Tesla-S-owner

Tesla cars do not have spare tires.  So it is important to plan ahead about where to get a flat tire if you are driving a Tesla vehicle.  Continue reading “Flat tires and Tesla cars”

It is no easy trick finding replacement wiper blades for my 2021 Tesla Model S Long Range.  Most wiper blades are made for what is called a J-hook mounting.  The Tesla uses something called a 22-millimeter push button mounting (see photo above right).  You push with a screwdriver or other blunt object into that square hole, and it releases a latch that allows you to pull the old wiper blade radially out from the wiper arm.  Continue reading “Finding replacement wiper blades”

You could try to make up an astonishing story and you would not be able to make up this one.  A bill pending before the Wyoming state legislature proposes to phase out new EV sales by 2035.

You can read Senate Joint Resolution number SJ0004 here.

Among other things, this bill directs the Wyoming Secretary of State to:

transmit copies of this resolution to the President of the United States, … the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, … and the governor of California.

I recently renewed the car registration for my Tesla vehicle.  One of the charges tacked on to the annual registration fee is a “registration electric vehicle fee” of $51.88.  This is, I gather, intended to make up for a portion of the money that I do not pay to the State of Colorado through gasoline taxes.

It seems that the State of Colorado plans to charge even more money for EVs.  The State plans to charge an annual “Electric Motor Vehicle Road Usage fee” for each EV as follows:

• 2023 – $4
• 2024 – $8
• 2025 – $12
• 2026 – $16
• 2027 – $26
• 2028 – $36
• 2029 – $51
• 2030 – $66
• 2031 – $81
• 2032 – $96

 

Other sort of annoying nickel-and-dime fees include:

• 22¢ as a “material fee” for the “year” sticker that will get mailed to me, and that I will apply to an upper corner of the rear license plate.
• $4 for a “clerk hire fee” which I suppose is meant to make up for my having deprived some clerk of being able to earn a living selling the renewal sticker to me in person at a county DMV office (I did my renewal online).
• $1 “convenience fee” for paying the annual registration fee as an ACH debit from my checking account.
• 50¢ as a vague “insurance fee”.
• 50¢ for “Emissions – Statewide Air Account”, whatever that is.  Given that my car is an EV and does not generate “emissions”, this seems unreasonable.
• 10¢ for “Motorist Insurance Database Fee”.  I guess I pay a dime for the privilege of having my license plate information entered into a database.

In Colorado, something changed about motor vehicle license plates on July 1, 2022.  It became possible (or maybe required, I am not quite clear on this) for the owner of an electric vehicle (EV) to have an “EV license plate”.

Continue reading “Colorado EV (electric vehicle) license plates”

When a homeowner is getting ready to install an EV charger, one of the questions that often arises is “what kind of receptacle should I install for the EV charger?”  I have written an article about this, which you can see here.

Hello loyal readers.  Today’s topic is Tesla CCS charging.  Today I did successfully charge up my Tesla car using CCS.  Why would anybody need to be able to do this?  What do you need to do to be able to do this?  How does it work exactly?  What is the purpose of that odd little thing that sticks out (see the green oval)?  Is it brittle?  Will it break off? I am delighted to be able to tell you that all of these questions, and many more, will be answered in this blog article. Continue reading “CCS charging”

Hello folks.  I became the owner of a Tesla Model S about a year ago.

Just now I somehow managed to get a good enough driver safety score to qualify for Full Self Driving.

I’ll be posting about the FSD and other aspects of Tesla car ownership here.