Driving the Tesla Model S through the countryside—watch out for autopilot

Reading about the Tesla Model S has become rather repetitive. Yes, it’s an electric car. Yes, supercharging is free (well, for those who bought a car before 2017). Yes, autopilot is really cool (but really quite scary on country roads). And yes, the P90D (now the P100D) 0-60mph acceleration is truly insane.

But, when you get right down to it, how important are those things for everyday use, and how many of them are just technorgiastic concepts that drive lots of headline clicks?

I decided to borrow a Model S and find out.

Rural range anxiety

If you regularly travel by motorway in the handful of countries that have an extensive supercharger network, or your place of employment has charging points, owning a Tesla is already a lot less painful than you might think. Range anxiety is certainly a thing for the first few days and weeks, but it diminishes with time.

But what if you live in the countryside? Or, more likely, what if you’re an urban dweller and want to spend the weekend driving your EV around Cornwall, East Anglia, Wales, Scotland, or any other region that’s more than 100 miles from the closest supercharger?

Well, as someone who has been in the north-west corner of the Lake District and wondered, as a cold night fell, whether I had enough juice to get back to a charger, let me tell you: it’s pretty scary. I did make it back in one piece—I just had to dial back the number of 20-to-70mph blasts along those wonderful Pennine passes.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning.

To the Lake District and back again

My task was simple: drive from London to the Lake District, potter around for a few days, possibly do a bit of environmental non-automotive ambulation (hiking), and return to London. My steed was a brand new Tesla Model S P90D (which has now been replaced in the Tesla range by the P100D) with “ludicrous mode” and all the various driver-assistance mod cons.

The journey north, from my home in Brixton to the Wild Boar Inn in the Lake District, is about 280 miles—too long for a single charge (though the P100D might just about manage it). I stopped in Birmingham for lunch and to recharge the car, and then again at a supercharger in Warrington, near Liverpool. In hindsight I didn’t need the second top-up; it was just range anxiety from my first time driving a battery-only EV.

Otherwise, the journey passed without incident. Autopilot worked well on the motorways, letting me take in the lovely landscapes of the midlands and northern England. The car’s built-in satnav system was okay, but not great (more on that later). After a while, I eventually sussed out the three (!) separate range estimators, and that lessened my range anxiety—though I still can’t work out why the “perfect” (i.e. unobtainable) max range is shown prominently on the digital dashboard.

Once we reached the the hotel, there were two 7kW Tesla-branded “destination chargers” waiting for us. Destination charging is a fairly new initiative from Tesla that is designed to augment the network of superchargers, in an attempt to reduce range anxiety from wandering off the beaten tarmac path, and to open up new geographic areas for drivers. Tesla provides the destinations, which are generally hotels or shopping areas, with charging hardware, and then the destination pays for electricity usage. The strength of destination chargers varies from 7kW up to 22kW, but either way it should be enough to get a full battery charge overnight.

Parked outside the hotel.

Credit: Sebastian Anthony

At the time of writing, there are over 100 destination charging locations in the UK, 1,000+ in the EU, and more than 3,000 worldwide. This number is set to grow rapidly, though: Elon Musk said in March 2016, at the Model 3 unveil, that there would be 15,000 charging units (i.e. probably ~7,000 locations) by the end of 2017.

It was pretty neat waking up each morning with full, free tank of “petrol.”

What’s the Model S like to drive in the countryside?

Driving a Tesla Model S in the countryside, in a range of conditions and on different road types, was a mixed bag. You can’t exactly call the Model S fun to drive, but at the same time it is undeniably exciting to accelerate hard out of a tight corner and feel your guts crunch up against the inside of your ribs.

The Model S is one of the few road cars that produce more than 1.0g during the first second of acceleration; fast enough to produce a “warp”-like sensation, where your legs feel like they’re zooming ahead and your torso has to snap back through the space-time continuum to catch up. In a straight line, racing away from a red light, such silly acceleration is fun; on a curvy country road, it’s ridiculous. In a good way.

The Model S, for better or worse, is unflappable; no matter how hard I pushed, it just sticks and goes. I only managed to outfox the aggressive traction control system a couple of times; the car squealed a tiny bit, and you could feel the massive two-ton body begin to struggle, but getting the thing to slide is very, very hard. Apparently you can disable some of the traction control systems by pulling some fuses out—but given how Tesla has been known to pull telemetry logs from cars loaned by journalists, I thought that might not be such a wise idea.

In any case, if you’re coming from something like a Mazda MX-5, Nissan 370Z, or one of the sportier BMW 3 Series models, you will probably find the Model S less fun. Thanks to its air suspension, though, the Model S is definitely more comfortable than the aforementioned cars along bumpy, potholed roads—and when you eventually go through a village with speed humps, instead of slowing down to make sure your spoiler doesn’t scrape, the Model S just sails over them.

Beyond its stupendous acceleration, the Model S also truly excels at providing a peaceful ride. With no internal combustion engine, a well insulated cockpit, and air suspension, it often feels like you’re just wafting across the countryside like a zephyr. When you roll down the windows, you hear the birds tweeting loudly, and perhaps the sound of a brook babbling by the side of the road. Sure, I love the crackle and roar of a highly tuned petrol engine—but I enjoyed the silence of the Model S more than I thought I would, too.

The Model S wasn’t designed for rural roads

One count against the Model S is that it’s an exceedingly large car. Its impressive girth—1,964mm, compared to 1,811mm for the latest BMW 3 Series or 1,902mm for the 7 Series—means that squeezing down narrow country lanes or along cobbled village streets can be a bit scary.

The monstrous torque on the P90D (713ft-lbs, 967Nm) offsets the Model S’s bulky kerb weight (2,240kg/4,940lbs)—again, a good 250kg heavier than a comparable BMW 7 Series—and you can see what Tesla has tried to do with the aggressive power steering, but it still feels like you are driving a tank. Tanks (not the military kind) are great for motorway driving, though, and that’s what the Model S was clearly designed for.

Because the Model S is heavy—and the P90D is the heaviest model because of the larger battery—it isn’t the most efficient vehicle for country driving, where you’re constantly slowing down and speeding up. On the motorway, cruising at 75mph, the car’s max range was about 230 miles; out on the country roads, driving with gusto, I got to about 100 miles and then started driving more conservatively, so that I’d have enough battery to get back to the hotel.

A petrol-powered sports car, on the other hand, will happily do 150 miles of spirited driving on a single tank of fuel, and you don’t have to limp back to the charging station when you want to top up—but, for all the reasons outlined above, you can’t really compare a Model S to a BMW M4. Rural driving with a pure-EV isn’t necessarily worse than with an internal combustion engine, but it’s definitely different.

Where are the blasted cubby holes?

My biggest issue with the Model S is the interior. Despite the car’s wide wheelbase, and the extra space that should be granted by the lack of an internal combustion engine, the cockpit and passenger areas don’t feel particularly spacious or capacious. There is one big hole in the middle, where the gearstick would be on most cars, and of course a glovebox… and that’s about it. For some reason there isn’t even a storage bin at the base of the driver and passenger doors. Or a little cubby beside the steering wheel for coins, keys, and garage remote controls—or little pockets in the backs of the driver and passenger seats for those sitting behind.

There are no ceiling handles above the driver or front passenger seats, nor any hooks above the rear passenger seats. There’s nowhere to hang a suit, coat, or dress shirt—nor anything for the passenger to grab onto when you floor the throttle.

The general fit and finish of the interior isn’t up to the standard of the equivalent BMW or Mercedes. It’s not bad, but if I’d just spent 100 grand on a car, I’d expect better. After a couple of days of bouncing along rural roads, something in the cockpit started to squeak, too—but maybe my driving was to blame rather than the car.

Thankfully, Tesla recently hired Volvo’s head of interiors, presumably to fix things up.

Can you use the Model S as your rural daily driver?

Electric vehicles really shine in an urban environment: they produce less pollution, many cities waive their congestion charges, let them use high-occupancy vehicle lanes, or otherwise give them preferential treatment, and most kerbside charging points are found in cities rather than towns.

As I discovered, it is possible to take an EV and bravely leave your comfortable urban confines for the weekend. But what if you actually live in the countryside? Does an EV still make sense? When the afterglow of instantaneously deploying 713ft-lbs of torque just after the apex of a B-road corner finally begins to fade, could you actually use the Model S as your daily driver?

Probably. There aren’t any superchargers out in the countryside, and I suspect any local B&B with a destination charger would eventually cut you off if you parked there every night. So you’d probably charge the car at home—and, rather fortuitously, most non-urban residences have garages or off-road parking. Some companies are starting to offer electric charging points in the office car park, too.

All-wheel drive, available on the “D” designated Model S, is certainly very nice as well: it’ll get you up any hill in the rain or snow, and it’ll do a better job of generally keeping you out of the hedge, especially on those country roads where you can face bumps, broken tarmac, camber, and anti-camber—sometimes all at the same time. All but the top-end P100D Model S come with coilover spring suspension as standard, while air suspension (+£2,000/$2,500) is definitely better for rural, bumpy driving.

Software-wise, the Model S is a mixed bag for rural driving. The centre-stack satnav system, which is powered by Google, doesn’t work offline, and map data isn’t cached locally, which is problematic when you’re in an area with poor cellular coverage. But the dashboard satnav, provided by Garmin, works fine offline. The central satnav system also seemed to really dislike non-arterial roads for route-finding purposes; even if it involved a huge detour, it kept pushing me towards A-roads, rather than letting me take the direct cross-country route. Presumably this is due to some kind of heavy-handed coding that forces you to take the most electrically efficient route.

Driving down narrow roads, the all-around sensor system constantly warns you of hedges, walls, etc.

There are some other quirks that get in the way of rural driving, too. The all-around sensor system, which is used by car’s driver aid and semi-autonomous driving systems, isn’t calibrated for narrow lanes: driving by a hedge or wall was enough to set off the blind-spot detection system. It also felt like the car’s various range estimators could never quite agree on how many miles I had left. I suspect this has something to do with my driving style, and perhaps just not being calibrated for rural driving in general. It’s fairly safe to assume that both issues will be fixed with a software update at some point.

It’s also worth noting that the Model S doesn’t officially support towing a trailer or caravan, though there is at least one after-market option available if you happen to be in that tiny corner of the Model S ownership Venn diagram. The Model X, incidentally, does have an official tow bar and hitch package for £750/$750.

A few of the Model S’ more advanced features are enhanced in a rural setting, however. Newer versions have a HEPA filter (as part of a £3,500/$3,500 “premium upgrade package”) that not only protects you from biological warfare, but it should also stop pollen from getting into the cabin, preventing hay fever. The same upgrade package includes headlights that adjust their angle so that you can see better around corners, and automatic high beams that turn off when they detect an oncoming car. Both are very nice for night-time rural driving.

And finally, while the interior of the car is somewhat lacklustre, its storage capacity is not. Because of the car’s layout—small electric motors front and rear; no transmission down the middle; a long, shallow battery—there’s an absolutely huge boot (800 litres) and a further 100 litres in the frunk, where the internal combustion engine would usually be. With the back seats down, total capacity is around 1,800 litres—more than most estates/station wagons, and rivalling some MPVs.

Autopilot in the countryside

When Tesla handed me the keys to the Model S, I was told that I should only use autopilot on divided highways—which, in the UK, means motorways and dual carriageways only.

In reality, though, Tesla is well aware that autopilot is used on undivided roads as well. Just recently, it rolled out a firmware update that prevented autopilot from going over the speed limit on undivided roads—and then a few weeks later, seemingly in response to some very angry users, the company reverted the change.

I can report that autopilot works perfectly on motorways, and adequately on undivided A-roads, but you probably shouldn’t use it on B-roads unless you’re feeling brave. Basically, autopilot’s primary mode of operation is following road markings. If there aren’t any central or side lines, autopilot attempts to follow the car in front—and if there’s no car in front, autopilot disengages. I had one particularly close call when the road markings had disappeared due to resurfacing, and then the car in front turned a corner. The car didn’t really know what to do, and ended up veering sharply towards a hedge.

Autopilot may have already improved since I tried it: Tesla rolled out some “enhanced autopilot” software after my test drive at the end of 2016, and the firm is constantly tweaking both the hardware and software on new models.

It is a curious thing, though, that Tesla recommends you only use autopilot on divided highways—but that recommendation isn’t enforced in software. Perhaps Tesla should just disable autopilot completely when GPS detects that you’re on a B-road?

Good

• No other big car will let you accelerate out of corners, or pass traffic in the blink of an eye, like the Model S
• Air suspension takes the pain out of bumpy rural roads
• All-wheel drive, plus a clever computer, provides a very safe (if a bit boring) driving experience
• Tons and tons of boot and frunk space