We've had the Tesla for a week now and we've already driven more than 1,100 kilometers in it! How? Where? When?
J and I sometimes like to just go for a drive for the fun of it. We did it in the Superb, we did it in the Octavia, so now it's Teselka's turn. Yes, J named our car Teselka (a cute little diminutive of "Tesla"), so that's officially her name now.
We're getting along better and better. I've already found a comfortable driving position, and I'm leaving roundabouts "the lazy way" (without indicating) less and less often. I've mastered the wipers, although I still complain about how inaccurate Tesla's navigation is – it struggles with road signs and doesn't always correctly recognize when speed limits read by the camera end. It isn't easy, but just like I used to edit roads in Waze that annoyed me because I drove them often, I'll find a way to sort out my most frequent routes here too. I just need a bit of time.
There were a few "mishaps", though. Take the rear right wheel rim, for example – in every car we've owned, we've scraped it against something at some point. In the Superb, two months before selling it, I damaged it so badly that I thought it was only fit to be replaced along with the tire... This time J lightly clipped a curb, but every cloud has a silver lining – thanks to that we found a shop selling touch-up paint in the color of our car's rims and body. And to avoid paying 10 euros for shipping, we bought an extra set of door seals for 40 euros. Why do we need them? More on that in the next paragraph. Back to the rim – it's no tragedy, we'll touch it up so the damage isn't visible. Deep down, though, I was hoping we'd get through the first week without mishaps like this.
Why did we buy extra seals for a car that's already pretty well soundproofed? Mainly so the door sills get less dirty. I'm convinced that thanks to them I'll get my trousers less dirty when getting into the car (although anyone who knows me knows I wouldn't worry about it too much). But J goes to the office every week and can't afford dirty trousers after getting out of the car. 40 euros instead of 10 for shipping – a rather questionable saving, but a useful one.
We also had mishaps while charging at GreenWay stations. It's generally a nice network with good coverage of Poland, but somehow we're not lucky with it. At the car wash on Wał Miedzeszyński, for the first time in my life, we found a queue for a fast charger that's in a convenient location for us. No harm done – we drove over to Atrium Promenada, where a 50 kW charger was available, which was enough for us (for now we suffer from so-called Range Anxiety and don't go below 30% battery). Unfortunately, I'd left my RFID card at home, and in the shopping center's car park the app decided to log me out. At the same time it claimed I was logged in, so I couldn't log back in. Luckily, logging in to J's account and then switching back to mine solved the problem. During a walk for coffee we topped up a bit of energy, and on the way back from our trip it turned out the charger on Wał Miedzeszyński was free, so we charged the car there to around 80%. Meanwhile a lady in an Enyaq RS pulled up, charged her car a bit and drove off. Next to that Skoda the Tesla looked comical, as if it were half a meter lower.
As for the car wash – a white car is beautiful, but dirt really clings to it. Attention! To get it clean at the touchless car wash, I had to sacrifice my window-cleaning cloth. Farewell, cloth! You served Teselka well! Sigh, I need a good wax and half a day off. I'll sort out the wax somehow, but the time… Maybe invest in a ceramic coating, or better yet PPF? We'll see.
At the GreenWay we met a white Tesla with a nice-looking spoiler. I already know how to order it, and that Tesla fits it at your home, so after my next paycheck – and I was supposed to be saving – I'll probably go for it.
That's it for this post. Finally, some numbers. Since the last post, J and I have driven 727 kilometers, using 124 kWh of energy, which gives about 17.1 kWh/100 km. Assuming we charge at 2.40 PLN per kWh, that works out to about 41 PLN/100 km. That's the equivalent of a fuel consumption of about 7.1 l/100 km – quite a reasonable result, considering that:
- we tested the top speed,
- about 30% of the route was motorways (half in Germany, half in Poland),
- we spent a lot of time playing around and testing the acceleration and the car's settings.
Today's mushroom-picking trip came in at 13.5 kWh/100 km (90 km driven there and back), which gives 32.4 PLN/100 km. With fuel at 5.80 PLN per liter (for 95 petrol), that's the equivalent of about 5.6 l/100 km. That's a very good result already. In the Octavia, which is super economical on suburban routes with its 1.5 TSI ACT mild-hybrid, we get around 5.5-6 l/100 km driving in a similar way. So it's pretty good. I'm hoping they'll open the charger at Lidl soon, because fast charging there costs 2 PLN/kWh, which would let us get down to about 27 PLN per 100 km (equivalent to 4.65 l/100 km).
The real range when charging from 80% to 20% hovers around 270-300 km, so a "road trip" range from 100% to 10% easily gives about 350 km.
All good.
The screenshot from the Tessie app is a bit misleading, because it shows the last 7 days, and in them:
- we used 22 kWh of free energy from Tesla (we still have 8 kWh left at the SuperCharger),
- we used 55 kWh of free energy from GreenWay (huge respect for that promotion!),
- fuel is calculated using these assumptions: 5.80 PLN per liter, the Octavia's average consumption – 7 l/100 km
