Game changer indeed! That's what convinced me to sign up for the tri-motor. 500 miles is greater range than most gas or diesel powered vehicles, and also makes it easy to plan finding a charger on a road trip.
I’m with you. I think all of these trucks will see a 50 to 75 mile range increase with the new batteries that are rumored to be on the horizon. I also believe these ranges are conservative. Especially knowing some people will need more range with towing. Well that’s at least my hope. I preorder the dual, only because my wife would kill me if tried to spend 70k on a truck. Lol
Yes, valid points and you can save $10,000.
I ordered a single motor and live up north. A gamble certainly but with other 2WD vehicles up here, I’ll take the risk. Besides, the RWD CT will have traction control. And I can alter the order I think once Tesla actually gets around to building the damned things. That and there may be another less costly AWD plug in utility vehicle out there that is better than a Tesla.
Using the full range signifies that you are inside the vehicle for about 4 hours every day. That is a sad life, if you ask me. What we need is fast charging.
How many times have you evacuated? Just curious if Is better to evacuate using a boat, instead?
Thank you for the informative response. Your experience helps out a lot!If you never do road trips or have a long commute, then range becomes less of a factor. However....
I bought my Tesla Model S70D in 2015. Since then, I've put 118,000 miles on mine. My work commute is 50 miles round trip. My wife's relatives live near Kansas City, KS - so we or I have road tripped it from the Dallas to KC several times. New, my car had a rated range of 240 miles, which has taken a slight hit over 5 yrs and 118K miles, so I now have a rated range of about 220 miles. I planned on 150-140 miles of real range at freeway speeds and varied weather conditions. Due to battery capacity, I had to stay on main interstate routes that included the 4 superchargers that I needed to get there (or back). I typically charged to 100% before the trip and at 2 of the 4 superchargers. I would pull in to some of the supercharges with 5% range left in my battery (easy to do with Tesla's real-time range estimator). It would take 70-80 minutes to charge from 5%-100%. I didn't mind this type of road trip, since it was free fuel and a comfortable drive - but my wife would rather take her Honda Pilot and chose a shorter, highway route. With the tri-motor CT, I can take her same route, charge once and not have to charge to 100%. This will result in the same trip time as her ICE car. This creates route-freedom that I've never experienced before.
Additionally, it's best to extend the battery life of the car by keeping the battery charged between 30%-70% of capacity. My daily charged is to 80% to make sure I can drive back and forth to work, and out to dinner after (this includes phantom drain during parking time at work). I've rarely experienced "range anxiety" with my car in the 5 years that I've owned it. Charging at home is awesome! But, if I have 500+ mile range, I can easily stay in that 30%-70% charge sweet spot for everything but my longest drive.
Lastly, buying my Model S at the time was a big mental stretch. I'm not a car guy and at the time the 70D cost me as much as my previous 3 cars combined! Yikes! However, I can soon buy a Tesla that cost as much as my 2015 Model S, but is almost twice as quick from 0-60, has more than twice the range, air ride suspension, can carry a crap load more, and is impervious to door dings. The choice of the tri-motor was easy for me. In closing, Need and Want are two different things, but "Want" has won out in my case.
