As I sat down to test drive the all-electric crossover car, I was excited to see how it would perform on the road. The owner warned me that I had to rev it up and get to higher rpms to feel the horsepower kick in, which is a characteristic of instant torque in electric cars. He also mentioned that the battery, which weighs around 1200 pounds, takes a long time to recharge - I was surprised to hear that it took about 25 minutes to put in half a charge at a Tesla Supercharged station.
The compact crossover is spacious, with ample room for passengers and cargo. The owner pointed out that electric cars have an abundance of space due to the absence of engines and transmissions, which take up valuable real estate. He also mentioned that there's even more space under the car and in the front compartment, making it a great option for those who need to transport gear or people.
However, as I explored the interior, I noticed some quirks and design choices that might not be ideal for everyone. For example, the door handles are designed to pop up when you push them, but they can be a bit tricky to operate - it's like having to reach in there and grab something, rather than being able to simply open or close the door like with traditional cars. The owner acknowledged this issue, saying that maybe they should have done things differently.
Despite these minor complaints, I was impressed by how fun it was to drive this car around town. The minimalist interior is indeed a bold choice - everything is on a giant screen in front of you, and there's no physical dashboard to speak of. However, the large rearview mirror does provide some peace of mind when driving on the highway, although I did find that my view of what was behind me was somewhat restricted.
As an aside, the owner mentioned that he had entered a contest where one of these cars was up for grabs - the prize package included ten thousand dollars and two electric bikes. He encouraged readers to buy tickets and support a good cause, as the winnings would go towards a charity for MS research and another for addiction recovery. It's always nice to see companies giving back to their communities, and I'm sure that this car will bring some joy to its new owner.
In response to a viewer question from Canada, the owner explained that modern diesels are much less likely to "run away" due to advances in technology and safety features. The old diesel engines were prone to malfunctioning if they got too hot or lost power, but modern diesels with electronic controls and sensors have made them far more reliable. It's reassuring to know that the chances of a runaway diesel are now virtually zero - no more worrying about those centrifuges shutting down or the engine running backwards!
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enrev up your engines yes scotty's got his hand on a tesla model y you'd say god he would never buy one well guess what it's a rental car believe it or not here on the east coast there's a company called teslarence.com and you can rent them let's say you want their speed screamer yes it does 0 to 60 in 2 point something seconds for a mere 269 a day you can rent one of those and this particular brand new model y comes from teslarence.com pretty cool interesting idea i'd never buy one i'm too cheap but rent one not that bad of a deal and this particular one is owned by a german gentleman and he uses it some of the time some of the time he rents it out to pay it just like people with a yacht you can run a yacht for the weekend or in my case you can rent a tesla for the week but if you're even too cheap to rent one go to a charity auction and you could have a chance to win one of these model wise you'd also win 10 000 cash a tesla wall charger and two man-move electric bicycles how do you do it well you can just go to charitystars.com scotty kilmer it's a charity for ms i had a friend who died of ms very nasty disease i am not charging anything for promoting these people i like promoting real charities that help people out the chariot itself is called center without walls if you want to donate directly and the auction also helps out can cure addiction now my brother died of addiction i love helping out these causes they're helping people out just by standing here talking and driving around this model why now just to be full disclosure here they did offer me money to make a video for their cause they said i don't take money for making videos i don't even take for people to build products i'm certainly not gonna take any money from a charity i'm doing this all free because i think those are two really good causes and somebody's gonna end up winning one of these things so let's get into the car itself it's a brand new 2021 model y you're not gonna win this one because this is a rental one you're gonna get a brand new one non-used now you're gonna win a fancy model y it's the one that has the dual motor system and all-wheel drive now if you're into dark gray black whatever you want to call it check it out this is one dark car of course you can make things brighter but this guy really likes dark stuff check it out kind of like a spaceship and there's tons of room in the back i feel like i'm in a spaceship watch this push open the trunk opens and even has a little warning light that's open then when you close it space shuttle ready for takeoff now be forewarned you better be into technology if you get one of these because check it out it doesn't have a key key it's got a card key then you have to put the pin number in to drive it it's ready to drive here we go there's the gear shift it looks like a turn signal really nice viewed mirror i do have to say you got a good picture all around talk about quiet but let's test it out on a bumpy road we got some real bumpy roads here in rhode island let's see what it feels like it stops the bump it's okay but i'm not overly impressed by the shock system truthfully my wife's lexus is smoother than this and it's 19 years old one thing that's cool is this you take your foot off the gas look i'm not touching the brake the car is braking itself the regenerative brake in these cars worked quite well maybe too well it stopped well before the stop sign now realize that this is an all-wheel drive it's got two motors in the front and the back so it's got a lot of power let's see what it does on our little straightaway all right we're going zero let's floor and see what it does it is like a roller coaster ride this baby's got acceleration there's no doubting that and it does have an insanely tight steering system you turn that wheel a little this baby's like a race car i've driven formula one cars got pretty close handing off that it's got immaculate handling there's no arguing on that although as i say the ride's a little bit rough for me but on the other hand the handling is so immaculate i'd live with the somewhat bumpy ride on rough roads now my wife that's another story she probably wouldn't like it but if you like quiet this thing is quiet and the seats are very comfy now of course all kinds of controls you put the home screen you can get all kinds of stuff you can adjust the mirrors the steering wheel the window lock your display brightness you can make it brighter or dimmer you can mess with just about everything on these it takes a while getting used to this turn signal shifter i'm like where's park well when you go here there's park you push that then it goes into park now i just have to figure out how to turn the thing off like i say if you're not into electronics and gizmos don't buy one of these cars i look it up on the internet and it says put it in park which i have then open the door there's no door handle but there's a button it claims that'll turn it off let's see if that worked well yes indeed it seemed to work because when i open the door there's no power steering now meaning the vehicle is turned off there's also buttons you can push on the dash let me tell you if one of these things ever breaks i'm glad it's not going to be me who's fixing them i can just imagine the things that can go wrong with this and for those of you who regularly lose your car keys don't lose your little card i said i get a few of them put them in good places there's a lot of room in one of these babies look at all this space there's a lot of leg room they're comfortable cars i'll give them that big old trunk too now technically this is a small crossover suv only this is the dual motor so it's got motor front and back and it's extremely fast it goes zero to sixty in three and a half seconds and has a top speed that's limited to 150 miles an hour now i claim it has a range of 303 miles this one seems to go about 280 or so miles and the dual electric motors put out 450 horsepower and of course since it's electric horsepower it's instantaneous it's always there it's not like a gasoline engine that you have to rev it up and the horsepower is coming at higher rpms these are instant horsepower now the battery which is on the bottom of the car it weighs a whopping 1200 pounds the one disadvantage of having big electric cars they have big heavy electric batteries i asked the owner about range and recharging and he said it was about half full coming here you went to a tesla supercharged station and it took about 25 minutes to put in a half charge you got to plan this ahead it's going to take some time big powerful batteries take a long time to recharge that's just how it is in the electric car world the compact crossover man this baby's got space if this wasn't enough of course you can put the seats down if you want but there's even room under here electric cars have an awful lot of space since they don't have engines and transmissions they got space in the front too kind of like a volkswagen beetle not a particularly large amount of space just like the old beetles but there's space nevertheless you put a good cooler in there but you can hear when i close the front trunk batteries way so much they gotta compensate to get rid of weight not the most solid construction that's a brand new car but check it out here's the passenger side look at the size of the gap here for the driver's side it's almost touching it isn't built all that well in terms of fit you would never see such a wide gap from one side to the other inside alexis and of course they have gimmicks like these flush door handles that you push and then it pops up but even then you still gotta kind of reach in here and grab out which is not that comfortable you were thought with all this technology hey they might have thought of something that popped out a little bit better or had something to grab other than having to stick your hand in there like you're jerry rigging something but i do have to say they're fun to drive around you know it's weird sitting behind a wheel where there's nothing in front of you but this fake wood veneer stuff everything is on a giant screen you can open the trunk close the trunks do everything on the screen so truly you'd have to call this a minimalist car obviously that was designed or nothing here most of it is very minimal it's a good thing there's a large backup screen to look at because look at the rear window it has a very restricted view when you're driving on a highway you're not seeing behind you all that well they went for a cool look but making that cool look makes a very limited view when you're driving a car out the back now i do have to say it was fun driving this thing around heck i didn't buy it you can just run them for a couple of days like i said if you want to try to win this model y plus ten thousand dollars plus a couple of electric bikes just check out charitystars.com scotty kilmer they've got rules for the contest you can buy tickets you can even try to get in without buying it's one of those gambling laws i believe so even if you don't buy tickets you get a chance to win it so they're fair and square about that but really come on this is two good charities one for ms and one for addicted people i'm gonna donate him some money anyway i don't care i don't care about winning the car i got cars coming on my ears anyways but it's a good cause buy some tickets support them who knows you might end up winning one of these things because they really are a hooth to drive if you got a lead foot like me and here's some bonus questions and answers ready from canada says runaway diesels i work in the oil field and have a positive air shutdown system on my diesel but i always wondered what are the chances of modern diesels running away with constant intake exhaust air gas monitoring and ecm controlled intake valve pretty much almost zero chance the old ones ran away they were mechanical and if they got going too fast the little spinning centrifuge that's supposed to shut them down didn't work they would just start sucking air in and they'd run away and they could also run backwards because they're diesels and they could end up sucking air in from the exhaust and throwing exhaust out the air intake which of course if the engine's running backwards it would destroy the engine but the modern ones with all their controls i've never seen that happen now if anybody out there has please tell me i'd like to know about it but with all the controls that modern diesels have you really don't have to worry about runaway diesels and you really don't have to worry about the things running backwards either so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos remember to ring that bell\n"
