Regarding almost running out of battery:
What happens if you don't have the card and your phone used to 'start' the care dies or is turned off during the trip?
Javelin said:Keith Tanner said:- Brandon the FM engineer was very excited about the flat bottom and the active louvers he was looking at in the parking lot as the car cooled down after a drive. We need to get this thing on to a lift just because.
Patiently awaiting the Tesla-swapped Miata package...
ronholm said:What happens if you don't have the card and your phone used to 'start' the care dies or is turned off during the trip?
I believe the car will keep running until you turn it off, then you’ll want to charge that phone before you get to go anywhere. Or just keep your card in your wallet. I know you only have to swipe the card to start the car, not to keep it running.
We may have looked at Tesla swaps on Miatas a while back. I already have a plan. Send money.
Keith Tanner said:We may have looked at Tesla swaps on Miatas a while back. I already have a plan. Send money.
Can you provide an estimate on the dimensions of the pile of $ necessary? Also, the denomination of the bills these dimensions are based upon? EnquiringMinds want to know... ;)
Oh, and thanks so much Keith for starting and updating this thread. I know that we have never met, but based on your industry involvement, authorship, and history on this forum I have developed a level of respect and trust in your opinion that makes this much more meaningful than some random internet guy posting.
What are the chances that this car will see a track day?
I would think that filling the trunk of the Miata with $20 bills might just about do the trick for the electro Miata :) I'd love to build it but it's proving really hard to make the business case for why we should.
Chances are pretty low that this car will see a track day. It's Janel's little precious, I was lucky just to get the chance to take it to work. It's not like I don't have good alternatives. Then again, the M5 is under a "you do NOT take that car to the track" rule and it may have maybe seen a little bit.
I can't wait for the future, these things are pretty cool. Watching the Model S do hot rod drag week running mid 10's was awesome.
What's the maintenance schedule like? Air filters, battery coolant, brakes,...? Running costs? I'm guessing a lot of the Tesla nerds like to do their own maintenance. Seems like it'd be easy to avoid service for a longgg time without doing stuff like typical fluid changes or putting gas in it & regen assisted brakes. I wonder what well-maintained vs neglected used models look like.
Thanks for sharing the car(:
Keith Tanner said:mtn said:Keith, how easy is it to change from heavy regen to light regen? I'd be thinking that is something that I would want to change between city (heavy) and highway (light) on the fly.
Four taps: Settings -> Driving -> On -> Close. The last is optional, you could leave the screen up so you could switch back and forth with a single tap if you're micromanaging.
It's interesting to me that there's only "high" or "low" regen. I realize they've had to send someone out to 'tune' those two settings, but it seems like there shouldn't be a whole lot more complication to make that setting 'infinitely variable' between those two settings; and it seems like cruise should be able to default to it's own and then switch back to the user-designated setting when cruise is canceled, with a ramp inbetween.
About the regen - I haven't experienced this yet, but the amount of deceleration is also related to how ready the battery is to accept a charge. If you're running around with a full battery or the temps are not right, you may not have much regen. I may have to play with this a bit, see if I can get the car into a high regen situation with a full tank. Assuming it's accepting amps, you can control the amount of decel by playing with the pedal. Dropping to 0% "throttle" will give you the most decel, but 20% may give you a light bit of decel if that's less than is needed to maintain speed. You almost start treating the pedal as a speed potentiometer instead of a torque request like it is in a modern ICE. It's very easy to drive smoothly, it's just that the cruise can be a little abrupt at times.
I'm going to keep playing with the cruise system and see how it feels. Tying regen and cruise together is the sort of thing that could very well happen with an over the air update. I think that I'll also adapt to how the cruise reacts to various situations, so the car and I will learn each other. On the way home yesterday, the car was very concerned about an extremely large fifth wheel camper on the interstate, it didn't really want to pass it. I was able to override that with a bit of throttle (okay, it's not a throttle but I have to call it something) like I might on a normal cruise on occasion.
Maintenance: brake fluid flush and a new cabin air filter in two years. New AC dessicant bag in 6 years. Rotate tires. And the one interesting one - clean and lubricate the calipers every year/12,000 miles if you drive the car on salted winter roads. That may be because the brakes get a lot less use than on an ICE, but based on what I've seen of Miata brake problems over the years it's probably a good idea for everyone. I've just never noticed it called out in a maintenance schedule before.
Battery coolant is sealed for life and voids the warranty if you open if up. I suspect the car self-monitors a fair bit the way that gas cars monitor their powertrains, so to neglect a Tesla you'd have to ignore warnings on the big screen. The powertrain is under warranty for 8 years so there aren't very many that are out of warranty yet.
Janel took the car to work today. It was like watching a new driver go off on their first solo :) I have to get audio of that reverse noise, it's amazing.
I really really want a model X. I really really really can't afford it though.
Keith Tanner said:I have to get audio of that reverse noise, it's amazing.
Seems like it's probably this: https://youtu.be/QkRCto3EUAY?t=483 (should start at 8:03). Artificial noise made to warn pedestrians, active on all cars built after september 1st which yours was. Also has a noise at low speeds going forward but it seems basically impossible to hear from inside the car.
That's it, thank you. I love the sound, it's much cooler than something like a beep beep beep.
BTW, I tried to measure interior sound levels yesterday. The free app I was using doesn't have any smoothing so it's tough to get a good average, but it looked like low 70s while sitting at a light and mid 80s at 75 mph cruise. The stationary number is obviously more affected by other traffic than the Tesla. IIRC the ND RF Miatas are in the 94 dB range at cruise.
Ah, just figured out how to slow the sampling rate. I'll try again.
The car informed me last night that it will update to the new firmware soon. That will give us the ability to watch Netflix when the car is parked and connected to Wifi (something to do while Supercharging, I suppose) and it unlocks the summoning capability. I'm more interested in the small detail changes, like if the cruise behavior is modified at all.
Janel is currently driving in the car. I'm tempted to see if I can screw with the interior temp and set a speed limit and do other irresponsible things to her via the app. Looks like I can also track the car in real time via the app. She's currently doing 34 mph down Patterson road with the HVAC set to 70F and 249 miles of range in the tank.
Janel just called me from the car. She was very excited about using Bluetooth to make a phone call as well as the streaming music and the backup camera.
Have I mentioned that this vehicle is replacing a 2000 Grand Cherokee Laredo? The future is a long way away from that starting point. I mean, independent front suspension is a new thing here.
Keith Tanner said:
Battery coolant is sealed for life and voids the warranty if you open if up. I suspect the car self-monitors a fair bit the way that gas cars monitor their powertrains, so to neglect a Tesla you'd have to ignore warnings on the big screen. The powertrain is under warranty for 8 years so there aren't very many that are out of warranty yet.
Makes sense for the warranty. Having seen the entire cooling system laid out on a very large table, I'd say it's probably a little bit beyond even the most capable home mechanic's abilities to properly bleed.
Do you think there's a way to make the reverse noise play when moving forward too? Sounds way cooler than the forward PWS
Keith Tanner said:Janel just called me from the car. She was very excited about using Bluetooth to make a phone call as well as the streaming music and the backup camera.
Have I mentioned that this vehicle is replacing a 2000 Grand Cherokee Laredo? The future is a long way away from that starting point. I mean, independent front suspension is a new thing here.
I know how she feels. Just yesterday (while sitting in traffic due to an overturned box truck on the NYS Thruway) I finally set up the BT-phone connection in my 2017 minivan. Mostly because I wanted to listen to a stream off the web and while I was fiddling with it, I got a phone call. Through the stereo. Wow. So this is what hands-free calling is like, instead of just using my phone on Speaker.
Maybe the reverse noise is the difference in the gear mesh? Optimized for quiet forward motion, but less so when in reverse?
As dps214 pointed out, it's there as a pedestrian warning system. Brand new as of Sept 1st, which is why it wasn't in the car we test drove so long ago in August. Tesla just decided to make a spaceship noise instead of a Caterpillar heavy equipment noise. I'd love to have it in place when the car's going forward as well because it's just so cool sounding.
You guys are welcome to stop reading this anytime, I'm using this thread to protect those around me from my enthusiasm for learning about this car.
First, I looked up how to adjust the rear vents. Everyone in the car assumed that it was done via the touchscreen and we couldn't figure it out. Turns out it's 100% old school, you move the vents around by hand. Mike was the one sitting back there so he is king doofus.
Here's what the dashcam footage looks like. It stores a rolling hour of footage in 1 minute chunks and you can tell it to archive the last 10 minutes with the touch of (you guessed it) an icon on the touchscreen. If you pull the USB drive out, you get the full hour. It stores the front camera and two side cameras hidden in the side marker lights.
Left side cam. That's a pretty nice shot of that 4runner. Maybe we'll use the car to do some tracking shots for Flyin' Miata.
Front cam. If you're a fan of the film Vanishing Point, you may recognize that flat-topped mountain in the distance.
Right side cam. Yes, that's the same Toyota.
It seems to start rolling cameras as soon as it wakes up, so there's lots of footage of the inside of my garage as I screw around with the car and I can watch Janel trying to figure out if she's managed to unlock the driver's door before she gets in. It's pretty good video quality. I'm a little surprised it doesn't store the rear camera as well, but there you go.
Janel pre-cooled the car before she got in after work today. She reports that she could get used to that. Honestly, the ability to run the HVAC before you get in was one of the selling points I pitched to her. Turns out "never have to visit the gas station again because I hate getting gas" was stronger.
I really like this thread and I read every single post. Please keep posting away :)
Also, I want to live where you live ... I wish traffic was like that here.
I think its always filming if you have the Sentry Mode on? ... At least I have seen in the news where owners caught people hitting their car while parked, or vandalizing it on their cameras.
Well, that is Sunday at (checks filename) 17:57:42 on the edge of town - so not exactly peak traffic.
Janel sent me this picture earlier as she was sitting at a light at lunchtime. She was proud of having managed to make it play music - but it shows that there are indeed other cars in Grand Junction :) Although the orange and red lines on the map show that it's not a lot of traffic really.
Slippery said:I think its always filming if you have the Sentry Mode on? ... At least I have seen in the news were owners caught people hitting their car while parked, or vandalizing it on their cameras.
According to the manual, Sentry mode will monitor the cameras and start saving video if it sees suspicious activity. It also throws up a warning on the big screen that recording is activated. Then, if the miscreant escalates, it will set off the alarm and play music at top volume. Maybe the autonomous ones will also run and hide, I don't know. I'd like to think they will.
You need to turn on Sentry mode each time. (edit - thanks to mattm for pointing out this is not true)
Does it have a celebration mode like the model x where it freaks out and plays a time?
I think I saw some reference to a Christmas mode. I know it does have Romance Mode where the screen becomes a roaring fire and sexy music plays. There are a bunch of Easter eggs.
Ugh, I don't feel comfortable with the monitoring/recording when combined with words like 'cloud' or remote viewing :/ The maintenance sounds like a dream. I'd bet a lot of average consumers would love skipping a 3 month oil change, especially when they're not while-you-wait.
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