Model S P85
On Friday, I wrote about my experience dropping my Model X, Pensive, off for service. In-person conversations I've had since have been around the loaner car itself, which is surprisingly bad, so I figured a dedicated review was in order.
The Model S provides a much lower seating position than the Model X, it feels more natural to me given the performance-sedan focus, but at 34 weeks pregnant with twins, it means my wife has a bit of trouble getting in and out, and once in, she can't reach the door to close it. Unlike newer model Teslas, this pre-facelift S lacks the facility to open and close doors from the console or keyfob, which means there's no work-around for this ergonomic short-coming. Unlike the Model X, there are no storage spots inside the front doors, and I can see both pros and cons to the long central channel which can protected a small bag from sliding, but would make smaller items hareder to store and access on their own.
The Model S has its cruise-control and signalling stocks swapped compared to the Model X, leading me to mistakenly flash high-beams behind an 18-wheeler the first time I tried to engage Autopilot. It turns out the car didn't have Autopilot, or even traffic-aware cruise control, so the basic cruise control stock was mostly an annoyance to remind me that I was not in my car. The central screen was in need of a cleaning, with a sandy, sticky, grime over much of it, and the left thumb wheel was mis-aligned and wouldn't scroll, leaving the sound setting stuck on mute. (It could be worse, had this been a different car, and it had been stuck playing talk radio the whole time.) The driver's instrument cluster has a much more efficient display, showing a spedometer and power-usage on the left and right halves of a circle filling the central section of the display. This meant that the power-usage was visible, even without using the widget in one of the extreme sides; and it also meant that the speed was visible even when the steering wheel occluded the digital read-out.
The car initially feals fast; from the start, the initial power feels faster than my Model X 100D; but the car has trouble laying down that power and after an initial thrust you feel like the car should be going much faster than it is. 0-60 was just over six seconds when I tested an actual sprint, slower than my WRX, with the principal issue being tire slippage to a degree that the traction control would issue warnings.
The car doesn't fit our three seats across the rear, but does provide a reading light with a fun button for toddlers to push as they're buckled-in or getting-out of the car. With only one car seat and a pregnant passenger, I found putting the car seat behind the driver's seat provided even better leg-room than the Model X, but required going through the passenger-side rear door since the rear driver-side door did not consistently open. Even though the car did not feature the automatic opening-and-closing of newer Tesla's the acutal locks and latches are apparently still controlled in the same manner, and the door handles only trigger a signal that tells the computer to open the car. The signal from the rear handle didn't seem to trigger the un-latch command consistently. Putting your foot on the break and trying to shift into drive or reverse might sometimes take upwards of a minute as well before the car acknowledged the direction, which was quite frustrating. There was no brake-hold which meant holding your foot on the brake at long lights or switching the gear into park; I'm surprised that what should have been a simple software option wasn't implemented, but there seemed to be more of a disconnect between the breaks and the central computer than in newer cars (where putting your foot on both pedals appears to cut the accelerator, unlike in this Model S).
Pros
Auto windshield wipers work better than on the Model X
Rear seat has reading light for toddlers to turn-on-and-off
Screetching from rear tires punctuates sounds of silence on long drives
Cons
Charge port frequently opens when driving, although the car thinks it's closed
Rear door doesn't always open
Auto-present door handles doesn't always work
Shifting into gear (drive/reverse) from park doesn't always work
Left scroll-wheel doesn't work; no way of setting volume
Left mirror has physical damage. It loses its position when un-folding
There's essentially no tread on the rear tires. It takes a bit more than 6 seconds to do 0-60 because of wheel spin, and stopping distance is harmed.
Too-low for a pregnant woman to close her own door from inside the car
Doesn't fit two infant carriers, a rear-facing car seat, and two 6' passengers