I’ve owned a Tesla vehicle for over a year now. I love our current Model Y. If I had the money I would buy a Model 3 for myself. We still need a truck, and our Tundra will hopefully be with us for the rest of its (or my) life.

We first rented a Model Y in Denver in the summer of 2021. It was a great experience but I was a novice, which resulted in a lot of time wasted at Superchargers trying to charge to 100%, or midnight trips to the closest Supercharger to “fill up” for the next day. But the insane acceleration more than made up for all the negatives.

To me, an electric vehicle like a Tesla is what a car should be. It doesn’t have all the fluids, motors, gizmos and contraptions that an internal combustion engine (ICE) car has. The Tesla is basically a computer with wheels, and since I grew up more drawn to computers than to motors, Tesla is a more naturally fit for me.

In February of 2020 we bought a 1986 Volkswagen Cabriolet. It was a fun little convertible that I thought I could really take care of. I bought the big hardcover repair book for it, thinking that this would be my new hobby – really learning about cars by working on this classic auto. It was fun for while, doing oil changes and changing brake pads, but after a year I realized that I’m no mechanic. If I had a nice set of tools and a nice mentor then I might have pursued this interest further but at my age (and with young kids busy in all sorts of activities) I realized that this wasn’t the right time to dive into something that I really knew nothing about. The large, lingering oil stain in my garage is a testament to my (in)ability to repair vehicles.

So I started checking out Tesla’s in-depth. I never entertained the thought of buying one before because of the price. But when the price of Bitcoin/Ethtereum/Crypto started to skyrocket in late 2020 it gave me all sorts of crazy ideas, like buying a new car. So I started learning all I could about these vehicles. I joined a couple of Facebook groups and was overwhelmed with the jargon and details specific to electric cars. The videos on the Tesla website made it seem like the cars practically drive themselves, which was all the rationalization I needed; this was a car that Emma could use. She could drive it to school while the car’s bells and whistles help her out.

We were planning on a Denver trip in the summer of 2021. Having not went anywhere during the summer of 2020 due to the pandemic, we had a large-ish reserve of travel funds at our disposal. 2021 saw us going to not only Denver but to Universal Studios in Florida plus a few other weekend getaways. In hindsight they call this “revenge travel”, which is exactly how it felt for me. I wasn’t alone in this sentiment, which I discovered when I tried to book a rental car for the Denver trip. See, there weren’t any cars available through the major rental companies. These places basically had to sell off their inventory during the previous year just to stay solvent. No one was traveling, no one was renting cars. So when the country opened back up and Revenge Travel was in full tilt, there were a glut of vacationers chasing after a dearth of vehicles. Actually there were cars available to rent but the prices were as high as the Rocky Mountains. I didn’t want to pay $500 for a rental that was $98 just three months prior.

That’s when I learned about Turo, which is basically an AirBnB for cars. I learned that Turo had people renting out Teslas. This put my mind into “latch mode”, where I get fixated on something and can’t let it go lol. By some way we we’re going to be driving a Tesla for our Denver trip. “Hey, it’s more expensive than a regular car, but look at the gas savings!” This was the big rationalization for the rental. My brother from Alaska would be meeting us in Denver and he agreed to pay some for the rental. My loving wife agreed (or was coerced) with the rental and that was it. I was ecstatic, more pumped about the car rental than the actual trip.

We flew into Denver and took the tram to the parking garage, “by” the airport. I swear, the airport is closer to my town than it is to Denver. It’s waaaaay out there from the city. Anyway, we got to the garage, found the Tesla, marveled at how there’s no engine, just a front trunk (or “frunk”). We hoped in and then I had to google how to start the car. Since the owner set up my phone as a key, the car was already ready to go. We pulled silently out of the garage and I engaged what I thought was Autopilot. I thought the car would magically whisk us to the AirBnB without any further need for me to intervene. After sitting at a stop sign without moving, I got on google and had a crash course on the difference between Autopilot and Autosteer. Our car only had the basic Autosteer, which is basically cruise control that stays inside lane markers on the road.

I loved the car, this Model Y. Its interface was minimalist. There was no unnecessary dials, gauges, readouts, etc. Seriously, most ICE cars have a RPM dial. When have I ever looked at the RPM for an automatic transmission? Never. I did love my little Toyota Yaris in this regard. It had the big-ass speedometer in the middle of a dash. It had a digital clock. It had a fuel gauge. That was it. Very clean and simple.

We marveled at all the features that all first time Tesla drivers probably marvel at. Things like the theater, games, fireplace, fart machine, and the other little features that may seem trivial. But to me it was an immediate signal that this car company, its designers and coders care. Again, little things are one reason I like all the Toyotas I’ve owned. Hell my truck has six cupholders all within the drivers reach. Six! If a company can get the little things right then I assume (usually rightly) that they’ve gotten the big things correct.

The first lesson I learned is that just because you read the Y has 300 miles of range doesn’t mean that you will drive it 300 miles before charging. 300 is the best case, EPA-rated scenario, where you’re driving 55 mph on a flat road in 72 degree temperature with no climate control on. This is also if you have a brand new Y with a brand new battery. See, all lithium-ion batteries have degradation over time. Electric vehicle (EV) are expected to lose 10% of their power over the first year, with smaller losses over the remaining years. I see this with cellphones as well. It was weird to think that a car was comparable to a small consumer device in this regard.

The fuel gauge was just a little bar in the corner of the screen, like an iPhone. It was set to show miles remaining. It was disheartening to see the miles remaining dropping faster than the actual miles we were driving.

We drove everywhere around Denver, Red Rocks and up in the mountains. I was delighted to see the power bar actually increasing when we went down the mountain. The regenerative braking was actually putting power back into the battery.

All in all it was a fun trip and driving the Tesla was a good quarter of the fun. I actually didn’t discover the crazy-ass acceleration until the last day. We were on one of the major highways in the city and I had to speed up to get in front of a car next to us to make an exam. The kids all laughed at how quick we acceleration. It was like the first part of a roller coaster.

We went grocery shopping, like we always do when we stay at an AirBnB. It was neat to open the frunk and put all the groceries in there. Again, Tesla could have went the route of Poor Design and stuck some useless device or feature in the frunk. But they left it empty, so that the driver could decide what to put in there. It something that I really like about the whole Tesla experience. It’s the same with Apple devices, or even a place like Disney World. It’s this idea that it’s the experience that matters, and that you think you’re getting something basic. But as time goes on you see that they’ve already thought ahead and designed something so that when you need it, it’s there. Like the graphical user interface on an iPhone. It looks simple compared to a garish Android phone. But it contains all you need and nothing more. And all the features are easy to discover. I don’t mind paying more for devices and experiences when I can appreciate all the effort behind the scenes to make everything basic, simple and minimalist.

When the trip was over we bid adieu to the car at the garage. We just left in a spot and plugged it into the charger. We never did meet the owner. I locked the car using the app on my phone and we began the 100 mile tram ride back to the airport.

I thought that would be the end of our Tesla adventure. We came home and I drove our Chevy Traverse around like before. It was about a month later that my wife, for whatever reason, said that we should buy a Tesla. Happy Day. I didn’t know exactly how we would pay for it buy I know that if my wife is committed about something it always works out. I put down the $100 deposit and it said our car would be available around December of that year. So that gave me enough time to see how things played out, financially. If it turned out that we couldn’t get the car then we were only out $100.

Around the end of September we were driving around Springfield and my wife asked if CarMax still had a used Tesla for sale. She was open to the idea of getting a used one while we waited for the new one to be built. Again, she must have thought I needed to hear that! Or she really wanted a Tesla herself. Probably more likely to make me happy though. The CarMax place didn’t have a car but we checked Facebook Marketplace and there was a guy in Chatham selling a 2014 Model S Performance with a fairly new battery, for a decent price to boot. I called him and the next day we drove back over to Springfield to see it. It was a metallic brown sports package with 21″ tires and red calipers, PPF wrap to make it glossy, and a bunch of other modifications.

It was beautiful…

We did the test drive thingy and all agreed that it was a Tesla alright. I liked it but it still seemed a little impractical to have another car in the garage. My wife said that if we got it we would sell the Traverse and she would drive the Tesla to work. So the idea of selling one car to buy this new one, and that my wife would use it, made more sense to me. So we agreed to purchase it.

Since 2020 and 2021 were crazy times, we ended up selling both the Cabriolet and the Traverse for more than we paid for either of them. That helped pay for the Tesla. Also I had this cryptocurrency that was just sitting around. I’d been through all the ups and downs (and WAAAAAY ups and WAAAAY downs) with this stuff since around 2011 and hadn’t really done much with it. I figured that now was as good as any to cash some of it out for something tangible. We didn’t have any debt besides the house, and we had our six months of emergency savings. And a 2014 Tesla seemed like a good idea, because it wasn’t going to depreciate any more in value. At last I had something to show for my patience. So I sold some crypto and later learned the hard way about capital gains taxes later when tax season rolled around.

I drove my little Corolla over to Springfield to buy the Tesla. It was my wife’s birthday, and this was technically her car, since we were selling her Traverse. But it felt like my birthday ten times over when I finally got to drive the car by myself out on the highway. I was not prepared for the acceleration and speed. Mainly I was not prepared for the handling. This was a rear-wheel drive motor and there was basically no weight in the front end. So the car seemed to “lift up” when I would accelerate too much. But wow, I felt like a rockstar driving around in a Lamborghini.

I drove home and picked up the wife and kids and went for a joyride. Then we went and picked up Emma from her cross country practice. Everyone stopped and stared at this literal race car that pulled up. It was then that I felt so very self-conscious and self-aware. Up until this point I had never dreamed of having a vehicle as a status symbol. All my previous purchases were more practical cars. I did have a Pontiac Sunbird convertible for a while but that was hardly a sign of wealth. My previous main vehicle was a Toyota Yaris with 320,000 miles on it. So to me, a vehicle was something just to get from point A to point B in the cheapest possible way. I had never owned anything as ostentatious as a Tesla. So I was conflicted; I loved having my first “fast” car and I loved everything about it, technology-wise. But I’m also a private person. I don’t like attention. Well, I do like attention, like all people do. But I don’t like the wrong kind of attention. I don’t consider myself a car guy, so driving around in a sporty car around town made me a little uneasy. It’s like if you work in an office – you want to dress nice just to show everyone that you take yourself and your job seriously. But instead of wearing slacks and a collared shirt, you show up in a suit and you’re the only one dressed that way. You overshot what the effect you were going for.

The car was more than a vehicle. It was an experience. Once I got over the whole speed and looks aspect, I noticed that it was a solitary experience. The windows were tinted very dark, so there was this dulled view of the outside. Bright sunny days weren’t so bright inside the car. No one on the outside could see who was driving. That was actually a plus for me. I liked the anonymity. The big change was the lack of FM radio and the use of streaming audio. Before I owned this car I more or less listened to the radio all the time. I like the feeling of being connected to the outside world, the feeling that I wasn’t the only one listening to whatever talk show or song happened to be on the open airwaves. But this Tesla only had streaming audio. I loved being able to listen to just about any song on demand but it was lonely. I would listen halfway through a song, get out of the car, get back in later and the song would resume where it left off. It was like time was standing still.

Just getting in the car and backing out of the driveway was a unique feeling. The car has no engine so it’s completely quiet, creeping in reverse out into the streets. With the stereo playing it was almost as if the living room of my house detached from the foundation and slowly rolled out into the street and down the road. And there was this weird almost negative pressure in the car when the stereo was off. My wife’s ears and mine would hurt. We needed the stereo on in order to cancel out this pressure.

[I’m going to stop my Tesla story right here. I may type out the rest of it someday, but I’ve learned that creating posts with any sort of meaningful story for a wide audience is hard! It takes time and thought, and I’ve already committed a lot of my thoughts down on paper (or this blog, to be specific). I don’t feel a pressing need to continue on with this story, mainly because it not very interesting. I’ve also learned that a blog like this is a great way for me to sort out my ideas. Once I go to the effort to type it out and commit it to posterity, I don’t think about it again. So that’s therapeutic in a way.]