A short, three day weekend road trip to visit relatives was our first opportunity to really drive our new 2022 Model Y.
We started out with me as the only driver, but on the way home both my wife and our oldest daughter drove manually and with Auto Pilot, Auto Steer and Navigate with Auto Pilot engaged. We had quite the experience as new to “Tesla Travel” drivers.
When in auto pilot and auto steer: Abrupt slowing at change on pavement color, east bound on Interstate 10. Shadow of a light pole caused abrupt slowing westbound on interstate 10 west side of Phoenix. Large tractor trailer rigs that run close to the left of their lane cause the auto pilot to slow from one to five mph.
Auto pilot recognizing speed limit signs but not distinguishing between car speed limit signs and towing vehicle speeds. This did not interrupt or disturb the set speed while in auto pilot navigation. Our toll road extension to Cow Camp Road from Oso Parkway the car does not recognize the speed limits and will not auto steer or navigate in auto pilot above 45 mph on this 65 mph toll road.
In Auto pilot and auto steer, when a lane merges without lines the car will try and center itself between the wider borders. This appears as blocking vehicles from behind. When there are odd lines on the street or large bushes in a median the car will flash warnings to take control. Even when being driven in complete manual mode.
We used 249 kWh for the trip and only paid for $5 in charging at our first stop. I assume we were using much of the “free” 1,000 miles of charge included in the purchase. The charge rate at the super chargers were all at $.35/kWh. So, pretty expensive if we were paying, but about half what it used to cost us in gasoline.
So, after a month of ownership, we’ve spent around $43 on charging for 1,275 miles of driving. Range anxiety is not really a problem with the way the routing works and where we travel. There are some places we’ve noted that will be interesting to visit, but for the majority of where our family live and how we can route to get there, energy is not an issue. I will say the phantom braking episodes we’ve experienced are annoying. I assume these will diminish as the car learns, or at least the software updates. In talking to our daughter and her husband who own a Subaru Forester, they experience similar phantom braking too.
My safety score keeps getting dinged thanks to driving in freeway traffic. No matter how much room I leave between me and any traffic in front, I get people pulling into the space and of course braking. So, I get dinged for extra hard braking as well as close following.
At this short time and distance into ownership we’re happy with our purchase and so far is exceeding our expectations in economy.
Along The Way 