How I Came To Own A Tesla, Part I, The Decline of the Lexus
It all started years ago, when Tesla first announced that they were making a sedan. My husband and I briefly considered the Roaster even before that, but it was too expensive for us. But the year the Model S was deemed "the safest car ever tested" by the press, was the year I decided I wanted one, it was 2013.
But I was not exactly in the market for a new car at the time, my Lexus ES 330 was only nine years old at the time, and under 100,000 miles. I had two car seats in the back with a four and two year old boys in them, generally making a great mess all over my back seat. I did not even want to get a new car until both were potty-trained.
My affection for the Lexus gradually waned over the intervening years. When I hit 100k miles, I still liked the car. I had never put so many miles on one car before in my life, it was a milestone for me. But the fit and finish weren't what they used to be. After I'd had the car ten or eleven years I began longing for a quieter cabin-- it's not even that the Lexus cabin was loud, but it was louder than when it was new, and I missed the perfection of quiet.
By year 12, I started actively considering replacement cars. The Model S was over our budget at the time, so I was considering regular luxury cars. Alas, after test-driving a few, I've come to the conclusion that they're not making them like they used to. I started looking into used luxury cars, and the Model S was back in the budget. The cars built in 2013-2014 were in the budget (just barely, just a few of them) so they were in the mix of all I considered.
When the alternator in the Lexus went bad when I was driving home alone on a dirt road near midnight, it put some urgency into my search for a newer car. I figured even a three year old car with under 30,000 will have a decade less wear-and-tear and 100,000 fewer miles on it than my existing car. Which was, by the way, the newest and most reliable car we have, and we have three cars, so I couldn't solve my problem by just switching to one of them.
But when we went to an informal electric car show one weekend, and I saw some early year Teslas in person, and talked to their owners, my mind was made up. None of the other makes really caught my imagination like a Tesla, so I decided to focus my search on just the Model S.
But I was not exactly in the market for a new car at the time, my Lexus ES 330 was only nine years old at the time, and under 100,000 miles. I had two car seats in the back with a four and two year old boys in them, generally making a great mess all over my back seat. I did not even want to get a new car until both were potty-trained.
My affection for the Lexus gradually waned over the intervening years. When I hit 100k miles, I still liked the car. I had never put so many miles on one car before in my life, it was a milestone for me. But the fit and finish weren't what they used to be. After I'd had the car ten or eleven years I began longing for a quieter cabin-- it's not even that the Lexus cabin was loud, but it was louder than when it was new, and I missed the perfection of quiet.
By year 12, I started actively considering replacement cars. The Model S was over our budget at the time, so I was considering regular luxury cars. Alas, after test-driving a few, I've come to the conclusion that they're not making them like they used to. I started looking into used luxury cars, and the Model S was back in the budget. The cars built in 2013-2014 were in the budget (just barely, just a few of them) so they were in the mix of all I considered.
When the alternator in the Lexus went bad when I was driving home alone on a dirt road near midnight, it put some urgency into my search for a newer car. I figured even a three year old car with under 30,000 will have a decade less wear-and-tear and 100,000 fewer miles on it than my existing car. Which was, by the way, the newest and most reliable car we have, and we have three cars, so I couldn't solve my problem by just switching to one of them.
But when we went to an informal electric car show one weekend, and I saw some early year Teslas in person, and talked to their owners, my mind was made up. None of the other makes really caught my imagination like a Tesla, so I decided to focus my search on just the Model S.
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