The ‘going electric’ will be different blogs from my usual beat. Not only because they will not be related (directly) to software development, but also because they are opinionated and personal reports; editorials about switching over to an electric car. They will list my personal joys and annoyances about the switch, but I’ll try to be fair and balanced.

Real life range in the fall

The weather is getting colder, it is now around freezing in the morning, and I already start to notice serious differences in predicted and actual range. Charged to 85% my Model S75D has a predicted range of 341 km. But after I drove to work this morning, which is a distance of 92 km, the remaining range was 217 km.

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The ‘going electric’ will be different blogs from my usual beat. Not only because they will not be related (directly) to software development, but also because they are opinionated and personal reports; editorials about switching over to an electric car. They will list my personal joys and annoyances about the switch, but I’ll try to be fair and balanced.

Delivery

The delivery is fun with the unveiling process, where they remove an actual veil from the car. You get a quick run through of the basics, but since you also are a bit overwhelmed by the fact that you’re buying a new car, you follow suit. In retrospect, I would have liked a bit of time alone with the car, so I could inspect it, run my finger over all the gaps and see if they are ok. But they are definitely trying to get you on your way. “You really like to get going, don’t you?”… Hm, no, not really.

But after listening to YouTube for 2.5 years I have a pretty good idea on how to drive the car; looky there… that right pedal makes it move. And next to it is the stop thingy. I’ll be fine. But it actually is that simple. There is no need to light a fire anywhere, so no start button to press. But also no reassuring vrooooommm that the system works and is ready, and that is somewhat eerie; sit, press brake, push down the drive direction selector, press the pedal and off you go.

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The ‘going electric’ will be different blogs from my usual beat. Not only because they will not be related (directly) to software development, but also because they are opinionated and personal reports; editorials about switching over to an electric car. They will list my personal joys and annoyances about the switch, but I’ll try to be fair and balanced. Oh, and this first one will be longer, so I’ll include chapters and pictures. 🙂

Pre-prelude

I’m a nerd, always have been. In primary school I was ridiculed because my fantasy sometimes got the better of me. Luckily nowadays nerds are cool, because people need nerds to make their gadgets work, so the world became a better place for me. But that could become a whole separate post. What matters is that technology always had my interest; I like spaceships, watch science fiction, and dreamt of flying on the Enterprise. But also more down to earth tech like cars and trains always had an appeal. Not in a way that I had posters of them on the wall, but those big American trains… As an adult, whenever I found a nice image, it was included in my set of rotating desktop wallpapers.

Besides beautiful images on my desktop, I read a weekly car magazine to know more about cars. Because, you know, supercars have a tendency to be totally unpractical. One of my favourite brands is Aston Martin, because they look good and actually are usable.

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