Tag: driving

Rented a Tesla for a road trip

Car rental hasn’t been the same since Covid. It was sold out everywhere for a while, then the price basically doubled. When planning my Montreal-Quebec City-Tadoussac trip, I found most car rental agencies at the Montreal airport were sold out, so the remaining options were either small agencies for ~$100 per day, or Turo. Turo had some interesting options including a Tesla Model Y 2022 for about $160 per day. I always wanted to try a Tesla on an actual road trip, so I took the plunge. It’s also the first time I rent from Turo.

The pickup process surprised me a bit. The owner (or more like a car manager?) was waiting for me at the airport arrival curbside when I landed. I don’t know how he managed to park there for so long, lol, but it couldn’t be more convenient for me. He also gave me a brief of the car. Definitely felt more “white glove” than a usual car rental.

The fun began when I started driving. I’m not really a fan of car “performance”. But man there are so many configurations to fiddle with, on a huge screen and as a phone app! It felt more like a huge tech gadget. The single-pedal driving control took me an hour or two to get used to, but was not a problem at all. It was really nice to use phone as key, and to have lights/wipers all automated. As a rental I didn’t have access to autopilot, but I probably wouldn’t really trust my life on it yet…

Now, on charging. For the first two nights in Quebec City, I stayed at a hotel with two Tesla chargers in the parking lot, so it was very easy to fully charge the car overnight. The third day I drove from Quebec City to Saguenay then Tadoussac. I didn’t charge the car during lunch at Saguenay, and took some side trips and stops along the way. So when I finally started driving to Tadoussac, an 800-person village, I found the battery would drop to 1% when I arrive, and the car warned me to stay below 95 km/h to “reach the destination”. There were no charging stations whatsoever until Tadoussac. So I turned off AC and used cruise control to maintain the speed constant… when we rolled into the first charging station, there were no charging poles! Later on I found Tesla navigation located that non-Tesla charging station a few hundred meters off. We drove to the second charging station in the village and found two charging poles, but the power plug doesn’t fit the adapter I had in the car! I called the car owner, he assured me I could at least use a usual power plug to slow charge… I then asked the hotel front desk and found there was another charging station right across the road at where I parked, which couldn’t be found on Google Maps.. thank god this one worked with the adapter I had. It was slow but enough to prevent the car from becoming a dead weight… I parked my car there charging. Two hours later someone unplugged it… I guess they need the charging station more.

I used Tesla superchargers a few times on the way back. It was impressively fast, 20 times faster than the one that saved me in Tadoussac. The locations of superchargers also seem to be nice so you have something to do while charging. One of the chargers we stopped at was at an ultra-modern SPA hotel. We appreciated the hotel design and had a great lunch there.

A notable shortcoming I noticed while driving was the loud tire noise. It wasn’t unacceptably loud, but was definitely louder than SUVs and some sedans. The car doors also felt a little flimsy when shut. Overall it’s a fancy car, but doesn’t feel high-class or luxurious.

I was a little surprised to find Tesla doesn’t work with Apple CarPlay or Google Maps. Tesla navigation was ok, and shines at planning charging stops. But it’s not as good as Google maps. It located a third-party charging station wrong for me, and sometimes gave dubious directions with “unnamed roads”. I also couldn’t “add a restaurant along the way while checking their detour time and reviews” like what I often did on Google Maps.

Summary:

  • Pro: feature-rich
  • Pro: power
  • Pro: driving range is pretty good (400km)
  • Pro: supercharger was nice, and cheaper than gas
  • Con: tire noise
  • Con: no Google Maps or Apple CarPlay
  • Con: charging requires more planning and forces some idle time when stopping for charging, and it becomes a challenge in remote destinations

Verdict: I’d consider a Tesla if I’m staying at a hotel with chargers. For road trips to remote places, I will stick to gas for now.

纽约考车记

今天在纽约Staten Island考了第二次路考，终于通过了。作为在北京加州和纽约分别考过或者试图考过驾照的人，我打算总结一下。好几个朋友在twitter上问我去的是哪个考场，我查了查应该是Wild Ave的那个。这个考场还不错，比较僻静。驾校的话是Brooklyn的林师傅驾校，后面再评论好了。

在北京我是某个夏天报的东方时尚的周末班，当年果然也是写过一篇blog的。作为一个口号是“让每个学员都满意”的驾校，它确实做到了这一点。。考完纽约的路考再看北京的，简直水到不能再水。这大概也就是帝都路上无数杀手的原因。但从另一方面讲，很多只在美国开过车的人都不太敢在北京开。这大概只能说明交通系统的容错性还是挺高的，开得不好只要敢开一般也不大会出事儿。

数年前在加州实习的时候我还试图考那边的驾照来着，那都是在拿到中国驾照之前的事儿了。笔试很简单，印象里当时好像是四五十道题，最多可以错六道。纽约这边现在更简单，20道题错6道都可以过。我在加州那边过了笔试拿了learner permit之后发现不是很有机会练车，另外关键是周末一直在蹭车到处玩于是也没太大必要开车，半年一晃就过了一多半，出去玩的行程又排得越来越紧，于是就干脆不学了。

不过总的来说加州学车和考试都还比较容易。亲朋好友基本都有车，找几个人教几次，然后就找机会开一开，反正那边去哪儿都得开车还是比较多机会能练到的。自己有车就更方便了。而驾校只在曼哈顿周边这些大家都不开车的地方才有市场。

搬来纽约之后平时上班和在NYC活动虽然不需要开车，但一个很实际的问题是去美国其他地方玩没车基本是不行的，除非报团或者蹭车。作为已婚人士蹭车已经有点困难了，报团经过去华盛顿的实践感觉还是有点傻。但在NYC学车还真是挺难，很多New Yorker都是到了30岁还没驾照，也算是经常被调侃的话题之一。不管怎样，在纽约待了一年之后我终于下定决心跑去Brooklyn的Chinatown报了个华人驾校。纽约驾校的价格大概是这样，短期培训的课程，曼哈顿的美国驾校大约要七八百，曼哈顿中国城的驾校大概四百多，而Brooklyn的华人驾校就只要两三百的样子了。我报的这个课程包括六节课和两次考试（驾校提供车带你去考试）。这里有几个fine prints。。首先每节课只有45分钟很短，所以每次是上两节课的，所以六节课其实只有三次而已。其次这“两次考试”是指你第一次没通过就带你再去考一次，但这之间是要求你至少再学一次的。所以如果第一次没考过的话，就得额外交钱再多上一次课，也就是两节。就我观察来看第一次就通过的不太多。。

纽约驾照的路考是挺复杂的，除了启动靠边停车开大路小路各种转向之外，还要考K-Turn（三点转弯）和Parellel Parking（平行停车/侧方停车）。可以扣分的项目多如牛毛，转弯转大或者转小一点就可能扣5分，停车靠路边过远/过近可以扣10分，观察不够，车速过快过慢都是10~15分。总共扣到30分以上就不过了。我的感觉是考官不想让你过的话随便就可以挑出30分的问题，毕竟有些条款是有点主观的。

以下是参加纽约华人驾校和路考的一点心得：

  • 一定要开熟一点再去考。我第一次fail的时候考官说要开个五六十小时再来考。开得熟和没怎么独立开过车区别还是很明显的。考官很容易就可以看出来你开得不够多，然后很容易就可以列出一堆扣分不让你过。
  • 有国内驾照的话可以用zipcar练车。。我在两次考试之间开了挺多次，包括开高速，还去Florida玩了一周，还是很有帮助的，尤其是对车速和转弯这些基本的东西。
  • 考前一天或者考试当天早晨强烈建议约课练一下，课多的话两个时间都约更好。
  • 驾校的老师都很会开，但是教得未必多好。就好像很多科学大师上讲台都会陷入自言自语一样，驾校的老师不见得能看出来你的问题在哪儿以及应该怎么告诉你，有时候还会帮帮倒忙，因为他们的逻辑都不是很清楚而我们这些工程师的逻辑性通常都强得过分。比如他会说“左转弯方向盘要打270度”，而不会说“在条件A成立或B成立但C不成立的情况下左转要打270度”。更要命的是这个会把你的思路引导到“转弯大小要靠计算方向盘度数”这个方向上去。。。
  • 和考官的交流还是挺有用的。我这次一车四个人考试，前三个居然都不怎么会讲英语……我眼看着那个考官跟我前面那个女生说了四五遍“Start the Engine”她硬是没听懂，这基本就不可能过了。我上车跟考官扯了两句之后她很高兴的说”Oh you speak English”然后抱怨了半天。呃，所以这考试在车启动之前就开始了。

PS：有朋友问笔试的模拟试题，我当时应该是做的这份。只想通过笔试的话很容易，不过读一下Driver Manual还是有好处的。