Last Photo of Correcaminos (Click to enlarge) | Bye-Bye, Tesla!
January 19, 2024 Mark D Larsen |
Today I drove our Tesla Model 3, Correcaminos, on its last, short roadtrip to tell it… goodbye. Below is the usual annotated album, followed by an explanation of that farewell.
NOTE: You can click on the following photos to enlarge them, and the movies to play them.
Yes, as I said in the video up above, it is always bittersweet to let go of an older car and get a new one. Nonetheless, it was time to say farewell to the Model 3 after nearly 6 years and 78,737 miles. When we took delivery of it, and for the first few years of owning it, we were delighted with it, thinking it was the best car we’d ever owned. I have to state, however, that recent updates have caused us to sour on it.As readers will have undoubtedly noticed in my more recent roadtrip posts, the car has developed some sort of “Tourette Syndrome.” The updates have caused it to erratically, unpredictably, inexplicably phantom brake, ping-pong when trying to change lanes, freak out over merging traffic, and display red steering wheel alarms. I can only guess at the reasons. Perhaps programming changes to attempt to improve FSD also end up spilling into EAP and TACC. Maybe the elimination of radar and proximity sensors is to blame, because using only cameras simply does not suffice. It irks me greatly that I paid thousands for FSD, and then heard promises year after year after year that the definitive version I had already paid for would come to market. I seriously doubt that vaporware will ever dissipate the vapor. Fool me once, shame on me; fool me every year for 6 years… am I a friggin’ idiot?
I’ve already expressed how disappointed I was that Tesla refused to cover the electronic components in the car’s High Voltage Battery Service Panel under its High Voltage Battery Warranty —unlike other automakers. That was a very costly repair for something that Tesla knew was a problem with its charging hardware, but preferred to pass the literal buck on to consumers instead of issuing a recall to replace it. On the other hand, I find no fault with the battery itself: it has held up very well over the years and miles. I extrapolated its capacity every time I charged it, and am pleased to see that it still retains about 94.35% of its original capacity:
There are other aspects to Tesla’s EVs that I know most owners are very happy with, but that have started to irritate me. For example, I no longer deem it clever to display all kinds of cartoon images of the car and the traffic on the touchscreen. I mean, honestly, if you can’t see what is happening around you through the windows or in the mirrors, what purpose do such cartoons fill? One should not be looking over and down at the touchscreen when driving anyway, let alone depend upon it to know there’s a truck in your blind spot, or a garbage can near the curb, or a bicyclist in the road, or a stop sign up ahead. Yes, I will readily admit that it is useful to see actual camera images with guidelines when trying to park the car or back it up, but many of the other “wowza” features go overboard and serve no practical purpose to make driving safer. Indeed, it also irks me to have to click through layers of menus on the touchscreen just to, say, open the glovebox, adjust louvers, position the side mirrors or steering wheel, pop open the hood. And now the newest Teslas are even doing away with stalks for turn signals, shift levers, window wipers! So many of these programmed “functions” seem to have ignored the sage axiom: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”
Moreover the same holds true for other whiz-bang bells-and-whistles. Who needs their cars to make fart sounds or play jingle bells or include video games or blast out musical light shows? Yes, such “easter eggs” were unique and funny at first, but after a short while… they lose their charm. I wish Tesla’s programmers would have spent their time, talents, and energies fixing the phantom braking, ping-ponging, red steering wheel alarms, merging paranoia, and the FSD vaporware rather than playing around with razzle-dazzle features. I suspect that it was the company’s CEO who pushed for many of these ::cough:: “improvements” —just like his whimsical distractions with flamethrowers, tequila, short pants, hyperloops, tunnels, social media platforms, neurolinks, artificial intelligence, and now… robots!
Which leads me to state that the increasingly eccentric OCD ADHD NPD tendencies of E’loon Isherwell have become the proverbial straw on this camel’s back. I caught a glimpse of the writing on the wall many years ago when he bribed his way into Tesla and then orchestrated a hostile takeover of the company, but I assumed that, over time, he would mellow, settle down, and let the company’s superb engineers, designers, technicians, programmers make the major decisions to run the company without his interference. I was wrong! His behavior, attitudes, and personality disorders can no longer be dismissed, and I cannot in good conscience continue be supportive of what he is doing with the company —and in this world.
Consequently, for the last couple of years I have had my eye on a different EV, a 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 5 Limited AWD, and finally decided to take the plunge in this subsequent post. Will there be features in the Model 3 that I will miss? Of course, just like I still miss features in my previous LEAF. Ironically, the most obvious and important thing I will miss is not the car, but the Supercharger network. The good news, however, is that this year will initiate the transition to the universal J3400 (NACS) EV charging connectors in this country, so I expect that, before too long, I will once again be able to plug in at those Superchargers with my Ioniq 5 Limited. Fingers crossed!