MY BLUE TESLA

It's been almost 9 months since my last update due to an extremely busy work schedule. Ever since I began a new role at a startup, there's been no time to travel or do anything exciting. The odometer is close to rolling into 160k territory. Now that I'm on PTO for a week, I decided to stop by the old Fremont factory showroom to see what was in store.

Right outside the door was a Cybertruck with those chunky tires.

Foundation series, complete with perfecto panel alignment. A Tesla hallmark character.

I've seen a few of these roaming around the San Francisco Bay Area, and even got a chance to look at one up close back in late December when these were in early delivery and I just happened to be wearing my Cybertruck hoodie. The Tesla employee who had stopped by the same restaurant I was at allowed me to take some up-close photos:

Inside the showroom, Optimus greeted us:

I was mostly interested in what the new Quicksilver looked like in person, but the Model Y was not on display in that color. I must say the Ultra Red (on the Model 3 next to it) looked pretty nice. Mazda's Soul Red is still the best red I've seen recently, but Tesla's Ultra Red is still amazing to look at.

I've seen a few Quicksilvers on the road lately, but at a distance they don't seem as sexy as what the website visualizes. It'd be nice if Tesla would dare try something more unique like BMW's Isle of Man Green metallic.

There was a Model X in the delivery room in the back in Lunar Silver.

While roaming outside in the lot I finally got a look at the Model 3 Performance. I've not kept up to date with Tesla's offerings in recent years so the new wheels immediately stood out to me:

Sitting in the showroom cars and fiddling with the interior certainly made me envious of so many improvements in the last 10 years. The way the new seats feel, the surface materials, the responsiveness of the new screens, the sound system, battery/charging technology and related charging speeds, and so much more. Still, I don't want to give up Big Blue. It runs nearly flawlessly (almost like Day One), it's paid off, registration and insurance is relatively cheap, and overall looks very clean for its age. If I replace the front PPF I'd dare say it'd look nearly brand new again.

In other news, I'm still getting software updates every couple of weeks it seems. Here's the list of updates in 2024 so far sent over the air for a nearly decade-old Model S (with MCU2):

No noticeable improvement in drive performance, I don't pay attention to new games or other creature comfort features, and a lot of vague references to "security fixes" in the release notes.

And speaking of performance, it's nice to see TSLA come back alive again:

Otherwise not much to update for Big Blue. I'd like to swap out my standard wheels for the Turbines since the last time I rode them was 5 years ago. They're still sitting in the garage on fresh rubber, but the roadwork around the Bay Area along 880 and 101 makes me want to wait a little longer as the repaving project continues.

But one side note on reliability... Over the last few months I've experienced the driver's side headlight having intermittent issues. If I merely turn them off and then back on while driving this corrects it, but a bit annoying nonetheless.

The conspiracy theorist in me strongly believes that Elon embedded something into a recent software update to nudge me towards a new car. I'm sure he hates the fact that I'm holding onto that sweet, sweet Free Supercharging for Life and that this only suppresses the stock price.

You got your 45 billion dollar pay package, Elon. That's a lot of commas in one number. Go find something better to do. Aren't we supposed to be on Mars already?