I drove the future...and it was boring

"jeebus" (jeebus) 04/28/2016 at 13:36 • Filed to: None

3

0

Let me preface this by clearly stating that I AM NOT a Tesla or electric car hater. Not only do I applaud Tesla for building these vehicles, but I am genuinely happy for what this is doing to the electric car industry, hell...the whole car industry. Plus I think they build some great looking cars. Note, I said “cars”. The Model X is fugly through my eyes.

I will also state that as someone who has been living and breathing technology for nearly 20 years professionally, and another 10+ personally, all Tesla vehicles give me that techno-boner, you know the one that you get when a new OS drops for Android? Or when Intel releases a new processor with eleventy billion cores, that’s somehow smaller than the one with only 8 cores? Yeah, that kind of boner.

Plus I’m a total car geek. I appreciate cars from nearly every make. I respect models for what they can AND cannot do. I like fast cars and slow cars, big cars and small cars...If it moves without having to push it (or pull it with a horse), I probably know too much about it. I’ve researched it, driven it, possibly even owned it. That’s just who I am.

But enough about me. Let’s get on to the vehicle this article is about. The Tesla P90D with Ludicrous mode, or maybe it’s Ludacris mode...I kind of hope it’s the latter.

Sure I might be late to the game here. We’ve all read plenty of reviews of this car. But kind of surprisingly, I just drove a Tesla for the very first time. And it was the best Tesla could possibly offer up. P90D Luda (someone should really make that badge), with all the fixins. Fancy wheels, fancy seats, fancy suspension, AutoPilot, moonroof, carbon fiber stuffs, etc. The sticker was north of $140k. Yowsa! But hey, at least there’s that tax rebate so, you know, “poor people” [cough] can get into these vehicles. My eyes aren’t rolling, I promise.

First thing’s first, the interior. Sure, it’s got a simple elegance to it. But as many have mentioned in the past, this ain’t no $140k interior. I’d put it somewhere in the realm of Hyundai Genesis quality materials, with worse fit and finish. The same can be said about exterior panel gaps, etc. Still, though...props on being a new car company and building something THIS nice. It’s not like I could do better. Another thing I also can’t do, is fit in the back seat. I’m 6'3" so I realize not everything is made for me, but you better believe that sexy sloped roof makes riding in back a neck-bending affair.

Then there’s that huge screen on the dash, and one in the instrument panel too. Some are wowed by this. I already have three monitors at my desk, I’m not wowed by LCD screens anymore. And quite frankly, I hate having to use a touch screen to do EVERYTHING. Give me dials for climate control at least. Plus I find this stuff all very distracting when driving. In my current vehicle I tend to turn the NAV screen off at night because it bugs me. Sure you can dim to your heart’s content, but dimming a giant screen still leaves you with a giant screen in your peripheral view. At least everything works quickly and is rather easy to find in the menus. This isn’t some garbage-bin CUE system.

Now that we have all that out of the way, it’s time to drive this bad boy. With Ludicrous mode enabled, the dual-motored, AWD, electric insanity-mobile produces a drool-worthy 762 horsepower. And nearly as much torque. Instantly. By now we have all seen the reaction videos. The driver hits the go-pedal and they (plus any passengers inside) have their necks snap back as the car rockets forward with zero wheelspin, no drama, while whispering quietly. It’s so easy, anyone can do it. Your grandma could do it. Hell, some dogs could probably do it. It takes zero skill whatsoever. Just mash and go. You might get a ticket, but you probably won’t crash...because the car won’t let you. If it thinks you won’t stop in time, it will stop for you. If you love drag racing people from every stoplight, this is the car for you.

But what about handling, braking, etc? It’s all “ok”. Nothing more, nothing less. We are talking about a vehicle that weighs nearly 5,000lbs, after all. So you can’t expect miracles. Sure, the weight is all mostly very low, exceptionally low, thanks to the battery pack in the floor and electric motors all mounted at wheel level. So the car will stay quite flat, but physics don’t bend for you. The steering feel isn’t awful, but it’s nothing to brag about. It can be adjusted in ways that artificially add weight to it, but you’ll never feel everything the tires are doing. And that’s probably just fine.

Then there’s the AutoPilot system. Quite frankly, I am NOT excited to see autonomous driving systems. As someone with a passion for driving, it saddens me to see this being all the rage. I also have issues with the decision making abilities of said systems, but the same can be said about most human drivers, I suppose. Full disclosure, I didn’t spend a ton of time with the AutoPilot system enabled. When I did turn it on, I found it to be rather buggy. It regularly sped up to 20 above the speed limit, and more than a few times it got confused enough to disable itself. I know, it’s tech in its infancy, it will get better. But I do fear the morons out there that might use this system thinking it can do more than it does, not paying enough attention to take control back when the car shuts the system off.

What’s the verdict then? Well, it’s fast. It’s jammed full of tech that I assume 90% of owners won’t understand properly. It doesn’t feel exceptionally luxurious, but it doesn’t feel cheap either. It takes corners ok. My takeaway though was that the car bored me. You would think something this fast couldn’t possibly bore you, but as with everything, the novelty wears off. There’s only so many times you can startle people with the acceleration before they say, “ok we get it...it’s making me sick” (side note, I did actually make a passenger sick enough to exit the vehicle). Cars for me are more than the sum of their numbers. I don’t get more excited by an expensive car than I do a cheap one. Being able to out-drag a Lamborghini is cool, but the ferociousness of the way the Lamborghini does it, the way the V12 (or V10 for you plebs) sounds, sends shivers down your spine. The same can’t be said in an electric sled. If I absolutely HAD to have a car that could accelerate this quickly, I’d buy a GT-R and keep the rest stashed away to replace broken transmissions. If I HAD to have a big luxo-barge I’d rather have a Mercedes S63. Nicer materials hands down, and while it may be slower, who cares when you have that V8 burble to listen to.

I’m sorry to all the Tesla fan-boys and fan-girls that consider this the trump card to everything else in automotive land, but I just cannot agree. Go ahead and smoke me at the lights, I probably won’t even notice.