MY BLUE TESLA

The Day has come - Big Blue is now officially 8 years old ... and completely warranty-free. I'm now at the mercy of that inevitable scenario where the battery dies or the motor goes bezerk with the milling sound which screams, "How about a budget buster this month?"

That's 141k miles on the odometer.

Time to call Gruber Motor and let them know to keep a tow truck on standby because a few cells in the high-voltage pack are about to suddenly (but of course somehow coincidentally) start popping while I calmly cruise down the block at 25 mph. I have every intention of keeping this car going for the next decade but I'm sure Elon's watching disapprovingly from afar because I refuse to upgrade to a Plaid. Hmm, here comes a sneaky bug on the next software update that will brick the battery. Software is eating the world. And my car.

Or: Big Blue mysteriously catches on FIRE! while Supercharging one day. How sad, another car with Lifetime Free Supercharging finally taken off the streets. Good riddance, a freeloading guy who's been getting free electrons will now have to pay his fair share because you know he's going to turn right around, browse on over to tesla.com and press Order anyway. Sucker.

My car feels like a naked machine, stripped of the assurance that the battery pack will be lovingly cradled if I crawled back (or get towed to) the nearby Service Center in the event of a catastrophic failure.

Speaking of other things that have expired - back in July the Choco Taco was announced as being discontinued. I snagged the last one at a nearby 7-Eleven:

Long live the Choco Taco.

Long live Big Blue.