How to Drive A Tesla for the FIRST Time (Tips and Tricks!)

Teslas are like no other car brand out there today I mean some of them don't even have gear stocks so when you're coming from a normal gas car going to a Tesla it could be a little overwhelming I'm everyday Chris and today I'm going to teach you a few of the most important things to do when you're driving your Tesla let's get started if this is your first time in a Tesla and nothing is set up yet Tesla gives you two key cards and these are your car keys in order to lock or unlock the door on the driver side pillar right in the middle just put the key card there and the car will unlock and to open the door just use your thumb and pull oh man looks like I need to get some floor mats to protect the interior of my car ASAP been rainy here so my shoes are super dirty so the first thing you need to buy before you even get your car is floor mats I love my 3D Max powder floor mats it's super Sleek minimalistic looking kind of has a top style shaped design so it provides protection on the sides and it has these anti slip material so it doesn't slide around inside your Tesla all right let me install these bad boys fits like a glove now with my dirty feet I can come in here and it protects the carpet okay now that I got my brand new Tesla m y interior protected with my 3D max power floor mats I don't have to worry about it anymore if you get in within about 2 minutes you don't need to place the key card in the center and you could just drive off when you get your car you usually create a Tesla account with an email this email is automatically linked to the VIN number of your car so when you take deliv your car you already have your profile all set up now once you're inside the Tesla doesn't have a push to start button in order to drive off you just place the key card below the cup holders for older model 3s and model y's or where the wireless charging pad is for the model S X and 3 refresh with Teslas the second you get into the car the car is already on and good to go you don't have to turn something on to adjust the climate or just hang out in your car it's ready to go for you which is awesome it's very easy to adjust your seat using the buttons you can adjust your mirrors and the wheel using the screen and you can save and create your profile I go into detail on how to connect other phones to Bluetooth and I have a ton of quick tips if you want to check out those series on just really really short videos on things that all test owners need to know next with the Y and three with gear stocks it's on the right side you just put your phone on the brake go down for drive all the way up for reverse and for neutral it's just slightly up or down although there's never really a reason to use this feature I thought you could use it if you're Tesla battery died but the gear stocks don't even work in order to put your car into park you just press on that gray button the parking brake is usually enabled by default however in an emergency if you want to manually enable the parking brake in the Tesla with the gear stocks you just have to hold that gray button and then the manual emergency brake will enable you can also easily see the gears you're on on the screen with the new model 3s and x and s's with no gear stocks it's very easy but a little counterintuitive you put your put on the brake you swipe up on the drive strip to go into drive and you swipe down to reverse they have an amazing beta feature that uses the cameras to know to go into reverse or drive automatically and it works really well so all you have to do is put your foot on the brake and you're good to go to enable that feature go to controls it's the little car icon on the lower left hand side of the screen pedals and steering and auto shift out of park make sure you enable that also and most likely with the model 3 refresh as as well in case your screen doesn't work there are manual touch sensitive gear switches that you can actually push to go into drive or reverse or neutral or park in the center for the model X and S at the bottom near the emergency lights and for the model 3 it's on the ceiling where again the emergency lights are these automatically turn on when your screen resets or you can manually use them by pressing on them however sometimes they don't work so well so I found the best way just press both scroll wheels on your steering wheel once quickly and the automatically turn on instantly with the model xns since you have that Center display the gear indicators are on the lower right in the center display above your steering wheel now the gear strip goes away once you start driving so if you're thinking like how would I ever go into neutral or how do I engage the emergency brake if my brakes don't work if you press on that controls icon that I was talking to about earlier it automatically pops back up no matter what speed you go which allows you to do things like enable the parking brake by holding the PE or going into neutral if you're driving now once you're in Reverse or drive and you want to switch gears quickly as long as you're under 5 mph you can change gears without fully stopping it doesn't damage any gears or anything like that like you would with an engine car so now we're on the road Tesla has something called regenerative braking where it uses the motors to slow down the car this is very beneficial for Teslas because it allows more energy back into your car however if you're coming from a car that coasts when you let your foot off the gas it will feel really weird the best thing that I recommend doing is you find a nice empty straightaway somewhere put your foot on the accelerator go pretty fast then let your foot off completely and then just see how it feels and how aggressively and quickly the Tesla slows down also I found that the gas pedals with Teslas has some more resistance to it so requires more Force to press for me personally I recommend finding a sweet spot where you can let your heel rest on the floor and let the side of your foot rest on the side to allow for easier driving this is something I'm very happy with compared to many other electric vehicles I've Drive I rarely need to use the brake pedal because of this one pedal driving now as far as the tachometer goes Tesla doesn't really have one but they have this straight line under the speed when you're accelerating the bar will increase on the right side when you're decelerating and regenerative energy is going back to the battery it will be green on the left side if you ever notice like a light gray bar on the left side that's after the green bar that means the car is breaking and not putting any energy back to the battery also if you ever see any dotted lines on the left or right side that means the car is limited in what it can do and don't be scared it's not necessarily a bad thing for instance acceleration May mean your battery is really really low it's too cold outside or if it's on the brake side it may mean you have a really really full 100% battery pack and intuitively right under that your speed is also on the screen now when you are driving you'll see a small gray steering wheel icon near the gear stocks that's part of their Auto steer autopilot feature and I'll discuss that in a second while driving you also see your battery percentage that you can easily switch between miles to percentage on the Fly by simply pressing the percentage or miles in the three and Y and the X ands Unfortunately they don't have that feature because it's all on that Center display in front of your steering wheel that's not touch sensitive so you have to go to the menu to change that and you'll also see stuff like speed signs and next to it you'll see a speed that says Max and that's that's part of the autopilot function again I'll talk about that in a second now there's also a few other icons that may pop up that you've never seen before in a gas car for instance a snowflake this means it's just really cold so your battery capacity may be limited and charging speeds may be decreased due to the weather for those things the best way to avoid it is to precondition your car by sending it to a Tesla Supercharger in the navigation this allows the battery to heat up and another thing keeping your Tesla plugged in all the time and enabling the precondition feature before you leave it also allows the battery to heat up so you don't have these issues and again this is one of those things you have to learn with the Tesla as it really avoids people getting stranded in freezing cold weather now another weird icon is if you see a green lightning bolt with a dotted Circle that means the one pedal driving regenerative braking is limited due to probably a 100% or fully charged battery pack now one cool thing with Teslas is everything on the screen is in real time this means if you see brake lights on your Tesla screen your car is actually breaking in real life using the turn signals as well as well as the cars all around you and that's what makes Tesla so unique and exciting now depending if you paid for full self-driving you may have a different screen but overall it's the same now if you try changing lanes when there's a car the lane closest to you where you're changing to will blink and the car will blink red and I know what you're thinking it's a little counterintuitive because the screen is in the middle and I'm supposed to look to my left to change lanes however that's just kind of how it is and you kind of get used to it really quickly they made it so much easier though because now there's a new feature where the camera image will also turn red so pretty much when you enable the turn signal the camera on that side will turn on so you could see exactly what's going on so there's no blind spot however if there is a car coming in that will actually turn red as well which is amazing and it's really helpful to avoid hitting someone as you're turning into that lane if you don't have the setting enabled just make sure you enable the automatic turn turn signals just go to lights and enable automatic turn signals then go to autopilot and enable automatic blind spot cameras also the ma 3 refresh design as well as the Cyber Tru has a red dot in the pillar that turns on when a car is in your blind spot and it also blinks when you try to go into that lane which is something I've been missing for forever and I'm so happy they finally have it in the newer models now very simple to use the turn signals use the left gear stock you can lightly press up or down for it to Blink three times then it stops automatically or you can push it all the way down and it'll stay on and to turn it off manually you can go the opposite way or you could just go down the same way again and the signal light will turn off now there's super Nifty stuff like I said where you have the camera turn on where you're changing lanes and there's another Cool Tech feature the car can automatically turn off the blinkers and I recommend you guys turn all these on it's under controls lights and automatic turn signals and make sure it's set to Auto cancel this is the reason why you got a Tesla right for all the cool Tech features that make your everyday life easier just knowe that if you have the auto off blinker feature on when you lightly go up or down it'll keep the blinker on until you make a lane change the car will turn it off automatically you can still manually turn off the blinker Yourself by fully going up or down as well now with the m 3 refresh and M xns there's just simple buttons on the steering wheel that vibrate when you press it and I feel especially the Lane change feature is perfect because you don't have those gear stocks making it a teeny bit more difficult to cancel your lane change if you're moving your steering wheel constantly now let's talk about autopilot to use things like cruise control and autopilot and auto steering it's very easy now all tesas come with free autopilot or cruise control and it stays in the lane maintains the speed in front of the car in front of you and it breaks and accelerates on its own and it does a great job autopilot comes in two parts traffic aware cruise control Tac and auto steer they added a new feature where you can enable both with a single pull of the gear stock making it so much easier and intuitive and I really recommend you guys turn that on just go to autopilot autopilot activation and switch it to single pull again this makes it so the second you pull it it auto steers and maintains the distance in front of the car you'll know you could use those Auto steer functions when you see that small gray steering wheel icon right next to your gear stock indicator like we talked about before then the changes on the screen you get two blue lines on the side of your car and that shows that the autopilot function is working as well as some sounds that just remind you that aut pilot is on now remember those speed signs that were a little confusing that said things like Max on the display this is what your aut Pilot Speed will be and you can easily adjust it I recommend you switch it from set speed to offset with offset it reads the speed signs and it automatically adjusts the speed based on that so pretty much if you're going 20 mph and it sees a 20 mph speed and you offset it to 4 or 5% it will be 4 or 5% more than 20% and if you're not good at math like myself on the screen it shows you how much more it'll default to based on that percentage this provides a much more fluid Driving Experience instead of a set speed so to enable it you simply have to press on the left gear stock once you'll hear a beat and the speed on the right near the speed side indicates what your cruise control speed is you can increase or decrease the speed with the right scroll wheel going up up or down and change how far or close you want to be to the car in front of you with the left and right Taps of the right scroll wheel there are a couple hidden features like let's say the speed limit is 50 mph you enable your autopilot and you have it on a set speed instead you could simply press on the speed sign 55 M hours press it and it'll automatically default to that speed making it so much quicker than just flicking up on the scroll wheel and if you have the enhanced autopilot if you are on autopilot instead of getting the two blue lines on the side of your car you get a single line in the center so it's more active and driving itself to your destination now with the stock list design it's the right button you press to turn on autopilot and unfortunately my model X doesn't adjust distance with the left and right scroll wheels so you have to Dangerously go into the menu to adjust it while you're driving now one thing I wish that kept was when you're on autopilot with full self-driving you have the ability to have minimal Lane changes on that current drive it's nice if you just want to chill and let the car drive but when you start a new trip it turns off so that is something I wish they changed but it's very simple to enable that feature you just have to go left and right on that scroll wheel and then just enable minimal Lane changes for current drive now if you paid that extra money for full self-driving there's a ton more thingss to dive into but I'll make a separate video for that now there's no point in driving a Tesla if you can't even see at night Tesla has really good automatic headlights but to turn them on manually the only real way is to go into the Tesla screen it's super easy to find you just click on the car icon and it's right there you'll know your headlights are on with the indicators on the screen as well with the model X and S they have a rear fog light which helps in foggy weather or rainy weather and it's this orange reverse looking light but it's dangerous to adjust these settings while driving so simply use the left gear stock and bring it towards you to flash your high beams then the mini menu pops up and from there you can manually turn the headlights on her off quickly without looking away from the road this is the same as the M refresh and x and S just tap the high B button to bring up the lights menu and change the settings on the Fly that way and because we're on that area of headlights let's quickly talk about their automatic wiper blades now automatic wiper blades in the Tesla can either be a hit or miss depending on the firmware you're on sometimes it may work well and sometimes it may not work so well one way to manually use the wiper blades once is to press the left gray button the quick menu pops up and you can adjust it that way but again if it's pouring rain outside your auto wipers aren't working and you don't want to take your eyes off the road you can press that great button once then you can use your left scroll wheel and manually adjust the wiper blade speed that way you can also use the voice commands to adjust the wiper blade speed on the Fly super easily as well set wiper blade speed to Max also if you ever wanted to use the windshield washer fluid just hold the gray button and of course with the stockless design you just have to hold that wiper blade Button as well now if you didn't know Tesla has some really good voice commands that's responsive and useful if you wanted to turn on the front or rear defoggers you can simply tell Tesla to do it turn on the front defoggers or you can press the temperature and it'll pop up the climate controls and you could do it that way you could easily save Sentry mode footage by telling them to save Dash can clip you can open the charge port open the butthole find me some boba tea and if you end up spilling your bobaa it's a good thing you have the 3D max power floor mats to clean up and hold a any spills it not only holds the spills dirt and mud it's super easy to clean if you guys are interested make sure you use my discount in the description below there's a lot of stuff that Tesla can do you just have to ask now Tesla computer on Wheels everything is automatic Tesla also has Auto heated seats and a steering wheel and it does a great job one thing is if you're the only person driving the passenger air may not turn on but to turn it on you simply have to press the climate button and press on the passenger Des dashboard area and it'll simply turn on you also have the ability for dual zone climate control in the front and if there's a passenger you can simply adjust the climate from their side to automatically enable different climate attemp or you can press the split Button as well and if you want to turn it off quickly just press that split button again and on the screen you can customize all the icons and buttons so if you tend to use the heated steering wheel often or the heated seats you can easily move things around and adjust it to your liking now one important thing quickly is the emergency lights button for the 3 and Y are at the top for the SN X is located near the bottom so overall it's not that hard to drive a Tesla but I think a lot of people especially my senior mom gets overwhelmed with all the settings and features of the Tesla so first if you ever have any issues with the car or the screen acting up actually this applies to anything plugged in with technology just restart it and if you ever need to restart the screen just hold both scroll Wheels until the screen turns black and that's it if you wanted to get in and out of your model 3 And1 you just have to press the door open button and the door pops open however if that doesn't work because your battery died or if you're an accient for some reason it doesn't work there's always a manual door open button right above the window switches for all models you just have to pull it up and the door will manually open lastly let's quickly talk about charging with most Teslas unless you have a rear wheel drive with lfp batteries you don't want to charge your Tesla to 100% every day you'll know you need to charge to 100% with the lfp batteries if on the charging screen it says 50% and 100% all other testas will always say daily and trip now the charge port is located on the left side of the car on the driver's side and if you don't remember again just look on the center screen and you'll see where the charge port is and even if it's open you can open the charge port lid by pressing on the screen or by pressing on the lid itself but there's also a button on the Tesla charger that you can press to open the lid there's so many ways to charge your Tesla first is with the Tesla home wallet charger second is the mobile charging kit and third is superchargers and fourth third party Chargers like EV go or Electrify America all test the stuff you just simply plug it in and you're done most Tesla superchargers require you to back into the stall due to the length of the cable so you want to make sure you back up far enough where you can't see the cinder block guard otherwise you have to get out and then go back in and reverse more now when you are getting your Tesla for the first time don't forget when you order it you have to purchase the wall charger or the mobile charger separately but I do recommend the universal wall connector instead because that has the universal wall connector adapter so if you ever have a friend or if you ever want to get a non- Tesla you can easy charge that car with the wall connector that way or just do what I have I have my electron adapter and even though I don't have the universal wall connector it still works charging non- Teslas just fine but I do recommend everyone getting an extension cord and the mobile charging kit because I got stranded and I had nowhere to charge my Tesla so luckily I had that to charge my Tesla to give me one or 2 miles to get to a charger once that's done you can go to your screen and adjust the charge limit now with most daily driving it's around 80% from here you can control how much amps the car pulls this is very useful if you're using extension cord or you don't want to trip a breaker you can easily decrease the amps now I talked about the charging schedules in my settings video as it can be a little confusing however just know for most people their highest rates are from 4: to 900 p.m. so you want to make sure the off peak end time ends at 34 5 p.m. that way your Tesla isn't charging during 4: to 9: and at superchargers you can't control any of those settings it literally just charges the second you plug in and you're good to go but overall that's about it on the basic driving stuff that new Tesla owners need to know anyways guys hope that video helped you make sure to subscribe check out my other videos I also go on a ton of road trips and driving an electric car isn't as crazy as the media says it is thanks so much for watching I'll see you guys next time

Channel: Everyday Chris

Views: 48,169

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Id: ei4c-B1L2VA

Length: 20min 25sec (1225 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 03 2024