My wife and I rented a Tesla for two days during a vacation to Nashville. Rather than going through a traditional rental company, we used the TURO App, which is a peer-to-peer car sharing company that allows car owners to make extra cash renting out their vehicles. When we first heard about TURO and began looking into the service, we found a wide range of vehicles, such as Tesla’s, that at the time conventional rental companies did not offer. We knew prior to the trip we were going to spend two days looking around the area’s surrounding Nashville and thought it a good opportunity to check out Mr. Musk’s stylish product.
I hiked the distance between our SOBRO neighborhood, VRBO, to a parking garage near the Tennessee State University Campus, where I was to pick up the car. Nashville is a beehive of activity with construction projects, and road closures creating a challenge for out-of-towners trying to get around the city.
The owner handed me a key card, that looked more like a security badge than an ignition key. He demonstrated unlocking the vehicle, which is done by holding up the key card to a sensor located between the driver and rear seat windows. Once seated behind the wheel, the first thing I noticed was the missing instrument cluster on the dash behind the steering wheel, which I found to be a radical departure from the layout of every other motor vehicle I had ever operated. The car had a fifteen-inch display screen mounted on the center of the dashboard in which all the information and control settings that would normally be found on the dash are located. This is an adjustment for the driver who must now move their eyes from the road to check speed, battery charge headlight settings and so forth. Once on the road, I found this to not be an issue as my personal vehicle has a dash mounted display screen that serves as the backup camera, audio, and climate controls.
The car has a shelf on the center console that not only holds the phone but will wirelessly charge it as well. (The charging feature did not work on my phone as it was in an Otter box, but it worked just fine on my wife’s phone).
Once I received an operational tutorial, I was on my way back to the VRBO to retrieve my wife.
The first thing I discovered in driving an electric vehicle was that once you let off the accelerator (Gas pedal) the car immediately begins to effectively brake, this is much like a down-shift in a vehicle with a manual transmission. It was an easy adjustment to come to a full stop at a red-light but required a little finesse to turn a corner at a steady speed.
All in all, within the first thirty minutes, I was driving comfortably, and able to navigate without having to give too much thought to the operation of the vehicle.
We put around one hundred and fifty miles on the car driving around the city and surrounding areas, including a trip down to Franklin where we drove around the historic city.
After returning to Nashville and exploring areas south of town I dropped my wife off at our VRBO and returned the car. The battery had dropped from 79% to just under 20% when I parked. They had told me not to worry about charging prior to return, so I cannot report on charging the vehicle on that trip, though I will have a bit to say about it in part 3.
DE Haines
Twisted Words OF D.E. Haines 