I wouldn't turn one down.

You can have pretty or smart... not both.*






*Automotive joke, posted without malice or any other misogynistic intent.

And that's the continual problem for me (and part of the reason my wife didn't buy a Tesla).  

Essentially, to own a Tesla, you still need to own a "normal" car.  

That means the Tesla isn't properly car, it's something else (a toy, a status symbol or whatever), which has some of the functionality of a car, but not enough that it can be your ONLY car (for most people).

Yeah, I've heard from lots of sources (including edmunds.com who tested a Tesla for a year) about how OFTEN Teslas need repair and replacement parts, etc.  So I guess it's important to have a company that can respond quickly when their product continually breaks a lot.


lol

The one time (so far) that we called Porsche for an appointment for service (a slight glitch in the entertainment center that was occasionally annoying), they told me to bring it in the next morning and had the loaner waiting for me when I arrived.

My wife called Porsche today to schedule a routine maintenance service, and they told her to come in tomorrow morning.

Yeah, those sure are "very long windows"

To use your own words, your post is "spoken like someone who obviously knows nothing about Porsche"

The issue for us (in terms of the range) that my wife's elderly parents about 900 miles away.  If there's some emergency (perhaps during a big storm, and planes are not flying, or we need to bring a generator, etc.), I want to be ABLE to drive down to them.

Sure, there are super-charger stations along the way.  

But what happens if we're going down as a result of a hurricane, and the grid has been knocked out in parts?  Are the supercharger stations independently powered?  Do they have generator back-up?  All we'd need is ONE to be out, and we wouldn't be able to reach the next one.  Then what?  There will NOT be enough range to reach another station, and the trip will essentially come to a complete halt until the power is restored.  During one storm here in D.C. several years ago, friends of mine were without power for seven days

Another issue is that in a car, we could do the drive with one or two stops - only taking enough time to pee and grab some food (again, I am talking about an EMERGENCY trip, where time is presumably of the essence) - and NOT have to stop at least four of five times for a MINIMUM of 30 minutes to charge the battery 80%, and possibly having to take much longer if the station is already being fully used and having to wait for others. So even under the best of conditions, it would add at least 2 more hours, possibly much more, to a 12-13 hour trip.

Finally, I have a real concern about weather.  Lots of testing has shown that batteries (whether Tesla, Leaf, whatever) lose a LOT of range when the weather is really cold.  Trying to make it to the next supercharging station on a long trip, and then you get stuck in a snowed-in road for a few hours - practically guarantees that the car WILL run out of power and leave your stranded.

That's the core of my problem.  For every day use, I am sure the Tesla is absolutely awesome (other than the reliability issues, but I am sure Tesla will eventually get that sorted out).  But I am simply too paranoid to be able to own a car that I do not think I can rely on for a long trip during a winter storm, or during a widespread power outage, etc.

My current car, although it is a Honda, is almost 10 years old, and I am not confident enough in a 10 year old car to want to rely on that for an emergency either.  So the dilemma for us was, in order to buy a Tesla, we would essentially ALSO have had to replace my car.  We'd have to buy the Tesla AND a "real" car, in order to be prepared for an emergency long-distance trip.