Pumpkins, beer and Erik...

October 18, 2018

We usually take a trip to Southwestern Michigan in the Fall.  The leaves have changed to their bright reds, orange and yellows, and the apples are ripe and aplenty.  We are always on a search for the farm-stand pumpkin patch for a perfect carving pumpkin for Halloween.

Thursday, October 18 seemed perfect.  The weather was crisp cool and sunny.  A great chance to test Erik the Red's new software update (version 9) and to see how he behaves on the highways and back roads.

Charge to full the night prior of the drive meant waking up in the morning to 310 miles of range.  We were packed with coolers and anticipation by 8 AM.  I wanted to try the several new aspects of the software update that came over the air last week.  Among the changes are: 1) full 360 degree ghost images of vehicles around you, 2) blind-spot warning, 3) a new dash cam option using the front  camera, and 4) a bunch of layout modifications on the central monitor.  One of the benefits of the Tesla is the continuing upgrade capability of the vehicle - my car today is better and has more features than the day that I bought it.  And tomorrow will probably be better than today.

I often drive with Auto-Pilot engaged.  It requires confidence in the system, but makes driving very comfortable.  You need to maintain control and awareness of the whole environment, but it does reduce drive stress.  The drive did prove out the new vehicle awareness feature.


We snapped a photo of the monitor showing how many vehicles are monitored as we drove the interstate. In this view of our "Erik the Red" is colored, while the surrounding vehicles are ghost grey.  Ten vehicle types and positions are shown, all being networked around my car.  Speed and position being tracked in real time.   Pretty amazing.

We flew down the highway.  Note the posted speed limit of this portion of the tollway.  I kept up with traffic, but there was always the speed demon who needed to zoom past with abandon.

Michigan's speed limit is 70 mph.  This of course means actual speed is about 75 to 85 mph.  The Auto-Pilot behaved well 99% of the time.  There were two occurrences where a temporary (and momentary) speed reduction occurred.  I'm researching this with the Tesla Forum - Tesla owners who discuss almost everything Tesla.  More later when I learn more.


The day was great!  Our normal stops were made.  New places were visited and we did find a wonderful pumpkin farm stand.  But our first pumpkin farm stand proved a challenge.  But not the pumpkin prices.




A wagon full of oddly shaped giant pumpkins was just off the road after our apple stop.  It looked likely... until we got up close to the pumpkins.  The smallest pumpkin might have fit in the rear trunk, but hefting it into the car was not something I wished to do - 50 to 100 pounds.  While this would have been fun, we passed on this farm stand.




After a brief visit to Stover's for a "got to have" dried gourd, we were navigating to a Public House for refreshments.  As we sped past a sign for pumpkins, Beverly urged me to turn around and check it out.  A farm stand just off the country road on Rocky Weed Road (quaint).


A farm stand is an understatement though.  An enormous pumpkin patch with great prices on Rocky Weed Road in Berrien Springs was discovered - clearly a keeper.

We found our favorites and of course some small pumpkins for the kids and grand-children.  The quality was amazing and price and service truly great!








Then, onward to Baroda Michigan.  For those of you who like curiosities, Baroda Michigan is named after a city in India, I understand the name of the city in India has been changed to a more India-appropriate name, though.

We did find the Public House in Baroda, Michigan.  This is another off-spring of the Round Barn group of establishments.  Since we have been visiting Michigan over the last 35 years, the Round Barn Winery has become an expansive endeavor.  The winery, distillery. brewery, multiple tasting rooms and now, a restaurant are part of their offering.

Recommended for service, drink and food.  This will be another keeper.


A charge was needed now.  We have been to the St. Joseph Super Charger previously.  But this time (about 4 pm on Thursday afternoon) we drove in to an empty Super Charger.  We had the pick of the spaces.  We backed into 4A and started charging.  With no other Teslas, charge rates were quite good.  We stayed about 35 minutes.


A back Model 3 (rear motor version) and an older Model S arrived just as we were leaving.









After a visit and walk to the St. Joseph Light House pier, we started our return trip.  Except for the proverbial visit to Oink's Ice Cream stand in Bridgemen - a necessity.  Single scoops in a dish were the order!

Now the dash cam feature.

Back, safely at home, I removed the flash drive from the Model 3 and plugged it into the home computer.  I wanted to see what quality the dash cam provided.  This feature may prove to be a very promising alternative to a stand-alone dash camera.  All you need is a properly set up flash drive plugged into one of the two front USB ports.  Once inserted, it initializes a dash cam button on the monitor.   The system records continuously one hour of front view video capture.  Just hit the button and it will download to the flash drive the last ten minutes of the continuous video load.

Newer software updates record Front, Left, Right, and now Rear cameras. Pictures below are front, left and right images on a recent drive.

The quality seems fine.  Something to keep active and use as necessary.

A New Addition, First Adventure

April 1, 2016 Reservation Day

This was the day we made the down payment to reserve the opportunity to buy a Model 3 Tesla.  In early June, 2018 we were given the opportunity to design our Model 3. We really didn't start the design process in earnest until late June.  As part of the decision, we also needed to confirm that it would fit in Bay 2 of our garage (Bay 1 houses the Model S). Tesla kindly offered to drive out to our house with a rear wheel drive Model 3, which allowed us to both test drive the 3 and to "test fit the Model 3 in our garage". After more than two years of anticipation, and finally much soul searching for the right options, we finally locked in the choice. We took possession of our Model 3 Tesla in late August. Since this was our complete commitment to electric, we decided to make certain that our order was top notch. A performance version, all-wheel-drive, red exterior with white interior actually arrived earlier than expected.

August 30, 2018 - Delivery Day Delivery day convinced us that we made the right decision - clean lines, great visuals, and more speed and acceleration than expected, even though we knew the rated statistics. Christened Erik the Red, brother of our Model S, Nikola, This is clearly a fun car to drive!

White seats!

20" performance wheels and brakes

September 9, 2018 - Picnic Drive

Yesterday was our first real test for the new Tesla P3D (Performance/Model 3/Dual Motor) addition to the family. A family (Czechia side of the family) picnic was scheduled in Brookfield, Wisconsin. It was not a long drive (only 85 miles), but one that included plenty of highway driving. The maximum charge gave us 309 miles of range. The navigation system said we could make the round trip with 28% of range remaining.

Many happy picnickers!

Grand-daughter found the swings!

Grand-son found the leaves!

There are two Super Chargers on the route to Brookfield, but we did not need to use either of them. Even though we had an early start, traffic was heavy. I had to try out the quick start acceleration at least once during the drive. The 0 to 60 mph acceleration is rated at 3.5 seconds, and I’d guess we hit it. A true roller coaster feeling.

The Autopilot performed flawlessly. The ride to Brookfield was smooth. The picnic was very pleasant. Our return drive was equally smooth and comfortable. Great to have the long distance battery and performance options.

More adventures await!

A trip for the tiles...

August 22-23, 2018

Have you ever had one of those "material items" which, when you see it at a store, you consistently want to have it? The Motawi Tileworks (check out Motawi Tileworks) art tiles have been that for us. We finally planned a trip to Ann Arbor, Michigan to visit and tour the tileworks. Of course it would also mean a visit to the many Zingerman entities too! So an excursion that includes food and art tiles - a chance to take another Tesla trip. What could be better?

This was just a quick trip with one hotel overnight. I set the Tesla for a full charge (approximately 255 mile range on my Model S) overnight at home. We would start early on Wednesday morning (I guess 8:30 AM really isn't early) with a direct route to Ann Arbor. The navigation system says it required one charge for the 250 miles from home to Ann Arbor. That seemed reasonable.

The traffic was as expected. Pockets of congestion around Chicago. Summer also is the construction season, so expect lanes necked down and contests for merging. We got what we expected.

But the Auto Pilot is a blessing. For the majority of the highway journey, Auto Pilot was set and the road was consumed with little disruption. Even during the severe construction bottle-neck entering the state of Michigan, we traveled without fatigue from the 5 mile traffic crawl.

We arrived at the St. Joseph, Michigan Super Charger around noon (lost an hour due to the time zone change). Time for a required 30 minute charge, according to the navigation system - good for lunch too. After 45 minutes, we returned to the car - all three of us were filled.

I unplugged and was ready to depart when another Tesla Model S backed into the charging area.  But this one looked very unusual. A two-tone silver and grey painted Model S. According to the owner, this was a 2013 Model S with paint that was custom designed and one-of-a-kind.  It did look pleasing!


After an exchange of pleasantries, we pulled out to the Interstate, heading to Ann Arbor.  St. Joseph was approximately the half-way point.  The road was clear and smooth.  Traffic was relatively light.

We arrived at our hotel by late afternoon.  Ann Arbor, Michigan is the classic college town (University of Michigan).  Ann Arbor is over 100,000 in population, with the University of Michigan's undergraduate student population at around 29,000.   Classes had not yet begun so the town was "somewhat" calm.  We checked out the city scene and planned our following day stops.

One of our planned stops was at the Blom Meadworks.

At only three months old, this street-level establishment brewed and served meads and ciders.  Very refreshing, especially served with a cheese platter of Michigan;s finest.

We had dinner reservations at Zingerman's Roadhouse, which was only one mile from the hotel.  We discovered that Zingerman's was not only a restaurant, but a deli, bakery, creamery and coffee purveyor.  Their operations are scattered around Ann Arbor center and at the outskirts.












Dinner was mussels for an appetizer and splitting a slab of ribs for the main course.  Washed down with the local brews, of course.











We digested our meal during an evening Super Charge of the Tesla, located at a Meijer's Store outer parking lot.  Tesla has contracted with some Meijer Stores to co-locate their Super Charger in the outer parking lot of these stores.  There was also about 5 restaurants within easy walking distance of the charger.

We debated how long to charge, anticipating our explorations tomorrow and then our return trip home.  About 40 minutes of charge satisfied our needs.

After a good nights sleep we explored a bit in the morning before heading to Motawi Tileworks.

We planned time in the gallery before the tour.  And then selecting our treasures.  Motawi is located on the West side of Ann Arbor in an industrial park area.  Their owned clay supplier is a few miles away from their tile design and fabrication facility.  All I can say is a worthwhile visit!

Noel Motawi and mold-maker

Motawi is run by Noel Motawi.  She started as a one-person ceramic tile design and fabrication entity and now manages 40 people in their operations,  Noel stopped by our tour to say hi.

Original design and tile fabrication

Art tile fabrication is a heavy manual activity.  After the design is developed, molds are made, clay is prepped and mixed.  Then the clay is pressed, edged, waxed and fired.  The raw tile is then glazed with the planned materials to give it the color, finish and design.  The intricate designs are hand 'painted' with painter bulbs filled with glazing compounds of various colors.  The fired colors in no way resembles the painted color.

We had a difficult time choosing our treasures, but concluded with several pleasing art tiles.

A late lunch at Zingerman's Deli was next on the plan.  This was complicated by the fact that every street around Zingerman's Deli was being torn up.  A few zig-zags on the one-way streets and blocked by street closures finally brought us to food.  A Binny's Brooklyn Reuben  #48 was the plan.  Wonderful pumpernickel!

Last stop in Ann Arbor are the Zingerman's facilities outskirt operations.  This included a brief stop at the coffee shop, the candy store, the creamery and the bakery.  We could not pass up a gelato break before departure home.

24 hours after arriving in Ann Arbor, we were ready to start the trip to home.  The navigation system indicated two charges was necessary: one in Marshal and another in St. Joseph.  The reason two were required was that we did not start with a "full tank" like we did on day one.

About 60 minutes of travel brought us to the Super Charger in Marshal, Michigan.  The navigation showed the charger immediately off the highway.  We turned off the Interstate and looked for the Tesla chargers.  A hotel a short distance down the road looked like the right place for a Tesla charger.  But it was not there.  We turned back toward the highway to search its location out.  The only commercial entities were a fast food restaurant and a Citco gas station.

Beverly commented that it certainly wouldn't be the gas station.

But there it was on the edge of the Citco station.  Now, co-habitation with a fossil fuel is not something I have seen before.  A quick 20 minute charge gave us enough to proceed.


We hopped back on the Interstate to St. Joseph for a battery charge and a planned dinner.


To our surprise, when we arrived at the St. Joseph Super Charger, two new Model 3s were parked charging.  The Midwest has been slow in delivering the Tesla Model 3, and this was two of the four 3s that we have seen on the road.


More on Model 3 in my next posting.

They were gone when we returned from dinner - our Tesla was all charged and ready to go home.  Except for one more stop.

We planned to stop at the farm market in Sawyer, Michigan, a favorite place for fruits and vegetables of Michigan.  Five pounds of blueberries, 3 varieties of plums, Red Haven free-stone peaches, Ginger apples and a squash satisfied our buy need.

Next stop - home.  Traffic was moderate.  Michigan has a posted speed limit of 70 mph, which is surpassed by most.  The Chicago-land posted speed limit is 55 mph and clearly no one follows this.  So the trip home was fast.

The journey was 600.6 miles, door-to-door.  We consumed a total of 184.4 Kwh of energy at a rate of 307 Wh/mile.   This is very consistent with the long-term consumption rate.  All electricity "purchased" on the road was free.  No glitches or concerns. A wonderful trip!

First anxiety, then understanding...

We haven't added to the Tesla Trips blog in a while, but that does not mean that the Tesla Model S has not been used.  We have also been debating the disposition of our Model 3 reservation for the last few weeks, now that Tesla has started to produce the all-wheel drive version.  Beverly played with the "design your own" vehicle a few days ago and cranked it up to the top of the line - impressive in features and price.  Still deciding...

But this was not the reason to add to the blog.

Yesterday we took another short day-trip to Milwaukee to re-connect with relatives.  And eat.  I had prepped the Model S the prior day to charge it to maximum.  I had also set the Trip Management feature to on so that it would be 'more efficient'.  With an after breakfast start, we would be set to go.

I had become accustomed to a maximum mileage range for our vehicle at 235 miles since we had taken ownership, now two years ago.  To my surprise when we hopped in the car, the mileage range was now 255 miles.  An 8.5% increase in miles.  I assumed that this change was as a result of the periodic software updates that occur.  I still need to inquire of exactly when and what accomplished this.  The next trip to Tesla may provide this information.

With a grin on my face, we started the trip.  Its usually an 85 mile one-way trip, and with normal driving around the area, we expected a need to re-charge at one of the Super Chargers along the route.  Last time we were in Milwaukee, we used the second, closer-to-Milwaukee Super Charger.  The continued expansion of Super Chargers is a great feature.

One-half mile into the trip I became quietly puzzled.  After two years of driving the Tesla, the benefits of the regenerative braking system does not go unnoticed.  Normally, when a Tesla driver speeds down the road (say 40 mph) and sees a stop sign in the distance, they time the accelerator pad release to coast and let the motor's regenerative system slow them down, pumping more energy back into the batteries.  A fully working regenerative braking system can dramatically slow down the car, making use of the disc brakes almost minimal.

My puzzlement was because I actually had to use the brakes hard to stop, as a normal "fossil" Internal Combustion Engine vehicle.  I looked at the dash display and noticed that the orange dashed lines were being displayed on the on the regenerative quadrant section of the KW energy dial.  This was not normal.  The weather was warm (80 degrees F), so the batteries were warmed enough to take energy.  So what was going on?  Not the best thing to think as you start a trip.  At the next red light, we opened up the Manual on the car's center display.  A few touches to the screen directed us to the Battery section.  Beverly navigated to Regenerative Braking.  The answer was there.

When a battery is full, there is just no place to put the additional energy that is derived from the vehicle (and motor) slowing down.  So the benefit of the regenerative brake was not there.  I had to use the "old disc brake" system until my batteries were somewhat charge depleted.  This actually took about 10 miles of driving before the normal regenerative system came back. I said that this made sense and that I probably should have thought of this from the beginning.

The trip continued with a sense of satisfaction.  The features worked well, without my assistance.  We used the "Auto Pilot" assist feature for probably 70% of the drive.  Construction, which narrowed the lanes to minimal driving lanes, necessitated a few miles of real driving.  But the ease of Auto Pilot makes driving a Tesla very comfortable.

A pleasant drive. Weather was picture perfect.  Great company upon arrival. Too much food.

We started our return trip early in the evening, expecting to need to recharge to make it back home.  But to our pleasant surprise, the navigation system indicated that we would still have 12% charge when we reached home.  No need to recharge - a first for the Milwaukee run.

In the end, there was 14% charge (39 estimated mile range available) left when we pulled into the garage.

Now to get technical.  We had driven 190.4 miles during the trip, consuming 56 KW, at a rate of 294 KW/mile.  Of note, since we originally picked up the car, we have been, on average, consuming energy at the rate of 305 KW/mile, for a total of 5120.7 KW consumed.  Our electric supplier is happy.  But since we charge at home only during the evening when the electric costs are reduced, we have done alright.  The shift to the hourly rate electric charge was a positive move.  Charging at the Tesla Super Charger is free.

That's all for now.  Another Tesla trip planned on Saturday.  Who knows what new things will turn up?

Visiting the kid sister...

February 8, 2018

We've had our reservation for a Tesla Model 3 since April 2017 .  We've followed the press articles on the Model 3 production rate ramp-ups and challenges.  We've viewed countless YouTube videos on the good, the bad, and the ecstatic about the new Model 3.  More recently, we've received emails from Tesla about configuring our future Model 3.  Our plan is for an all-wheel drive, longer drive capacity model, which means projected availability in mid-2018.

Earlier this week, we received an invite from the new "gold coast", downtown Chicago Tesla sales office or gallery.  Just off Chicago's Magnificent Mile shopping district, the Chicago Rush Street sales office was opened in late 2017.  The invitation was to get a hands-on preview of the new Model 3.  Even though it was on short notice, why not go?

Chicago had been suffering under heavy snowfall since the beginning of the week, and the Tesla preview was on a Thursday evening with more heavy snow predicted.  A good opportunity to winter drive our Model S (Nikola) to the venue under snow-packed roads.  Plan ahead for a long drive there and back home.

We planned to depart at 5 PM for a program start of 6:30 PM (this allowed a 50% time margin).  We started our drive just as the snow was also to begin.  An expected road crawl started almost immediately - a great use of the Autopilot capability though! It is amazing how slow crawls become easy with Autopilot.  Our navigation system worked flawlessly, guiding us to the convenient parking ramp next to the showroom entrance.  Up the parking ramp we passed a dozen Tesla Supercharger spaces, all filled with hungry Teslas.

We arrived about 6:40 PM and saw the showroom already filled with about 100 anxious Tesla devotees.  The sales office was tastefully presented and an abundant Tesla staff dressed in coordinated Model 3 T-shirts, black pants and black sport coats assisted the interested crowd.  Drinks were plentiful, as well as hors d'oeuvres served by staff.  You could touch and sit in the Model X, Model S and the featured Model 3, but no test drives were offered.

A line to sit behind the wheel of the Model 3 had already formed, so we joined them. While waiting we captured a few shots of the red Model 3 that they displayed.





The rear trunk did not have the button-activated closure (cost saving from the Model S) but was ample in volume, including a covered lower storage compartment, similar to the Model S.

Driver side overhead shot.

We tried the new door handles.  Since they do not present themselves to the occupant (as is on the Model S and X), some criticism has been voiced.  The technique is to push in with your thumb and pull out the handle with your remaining fingers.  A few practice attempts made the process easy.

  

The interior was clean and uncluttered.  But the 15" landscape presented monitor was very busy.  Some have criticized the position of the display for basic speed information - a matter of getting accustomed to it.  The ventilation control was very elegant.

Two neophytes trying to discover where things are in the vehicle.

The front trunk "Frunk" was spacious.  The dual-motor version will have a smaller frunk.

Concept drawing of the Model 3.

Toasting to the "kid sister" Model 3...

A pleasant drive home (only 35 minutes ended the day with an experience enjoyed.