slimjimtel

The Tesla is not designed for long road trips, nor someone who commutes more than 200 miles a day. Once you get to your destination, you have to have a charging station there.

I looked at them as well, but I have a long commute each day and didn't want to risk not having a charge. NC doesn't have charging stations anywhere that I know of. I would have had to put one in at home and at my office. Both doable, but costly.

beun

I charge at home overnight, takes about $5 from empty. For longer trips the supercharger stations are great, about 180miles in 20 minutes and it doesn't kill the battery. Texas is still a little bit of a supercharger island but 99% of all my driving is around town anyway. With the existing superchargers I can easily go from Dallas to Houston and back with maybe only an additional hour to the travel.

peteybabes

By the end of 2015, Tesla's will be a very good option as the number of supercharging stations will be greatly increased throughout the u.s. including 4 right now in NC slimjimtel

http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger

lbintab

iTrader: (1)

With the 3 model types to choose from i would either do the base model or the p85. The middle one is the same battery and motor as the base model but with a different computer flash. My buddy is an engineer at tesla and just flashed his brothers base model with the middle one.

fusionrx

Wonder if that violates the warranty?

peteybabes

it will certainly reduce the range over the 85, and it may not be able to connect to a supercharger unless they got the $7K option to allow it to hook up.

beun

The statement is not quite correct. In the beginning there was a 40kWh, a 60kWh, and a 85kWh battery available. The 40kWh battery was dropped for lack of any significant interest and a software limited 60kWh was used. After the initial orders the 40kWh battery option has been dropped altogether and just the 60 and 85 are available. These two battery packs are physically different and no "software flashing" is possible. The third version is a performance version of the 85, the only difference being a more beefier drive inverter to increase power and torque, again this is actual hardware so no software option.

So with respect to flashing, only when someone has the 40kWh battery option would a flashing to a 60 be possible and most likely void the warranty at the same time.