Tesla – world famous Serbian American electrical engineer and physicist, whose name is constantly surrounded with myths and legends. Tesla is american car company from Sylicon valley, one of whose founder and main inverstor is ingeneer, inventor, investor and business magnate Elon Mask (founder of PayPal and SpaceX companies); whose electric cars became first succeeded commercially project of such a big scale. I suppose, everyone who is interested in auto news has alredy heard about it unless he is not deaf! Well, it’s time to found out what this car is!
Unfortunately, but New Zealand, despate all attempts to look green and eco, doesn’t attract company from Palo-Alto – Tesla Motors don’t plan to officially sell their electric cars here neither they don’t plan to built charging stations. 4 million of New Zealand’s population, with one of third living in Auckland city is too small market for them. May be, our neighbour, Australia will be more luckier, but now if you wanna buy Tesla car, you have to buy it in Europe or England, pay custom fees, import it into New Zealand and then pay customs fee again! Owner of this car, an engineer in the power industry used to live for a while in Norway, had the exciting role of helping Tesla Motors build their first supercharger stations in Europe and then moved back to New Zealand to start carsharing and electro car rentals company. Probably, you could see that car at Go Green Expo in ASB Showgrounds this April, probably you even have seaten inside, probably you even signed up for a test drive. Yes, it took almost 5 months for me to find some time, process images and write a post 🙂 5 months, Carl!
Wheel size 21 inches. Nothing special apart from company’s logo at brake pads support:
Tesla for me, ecpecially because of its flashy and stylish design and shapes was a supercar like Maseratti or Aston Martin or even Bentley, atleast it was until I first time met that car in real. I confirm it is good looking, cool and prestigious car but as you know, devil hides in the details and today I would like to speak about them. From some point of view, Model S looks like sedan Mazda 6 (or wise versa) – I mean front lights and wheel arches. There is no radiator, don’t be confused by this radiator grill – nothing to cool down at all!
Front boot, small but spacy enough for two people:
The driver’s seat. Leather upholstery, nice but slightly unusual interior details:
Second boot may have 3rd row of seats. Total capacity of boot space in Tesla is +850 littres:
Front console view from a boot. Top panel is covered by leather:
Door’s handles can be ejected or hided:
Electric buttons for closing/opening a car windows, door blockers and joystick for mirrows adjustment:
Rear passanger’s door elements made of plastic and black leather. All doors are frame less. Have a look how thick the floor is – car’s battery is placed underneath. Total car’s weight is 2.1 tonne:
Me, sitting here as a farmer thinking about how many bags with potatoes I can load in my boot 🙂 I was slightly disappointed about car’s sunshields and back mirrows because in my opinion they are too small and look cheap:
Black leathered wheel. Very nice and soft plastic, nothing special
Central console with a 17 inches tablet on it displaying infos about last trip:
Spidometer and tachometer and also another screen for displaying heaps of information:
Sun roof:
Headrest of driver’s seat (can’t be adjusted!)
Controller of windshield wiper (cruise controller located slightly above):
Gear shift – frond Drive, Rear drive, Parking and Neutral:
Shall we buy it?
Second row of seats (headrests can’t be adjusted), textile and leather are used as seats cover, armrests are missing as well:
Me, sitting on rear passanger seat: plenty of space for my long legs (185cm tall), no feeling that I sit on top of the battery at all – it’s very comfortable there. Couple of drawbacks: back side of front seats is made of plastic, no mesh bags or pots for documents and other stuff here at all:
Armrest for driver and front passanger and also a heater for rear passengers:
I had a feeling that some interior elements remind me BMW X5
Rear windows are quite short and there is no handles in roof at all:
Rear passangers door: there is no boxes in there for water bottles or anything else, there is no space in a car to put stuff at all – unconvinient! No automatic door closer as well:
Door henges:
2nd row passanger’s headrest:
Seat belt socket of 2nd row passanger seat
Back lights. Charging outlet is located under.. reflector at left corner!
3rd row of seats, so the maximum capacity is 7 person in total:
The hood and the rear gate have servos, rear gate is closed by gate closer:
Model S has pneumo suspension so clearance is changeable from 4.7 to 6.4 inches:
Mirrors narrow height, but wide in length. No built in indicators:
Indicator with Tesla logo:
My first impressions is I’m quite surprised and dissappointed as well – in general Tesla Model S is a usual luxury sedan, beautiful, stylish and well disagned, with an average quality of interior materials like a german car has or a bit lower because of some options missing, so there is nothing special at all, folks! iPhone on wheels, gadget car. Will see how it rides – to be continued!
Ivan Grigoryev's Blog
Living in New Zealand. Blogging about the country, beautiful places, everyday life.
Do a skydive - halfway completed; get 1400 - still working on; reach 300kph - completed by 96.6%