Test drove today.. Questions for people who know.

Hi,

Test drove the Clarity Plug in Hybrid today and, as usual, the salesperson didn't know much. Most answers were "I think so" and "I can ask someone" and it quickly became clear that I knew more about the car than him. BUT, I was left with some lingering issues. (Just for context we are planning on trading in a year old Tesla Model S for this and have a Hyundai Ioniq as well, so we are generally well versed in electric cars).

#1) The car supposedly has regenerative breaking and it is supposed to be controlled by the paddles behind the steering wheel. The salesperson told us those paddles were "only for sport mode". I was trying to get the regenerative breaking to kick in and found that if, while driving in eco mode, I tapped the right panel a small down arrow would appear on the console. Then if i tapped the left paddle the number of down arrows would increase and it felt as if regenerative breaking was getting stronger. However, the moment I came to a stop, the arrows all vanished and I had to start the process over. I saw a video online that I find a little hard to believe, it said you can only save your regenerative breaking setting in sport mode?!?

So this is a two fold question. Is it true that you can ONLY save your regenerative breaking setting in sport mode? Second, if the first part is true, does sport mode allow you to ONLY use the electric power or does it engage the gas engine by default? Our goal was to avoid gas stations as much as humanly possible, but we have both gotten so used to constant regenerative breaking, we don't want to lose that feature either. Thoughts?

#2) I only ask this because when I bought my Ioniq the dealer told me the car had this capability, but it turned out it did not. We were TOLD that the car can auto unlock and auto lock, meaning if you walk up the car with the FOB in your pocket, you can just open the door and when you get out of the car, the car will automatically lock the door when you walk away. He was unsure if would do that for all doors or JUST the passenger door. I know in the Tesla we can set which doors automatically open (It can be set to just driver or all doors) on my Ioniq I have to press a button to lock and unlock, but it also can be set to front doors or all 4.


So.. thoughts?

 

I consider the Tesla the worst purchase I ever made and I would absolutely not go anywhere near a model 3. I had a deposit and could have had one several months ago, until I went into the showroom to see it and then walked out laughing. I ended up getting the Ioniq instead of the model 3. Right now Tesla is playing a little scam game with their stock as they are reporting back orders as new sales, so as soon as they run out (which should be early next year) I am going to dump that stock as well b/c I don't believe the 3 can compete in a fully open market. (I will explain more after my S story)

Anyway.. as for my S. The initial purchase of the S was a tradeoff of pros and cons.

On the pro side. The Tesla had the best battery on the market (great range, great acceleration). Mine also came with free supercharging for life, so there was the network of superchargers so if we wanted to we could make a cross country trip (although it would be annoying as hell, as you would have to stop every 3-4 hours for an hour to recharge the battery). Of course there was the promise of full self drive and other futuristic technologies to come.

On the con side. Tesla has terrible technology integration. No Android Auto. And even thought they strongly suggested in December 2016 they were working on it, all talk of it has stopped. The Tesla nav is FAR inferior to Waze. Their streaming service is FAR inferior to Pandora or Spotify, so while you have this giant 20 inch screen in the middle of your car, its only real function is to put the rear camera up. (which, as a plus, you can have up all the time, thus removing all blind spots.. without this the car has absolutely abysmal visibility!). Basically, you still wind up using your phone for most of your functions, which seems odd when you are supposed to be driving a tablet on wheels.

Tesla recently introduced Version9 software. Without any patch notes, they touted this as an upgrade. However, this update made the UI SIGNIFICANTLY worse and I would NEVER had downloaded it if I had any idea as to what it would do to the UI of the car. They now set the center console so that the nav (which very few owners use) is ALWAYS ON. This new patch originally made it so you could NOT have the rear camera up top anymore (after outcry from thousands of owners they sort of fixed that in a patch, but it is far inferior to the way it was, as it now only shows on about 1/3 of the screen instead of 1/2 the screen the way it used to be and it is moved down from the top). They also moved the controls from the top of the console to the bottom, making them nearly inaccessible while driving, because you need to look down at your knees. They also added a 360 degree view to the center of your instrument console which is, at best, a joke. It shows all the cars around you as white flashes and a bunch that aren't really there and you cannot turn it off. Your only option is to put a post it not over the center of your instrument panel or be constantly distracted by the flashing images just below your line of site. They did add the ability to play missile command while you are parked, so I guess that makes it all worth it, right?

The day this update was applied we contacted Tesla and asked them to please set a service appointment to have it removed and revert us to the previous software. We arrived at the appointment and they said they couldn't do it. We knew this wasn't true since once before the car failed after an update and it had to go in for service and have the update removed. We went back forth with customer service for the last 2 months and they finally agreed to remove the update, but then again, the service center said they couldn't do it. Why? Because now we had waited too long and multiple patches had been applied and they can only roll back to the PREVIOUS patch, so we can't ever go back to Version 8 and we are stuck with this inferior UI that we never would have purchased.

Now, why are they doing this? Because they are trying to get uniformity across their lines. The problem with this concept is that the Model S and X have a VERTICAL screen and the 3 has a horizontal that is set much higher. Having all the controls on the bottom of the 3's horizontal screen makes sense, but NOT on the S or X, where the bottom of the screen is at your knees. However, because they want uniformity, they have basically downgraded the 100K S and X's to make them more like the 50K 3's.

Of course the big promise of the Tesla is the FULL SELF DRIVE. Well, after owning one for a year I can say with some confidence that this feature is AT BEST 5 years away and that is being generous. Version 9 was supposed to be the big unveiling where it would do your entire drive on the highway for you. NOPE. It will SUGGEST when to change lanes and SUGGEST when you should start getting over for the exit. Autopilot was a novelty when we first got the car, more used to scare passengers. Now it is just something we realized we spent on the car in the hopes of keeping its resale value high.

BUT, now that I want to get rid of it, I am finding the resale value on the Tesla SUCKS (at least compared to my previous cars). We spent 100K on this car towards the end of 2017 and now the most I could get is 60-70K. A 30-40% drop in 1 year, with UNDER 6,000 miles? That is way above industry averages of 15-20% per year and it gets worse after that. The FSD (full self drive) feature we paid 6K for when we bought the car.. it isn't even an option anymore because it is now just standard. Things we opted against paying more money for (like a cold weather package b/c we live in So Cal).. well, they are now standard, which makes resale even harder b/c our year old car doesn't have the same basic features.

Now, if the majority of Tesla owners weren't in a cult, they could have gotten this fixed, but there is a LARGE number of Tesla owners who don't care what they do to the car. They think you should be thankful for the right to own a Tesla and if you dare to complain about a fundamental feature being taken away you are told you are being ungrateful and don't deserve to own a Tesla. Unfortunately, due to the currently small customer base, this contingency is large enough that they drown out any legitimate concerns people have with the cars and they can get away with consistent broken promises, half-assing features, etc.

Now.. as for getting a 3. Why on earth would you want one of those things? Keep in mind, it does not have an instrument panel.. JUST a tablet stuck into the middle of the dashboard. There is no heads up display or anything of the sort. Things you are used to seeing in front of you are now off the right and just below road level, meaning you have to take your eyes completely off the road to see them. All climate controls are part of this touch screen experience as well. No android auto or apple car play (and no real plans to get there), so you are stuck with Tesla's inferior Nav and radio, unless you want to mount your phone on your dash (as some people are doing). The 3 also doesn't have a FOB. It connects to your car via an APP on your phone. If your phone is dead, the only way into the car is via a credit card you have to tap against the door and then against the dash to start. The door handles are very awkwardly manual. When you get to the car, they don't pop out the way they do in the S. You have to press one side of it in and then pull it out. My neighbor has one and watching her get into the car in the morning is comical. If she is carrying anything in her hands, she stands there fumbling with the handle until she puts stuff on top of the car to get the door open.

I ended up getting the Ioniq instead. The range was smaller (125 Mi, instead of 220). HOWEVER, 220 in a Tesla isn't really 220 miles, it is MUCH less. We have witnessed our S losing 20-30 miles in range from a 5 mile round trip (never gotten a good explanation for this). Because it is always on it burns through 3-5 miles per night, whereas my Ioniq may lose 1 mile per WEEK when not being used. The Ioniq has android auto so I have waze, pandora and I can send and receive texts without taking my eyes off the road. Tesla can't do any of that.

This brings us to the Clarity. We want a car for just around town driving (that has now become my Ioniq) and a "family" car that can be taken on longer trips. That WAS the Tesla, but no anymore.

So, for your own sake.. AVOID TESLA!!!!

 

The problem with Android is that there are so many companies making software for it, that when they roll out a new version, the companies often update their software and it is not backwards compatible. You can rollback android, but it is possible that some app may not work correctly anymore.

In the case of Tesla... well.. they control everything. So, they COULD allow a rollback. You might be shut out of future updates and features, but that is a choice the consumer should be able to make.

Given their small customer base (only a few hundred thousand total), it wouldn't be that difficult for them to offer basic support for previous software.

However, in contradiction to their own warranty, they are refusing warranty service to people who have refused to update (forgot to add that into the above reason why they should be avoided at all costs!).