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Life with a Tesla Model S: Two years on, has the charge worn off?

Tesla Model S via Steve Jurvetson/Flickr
Tesla Model S via Steve Jurvetson/Flickr

Two years after its launch, the Tesla Model S remains a hot topic among electric car fans, automakers and the public at large. Tesla has issued a steady stream of rolling changes to the S — from the four-wheel-drive setup shared with the upcoming Model X SUV to new body shields — while other automakers have targeted luxury electric buyers, (the BMW i3 being a prime example.)

So it seemed like a good time to circle back to early Model S owner Franklin Parlamis, a Bay Area financial analyst who gave us the good, the bad and the ugly roughly six months into his ownership of a $100,000 Tesla Signature Series Model S with the Performance package (0 to 60 in 4.2 seconds).

In that first blush of ownership, he was smitten with the car’s speed and styling, both of which generated conversations at every stoplight. But he was disappointed that true battery range was closer to 250 miles than the advertised 300. He loved the kid-gloves customer service that dealt with a cracked windshield instantly, but bemoaned the lack of cupholders in the rear. He loved the computer-like upgradeability of the car’s operating system, but felt less than comfortable driving what he considered to be a rich person’s vehicle.

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Now after two years and with 19,000 miles on the S’s odometer, Parlamis fills us in on:

Franklin Paramis and his Tesla Model S
Franklin Paramis and his Tesla Model S

The mind-blowing upgrade

For months, each time Parlamis pulled up to the deep rain-gutter dip between the street and his driveway, he had to punch a few commands into the car’s massive 17-inch center display in order to get the front end to raise so he wouldn’t scrape.

“I just got used to it, but one day I went to do that and it told me the car was already raised,” says Parlamis. “Using the car’s GPS, the car simply knew where it was and was now able to raise itself when it sensed I was at home parking. And that blew my mind. The car was literally thinking for me, and in that sense was improving my life.”

Parlamis says the functionality of the S’s GPS also has only gotten smarter over time, specifically by intuitively starting nav directions to an address that is listed on an imminent calendar-based destination that has synced over Bluetooth.

He notes that sometimes the system requires what amounts to a control-alt-delete reboot that was standard fare on old PCs. “The screen will just freeze up, but just resetting things tends to take care of it,” he says.

The massive nit

Parlamis has one major gripe, though he allows that “maybe it’s because it’s considered a performance car, and I was driving a Subaru before.” In two years, he’s already replaced nearly all the 19-inch rims and low-profile tires to the tune of $6,000.

“It started when I got a nail in one tire at around 8,000 miles, and when I brought it in I was told that I should replace both rears,” he says. “Then a month later I hit a pothole and the tire just blew. When I had them check it out at Tesla, they said most of my rims weren’t true any more, which they said was the result of having tires with a short sidewall.”

Parlamis says it isn’t so much the cash outlay but rather that it didn’t come with the benefit of hot laps at a race track. “I’ve spent a lot of money and yet haven’t even driven the car that hard,” he says.

Other small irritations include a Slacker app that seduced Parlamis to sign up for the streaming audio service, only to find out that the car’s OS would at present only support the non-premium version of the app. “That seemed like a bit of a bait and switch,” he says.

The Camaro comparo

Asked how the Model S’s fit and finish has held up through a range of Northern California seasons, Parlamis smiles.

“I went down to L.A. with my daughter to visit some colleges and we decided to have some fun and rent a new Camaro convertible, and man, I’ll just say that after my Tesla every car just seems to feel horrible to me, both in term of what they look like and drive like,” he says.

The S’s leather interior doesn’t show too many signs of abuse, though a glitchy retractable door handle did have to have its motor replaced. The lack of cup holders in the rear was addressed by Tesla, with “these small but ingenious leather loops that aren’t fancy but do the trick.”

As for the dealership experience, he says he went from being treated like a visiting king — in part because the area dealership still didn’t have that many customers - to a bit more of a routine rigamarole.

“Before it was, ‘We’ll gladly come by and pick up your car for you,’ and now it’s more like, ‘Oh, you need a loaner?’” Parlamis says with laugh. “It’s fine. But you can tell that although it’s still a premium experience, they’re getting a bit overwhelmed.”

Ongoing mileage anxiety

Parlamis long ago learned to stay within a 250-miles range while driving his Model S long distances without topping up on electrons. But a recent trip to the mountains around Lake Tahoe gave him pause.

“It made me realize the huge difference between what driving uphill means, and downhill,” he says with understatement, explaining that he recharged his car to full with 134 miles to go to reach his mountain town destination, and made it with a just a few miles to spare.

“The difference between going from sea level to 7,000 feet really trumped everything, and that was a bit of a surprise and unnerving,” he says.

The bottom line

Between the Model S reading his mind at the curb and continuing to provide an overall automotive experience that feels well out of the norm, Parlamis is hooked, dent-prone rims and all.

“I don’t see getting a new car that isn’t a Tesla, ever,” he says. His wife, however, “isn’t so sure, she still perceives it as being for wealthy people, but I’d love for her to get the X.”

His personal solution to making the six-figure car more of a proletarian ride? “I just added roof racks for our bikes. It seems more like a regular car then, even though I know it’s not.”