An interesting glimpse into the brave new world of electric cars…

It was 3:00am on a weekday night and I wasn’t sleeping. Too much caffeine, or maybe it was just the weather. Who knows. But there I was, seriously considering the potential effectiveness of counting sheep when my phone screen lit up with an unexpected message. “Lightning”, the given name of my Tesla Model 3, was alerting me that it had a software update. Staring at the message, seriously conflicted, I wanted to just dismiss it and deal with the update later….But there was this tiny urge, an urge that built up quickly to the justification that doing the update now made the most sense. Down the stairs I went, into the garage with phone in hand.

Welcome to life with a Tesla, complete with software updates at 3:00am.

The day I picked up my Tesla I had no idea what to expect. I had never owned any form of electric car and had only the knowledge imparted to me from the various sources on the internet I had managed to dig up. Very little what I had read online really talked about what it was like to actually live with an electric car as your primary vehicle. Plenty of folks had views that clearly indicated they were using their Tesla (and other makes of electric vehicles) as a commuter car or secondary transportation which really did not help me. I wanted to know what it was like to depend on a car like this for my daily commute, weekend road trips and everything in between!

Now that cars such as the Tesla Model 3 are finally being produced in significant numbers I wanted to give prospective new owners some idea of what they are getting into!

Charging into the Future

Let’s dispel some electric car myths right away. No, it does not take hours to charge your car, provided you supercharge. What’s supercharging? It’s just like a trip to the local gas station, you show up at a location (which your car can automatically navigate you to), there are these structures that look oddly like gas pumps but without any displays on them. They feature a plug that has a surprisingly short cable attached to it which you plug directly into your car. The best part about stopping at a supercharger is that you will be blown away by how fast your car will charge. Superchargers push energy into your car’s battery as fast as it can take it so it’s not unusual to see over a hundred miles of range added in under 15 minutes! Charging up at a supercharger does cost money but I quickly found that it’s far less than the cost of fuel.

TESLA TIP #1 — Make sure you back into a supercharger bay all the way otherwise the cable won’t reach your charge port!

But what about charging at home? Home charging is a completely different affair than supercharging. At home you are limited by whatever max outlet capacity you have access to. In my case, I've been lazy and I just plug my car into a standard 110v outlet which is the slowest way possible to charge my car. This works for me because I typically only use about 50 miles per day for my commute into work plus some errands in the evening. If your commute is longer, then you need to consider having a higher output connection installed. Now here is where some people quickly become hopelessly confused by all the possible options for charging electric cars at home. Allow me to simplify things for you! There are really only three ways to charge your car at home; a standard outlet (just like what I do) that gives you approximately 5 miles of range per hour of charging, the installation and use of a NEMA 14–50 220 volt outlet that will give you approximately 22 miles of range per hour of charging, and the Tesla wall charger which can go up to 35+ miles of range per hour of charging. My advice, go with the 14–50 outlet. Installation cost for the Tesla wall charger can be high depending on your area and every Tesla comes with one Tesla Mobile charger that can plug directly into a 14–50 outlet.

Logistics aside, how does charging work in practice? Here is where electric vehicles are truly different from gas powered vehicles. In a gas vehicle you fill up the tank, you drive until it’s close to empty (really close if you are the gas light bingo player my wife is) and then you fill back up again. In an electric vehicle you charge up to about 90% of your total capacity, do whatever driving you need to do, when you return you simply plug the car back in and it silently charges right back up to that 90% mark. Every time you leave your home you leave with a full “tank”. For a lot of folks this is a completely different way of thinking about how they “fuel” their vehicles. In practice, it’s totally awesome.

TESLA TIP #2 — Whenever you are home, plug your car in. Make it a habit so you always leave in the morning with a full charge.

If you have been paying close attention you might be wondering why I said you should only charge up to 90%. Tesla makes this a strong recommendation if you want to ensure the long term health of your battery. Like all modern battery systems, your Tesla’s battery does better if you keep the number of charge cycles (empty to full) to a minimum. Charging to only 90% helps that process and is good advice even when supercharging as that last 10% takes much longer anyway. I only charge to 100% when I know I will be needing the extra range for a road trip.

We don’t need no stinking updates…

Now let’s talk about those 3:00am updates. If you have a smartphone then you know all about that dreaded notification pop up you get whenever there is a major OS update. Well, I have some bad news for you. Now it’s time for your car to join the OS update party. So far I have found software updates for my Tesla Model 3 to be a mixed bag. Generally most updates bring a mix of new features and well received bug fixes but there have been some rare exceptions, sometimes leading to more serious problems for owners. So far I have not had an update go bad or fail to install but some owners have reported problems.

TESLA TIP #3 — Connect your car to WiFi if you want to receive updates more quickly.

My only negative experience so far with a software update was one that seemed to make Autopilot performance much worse, an experience that was quickly corrected in another update. Overall, I really like the idea that my car can continue to receive new features and fixes long after purchase and without a trip to a local dealership, but there are some definite aspects of this new owners should be aware of. First, you need to know that when installing a software update you cannot use your car until the installation has completed. Second, whenever a new update is installed you should be careful using features such as Autopilot as driving behavior has very likely changed.

TESLA TIP #4 — Do not sit in your car while an update is being installed. You will be freaked out by the strange noises and flashing lights. Seriously.

Overall, the ability for a car to be continuously improved via over-the-air software updates is really awesome. I’ve found that Tesla’s update process does seem to work well and so far I’ve encountered only very minor issues that were quickly resolved (usually in a follow-on update).

That’s it for now and I hope this short post helps those who are just warming up to the idea of purchasing an electric car such as the Tesla Model 3 some idea of what you might be getting into!

Got some tips of your own? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!