As such, our total distance is going to be just over 190 miles. So I’m beginning to do electric car range maths – a complex branch of maths closely related to that executed at the end of a restaurant meal for many people, when the bill is being split.
In the end, the car is still confident that it will make it – sometimes with only 5% battery remaining, sometimes with over 10% – so I trust it and go with it.
It’s worth saying that there are plenty of rapid chargers, Superchargers included, on this route.
I don’t need to play range roulette at all but, on this occasion, I’m keen to stretch the car and see what it will do.
Onwards, then, and the M3 motorway flashes past, as do the rapid chargers at Fleet and those on the roadside, as London proper starts to crowd us.
It occurs to me, as we creep towards Shepherd’s Bush, that a Parisian-spec Model S is the ultimate London car. It’s already lightly scuffed and kerbed, so you’re not precious about it.
Yet it’s still got way more kudos than the overly common Tesla Model 3, not to mention its crushing traffic-light performance, a cushy ride, ULEZ exemption…
I’d even live with the fact that the frameless driver’s window doesn’t always go back up after you’ve closed the door, so you have to get in from the passenger side and raise it yourself.
There’s also no keyless entry, which feels weird for a car that has flush door handles and a proximity sensor so that they pop out as you approach them, yet you have to double-press the top of the key, which all feels a bit PC computer interface circa the early 2000s.
Our car’s efficiency as we creep through town is unsurprisingly impressive and the predicted range has simply stopped ticking down and has even started to rise.
