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The #1 Thing I Love About Our Tesla Model 3 That No One Talks About

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Published on December 8th, 2019 |

by Zachary Shahan

The #1 Thing I Love About Our Tesla Model 3 That No One Talks About

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December 8th, 2019 by Zachary Shahan

We spend a lot of time in our Tesla Model 3. Aside from driving approximately the US average, we generally spend about an hour a day sitting in a student pickup line (45 minutes some days, up to an hour and a half others). And then there are various times when I might be working in the car for a while — for example, while the girls enjoy the beach and I have to get articles published on CleanTechnica. 😛

The point is: we spend a lot of time in the car, and a lot of that time involves actually doing stuff, not just driving. That leads into the thing I love about our Tesla Model 3 that gets very little attention — and when it does get attention, often gets negative attention!

The Model 3 has a supremely minimalist — yet premium-feeling — design. With out white & black interior, it feels like what a car interior designed by Apple would look and feel like. The open, clutter-free space is the perfect balance to a life with two young monsters and hectic traffic. Sitting on the comfy white seat, resting my arm on the smooth, black center armrest, and gazing across the empty dash in front of me feels almost like coming home and plopping myself down on the couch to watch tennis. (If I had free time, I think that’s what I’d enjoy doing.)

Everything I need for the car is on the touchscreen, which I can let slip out of my direct view but then can easily check or use as needed. Aside from my phone sitting under the touchscreen and a bottle of water or coffee, my vicinity is clean, clear, and ideal for a peaceful ride. I couldn’t ask for more.

Some people criticize the interior of the Model 3 as basic, simple, or bare. I honestly can’t imagine wanting it to be different, as anything more would be adding clutter. The vegan leather is so smooth and premium. I recall renting a Mercedes a couple of times that had a somewhat similar center console. It was an enjoyable “little thing” that I appreciated at the time. The Model 3’s smooth black center console fits into its surroundings much better (and it feels slightly better as well). The space in front and to the other sides of me fit the elegant and thick right armrest. I don’t have all the clutter the Mercedes swarmed me with.

The car is even more minimalist when it’s driving itself.

This all may seem like a little aspect of the Model 3, and perhaps I’m overdoing it. To the contrary, though, I think this is one of the biggest daily benefits of a truly magical car. Minimalism is often, ironically, under-appreciated. Minimalism done well is difficult, but then so complete and fulfilling.

The drive quality, the interior feel of the car, and the look of the model from the outside as you walk up to it — these are three aspects of a car that an owner regularly notices. Each of them is critical in its own right to a fully enjoyable ownership experience. Everyone should know by now that Tesla nails #1 and is highly regarded for #3, but the superb implementation of #2 is equally if not more important. It is one reason it’d be so hard to switch to any other vehicle.

I will bring up one issue I have on this topic, though. If I sit in the passenger seat, it’s comfortable to move the seat back a bit and work on my laptop. If I have to sit in the driver’s seat and do this, I have to put the seat much further back due to the steering wheel, and I then lose a comfortable position for my elbows. I don’t have anywhere to rest them and I’m too squeezed in to have them hang in space. Now, I don’t expect Tesla to design a solution for such an edge case! However, this review wouldn’t be complete without noting that that’s the one place in which I could see the interior design being much better for my personal use case.

Oh yeah, there’s also the glossy black console between the armrest and touchscreen. I don’t know if it’s Franz, Elon, or both of them who love that glossy black plastic, but I’m yet to meet an owner who loves it and I’ve met several who hate it. I don’t understand the rationale for putting it in a Tesla. I imagine I’ll get mine turned into a matte trim eventually. (Aftermarket suppliers and detailers must appreciate it, since they must make a lot of money hiding the gloss for Tesla owners.)

Have any other thoughts on the wonderful, smooth, elegant Tesla Model 3 interior? Think I’m fully off my rocker? Your comments are welcome … but I’ll spam them if you don’t agree with me! (jk, ofc)

If you’d like to buy a Tesla Model 3, Model S, or Model X and get some free Supercharging miles, feel free to use my special, magical, unicorn-blessed referral code: https://ts.la/zachary63404. You can also get a $100 discount on Tesla solar with that code. There is currently no use for a referral code when putting down a reservation for a Cybertruck or Model Y.
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It will make you happy & help you live in peace for the rest of your life.

About the Author

Zachary Shahan is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director and chief editor. He's also the CEO of Important Media. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao.

Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA] — after years of covering solar and EVs, he simply has a lot of faith in this company and feels like it is a good cleantech company to invest in. But he offers no investment advice and does not recommend investing in Tesla or any other company.

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EV Boom — Roger & Zach Chat Lithium, EV Forecasts, Ford Mustang Mach-E

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Published on December 9th, 2019 |

by Winter Wilson

EV Boom — Roger & Zach Chat Lithium, EV Forecasts, Ford Mustang Mach-E

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December 9th, 2019 by Winter Wilson

In our first ever episode of a new “EV Boom” podcast interview series, Zach Shahan sits down with Roger Atkins, founder of Electric Vehicles Outlook Ltd and self-described “jack of all trades, master of none,” to discuss Roger’s insights into lithium-ion batteries and the electric vehicle industry. You can listen to the full conversation in the embedded player below. Below that embedded SoundCloud player is a brief summary of the topics covered, but tune into the podcast to follow the full discussion.

You can listen to this podcast and other CleanTech Talk podcasts on: Anchor, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket, Podbean, Radio Public, SoundCloud, Spotify, or Stitcher.

As Roger explained early in the podcast, “necessity is the mother of invention.” Have an issue that needs to be resolved? Creative people will come up with a solution. That is why electric vehicles have become a primary focus in the wake of increasing global challenges with city congestion and pollution, Roger said.

But while electric vehicles have proven to be promising solutions to these clear and immediate challenges, Roger worries about the lithium mining supply chain. He believes that due to a limited supply of automotive-grade lithium, the most electric vehicle share possible by 2025 would be only 7% of the global automotive market. This is what Roger picked up recently at a Benchmark Materials conference from a top lithium expert (“Lithium Joe,” who is reportedly the world’s leading authority on lithium supply), and it goes against Roger’s previous viewpoint on the topic. Even though there is currently an overflow in lithium, Roger explains that the future will prove difficult. It is not about whether or not we have lithium, he said — it is about whether that lithium is high enough quality for safe batteries.

Keeping in mind the challenge of lithium-ion batteries, Zach and Roger move on to discuss current industry players who are making big steps into the electric vehicle sector. They talk briefly about Ford’s investment in Rivian and Ford’s efforts to jump into the electric vehicle world through the Ford Electric Mach-E. But the foray into electric vehicles is no easy feat for established automotive companies. There is a huge challenge to profitability, Roger explains, as sunk costs and investment for research and development to transition into electric vehicles can combine to be crippling to a company. He believes, however, that working together with new electric vehicle companies, as Ford has done with Rivian, can give more established industry players a leg up.

Zach and Roger discuss how current politics and social media influence have driven the demand for climate action and, consequently, electric vehicle production. But Roger believes that looking beyond battery supply to other ways to maximize battery capacity is important. One critical piece of this dialogue, he said, is shifting from a linear economy to a circular one. He explains that the narrative should focus on maximizing efficiency and utilization. Roger proposes an increased use of carsharing, multimodal transportation development, and improvement of public transportation. Zach and Roger also briefly touch on automatic wireless charging in place of cable charging.

Roger expresses his desire to see strong leaders leverage the momentum behind the transition into electric vehicles to push exponential development of more efficient and sustainable transportation. His advice? “You better get on with it, because before too long you’ll be left with the people you won’t really want to dance with!”

To hear more on these topics, as well as hear Roger’s advice for how to be an innovative leader, listen to the show!
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It will make you happy & help you live in peace for the rest of your life.

About the Author

Winter Wilson Winter Wilson is a Cutler Scholar and undergraduate student double majoring in Environmental Studies and Journalism at Ohio University's Honors Tutorial College, with a minor in French. Her academic interests include environmental communication, technology and social innovation, especially as they relate to international climate change mitigation and adaptation. Though Winter attends school in her hometown of Athens, Ohio, she takes advantage of her breaks to explore the world beyond. She spent her most recent break undertaking self-driven research on climate change and environmental justice in Southeast Asia. This year, she will be completing her dual thesis and supplementary documentary series on climate change communication. Winter is excited to contribute to and work with the team at CleanTechnica as a Summer Editorial Intern.

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Tesla Deliveries: From DIY Trailers In 2012 To Price-Shifting Leadership In 2019 — Tesla Inside Out, Part Trois

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Published on December 5th, 2019 |

by Zachary Shahan

Tesla Deliveries: From DIY Trailers In 2012 To Price-Shifting Leadership In 2019 — Tesla Inside Out, Part Trois

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December 5th, 2019 by Zachary Shahan

Resuming our “Tesla Inside Out” series, this video picks up where David Havasi and I left off last time, chuckling about a wild DIY Tesla delivery story. David and a team of early 2012 employees built a trailer to deliver early Model S’s without having any real clue what they were doing. Luckily, they got the job done. He also mentioned a funny story about a Miami delivery truck in highlighting their overall novice delivery truck awareness back in 2012.

If you prefer audio podcasts over watching YouTube videos, you can listen on your favorite podcasting platform instead. You can subscribe and listen to this podcast and other CleanTech Talk podcasts on: Anchor, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket, Podbean, Radio Public, SoundCloud, Spotify, or Stitcher.

This provided the perfect opportunity for me to bring up a story I’ve never reported before, based on a conversation I had this summer with the owner of a vehicle shipping company. He told me that it used to cost more to ship a car from the US East Coast to the West Coast, but because of how many Model 3’s Tesla sells and how much it has sucked up vehicle delivery capacity from west to east, it’s now more expensive to ship a car from the West Coast to the East Coast.

We talked and laughed about how crazy it is that in 2012 David and gang were trying to figure out how to build a trailer to ship cars, wheels were rolling off of delivery vehicles, they had to figure out who on the team had a wrench and who had forklift experience, and then 6–7 years later, Tesla has grown to be such a force that it has strongly influenced vehicle shipping prices and flipped the market in terms of which direction it’s cheaper for any company to ship a car in the USA.

David also talked about early delivery targets. They were delivering to people’s homes back in 2012, and each delivery person had a target of just two deliveries a day. If you look back at 2012 sales data, you can see how that makes sense, but it’s unfathomable today with ~100,000 deliveries per quarter.

That led into David describing the crazy tight space at the early Queens service center, the “Tesla Tetris” challenge of stuffing Teslas into small spaces, and the risky work of getting Teslas on trailers next to a fast, busy highway. He also told us about the unusual challenge of working to schedule Model S deliveries as Hurricane Sandy hit. The story even involved David’s first experience with Uber.

Moving on to the end of the year, we started to discuss New Year’s Eve 2012. To set the stage a bit, I provided some context about Tesla’s state at the time (as I saw it from the outside), some challenging hits it was taking in the media, and the fact that it was on the brink of collapse. David mentioned in response that they were so in the weeds focused on getting vehicles to customers that they didn’t really notice all of that, but that it was also “abundantly clear” that every single delivery mattered. From David’s perspective, the focus was just 100% on “deliver these f*in cars” and make sure to give customers the attention they needed with such a young company and so much up in the air to leave them feeling good about the experience (and make it all the way through to delivery). It is certainly interesting — and I think the first time I’ve heard — the situation back in 2012 from the delivery teams’ perspective and how customized their relationship with early buyers was.

I then highlighted the somewhat personal approach to delivery I received with our fairly young Model 3. Tesla employee Sean Ford kept me updated every day on where the car was, which I hugely appreciated. That’s apparently not normal, but it definitely should be, and I think Tesla should offer much more opportunity for customers to track their cars after ordering and before delivery. That pulled another very funny story out of David, who explained that, back in the day, even Tesla delivery specialists couldn’t track cars as they made their way across the US! They finally got the capability to do so after a conference call with George Blankenship in which someone brought up the issue and suggested activating the GPS capability in the cars to be able to see where they are at any moment. (David’s telling of the story is quite funny, so I definitely recommend listening to this, which starts at 27:30 into the video or podcast above.)

David also explained his pitch that Tesla delivery centers should be like “TeslaLand” — a mini version of Disneyland or Legoland for Tesla, something fun and interesting for people who clearly like or love Tesla and would enjoy learning a bit more about it while they wait to get their cars. I think this is a great idea, so we’ll have to come back to it and feature the idea more prominently.

At last, we got to the 2012 New Year’s Eve story. You have to watch or listen starting at 34:40 to hear that one.

In the last few minutes of this episode, I got a full rundown of David’s role changes at Tesla over the course of his time there (2012–2019), just to help set the stage for what’s coming in future episodes of “Tesla Inside Out.”

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