A week ago, we visited the Tesla showroom in West Palm Beach (not in the part of town that is being gold-plated by Stephen Ross, but in a shabby “functional” area that includes Ferrari and Mercedes dealers as well as endless strip malls) to look at the Tesla Y L. Our 11-year-old was immediately sold on both the front and rear screens. He particularly enjoyed being able to adjust the front right seat while sitting in the 2nd row. The power folding 2nd- and 3rd-row seats are kind of cool.
For transporting four people, the luggage capacity is nowhere near what a minivan offers, but is still substantial. With four people plus a dog, though, the 2nd row becomes tight. A 50 lb. Canine-American could perhaps sit between the two 2nd-row seats, but it is nothing like the comfort of being up on the minivan’s 2nd-row bench (ChatGPT says that the Odyssey is about 14″ wider on the 2nd-row bench, at hip level, vs. the Tesla Y (non-L) 2nd-row bench). I’ve always disliked the Tesla interiors, including the seats and especially the “vegan leather”, but the grandma that we brought along pronounced that 2nd-row Tesla seat was more comfortable than her perch in the Honda Odyssey.
The car is substantially back-ordered. The folks who work in the West Palm Beach showroom, plainly not on commission since they weren’t interested in talking to us, said that they already had 700 customers who had ordered and were waiting. Delivery is now promised (sort of) for January. The Launch edition remains a bad choice for Floridians due to the 10% range penalty from dragging around a useless second motor. Our last snow was in 1977 so the AWD isn’t needed. Acceleration any faster than a 1981 Corvette (0-60 in 9.2 seconds) isn’t required when the roads are jammed (pretty much always, as soon as one gets south of the DJT airport). The staff at the showroom said that the Launch edition was “almost sold out” so perhaps there is hope for a “premium RWD Y L” (there already is a “premium RWD Y” at $4,000 less than the AWD Y and with 357 miles of range vs. 327; the Launch Y L AWD is at 332 miles so a Y L RWD with the same battery should perhaps hit 360 miles of range when brand new?).
We’re in a strange situation, I think, with the self-driving hardware. Tesla says that AI5 won’t be in cars for a while because they need the chips, which Samsung says they’re already fabbing, for “Optimus and our supercomputer clusters.” AI5 seems to have disappeared from the news even faster than Graham Platner, but I am pretty sure that if I (a) wait for the Y L RWD to become available, and (b) order a Y L RWD on the first day of availability that it will be delivered with HW4 exactly one day before Tesla switches all of the cars over to AI5.
I thought we recently understood that you were on track to purchase everyone in the family a renewable gasoline (mother earth will make more!) consuming Corvette ZR1X Minivan (with personal drivers where required)? Are you now considering purchasing a feeble electric car manufactured by a certified Right-wing Nazi Fascist for some crazy reason?