10 Things I Don’t Like About My Tesla
by someone who likes his Tesla very much
Let’s begin by saying I love my 2023 Tesla Y, Long Range. It’s the smartest, fastest, most comfortable car I’ve ever had.
Over my decades of driving, I’ve owned a Cadillac, a Saturn, a Nissan, a Camaro SS, a Ford hybrid, a Mercedes c-class and now this baby. I didn’t think I’d go electric so quickly but here I am.
I don’t have charging at home or at “work.” I am 100% supercharging.
There are lots of reasons to love this car, but here are a few I don’t love as we head into my third month of driving the thing.
1. The door handles. I bought this mostly to drive Uber & Lyft on the side to help ends meet. The biggest problem people who have never been in a Tesla have is they don’t know how to open the door — both inside and outside. I feel Elon wanted to reinvent so many aspects of cars but the door handles? Leave em be.
2. The Frunk. Having a trunk in the front is great. I put a jacket in there, a pair of jeans, snacks and a blanket. Things I probably won’t need, but they’re nice to have in a pinch. This Frunk is flimsy. You think you should slam it, but if you do that you might break it. Also, it opens from various ways inside the car and even via the app, but it doesnt have a motorized way to close like the trunk does. So you have to gently bring it down like it was a dainty lil thing. Seems chincy.
3. The paint and wax seem second rate. If you see an overly-shiny Tesla it’s because someone laid out a few grand to get a ceramic wax on it. Some people do a nice wrap. They look fantastic either way but they only last a few years and then you’ve gotta do it again. Teslas are Elon’s calling card more than anything else making him money, he should do the ceramic thing to every car, standard, split the difference on the price with the people and have the shiniest rides on the streets. I paid $40k for my ride. Charge $41k.
4. No actual dashcam. This thing has a bunch of cameras. 7? 8? And there is a dashcam to make sure i’m not texting or sleeping when the Full Self Driving feature is on. It looks at my pupils to make sure im not making love to a super model as im driving through Downey. But there isn’t a dedicated camera to record inside the cabin while I’m driving. I understand Elon wants to get into the robot taxi business and he has little love for us peons who have to work two (or three) jobs to make it, but Teslas are fantastic for Ubering and it seems silly to have to buy a 9th camera for a car that already has so many built in.
5. The horn has no sensitivity. Either you’re blasting it like you’re pissed or you’re not making a sound. I’m not sure how often Elon is really driving cars as opposed to being chauffeured but sometimes you just wanna delicately tap the horn to allow the car in front of you to come in. That takes unnecessary skill and practice. This could be fixed so easily, The top of the horn could be for a polite beep, the bottom for a loud !#@$!@$.
6. Sentry mode drains your battery, defeating its own purpose. One of the best features of the car’s cameras is if you pay $10 more a month (which also gets you wifi and better maps, etc) is you can keep an eye on your car. So lets say you are in Hawaii and you park your Tesla in front of your house and every now and then you wanna see whats going on on the block. You can do that. But only for a few days. Sentry mode drains the battery as its constantly filming and recording and storing the data. After a few days your battery is at 20% and Sentry automatically turns off so when you get back with your golden brown tan you still have some juice to get to the supercharger. It’s ridiculous that it takes up that much of this vehicle’s enormous battery. This has to be a flaw.
7. The computer screen isn’t intuitive. Some people say I’m driving a microwave. In reality I’m in a computer-operated robot with a giant ipad in the center console. You’d think after a dozen trips to the same supercharger my vehicle would prompt me at 20% and ask “wanna go to that Burbank spot you seem to love? Here’s the route and here’s how much the rate is right now.” An even better prompt would say, “by the way, this other one in Glendale is open, is closer, and it’s cheaper.” But no, it’s like every day is day zero. I have to find it on the map, scroll past all the dumb slow expensive chargers, and find the one I always go to. Get it together, tech god.
8. The brake pedal is too soft. One of the best features about this car is the regenerative braking which slows down your car as soon as you lift your foot off the gas, I mean accelerator. But every now and then you do have to slam the brakes because of a Bozo in front of you. When I do punch the brake it should do more than react like a stoner who has to think about what you just said. It should screech to a stop. It doesn’t. And that’s kinda dangerous. Maybe this is a setting I need to adjust but you shouldnt have to do that.
9. The Full Self Driving isn’t 100% yet. I love the feature. It’s especially nice when I am on the freeway and I’m not totally sure which lane to be in to get to the proper interchange. But, talking about dangerous, it can be sometimes a bit too aggressive changing lanes, a bit too cozy to the cars that are parked, or often way to slow for the flow of traffic. Ofen I find myself looking in the rearview mirror hoping the guy behind me isn’t fuming.
10. The mixed messages about the battery. The icon that looks like an iphone battery that says 80 isn’t full. But Tesla says for the good of the life of the Y’s battery you should keep it between 20% at its lowest to 80% for its highest. If my iphone is at 80 and I have a charger nearby I charge it. But 80 is supposed to be the max? Or else what? The battery’s life expectancy drops significantly? Thats weird to me. And it always makes me feel like either I’m screwing up the battery if I charge it to 90 or that I should always be thinking about charging soon. Either this tech should improve or there needs to be a better way to express that 80 is actually full and 90 is Extra Full.
