Tesla is one of the most famous (and some would even say notorious) car companies in the world, but nobody can argue against the standard of quality that Tesla has put forth over the several years that it has been in operation. Tesla cars offer many advantages over a conventional automobile.
If you’re buying a Tesla, there are several aspects of the car design that you should consider. Some of these factors are major benefits, while others might be a dealbreaker depending on your lifestyle and what you want out of your vehicle. Keep reading to learn more about the things you should consider before buying a Tesla (and how to get 1000 free supercharger miles).
The Tesla Model 3 Is the Safest Car in the World
Regardless of who you’re planning on driving around in your car, safety is paramount. Anybody who gets in a vehicle with you deserves the best in safety protocols on the road. This is one area where Tesla stands out above other car companies. According to many industry standards, Tesla’s Model 3 is widely regarded as the safest car on the planet. (Source: Inside EVs)
Here are some of the reasons that the Tesla Model 3 (and other Tesla cars) have such a high safety standard:
- According to the government’s New Car Assessment Program, the Tesla Model 3 has the lowest probability of injury in a wreck scenario of any other vehicle.
- The Tesla Model 3 has a low center of gravity, which makes it less likely to flip (or expel a passenger) in the event of an accident.
- The Tesla Model 3 contains fire isolation technology. In the rare event of a battery ignition, the fire is contained to a small area of the car and is less likely to envelop the cabin.
- The trunk located in the front of the Tesla Model 3 acts as a shock absorber, while most conventional vehicles contain a heavy engine in the front that can either crush the car’s cabin or catch on fire. Tesla engineers call this “the crumple zone,” and it not only protects the passengers of a Tesla, but it also lessens impact damage to anything the car hits.
- Tesla cars feature a “springy” hood that bounces objects off of it rather than being crushed or thrown back against the windshield. This lessens the incidence of potential damage to passengers in the front seat. (Source: Inverse)
- Because the Tesla vehicle lines do not contain a combustion engine involving highly volatile gasoline, this removes many fire safety risks from the vehicle.
- Stiffer pillars in the construction of the Tesla automobile frame mean that it is difficult for crash impacts to influence the interior of the cabin.
- Tesla cars feature numerous sensors integrated all across the vehicle’s systems, which allow the vehicle to warn drivers when they get too close to an obstacle and even automatically brake the vehicle if necessary. This is a major influence on reducing crashes overall.
Safety is an important feature in a car that is important to drivers no matter how they drive or who they are, so it’s definitely something to consider if you’re thinking about buying a Tesla. You won’t be able to find a car with a better track record for safety on the road.
The Tesla is a Vehicle with Zero Emissions
No matter which model Tesla you purchase, you’re purchasing a zero-emissions car, which means that there are no harmful gases or other pollutants generated as the result of operating the Tesla. This is in direct contrast to traditional combustion engine-driven vehicles, where each can produce a staggering 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide gas per year. (Source: Environmental Protection Agency)
Human production of emissions gases through the use of combustion vehicles is one of the primary drivers of climate change in the 21st century. Climate change has already led to a wide range of abnormal storm activity, massive wildfires, and other environmental disasters, just in the past few decades.
By driving an electric vehicle like a Tesla, a person can make a huge difference in reducing the amount of emissions released into the air, slowing the negative impacts of climate change. This has led many countries to introduce strong government initiative programs to help phase out combustion vehicles to pave the way for electric vehicles to become the primary mode of transportation for the 21st century.
The Tesla is a 21st Century Vehicle That Uses Constantly Optimized Digital Software
One thing to keep in mind if you’re thinking of buying a Tesla is that these vehicles are technologically advanced. Most of Tesla’s operations performed through the use of a smart device (which essentially necessitates the use and operation of a smartphone or other smart device to control them efficiently). They are also constantly upgraded and updated as the Tesla network continues to take in driving data from each vehicle it pilots on the road.
Here are some of the benefits of Tesla’s digital software:
- The app associated with Tesla vehicles makes maintenance scheduling and other quality of life issues such as technical support very intuitive and easy to manage compared to the traditional process of having to seek out a reputable mechanic and then waiting to be fit into their repair schedule.
- Tesla’s constant software upgrades ensure that as the Tesla driving network becomes “smarter” with assimilated data, each Tesla car also assimilates this information and can operate more efficiently on the road.
- Tesla vehicles feature self-driving software. Therefore, while Tesla cars are not completely autonomous yet, Tesla’s system can take over almost all of the manual driving tasks traditionally performed by the driver. Tesla software also allows for an auto-parking ability as well as an auto lane change.
The fact that Tesla’s software generally updates automatically as it receives data from the network means that it’s easy to keep a Tesla up to date with the most accurate and efficient software available for it from the manufacturer.
Another advantage of Tesla’s state-of-the-art software is that as Tesla’s artificial intelligence learns more about driving patterns by being used by multiple Tesla drivers, it becomes more intelligent and able to react in driving situations.
Some People Who Drive a Tesla Have Access to Free Charging Stations
While many of the people who own and drive a Tesla have a charging station for their Tesla at home, it is possible to do the majority—or even all—of your Tesla’s charging at a public electric car charging station, which is available for free. Especially in areas where fuel is very high due to taxation or lack of resources, fueling a vehicle through a free public service can save an individual driver thousands of dollars over a year.
Recently, Tesla began phasing out free public access to its charging systems and began putting restrictions on how many miles of free charging per year that a Tesla is allowed to take on before being charged a small fee for additional charges. However, with lagging sales of newer Tesla models such as the Model S, drivers are again being given access to unrestricted free charging. (Source: Tech Crunch)
For some people, especially those who spend a lot of time behind the wheel, having access to this much free ‘fuel’ for their vehicle can greatly offset the initial charges associated with buying a Tesla (since they are still considered quite expensive).
How Do You Get 1000 Free Supercharger Miles?
Although your Tesla may not come with free supercharging, you can still earn it.
If you click a Tesla Owner’s ‘referral link’ just before you place your order for your new Tesla online, your new car will come with a complimentary 1000 free supercharger miles!
But what about when you use up all 1000 free supercharger miles? Well since you are now a Tesla Owner, you have your own Tesla Referral Link to share with future Tesla owners!
By signing into your Tesla Account online, or clicking the ‘loot’ button in the top right of your Tesla App, you can see your unique Tesla Referral Link. Share this link with people who you know are buying a Tesla, and when they click your link before ordering their Tesla online, you both get 1000 free supercharger miles!
There are no limits. Keep referring new Tesla Owners, keep getting free supercharging!
ps. If you are going to buy a Tesla, here is my referral link 😉
Can You Charge Your Tesla Without a Home Charger? Do You Need a House to Own a Tesla?
One of the major questions people ask when deciding whether to buy a Tesla is if you’re required to have a home with a garage to charge it in. A home charging station is one of the most convenient ways to make sure that your Tesla remains charged. However, people who live in apartment complexes and other situations where home charging isn’t possible can still maintain a Tesla.
However, it requires a few concessions:
- Tesla owners without a home charger have to plan how to keep their car charged up for the day. This requires greater attention to the location of third-party charging stations, adding time to their commute to allow for charging time and other scheduling considerations.
- Charging in public is easier when you batch errands. It’s a good idea to plan to charge a Tesla at a public charging station while going to the library or getting in some quick grocery shopping. Otherwise, Tesla owners will find themselves with a lot of unproductive time as they sit around waiting for their cars to charge.
- Charging is relatively slow. You’re only going to get around 16-19 miles per hour of charge on a public charging station, so charging your Tesla in public rather than on a home charging station can be most efficient if you don’t have to drive many miles daily. This kind of situation is better for people who have short daily commutes that are routine. (Source: Tesla Forums)
People Who Drive a Tesla Never Have to Use Gas Stations Again
Are you not a fan of nasty backwoods gas stations that are unkempt or quite possible the hangout for the local drug trade? Not many people are. One of the major benefits of going electric with your vehicle and buying a Tesla is that you don’t ever have to stop at a gas station again if you don’t want to.
As long as you make sure you already have your snacks and drinks with you and that you went to the bathroom before you left your home, driving an electric car means that you’ll never have to make a pit stop for gas at the gas station on your way to work (especially if you have a home charging station). You won’t need to stop for directions either—all Tesla vehicles come with integrated navigational systems. (Source: Evannex)
People dislike stopping at gas stations for a variety of reasons. Some people don’t like the smell of cheap hot food behind the counter or the grubby feel that some gas stations can get. Others don’t like having to stop when they’re in a hurry to get from one place to another or want to keep their daily purchases to a minimum. In any case, driving an electric car is a good way to ditch the gas station pit stop once and for all.
Tesla Vehicles Contain Cabin Overheat Protection
One of the benefits of the Tesla vehicle design is that it features a few different aspects designed to address overheating in the cabin. Overheating in the interior of a vehicle—especially if it is left stationary in very hot temperatures—is detrimental for a few reasons:
- Cabin overheating in vehicles contributes to the accidental death of hundreds of small children and animals every year due to heat exposure when temperatures on the car’s interior rise to lethal levels.
- Cabin overheating leads to the faster degradation of the materials used in the interior of the car, such as leather, vinyl, metal, and plastics. These materials are subject to both dry rot and structural damage due to expansion and contraction with fluctuating temperatures.
Tesla vehicles have two different climate control modes designed to help address scorching hot temperatures in the car cabin when the Tesla isn’t in use. The first is the traditional Cabin Overheat Protection, which (when activated) uses the car’s cooling system to ensure that the interior of the car never reaches over 105 degrees.
This keeps the car’s interior components protected from extremely high temperatures while also acting as a last resort emergency safety device to pretend the death of infants or pets accidentally left in the vehicle.
Recently Tesla also introduced a new climate control mode called Dog Mode that is specifically designed to keep pets comfortable while their owners run into a store quickly for an errand or similar situation. This climate control mode keeps the interior of the vehicle air-conditioned for pets while allowing the owner to lock people out of it. (Source: Car and Driver)
Tesla’s Dog Mode features a message on the car’s interior screen to indicate to potentially worried passers-by that the animals are air-conditioned and also has a phone prompt feature that tells the owner when the car’s battery is getting too low to sustain Dog Mode to get them to return to their car. For Tesla owners who like to bring their canine companion around with them everywhere, Dog Mode is a great fringe feature of the Tesla brand.
Tesla Vehicles Ditch the Traditional Car Key
For some people, losing their car keys—or at least temporarily misplacing them—is such a common occurrence it may as well be a way of life. For people like this, Tesla cars can be a major quality of life upgrade. Rather than operating based on an analog card, Tesla vehicles are controlled directly through the app on your smart device or smartphone. (Source: CNET)
Most people in the 21st century are attached to their smartphone like it’s a fifth limb, so it’s arguably much more difficult to leave home without your phone than it is to leave home without your wallet, keys, or glasses. So, if your phone is charged up and in your pocket, you always have your key ready to go when it’s time to drive your Tesla.
The fact that Tesla doesn’t operate with a standard key is also one of the car’s design features that makes it exceptionally difficult to steal, especially compared to traditional vehicles that can be easily hotwired manually through the car’s dash beneath the steering wheel.
Not only does Tesla’s keyless design make these expensive cars hard to steal, but there are also some aspects to this design that aid in its anti-theft features (Source: Inside EVs):
- GPS: The fact that every Tesla comes completely integrated with GPS tracking software means that no matter where in the world your Tesla ends up, Tesla technical support is probably going to be able to find it in a matter of minutes. Therefore, if a thief does somehow manage to steal your Tesla, they won’t be able to keep its location a secret long enough to steal it for good. Teslas have one of the highest recovery rates of any stolen vehicle.
- Sentry Mode: In addition to keyless operation allowed by smartphone operation, Tesla vehicles also come with a Sentry Mode, an anti-theft monitoring system that will alert the owner via their phone app if the activity occurs around the vehicle when the phone isn’t near it and will also begin recording any activity while displaying a message saying so. This is usually enough of a deterrent to prevent most thieves from even attempting to steal a Tesla.
- Pin pad access: Not only does the Tesla car require you to have your phone for start-up, but it also has a Pin to Drive start-up system where you have to insert your pin code into the car’s touch screen system to start it up.
While Tesla’s keyless smartphone system does require a person to have a smart device in their presence at all times and requires them to keep their smart device charged up for vehicle access, this isn’t that much of a stretch for many people in modern society.
After all, over 96% of Americans own a cellphone of some kind, and over 80% own a smartphone specifically. (Source: Pew Research) These numbers are only destined to increase, making a keyless smart entry the wave of the future when it comes to automobile design.
Tesla Vehicles Are Some of the Fastest Accelerating Cars in the World
Most people don’t necessarily associate the name Tesla with speed, but Tesla cars can stand up to some of the highest quality speed vehicles in the industry, such as Lamborghinis or Ferraris, with their acceleration speed, especially when in Ludicrous Mode and Insane Mode. (Source: Steer) These driving modes increase acceleration speed to 2.5 and 3.5 seconds to sixty miles-per-hour, respectively.
So what does this mean for consumers? For one thing, it means that people who want a serious speed demon of a car with other quality of life amenities such as self-driving capability and powerful safety features should look to a Tesla before flashier sports cars. These tech wonders can drive just as fast as the big boys of the conventional automobile industry but have more high-tech systems and software.
Teslas Feature Intuitive Touch Screen Technology
Rather than providing drivers with a dashboard full of instrument panels and analog controls to keep up with, Tesla features most of its driver controls through the use of a central input screen that features touch control technology.
For digital natives raised with touch screen technology, using the master controls on a Tesla will feel natural. For older users who haven’t had as much exposure to digital technology, the learning curve for figuring out the more nuanced controls on a Tesla can take some time unless you make a point to read the manual and go through the vehicle’s control systems after purchasing it.
However, as long as the driver is willing to commit to a touch screen set-up, this design reduces the rest of the dashboard’s inputs to two:
- The button to open the car’s glove box
- The button to activate the car’s hazard lights
For people who are easily overwhelmed by a large number of manual controls, this streamlined system can be easier to use once they get used to the differences. As with any new vehicle, the best way to get a handle on the controls is to experiment and read the instructions that come with the vehicle. Many of the more common mistakes that people make when learning how to operate their new Tesla can be avoided simply by reading the owner’s manual after you’ve purchased the car.
Another feature of Tesla’s touch screen is its size—the main touch screen in Tesla vehicles is a high-resolution seventeen-inch screen. (Source: Pocket Lint) This makes it much easier for users to control the vehicle via touch screen without having to strain to read text or see images on it. The screen’s quality is also important since so many of the vehicle’s controls go through it.
However, there is a major disadvantage to this central hub touch screen design. In some cases, there has been a glitch in previous iterations of the Tesla Model 3, where the touch screen stopped working due to a flash memory malfunction, and subsequently, the car could not be charged.
(Source: Business Insider)
The good news is that Tesla has a robust repair system that allows Tesla cars to be fixed through the main manufacturer, ensuring OEM parts and the highest repair standards. The downside is that repair times for Tesla vehicles can sometimes be prohibitively long, so it’s better to hope you don’t run across this potential glitch in the system.
Some Tesla Problems Can Be Repaired Remotely
Are you having a problem with your Tesla? An interesting feature of the Tesla vehicle is that all Tesla cars can receive technical support remotely via their networking with Tesla headquarters and technical support systems. For minor software glitches or other small repair issues, sometimes all it takes is a quick patch through technical support over the phone to get your vehicle up and running again.
Another option that Tesla owners have for repairs in comparison to traditional vehicles is remote manual repair operations. For those Tesla owners who are far from a designated Tesla repair station, there is often the option to have a roving Tesla technician come directly to your house to work on your Tesla right in your driveway.
While a dispatched technician might not be able to repair the Tesla on the spot if the problem turns out to be a hardware malfunction like a defective battery, often the repair will involve a software push or other digital repair, and this can usually be done right on the spot through the use of tech. This is significantly more convenient than having to wait on repairs through a conventional auto repair shop. (Source: Tesla)
Mobile support services aren’t available for all Tesla owners since they are restricted by geographical location. However, as Tesla vehicles become more popular, these technicians are becoming more commonly available, too. Tesla does have a bit of a reputation for being slow to complete larger mechanical repairs due to a lack of available techs. Everything is done through the manufacturer rather than with aftermarket parts, but their customer service is excellent.
Tesla Cars Are a Big Investment
When it comes to buying a Tesla, you’re not just making a major financial investment; you’re also agreeing to invest your time and energy into learning how these high-tech vehicles can function at their best. Whether this involves learning charging efficiency to make the most of your car’s electric ignition system or mastering navigation of the Tesla touch screen, there are many rewards in this vehicle for those who are willing to put effort into learning them.