Lifestyle
Year In Review: 12 months of Tesla ownership
A year ago this month, my husband and I picked up our brand new Model S after a 108 day wait. It has been quite a ride and I wanted to share the experience for any potential owners who wonder if the “wonder” wears off, new owners who are still in the honeymoon phase and veteran owners who have plenty of stories of their own.
In May of 2014, I convinced my better half we should test drive a Tesla. He was looking to replace his 4-door Jeep Wrangler. In a bright “Mango Tango” orange paint with large wheels, it was right at home at both the beach or in the snow. It did not, however, know how to keep speed up a hill. Or go fast. At all. The decision process that brought us to that day in August when we finally ordered the car is for another post entirely. (Spoiler: The Tesla is a pretty expensive car and most owners really have to think about it before dropping that kind of cash.)
Thanks to delivery schedules, our east coast pickup location and the announcement of “the D” our order-to-delivery time was pretty darn long. And we felt every single day of it. So when the excitement of the day finally arrived, we could hardly contain ourselves. In fact, we were so excited that we forgot to hand over the check for the car and had to go back to the service center after having already left. That little gaffe aside, delivery went exactly as planned. The car was nearly flawless. A few scuffs we thought we saw turned out to be glue residue. They were quickly cleaned up while our delivery specialist gave us our tour. She was pleasant and knowledgeable, which was consistent with our experience with show room employees at the showroom location of our test drive 6 months earlier.
It was already dark for our ride home so we didn’t go for too much of a joy ride, but my husband pulled the car over halfway and let me finish out the drive. (He actually offered me the fob when we first left the service center, but I passed.) We set the regenerative braking to the higher level despite my initial plans to ease into it. For those on the fence, the one pedal driving is the best feature you didn’t know to look forward to. Trust me. The car performed exactly as we hoped and our cheeks were sore from smiling the whole way home.
3 weeks later, Christmas was our first trip away from home. We visit a town about 110 miles north of where we live for holidays. That 110 miles is over and past mountains so range always suffers. The Supercharger location we anticipated being built in Allentown, PA in 2014 never happened so we ended up charging with a combination of extension cord on a 110V outlet and a level 2 charger a 10 minute drive from where we were visiting. (Little did we know that we would end up having to deal without an eastern PA Supercharger for another 12 months.) We outfitted the car with all weather mats pretty quickly and would recommend them to anyone. The trip was great and the car has all the room one could need for two passengers, luggage, holiday gifts and a 55-pound pup.
Our first service center trip happened rather quickly. We never actually noticed that the rear passenger door handle didn’t present until we started showing off the car to family around Christmas. We scheduled the service visit for a future day that a loaner was available because this issue was very minor and we weren’t in a rush at all. Service was swift and without issue.
Two months in we had our first real road trip planned. Our ultimate destination was Savannah, Georgia with a one night detour planned in Charleston, South Carolina. As is always a risk with winter traveling where we live, a pretty sloppy snow and ice storm thwarted our plans to depart Philadelphia around midnight. We ended up waiting until closer to 5am but despite the horrendous road conditions that the City had not yet dealt with (it was a Sunday morning) the Tesla performed wonderfully. We took it easy of course and never felt unsafe. That trip is where my whole perspective on road trips changed. The requirement to stop and charge means you get plenty of rest room breaks, chances to stretch your legs and really convenient markers to swap driving responsibilities every 2 hours or so. Neither one of us felt tired and we both agreed that the trip felt much shorter than it really was. It was also on this trip that we began to look forward to the car’s potentially efficiency in warm weather. Getting the car in December we were in for a bit of a surprise at how much range suffered and regen was limited.
Though winter felt long as they often do, spring gave way to warm temperatures, better efficiency and lots of reasons to open the panoramic roof. Our initial disappointment over how much our electric bill went up the first month with the car leveled off as the car started driving much more efficiently. We made a few additional changes at home such as LED bulbs and a “smart” power strip for our basement entertainment center and now find ourselves using the same amount of electricity as we did before we replaced an old bar refrigerator and washer/dryer pair, which was also before we had the car.
Around the 6 month mark, my passion was every bit as strong as it was when we were waiting for delivery. I decided to do a local car show and can barely describe what a fun day that was. I spoke to hundreds of people non-stop and unexpectedly came away with a trophy after being softly scolded by a judge for not knowing the car show protocol of being required to have your trunk and hood open. One embarrassing problem was that our rear passenger door handle started to act up again. This time, the door was actually popping open when the car unlocked. It was a hassle because most days the car is driven solo and the driver had to walk all the way around the car to close it. On the day of the car show I had my fob on my person so walking back and forth around the car meant the door popped open many times. Curious onlookers raised eyebrows as the car’s “trick.” That issue also required a service visit, but again we waited until a loaner was available. Other than having to take it to service at all, the experience was great.
By July, it was time for our second road trip. This time the plan was camping not far from Virginia Beach. We had been told many times that charging at RV parks is easy so we barely thought a thing about rolling into our destination with low mileage and no live Superchargers nearby. As it turned out, that RV park was rather old and our site had an older outlet. We needed an adapter, which the campground’s general store thankfully had. The adapter still led to disappointment as the car still wouldn’t take a charge from anything other than a 110v outlet. A trickle charge wasn’t going to work – we had two day excursions planned while we were in the area. After consulting the Tesla Forums, I learned enough about the outlet situation to ask the campground if they had 14-50 outlets at some of their larger sites. Fortunately they did and a camp employee gave me the old “you didn’t hear it from me but…” when describing their one site that they never rented out. We were able to park the car there overnight twice to get all the range we needed. If you do plan on RV charging, I suggest making sure they have the more modern hookups. You should also leave yourself extra time for picture taking. The Model S makes a beautiful addition to a scenic view.
Not very long after getting home from that trip I started charting out our next. I’ve never been to Chicago and really want to but figured out that trip would be a little longer than we were willing to take off work at that time. New England it was. The only three states I hadn’t yet been to on the East Coast were Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. I fully intend for the Tesla to carry me to all the states I haven’t seen. I have a long way to go. Our trip to Portland was easy enough on the supercharger network. We snuck an extension cord out the window from our second story AirBnB apartment to trickle charge overnight and got just enough juice to take us to our next charging opportunity on the way to Portsmouth, NH. Our last stop, Burlington, Vermont, had a public Level 2 charger just a block from where we were staying so we happily parked, checked into PlugShare and charged just enough to get us to the first Supercharger on the way home. Another Tesla was not so kind. We noticed a black Model S with New Jersey tags park there later that day and stay overnight. Even at 0 miles left on the battery, he couldn’t have needed to stay that long. I was very disappointed, as I saw not one but two other Teslas circling the area, presumably needing a charge. With the Burlington Supercharger since online, I imagine this won’t be an issue going forward. That’s the real beauty of the Supercharger network; it changes weekly. In fact, from the time we planned our route to the time we embarked, an additional charger popped up in New Hampshire. We didn’t need it but it was a nice surprise.
A full year after Autopilot was announced, it finally went live with an over the air update. The timing of our order was pure luck and our car was delivered with the hardware in place. The implementation of AP has been everything I expected and more. In fact, that very thing inspired me to make this video, which I never imagined would be watched by more than a few dozen Tesla forum members.
Further delays with an Allentown, PA Supercharger location meant we faced another potential winter where skiing at our preferred mountain near Scranton, PA would mean taking a gasoline powered car. I’m thrilled to say that as of this past week, ground has finally broken. And while we will still end up having to charge creatively over Christmas because it won’t be live yet, the end is finally in sight. 16 months after we ordered the car and were told a charger in that much-needed location would be built “soon,” it’s finally happening.
Did that particular charger, which was shown on the 2014 map sway our decision to buy the car? Absolutely. Did the long delay really grind our gears? You bet! Do we regret not waiting until it was built to get our hands on the greatest car ever built? Not a chance, so if you’re a potential owner on the fence, don’t wait. Every day you do is another day you are deprived the distinct pleasure of driving a car so amazing that it inspires me every single day.
By the numbers
- Miles in 12 months: 20,000
- Primary/secondary driver custody arrangement: 80%/20%
- Road trips over 500 miles: 3
- Lifetime Wh/Mile: 326
Tesla’s Automatic Collision Evasion feature can be seen in one of the first owner videos of it in action.
Tesla owner Spencer (@scotsrule08) posted on Monday that the feature “worked flawlessly,” saying FSD reengaged itself just as he was about to hit a curb. Ashok Elluswamy, who leads Tesla’s AI team, shared the clip and wrote, “A guardian angel always looking out for you.”
The video arrives in the middle of a staged rollout. Tesla first shipped Automatic Collision Evasion with FSD (Supervised) v14.3.9 in software update 2026.27.6 earlier this month, which Teslarati covered as it reached cars. Update 2026.27.10, which began going out on September 19, carried the feature improvements with FSD v14.3.10, according to release notes tracked by Not a Tesla App. The newer 2026.27.11 build is now reaching another wave of vehicles.
The new Automatic Collision Evasion feature worked flawlessly! FSD reengaged itself just as I was about to hit a curb.
Kudos @Tesla_AI team! 👏 pic.twitter.com/Fbp15HhpL2
— Spencer (@scotsrule08) September 28, 2026
The feature only runs on HW4 vehicles, and it requires an active FSD purchase or subscription with both FSD (Supervised) and Automatic Emergency Braking enabled. HW3 owners receive FSD v14.2 Lite in the same updates, but that build does not include collision evasion.
Tesla’s release notes describe two triggers. The first is an imminent frontal collision that braking alone may not prevent, in which case the car can activate FSD to steer, brake or accelerate around the hazard. That scenario is limited to highways below 85 mph, with no pedestrians or cyclists detected and no slippery road surface. The second covers a driver who appears inattentive, such as reaching into the back seat, or who seems to have switched off FSD by accident. Spencer’s curb clip appears to fall into that second category.
Tesla plans big safety improvements for Full Self-Driving v15
Once the system takes over, the accelerator is muted and light brake input will not cancel the maneuver. Drivers need to apply firm, deliberate steering force to take back control, and the car chimes to hand control back once the danger has passed.
Elluswamy recently noted that earlier hazard prediction, faster reaction time and better collision avoidance would arrive with FSD v15, the next major version.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk drops a surprise update on Boring Company’s next big dig
Musk says Boring Company could shrink the Austin to San Antonio drive to just minutes.
Elon Musk says The Boring Company is working on what he called “a simple, precursor Hyperloop” tunnel connecting Austin and San Antonio, targeting speeds above 200 mph and cutting a drive that can take up to two and a half hours down to a consistent under 30 minutes. Musk posted the idea on X Sunday, in a reply to a repost of an AI generated video imagining a science fiction future with human colonies on other worlds, which he shared with the line “This is the future we shall bring into being.”
This is the future we shall bring into being pic.twitter.com/8aD0w8MDVc
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 20, 2026
The Boring Company’s own account picked up the idea in the same thread, adding a detail about how the trip would actually work: “Because Loop/Hyperloop is express (i.e. no intermediate stops), one could travel from an Austin parking lot to a favorite San Antonio restaurant in about 30 minutes. As long as they both have Loop stations.” That framing ties the proposed intercity link to the same station model the company already runs in Las Vegas, where riders enter the tunnel network through small, garage style stops rather than one central terminal.
This is not the company’s first run at the Austin to San Antonio corridor. Boring Company floated tunnels between the two cities as far back as 2021, and later competed for a separate San Antonio Loop project tied to the airport before that specific bid stalled. Pitches for tunnels in Chicago, Los Angeles, and a New York to Washington corridor have followed a similar pattern of big announcement without a shovel in the ground.
What is different this time is the balance sheet, especially since The Boring Company closed a 3 billion dollar funding round led by investors in the United Arab Emirates earlier this month at a valuation near 23 billion dollars, giving the tunneling company more capital to chase speculative projects than it had during its earlier Texas pitches. The company is also mid-build on two other intercity systems it has actually broken ground on, inc;luding a Nashville tunnel linking downtown to the airport, where a second boring machine finished commissioning in June, and its Las Vegas network, where the station count keeps climbing on paper faster than tunnels get dug.
That gap between announcement and execution is the reason to treat Sunday’s post as an opening bid rather than a project. A tunnel spanning roughly 80 miles between two metro areas, running at speeds Boring Company has not demonstrated over any real distance, would dwarf anything the company has built. For now, the Austin to San Antonio Hyperloop exists as a caption under an AI generated space video.
Elon Musk
Tesla eyes supply partners for Optimus mass production
Tesla certified three Chinese suppliers for Optimus mass production, signaling its robot timeline is accelerating.
Tesla’s robotics team traveled to Ningbo, in China’s Zhejiang province, on September 16 and spent the following day auditing component suppliers for Optimus, according to a Bloomberg report cited by RobotAIGeek. The visit moved three manufacturers from provisional status to certified mass production partners: Tuopu Group, which handles actuators and chassis components, Ningbo Joyson Electronic, a sensor supplier, and Zhejiang Sanhua Intelligent Controls, which builds thermal management systems. All three already supply parts to Tesla’s electric vehicles, and the audit reportedly came with fresh orders that supply chain reports put at an initial batch of roughly 5,000 units.
Tuopu, Joyson, and Sanhua built their manufacturing base serving the automotive industry, where tolerances and volume requirements are already close to what a mass produced humanoid robot demands. Sanhua in particular has history here. Teslarati reported last October that the company had received a roughly $685 million order for linear actuators tied to Optimus, a volume industry watchers estimated could cover around 180,000 robots once production ramped.
Supply chain reports tied to this week’s audit put Tesla’s near term production goal at about 1,000 Optimus units a week by late September, rising to 2,000 to 2,500 units a week by the end of the year. That pace would put real weight behind the timeline Tesla has been building toward since May, when it wound down Model S and Model X production at Fremont to convert that floor space into a dedicated Optimus line targeting one million units annually. JPMorgan analysts who toured the factory in August confirmed the conversion took roughly four months, a pace Musk has called unprecedented for a facility that size.
New drone video shows Tesla’s Optimus Factory reaching a turning point
Fremont is only the first phase. A second, larger Optimus plant is rising at Gigafactory Texas, where drone footage shared by Joe Tegtmeyer last week showed the structural steel nearing completion on the north end of the building. Tesla has said that facility is meant to eventually support production of up to 10 million units a year, though volume output there is not expected before 2027.
Commercial sales of Optimus are still targeted for the second half of 2027, but production is expected to start well before then. JPMorgan analyst Rajat Gupta has said Tesla’s “Optimus Academy” program, which uses early units to collect real world training data inside Tesla’s own facilities, is expected to be running later this year. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Ian Ma described the Ningbo audits as “a positive commercialization signal for China’s humanoid supply chain,” noting that sentiment could improve further if the visit leads to confirmed supplier nominations and larger orders. The Solactive China Humanoid Robotics Index rose about 1.4% on the news, though it remains down roughly 30% for the year.
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