Going Electric: From 2008 to 2020 (Premium)

Sometime around 2017 or so, when the Tesla Model 3 was starting to show up on the streets, there was something about the idea of going electric that I found intriguing. But more than going electric, it was about the software and the idea that a car doesn’t have to be a static piece of equipment but something that can evolve with updates.

But at that time, I did not need a new car, my 2008 Pathfinder was in great shape in there was no logical justification to try and buy something that I wanted but didn’t need. Fast forward to after writing a book, saving diligently for nearly 3 years, and having a transmission that was about to fail, the timing was right…and then a pandemic.

Hitting the pause button on life in the late winter months, we sold the Pathfinder in early summer and were a ‘1 car house-hold’ for several months. And when the time for school to return got closer, it became apparent that having a second vehicle was approaching the time of being a necessity, not simply a ‘want’. For clarity, my wife works full time and even though her time in the office has been reduced significantly, she does leave the house frequently during the week – this makes coordinating pick up significantly more challenging.

We looked at quite a few different options like the Volvo XC90, Toyota Highlander Hybrid, Ford Explorer, and a few others along the way but settled on the Model Y after the price was cut earlier this year.

Before jumping on the Tesla-bandwagon that is weirdly cult-ish, I did my diligence on trying to understand the tradeoffs and the benefits of going electric. What it boils down to is the ease of use and efficiency – for us.

The primary benefits are that each morning we have a full battery thanks to a charger we had installed in our garage, significantly lower cost of ownership (electric is cheaper than gas, no oil changes, spark plugs, etc), safety was a big factor but others shine here too besides Tesla and the simple fact that we liked the vehicle more than others.

And I say ‘we’ because my wife and I decided on this car together and candidly, I think she pushed us more towards the Y/Tesla than I did. I always wanted one, but it wasn’t until my wife sat in a 3 and drove that car that we both realized how much we liked the experience.

On September 1^st, we placed an order for the Model Y: AWD model in white – effectively the least expensive version you can buy today but there is an RWD option coming soon that will lower the price further. We skipped all of the options when buying the car as I could not justify the additional expenses.

For starters, one option is a white interior, while it looks fantastic, I don’t trust myself or my daughter to not spill something on it. Those who have it say it’s easy to clean and I am sure it is but we went with black as white is an additional $1000.

The other options include larger wheels that are black that I know would scratch and larger rims mean a stiffer ride and reduced range. With electric vehicles, weight is the killer of efficiency, and the base Gemini wheels (seen above) give you the best range + aerodynamics; effectively you end up paying for worse range in your car. And after a day or so with them, I have grown to prefer this look for the vehicle.

You can also pay for additional paint colors that are $1-2k depending on what you choose; white is free and it’s a pearl-white. In theory, it should hide scratches better than darker colors but it will also require more cleaning too.

But the big-ticket option is ‘Full Self Driving’ that Tesla has been promising for about 3 years and always saying it’s 3-6 months away. The car comes with autopilot that drives itself on the highway and for now, we are not buying FSD – one day it may be worthwhile but that day is not today. Tesla needs to prove itself before I would even consider paying that much to not drive the car that I just spent a bunch of money to…drive.

The Tesla buying experience is easy and rough. What I mean by that is that for $100, you can go online, order your car, and then wait for it to arrive for a $100 fee that gets applied to your purchase if you take the car home.

Tesla does not have dealerships and depending on your state, they may have service centers. Thankfully there is one about 5 minutes from my house which is where we picked up our vehicle. But unlike dealerships, service centers don’t typically have inventory on the lot; you order the car, it shows up, you hit ‘accept’ in the app, and then drive away.

But here is where it is rough, Tesla vehicles come straight from the factory and then delivered to you. The service center may, or may not, look over the vehicle carefully and you may have minor or significant issues – these are well documented online.

Unlike a normal buying experience, a vehicle goes from the factory to a dealership, that dealership will then inspect, clean, and make sure the car is perfect because the dealership needs a good reputation to sell more cars, Tesla does not. It’s this lack of a quality-control medium that makes some Tesla delivers less desirable than others.

Our Model Y avoided many of the huge issues like panel gaps the size of Texas or paint mismatch, but we did have some scratches on the interior. We also need a new windshield that we honestly would not have known about, but our service center performed a pre-purchase inspection and had ‘due bill’ when we arrived listing everything that needed fixing.

After inspecting the vehicle, we agreed with everything they noted prior to our arrival and accepted the delivery. The challenge here is that if we did not accept delivery, we would have to wait 10 weeks for another vehicle to arrive.

I will say that there was no pressure to accept and other than the noted issues, the car was in excellent shape.

The Model Y is effectively a battery pack on wheels with an iPad attached to the dashboard. One on side of the coin, it’s a very simple vehicle, on the other, it’s incredibly complex and is the closest way to ‘driving’ software.

I’m not going to drill into every detail and setting as there are millions of YouTube videos out there that can do this better but what I can say is that it takes very little time to adapt to the interior design.

The lack of a gauge cluster in front of the steering wheel is a little odd at first but once you adjust to it being slightly out of the peripheral of your right eye, it’s a non-issue. The center screen works well in practice but there are some minor annoyances like windshield wipers that can be controlled via the stalk on the left side but fine-tuning is done via the screen.

I have only owned the car for about 48 hours and am still very much in the honeymoon phase of ownership but so far, we are happy with our choices.

I love the instant torque, the absolutely quiet operation, and no ‘gear shifts’ when driving, and the lack of a driveshaft /engine upfront means more interior room as well. But should you buy an electric car for these reasons? That is entirely up to you – it is different, but not a bad different but different.

This post is not intended to be an exhaustive review of the car but the start of a series about moving from a gas to an electric vehicle, or more specifically, owning a Tesla.

And if Tesla is not for you, many of the classic automakers like VW will have models on the roads soon and Ford is also shipping the Mach-E as well. While Tesla is far from perfect and Elon Musk is a visionary but not a saint, I do believe that Tesla’s are the best electric vehicles you can buy today. And one day if other vehicles do catch up to what Tesla offers, never forget that Musk owns an ICBM factory.