Today I spent nearly 2 hours with the new Model S Plaid (Black/21″/Carbon/Yoke) and Model X Long Range (Black/22″/Wood/Yoke/7 seater), snapped over 150 photos/videos, looked thoroughly over both cars, fiddled with most of the controls and spent about 50 minutes driving them, here are my honest and (hopefully unbiased) views of the Model S only, because I think I’m well placed to review/compare the S as I’m on my 3rd Model S Performance Variant and have driven them since 2014. Lots of this is personal preference and of course, I’m being hyper-focused on purpose and lots of people likely wouldn’t notice any of these changes/positives/issues!
For Context
You arrive at Hatfield House, the grand ex-royal house, and are greeted inside the older palace with refreshments as you wait for the appointment, this is the style of test drive that feels like you’re buying a £120,000 car and not the industrial estate or theme park car park which took place with previous vehicles, two staff members are there to answer questions and one joins you on the test drive, you have about an hour to drive and walk around the car. For some reason, the people yesterday (looking at you Chris) clearly ragged the cars, and nobody thought to charge the cars overnight so stupidly (sorry Tesla, but it is rather stupid) for the first drive of the day (10am) the S had 35% SoC & the X was under 20%, and that was an own goal as first impressions for a new Tesla owner is range anxiety or if they’re experienced (like me) a presumed slight lack of power compared with their existing car at ~80% SoC and fully warmed up battery!
The Positives
- The Tesla Grin is very much alive with this one!
- The acceleration is intense, even at ~35% SoC, it was still impressive but I suspect fully charged and doing drag strip mode it would be next level, I would have liked to try this but of course nowhere safe to do so and low SoC.
- It’s stunningly sleek to look at, I love the look of the S and this new model gives me the same feeling as I had when I first picked up by P85D back in the day, it’s an incredible piece of engineering, offering arguably one of the best supercar experiences you can have combined with a practical car for day to day use and a fuel bill that could be a rounding error!
- It’s also a head-turner in public (if that’s your thing), but so is my 2017 S P100D… As proved by the trip home where ironically, a young couple 5 mins after leaving the test drive location crossed the road and watched me go past to the point of turning their bodies around as I went.
- Fit & finish was largely superior excluding a few key points (see negatives and neutrals below for those).
- Model S ISOFIX points for the rear seat are finally easily accessible!
- Contrast Stitching on the Chairs (nice to see some improvements here)
- The motorised screen mount is cool, it makes you feel like you’re in a spaceship!
- Yay! Door Pockets 😂
- CCS at 250kW!
- Wireless Phone Chargers that were Plaid proof!
- Double Glazing on the windows!
- Nice design attention to detail, e.g. above the drive display is a hidden air vent (similar to 3/Y)
- The centre rear seat that turns into an armrest is a nice premium addition.
- New boot materials and magnetic + alcantara parcel shelf are nice additions (although with a dog it would be the first thing I pull out and/or cover).
- They’ve added rubber seals on the edges of the plastic covers inside the frunk area, I presume this is to reduce the appearance of panel gaps but it does make it look more premium.
- The S & X come with Towbar as standard (although I stupidly forgot to check how it’s mounted on the S)
- The suspension felt even more planted, less harsh over low speed bumps and I forgot about the suspension at high speed as well (remember I’m comparing Model S 21″ to 21″, but my S doesn’t have the Raven Active Suspension)!
- Wipers now have built-in water jets (like the rest of the fleet) which is far better!
- They’ve replaced the felt-like material in the wheel arches with plastic, meaning they’re easier to clean and won’t look so dirty!
- The little holder for the towing eye in the frunk is a great example of a nice bit of attention to detail that I’m pleased to see Tesla doing more and more with this version of the S.
- I sometimes have to remember what this car does and I already massively take for granted, I won’t list all the other positives here but it’s everything my current S is and more (i.e. the most practical and safest supercar you can buy!)
The Neutrals
- The Auto Gear Selector… A shaky first start (this was actually in the X but referencing it as I think it was important), it kept wanting me to go into reverse to start with (even though there was nothing in front), however, this could have been because I had played about with the on-screen selector quite a bit before then as once we were away from the initial start it was pretty good, and for the times you want to do it manually the screen change is very fluid and easy to do.
- Where is the damn indicator stalk? As someone that hasn’t owned a BMW or Audi but has been on advanced driver training, I do indicate and do it quite religiously, moving this to the wheels as a button is odd to say the least, however, I suspect you would get used to it for most of the time and would then have to rely on the automatic cancellation (which seemed to work better than our Y) for the rest of the time. I’d much prefer one stalk which you could programme to do certain tasks and I’d probably stick the indicators on there.
- The horn (in a quiet area away from people/cars) worked by slamming my hand on all the buttons on the right side of the yoke, but I really do wish Tesla had put the horn in the normal place, this feels like a disaster waiting to happen!
- The car appeared to have HW4 (cameras etc), but nobody seemed to be able to confirm this for me.
- Autopilot engagement is now on the scroll wheel, I actually quite liked this, but of course it was new so does feel slightly odd.
- The rear centre screen whilst it was responsive and looked great (the new thinner bezels are great) it still feels like an after thought, for a child/rear passenger to be looking that low is surely going to make them feel sick, I’d much prefer back of the seat integration. They also need to solve the audio issue or offer proper bluetooth headset options in the rear.
- The fabric on the door pockets is similar to the Ioniq 5…(sorry but it’s true), it’s nice to see a change here but I’m not sure it is for the better.
- Chrome is back in the S cabin, they removed interior Chrome, turned it ‘Midnight Grey?’ and then it’s back again… I’d have preferred it to be dark/grey personally (this is where the Porsche Order option list allows you infinitely better options to fine-tune the car’s looks to your tastes).
- On the way there (1 hour) and back, I had my Model S P100D fully warmed up in Ludicrous+ Mode, and I tell you what there is a reason it’s called ‘The Beast’, it gives you lots of the performance the Plaid has, however, Tesla for some reason didn’t think to charge these test drive cars up fully before the test drive this morning at 10am).
- The position of the ‘Controls’ icon (bottom left) on the screen is hidden by the wheel/yoke/arm basically all of the time.
- I was a little disappointed in the backs of the front seats, I thought they might have done something with this big chunk of plastic by now, carbon fibre in the Plaid maybe?
- The boot is not flat; it’s at a slight angle to ensure the boot floor and the folded seats create one continuous floor. Good for camping and placing IKEA furniture but presumably slightly less space in the rear cabin…
- The frunk is a similar dimension width and lengthwise but the depth is shallow at places as there is a diagonal floor/base (presumably new motors).
- The ‘Coffin’ in the boot area is smaller (presumably because of the twin rear motors) and there is an odd lip in there (see photo) which made it look like an after thought…
- LHD wasn’t anywhere near as bad as people make out, of course, I only experienced it for a short while (50 mins) but I felt you would get used to lots of it pretty quickly and whilst there obviously would be several annoyances long term with it, several of those can be sorted or limited (e.g. toll booth tag, pre-registering for some car parks, eating healthier to avoid drive-thrus or more likely having McDonalds deliver to the car via the app), I’d still much prefer a RHD though obviously and overtaking or narrow country lanes would require a change in driving style (similar to how Police drivers are trained to go into the other lane before making the overtake).
The Negatives
- Panel gap/alignment was not equal on this Model S, the right side of the boot was not equal, and the alignment between the charge port and the rear light cluster was not good. I knew this would likely be the case (the factory line never really stopped for retooling and the Fremont built cars are sadly never going to be as good as Shanghai or Berlin built ones) but it’s just irritating to see the Y (~£60K) we have in a better new state than the S (~£120K) – I guess that’s the price we pay for being early adopters with this model and the aggressive expansion plans Tesla have always had, I’d had hoped they would have spent more time on this, as it will inevitably just clog up service departments upon delivery (I guess that’s why Elon said they were only building S/X for ‘sentimental reasons’). That said, overall it was superior to my Model S so there is that positive.
- The Yoke is almost laughable in the current setup for anything other than long-distance driving, if it was drive by wire (as per the original intention of the Yoke), then I think it could work but the reality is without a top piece to the wheel it’s dangerous in the current form. Thankfully Tesla offer a retrofit of the normal wheel.
- Insurance remains a mystery… For context DirectLine still remain the suggested company to go with; however, they still cannot quote right now, this of course, will happen (there are loads of LHD cars on UK roads) but not knowing even roughly the cost is frustrating.
- I’m not that concerned about future resale value as long as Tesla doesn’t change their mind and bring RHD back to the UK anytime soon… I fear them doing that would cause major issues… as I know full well (like the vast majority of cars) they will drop in value 20% overnight, and then a further ~13% per year after that, I doubt anyone that is seriously considering a brand new £120K car (Tesla especially) worries about this and if they do, they probably shouldn’t be buying this in the first place!
- When the seat belts are not buckled, they turn back on themselves (see photo), I’m picking fault here almost for the sake of it but it seems odd and makes them look cheap.
- Same crappy number plate surrounds, first thing I’ll remove.
- Where is the Model S Soft Close Doors? – Seriously, it’s £115,000 and Model S owners have been saying this for years, install soft-closing doors!
- The interior materials, no Alcantara dash and now a Vegan Leather, which I didn’t like as much
- The black paint marks so easily, I’d PPF the black immediately on this one (I wish I had done that with our Black Y)
- Still, no double rubber seals around the door frames to stop rain/water/dirt getting into the door shuts.
- The front centre console, the hidden under piece is pretty poor, sounds awfully cheap and rattling when moved.
- Spotify was lagging and refusing to connect.
Overview / tl;dr
Overall the car is fantastic; there are some pretty minor niggles (yoke/alignment) that annoy me that Tesla hasn’t focused more time on but overall fit and finish is up there with some of the best. Putting aside the LHD debate I’d buy this car immediately and feel honoured to drive this wonderful car daily, I know full well I’d snap photos of it as I walked away from it 8 years later like I still do today with my S, I’d love it potentially even more so than my current S in fact.
It pains me to write it but as Tesla has publicly said from day 1 this car is not a priority anymore, I wish it was as I love the S and whilst Tesla appreciates (albeit sometimes a little quietly) the OG Model S/X owners that got them to where they are today, the company is clearly laser-focused on mass market now and I suspect the S/X will be discontinued completely before we see a RHD of this car (however, I’ve been wrong about Tesla many times before).
Is it better than my P100D? Of course, it is! Is it worth the money? That drastically depends on what is important to you & what you’re trying to compare it to, basically there isn’t another car on the road that compares to it fully in my opinion and finally if you can live with a LHD car…
Am I buying? Well, that’s the golden question, the jury is still out on that one.
