Life with a Tesla and other ramblings.
I have to say, this thing looks pretty nice. Of course, I’m pretty sure it’s just a rendering as the article says that they are looking to get first prototype out later this year, IIRC.
Source: Crowdfunded electric car to be manufactured in fully automated factory designed by Siemens
Here is their main website: http://www.unitisweden.com/
Looks like I get to experience Tesla service already. Yay?
My passenger side FWD is getting phantom “obstacle detected” issues and the door won’t open. I can force it by holding the button, but it’s still not fun.
If I leave the door settings up on screen as I drive, you can see the “obstacle” come and go even though there’s nothing ever there. And I swear it’s behaving as if every time I take a left turn it appears, then if I take a right turn it goes away. This could be indicative of a loose sensor or connector, but who knows. All I know is it doesn’t work reliably, and that’s probably the more important of the two doors as that’s the side I’d need to let my kid in/out of for school. So next Tuesday it goes in for diagnostics.
The driver’s side door has been working flawlessly, as has the rest of the car. Hopefully they can rectify this and I won’t see any issues for quite some time.
Today I was driving down El Camino Real and I noticed the autosteer function was available. I was a bit perplexed, as I didn’t think El Camino was a good road for it. But what the heck, right?
So I enabled it, and it immediately started driving like a drunken sailor, so I held the wheel still and it disabled. Not the best first experience of it.
But a short while later, I decided to try again. This time, it did extremely well. Steering was smooth. That is, up until I crossed an intersection, then it seemed to get a bit confused again and I prevented it from steering where it seemed to want to go.
So a bit of good, and a bit of bad. But I’ll keep trying it now that I know it will work on that road. I drive too fast on the highway for it to be used at present.
On Monday, I picked up my new Model X. The delivery went very well. I also took the factory tour right before my delivery.
The car came out nearly perfect. I have a piece of brightwork on the left side that’s a bit out of place, and there is a small scratch on my windshield I only just noticed today. I didn’t bother with them fixing the brightwork. I figured I’d see what else I noticed in the first few days/weeks and then if I accumulated enough things I’d make an appointment to have them all remedied at the same time.
The car is nothing short of amazing. The quietness. The smoothness. The tech. It really is like driving a car from the future. The windshield is incredible. I thought I had a lot of headroom in my Jeep but it doesn’t even compare to this car.
And the power. Oh, the power. It is so incredibly fast, and I haven’t really gunned it yet. It’s hard to go slow!
Regenerative braking is pretty cool. I thought it might be annoying, but it’s not, and you almost don’t even need to brake. I also do not have Creep mode turned on, and it’s pretty neat coming to a stop and the (H) indicator comes on, indicating ‘hill hold’ is on, so you can even let your foot off the brake. The car just keeps the car there with the brake on until you press the pedal again. I really like it. I never liked auto transmissions, so I am glad to be able to turn that behavior off.
I have not tried autosteer yet, as I’ve not had an opportunity to drive at the right speed on the right kind of road yet, but I have tried Traffic-Aware Cruise Control. This morning I even tried it coming into work and sitting in the traffic leading up to my exit. The car did the right thing, though I always had my brake foot at the ready just in case.
The automatic everything is certainly fun. It’s nice to walk up to the car and it flashes and unlocks and as you approach the door it opens up for you, even giving you time to pass the door so it doesn’t open up into you. There’s a lot of nice touches like that on this car.
I have noticed the ‘ghosting’ that many other owners have noticed with this windshield. What you end up seeing is repeated images of lights above the actual source. There are plenty of example pictures out there on the web. You can also find similar pictures from Prius owners as well. There is an issue with glass when it’s a certain curvature and rake, as well as when it has a metallic coating that causes this. I can’t say yet whether this will bother me or not. I think if you are focusing on it, it could get quite distracting, but if you are focusing on the cars or road, it seems like your brain starts to ignore it.
So far I love this car. Best car I have ever owned. I find I can’t wait to drive to work or home just to drive it! I’ll continue to report on how my car is doing, as well as hopefully dive into certain features or other topics about these cars as the weeks go by. Until then, I think I need to drive someplace 🙂
Elon and team took the opportunity to share a bit of detail about the Model 3 production ramp up that is currently planned to kick off in July. Deliveries
