I started off with a Nissan Leaf back in 2015. My previous cars had either been hothatches or heavily modified off road vehicles, so this was very different. I got it as a 4 day test drive and needed to see if I could get to work and back (80 mile round trip) on a single charge.
I didn’t buy new, as tbh, it is financially stupid considering the huge initial loss. I bought a 2014 24kwh Accenta for £11,600 with just 2,932 miles on it. The first thing I would say is that the NEDC rated range of 124 is a complete lie. I took it for a drive on a hot summers day, with very gentle acceleration, 50mph max, planned well ahead at junctions to minimise the amount of braking and just scraped 101.6 miles out of it before it went into reduced power mode, then into neutral, rolled to a stop and that was it. That car did me for 2 years and 40,000 miles.
I spent £800 on electric, that was it!! So much cheaper than any petrol or diesel vehicle I have ever had.
After a couple of years, it left me in trouble, in so much as I needed to respond to an emergency call out (I’m an Electrical Engineer by trade), but only had 16 miles of range left. It would have taken 4 hours to get enough charge to get to the job, which was no good. I jumped in a taxi, and had to swallow the cost of an 80 mile round trip. While I was in the taxi, I went on Tesla’s Certified Pre Owned website, just out of curiosity. I had always wanted one, and even test drove the P90DL the summer before, but they are so expensive. Anyway, I found a black P85 Model S, just under 3 years old with 23,000 miles.
It was up for £45,500. This I could afford, although it was still the most expensive car I had ever bought. It came with free supercharging, no road tax, no congestion charge and servicing was optional, not compulsory. Performance was crazy fast. I had looked at a supercharged Ford Mustang, but this thing with its silence and ability to bury you in the seat, really was the car I was looking for. 0-60 is reported as 4.2 seconds, but the datalogger has it as 3.9 seconds. Quarter mile is 12.2 seconds. Range is 200 to 230 miles, depending on temperature and driving style.
It is now 2 years it has done 54,000 miles since I got it, and yes, I will definitely get another. Tesla found me this one after I told them what I wanted. It originally had the 19" wheels, but I wanted the 21". This was a £4500 option when new. The sales guy said “silver or dark grey”? To which I said dark grey. He replied with “OK, done”. No charge. Straight swap. Needless to say, I was very impressed.
There are things you need to remember with these cars. They are a computer on wheels, and, just like Microsoft, they hang sometimes. A quick press of a couple of buttons and it resets and off it goes. The other thing to remember is that you can lose your licence so easily with this. The national speed limit is gone in under 5 seconds, and an instant ban in 10 seconds.
I have raced Aston Martins, Audi R8 V10, Ferrari, Lamborghinis, some can’t keep with me, others struggle like hell to lose me. That is where it is at, and the new P100DL, well that flattens them all 
