2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.com

2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Road Test

In Los Angeles, you can never have too much range. When to choose Max Charge in our long-term 2013 Tesla Model S.

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evodad

I hope there's a sweet spot soon. Tesla's small sedan should hopefully fit the bill, something with 100-150 miles would enable someone whose daily commute is too close to the limits of the leaf and other limited range electric vehicles to comfortably make the switch to an electric car. Aside from having other priorities, the leaf's range would not be ideal for my current 65mi commute. As mentioned after only a couple years it takes effort in a leaf to hit 70 miles on a charge and there are too few places where charging at work is an option. Now if I had something that started with 125mi range when new I'd have no worries about driving it to/from work in hot or cold weather even after a few years.

diigii

So what is the update on the Tesla long-termer after it died on the freeway off-ramp?

dunning15

They replaced something and now it's all fine. You want more info than that?

fordson1

Yes - they replaced parts totalling, along with the labor, probably half the value of the entire vehicle, and now it's all better. See - wasn't that easy?

markinnaples_

"...Maybe there is a sweet spot for electric cars that is somewhere between my Leaf and the pricy Tesla."



Yes, it's called a Hybrid, and until there are many more charging stations, the problem with the Leaf will remain a problem.

dunning15

Hybrids are like ducks. They can swim, they can fly and they can walk but they don't do any of the three very well. To me a hybrid is the worst of all worlds and I'd rather have an all-gas or all-electric despite the limitations of each.

bankerdanny

If 100% charge is bad for the battery and you didn't actually need it to have sufficient range for your trip, then why would you choose that? Unlike the Leaf, the Tesla can be recharged to a reasonable level relatively quickly, particularly with the Level 2 charger you have there. Based on what you wrote it seems like you needlessly reduced long term battery life.

diigii

@dunning15: If I'm shelling out $100K for this car, I would want to know this car's reliability. It's a long term car but we never got a blog about that incident. Now, they replaced "something" in the car. What is that "something?"

bankerdanny

I don't think that Tesla actually told them what was replaced or what the real problem was. I think the same thing happened when the drivetrain was replaced early on in the LT test. It would be nice to know more, but at least we can see that Tesla has no problems stepping up and replacing major systems as necessary. This car is still barely more than a beta model, so I don't have a huge problem with the issues that have popped up. But then I didn't spend $100k to buy one either.

lmbvette

I was not aware of the massive loss of battery capacity on the Leaf (sounds like at least 15%). Nor was I aware of such a setting on the Tesla.

I've got two years and 19,000 miles on my 2012 Volt and I charge to 100% every day. Obviously this is easier to do on a smaller battery.

From what I understand, the Volt uses much less (around 10 kwh) of its total capacity (16 - 16.5 kwh) for driving. This buffer, which can't fully charge or discharge the battery, allows the battery to retain maximum use for longer.

I can still eek out 50 miles in EV range if I really want to (not too shabby for a car rated at 35 EV miles). I think GM took the conservative route with the battery design and it will ultimately prove to be a wise choice.

redxsage

Hmmm...? I'm pretty sure that it was reported that after the stop on the freeway off-ramp, two things were replaced: 1) The rear end; and 2) The battery pack. It was done under warranty. If Edmunds was told what went wrong with those components, they may not have reported that information yet. But then, it's been a few weeks since I came here. Personally, I wouldn't care. The car works now, you aren't charging me anything, thanks, bye.

duck87

@redxsage: You wouldn't care until the same thing happens again, in another 10K miles. And then you would REALLY start to care once you're out of warranty range, or if you're stuck on the side of the road with no warning lights and no way to move the car.

duck87

@dunning15: I wish I could go through life paying people to do things for me, not understand any of the details, and be blissfully unaware if the same thing is going to happen again or if the people who I'm paying are competent.