wheels showed as being in transit. I called my sales lady and asked if she had an ETA on the cheapest one on the list.[2] “It’s actually on a truck between here and Chicago, so it will be here tomorrow and can be picked up Saturday.”

Perfect! I put down my $250 deposit to reserve it roughly 2.5 seconds later.

The buying process is kind of amazing with Tesla. You can do almost all of it on your phone.

I put down my deposit using ApplePay.

Then a series of tasks showed up on the Tesla app. I uploaded our drivers licenses and selfies to prove it was really us. I filled out the lease application. I received a lease agreement to sign less than 90 seconds later. Once I had insurance coverage, I uploaded a copy of our policy. All the disclosure nonsense? A series of opening PDFs, which automatically checks them as being reviewed. Not a single nudge to get clear coat protection or buy an extended warranty. Then I set an appointment for picking up the car.

Saturday we headed to the dealership after L’s games. When we walked into the store I got a notification to open the app and show the number displayed to a Tesla staff. They sent us to the corresponding spot in the parking lot with instructions on how to pair my phone to the car and the keycards, then to fill out the state registration paperwork that was in the front seat. S and I signed in all the proper places, did a quick check for dents, dings, and other imperfections, walked the paperwork back in, and we were free to go.

Literally about a minute of face-to-face interaction with another human being. I know some people – let’s call them freaks – enjoy the give-and-take of the car buying process. I am 100% down for this method.

S left in her car, I took a few minutes to get comfortable in my new one, then raced home. S and L jumped in for a quick ride around the neighborhood. Later in the evening we drove it up to S’s parents to give them a quick run up-and-down a busy road they live off of. Sunday L and I took it on the highway to basketball. C rode in it for the first time Monday night. It’s been hilarious to watch the reactions of everyone I’ve had as a passenger when I floor it. Their eyes always get really big and they either start laughing, cuss, or lulled into gasping silence by the speed.

My raggedy-ass Audi is now sitting in the driveway, waiting for M to come home to claim it for a couple weeks before it goes back to the dealer.[3]

I used a referral code from a friend so the Tesla came with Full Self Driving for free for three months. As with my second test drive, I’ve kicked it in a couple times, briefly. But I need to get more comfortable with the car in general before I think about using it for real. I’m driving back-and-forth to Cincinnati twice this weekend, so that could be an opportunity if there’s not too much traffic.

So far I’ve really enjoyed driving it. Being so technical, I feel like the learning curve is a lot steeper than a normal car. Had I not done so much research I would be much less comfortable, I’m sure. There are some frustrations, as with any car. For example, somehow I ended up with three driver’s profiles and couldn’t figure out how to get back to the one that was tied to my Tesla account, so had to start over from scratch. All the mirrors, side and rearview, are pretty small, which gives you a less expansive view than I’m used to. Balancing that, the blind spot cameras, which kick in when changing lanes, are high definition and give you an excellent view of what’s to either side.

The weirdest thing so far is backing up. I know that sounds weird, but here’s why. In a traditional, automatic car, you drop it into reverse, ease off the brake, and the car starts rolling. You can back out of a spot without ever touching the gas if you want to. Teslas are totally the opposite. Flip it to reverse, take your foot off the brake, and the car does not move. It won’t until you apply pressure to the accelerator. I’m so nervous about how much power it has that I use a very light foot and reluctantly crawl backwards. I know the power is regulated in reverse, yet I’m still super careful when giving it juice. I did give it a little too much foot backing out this morning and had a moment of panic. I’m sure I’ll get used to it soon and zip out of the garage and parking spots like I used to.

Another big frustration is how there is no camera or ultrasonic sensor on the front bumper. Since the hood curves down and I can’t see the front of the car, pulling into our garage is a bit dicey. My Audi had cameras and sensors. S’s Telluride has both. Neither her Grand Cherokee nor my Tahoe had forward cameras, but they both had robust sensors that told you exactly when to stop before hitting anything. The Tesla uses its other cameras to “map” what’s in front of you, but is very conservative in placing those objects. So it yells at me that I’m about to hit the wall when I still have a good two feet of space. I hung a thin string – but no tennis ball! – from the garage ceiling to mark the right spot because I do not trust the readings I get at all. Last night it was flashing “STOP!” at me when I still had a good 18” before I would have bumped anything.

OK, now one awesome thing: power in roundabouts and from full or partial stops. Hallelujah! Could not be more different than in my Audi. Saturday morning when we were going to basketball the Audi tried to kill us one last time by nearly stalling as we were pulling out of our street into the main one. Such strange behavior from an otherwise well-engineered car. When I went to the grocery store in Carmel Monday and traversed approximately 50 roundabouts, I never feared for my life and always had more power than I needed.

Ride quality? It seems pretty similar to the Audi to me. On good pavement it’s just fine. If you go through a bumpy patch you are going to feel it. It is most certainly not an elegant ride as you would expect from a higher end luxury car. L had an open gym at CHS Monday night and the Tesla took the speed bumps on campus much better than the Audi.

I really like not having to carry a key. Teslas come with two credit card sized keys, sort of like checking into a hotel. You pair those with your phone and as long as you have your phone with you, the car unlocks when you approach it, and locks when you walk away. You tuck a card into your wallet for backup. Most cars these days have proximity keys, so this isn’t a huge difference. I don’t have to carry a key fob in my pocket anymore. Our front door has a keyless lock, so I don’t have a house key, either. For the first time since I was like eight years old, I have zero keys in my pockets, which is kind of crazy. I like carrying as little crap as possible, so this is a huge bonus.

Since this was kind of a sudden purchase, I hadn’t ordered a home charging kit when I reserved the car. It’s kind of dumb they don’t just come with the car like they used to. Or that you can’t purchase one in the store and take it home the day you receive your new car. I put that order in Friday and it should be here Wednesday or Thursday.

C needed to make a pre-prom Target run Monday night so I ran her over and parked at the Supercharger there to grab some electrons while we went inside. Couldn’t have been easier. Got enough juice to keep me going until I can start home charging in a couple days. I will almost never use that Supercharger by our house, which is a bummer because it is rarely busy and has a Target, Starbucks, and Whole Foods in the same lot. Charging at home is cheaper and more efficient, so Superchargers will just be used on the rare occasions we take a car trip in the Tesla.

In a fun coincidence, the hotel I booked two months ago for our trip to Cincinnati this weekend has a grocery store with a Supercharger five minutes away. Our trip has gotten a little weird – more on that next week – so I’m not sure whether I’ll have to use it or not. All my future basketball trips will include trying to select a hotel with a Supercharger nearby.

Tesla is infamous for its rigorous cost cutting. That’s why the ultrasonic sensors were removed a couple years ago. That’s why they keep finding ways to make the interior more spare, shifting as many functions to the screen as possible. That also means Tesla owners, perhaps more than regular car owners, end up buying customized accessories to fill gaps in equipment. There are sites filled with nothing but Tesla accessories, from upgraded interior lighting to special phone mounts to whole RGB light kits that require removing pieces of trim to connect to the car’s electrical systems. There are even additional screens you can install where the traditional gauge dash would go that can be used to integrate CarPlay or display car information.

I’ve only bought a few. So far. I ordered all weather floor mats. My Audi came with them and I now much prefer how that style confines debris compared to the cheap-ish carpeted ones that come with the Tesla. I got a little tray for one of the center console storage areas so vital items don’t fall into the bottom of the fairly deep compartment.

Biggest of all, since I got the 19” wheels with the generic covers, I bought some third party wheel covers. This is quite the racket, and I spent hours researching them. Best I can tell, they are basically five or six kinds that are all exactly the same and likely made in the same facility. But one place will charge you $300 for a set, while another will be closer to $200. Then you can find them on AliExpress for like $90 if you can wait 3–6 weeks for them to show up. I got some on Amazon that had a coupon for $110. Paying as little as possible makes sense since I have no idea how they’ll hold up to being removed once per year to rotate the tires. Your mileage may vary on whether you like the blacked-out wheel look. I’m not always a fan, but I think these look way better than the “how little effort can we put into designing these” ugly ones that came on the car.

Finally, for now, I saw a brilliant bumper sticker on a car that was in for service at the dealer Saturday. I’m not a big bumper sticker guy, but I have ordered one that I will put on our garage storage closet where I slap stickers from places we’ve visited or products I’ve purchased.

Because fuck him.

As with the last time I went through this process, I’ll give a few updates as I get deeper into Tesla ownership. So this series, or at least its 2024 edition, isn’t quite done. Plus we’re about to buy a car for M so I can share some thoughts on buying a used car in the Internet age!