Several thousand Tesla owners have now purchased their cars by ordering and paying for them online after visiting a Tesla Store showroom.

No franchised dealers are involved.

That’s a model that Tesla Motors feels is crucial to getting its electric cars into the mainstream.

State and national auto-dealer groups strongly disagree.

Very, very strongly.

Taking it federal

Now Tesla’s ambitious CEO Elon Musk suggests that perhaps the company will attempt to ensure its legal right to sell cars directly at a Federal level.

In an interview last week with trade journal Automotive News, he suggested that two routes might be Congressional legislation or a Federal lawsuit alleging restraint of interstate trade.

He suggested that the company would rather fight “one federal battle” than “20 different state battles.”

Musk has been in the forefront of the fight to protect Tesla’s store-and-online-ordering model.

Most recently, he testified last week in Texas on a bill that would explicitly permit customers to buy direct from carmakers who sell “only all electric-powered or all battery-powered motor vehicles.”

In other words, from Tesla Motors.

State laws protect dealers

Ever since Tesla announced its plans to sell cars directly, with factory-owned Tesla Stores and Tesla Galleries acting only as display showroms, car dealers and their associations have denounced the plan.

They’ve also sued Tesla for violating franchise laws in several states–Massachusetts, most notably–and gotten laws changed in others to make Tesla’s model flatly illegal.

Most states have some variation of a law that says automakers cannot open wholly-owned dealers that compete with franchises selling the same brand.

Dealers feared in the post-war period that automakers would set up their own dealerships and give them preferential financial terms over franchised dealers.

But Tesla Motors has no franchised dealers to protect.

Changing Colorado law

Nonetheless, the Colorado Auto Dealers Association got that state’s law changed in early 2010 to forbid direct sales of any car by any maker soon after Tesla opened its first store there.

State auto-dealer groups are viewing the Colorado legislation as a model, and such efforts may pop up in other states as well.

Meanwhile, William Underriner, last year’s chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association, told a group of Detroit journalists in December that the association has “a whole mess of lawyers in Washington” who work on state franchise laws.

NADA could conceivably deploy those attorneys to support state dealer group efforts in every location Tesla seeks to open a store or service facility.

David Westcott, this year’s NADA chairman, called Musk’s suggestion a “mistake” and vowed that NADA will “vigorously defend the franchise system.”

Auto dealers say that Tesla should use existing dealers who are already operating and know their local markets.

Musk counters that those dealers make the bulk of their profits from selling gasoline cars, meaning that they have little or no incentive to support a disruptive product like the all-electric Tesla Model S luxury sport sedan.

Dealers protect buyers

In an interview last year, Tim Jackson, who heads the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association, detailed three reasons that dealers feel Tesla’s online ordering and company store model does not protect the company’s buyers:

• If or when Tesla Motors fails, independent dealers can continue to provide parts and service for the cars;
• Opening stores is expensive and time-consuming; Tesla should spend its money and resources more wisely; and
• The reputation of all auto dealers will be hurt if Tesla fails and strands its owners.

Tesla, it’s safe to say, likely disagrees with Jackson’s arguments.

Petition to White House

The idea of helping Tesla Motors to make its non-dealer stores legal seems to have at least some support among the general public, too.

A petition on WhiteHouse.gov urges the Obama Administration to “overturn franchise laws that limit auto manufacturers from selling their vehicles directly to consumers.”

Posted on Tuesday, the petition must reach 100,000 signatures by May 16 to be considered by the White House.

Thus far, it has fewer than 2,000–though we suspect that number may rise as Tesla fans and supporters get wind of it.

This story originally appeared on GreenCarReports, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners.

To put it mildly, the Tesla Model S has been a resounding success.

The New York Times has called the all-electric luxury sport sedan a game-changer, comparable to the Model T Ford. It’s won virtually every 2012 “Car of the Year” honor, including the only unanimous Motor Trend award in the magazine’s 65-year history.

Tesla Motors has a waiting list of nearly 20,000 eager buyers. Its production line is now humming at full capacity. And the 3,000-odd customers who’ve taken delivery of their cars are, for the most part, ecstatic.

But nobody’s perfect.

In fact, it would be something of a miracle if there weren’t at least a few teething troubles from a revolutionary, clean-sheet-of-paper design, built by a fledgling startup company, relying heavily on software, and assembled on a brand-new production line.

The Tesla Model S, too, has had its share of glitches, quirks, and peccadilloes.

In an ordinary car, these minor blips would likely pass unnoticed. But the Model S is no ordinary car.

Under a microscope since the prototype was revealed four years ago, the car has attracted a devoted clique of fanatical followers who pore over every scrap of Model S minutia.

(Count me as one of them; my 2013 Model S, with the 60-kilowatt-hour battery pack, is now due to arrive in just a couple of weeks.)

Here, in any case, are some of the handful of blemishes sighted on the otherwise happy face of the Tesla Model S, as recounted by owners on Tesla Motors’ own online forum.

* Self-opening door locks. Several owners report having returned to their supposedly locked cars to find them unlocked, with one door slightly ajar. This has occurred both after manual remote locking with the key fob, and in the “walkaway” auto-lock mode, where the car locks itself when the key fob recedes to a certain distance.

* Sticking sunroof. Owners have reported difficulties opening the sunroof, which is controlled entirely from the touch screen.

* Software glitches. Model S software update 4.1 was designed partly to offer a “sleep” mode to reduce power consumption when shut down.  But it has proven prone to bugs, with numerous reports of unpredictable glitches with the panoramic roof, door handles, locking, wipers, displays, and controls. (In fact, the two problems listed above are likely software problems, not mechanical.)

Rebooting seems to resolve many of these malfunctions, but for a few owners, rebooting has become almost a daily occurrence.

Laments one owner on the Tesla on-line forum, “You shouldn’t have to look to the east, raise your right hand, do the hokey-pokey, and tap the screen randomly to make something work!!!”

Responded another owner, wearily, “You obviously have no experience with software. The hokey-pokey is a basic required user skill.”

Tesla is currently remotely downloading Model S software version 4.2, to cars in the field. It eliminates the sleep mode that apparently caused most of the problems. “Reduced power sleep mode remains a high priority for future software releases,” says Tesla.

* Fogged windshields.  Numerous owners have reported poor defogger/defroster action in cold or humid conditions. Tesla has already come up with a new vent design, and expects to have retrofit kits available  at its service centers soon. Estimated installation time is less than an hour.

* Balky charge port doors. Owners report that the doors, disguised as part of the left taillight, occasionally don’t open or close properly, and sometimes  pop open repeatedly. One poor fellow had his charge cord jam in the socket, immobilizing the car. He had to be rescued by a Tesla service rep.

* Substandard Floor Mats. Even top-of-the-line Model S cars come with no mats for the back seats, and cheap, low-quality mats in the front footwells.  “They are the crappiest ever,” complains one owner. If you want nicer ones, Tesla will sell you “premium” mats for the front and rear footwells for $400.

* No regenerative braking in the cold.  The recent Midwest cold snap has revealed an odd characteristic of the Model S: In subfreezing temperatures, the regenerative braking doesn’t kick in until the car has been driven 10 or 15 miles.

This is apparently because Tesla engineers don’t want a cold battery to receive the sudden charge that occurs when a Model S driver suddenly backs off the throttle, or descends a steep hill. So the regen is automatically disabled or limited until the battery warms up.

This has proven disconcerting to a few owners who weren’t expecting it. “I was caught off guard by this over the weekend,” commented one owner on the Tesla forum.  “It’s not hard to adjust to, but with something as important as braking, the car should stop in a consistent, predictable way.”

“It’s a wart on what is otherwise a superior, consistent driving experience,” commented another. And, oddly, the Chevy Volt suffers no such quirk. Its regenerative braking functions consistently in all temperatures. Do Chevy engineers know something that Tesla’s don’t? Or vice versa?

A few Model S owners have suffered more than one of these problems.

One unfortunate buyer who took delivery in late December–when Tesla was rushing to deliver as many cars as possible before year’s end–reported multiple problems with his car’s paint, GPS system, body trim, and door handles.

“I am so frustrated with all of these problems,” he wrote recently on the Tesla forum. “Had I known about this before I made a final order I never would’ve purchased this car. I wish I could take this car back to them now. Be forewarned.”

But the vast majority of Model S owners aren’t suffering any problems, or seem far more willing to cut Tesla some slack and give the company time to work out the few bugs.

One of them summed it up this way: “The car is just too awesome to whine about little problems that will (eventually) be taken care of.”

David Noland is a Tesla Model S reservation holder and freelance writer who lives north of New York City.

This story originally appeared on GreenCarReports, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners. Follow GreenCarReports on Facebook and Twitter.

Two years ago this weekend, Jeff Kaffee (pictured above) took possession of his keys and became the very first person in the U.S. to buy a Chevrolet Volt.

Since then, the retired pilot from Parsippany, New Jersey, has put almost 12,000 miles on his range-extended electric car–using just 26.1 gallons of gasoline while doing so.

That works out to a lifetime average of about 460 mpg, since most of those miles were covered on grid electricity.

That’s lower than the average distance covered by most cars, but Kaffee notes that he spends up to half the year in Florida and can fly free–so he does few long-distance road trips.

Generally speaking, Kaffee says most of his daily travels fall within the electric range of his 2011 Volt.

He pegs that at 38 to 40 miles in the summer, and 30 to 35 miles in colder months, but notes that owners of 2013 Volts have reported higher ranges due to the slightly larger battery pack.

No bugs at all

The most unexpected facet of his Volt, he admitted, was that it has had no bugs or service issues at all.

“For such a new kind of car,” he said, “I expected that I’d be in the dealer every month or two for something or other.”

But aside from a faulty tire-pressure sensor, replaced under warranty, he’s had no need to ask the dealer to look at or fix anything.

If he could change one thing about his Chevy Volt, Kaffee said, it would be to add 2 or 3 inches of legroom to the rear seat.

He knew he was buying a four-seat car, so that wasn’t an issue, but the rear seats are just a little tighter than he and his friends would prefer.

Few charging stations

Kaffee says he mostly plugs in his Volt at home, and doesn’t make any effort to locate or seek out public charging stations.

He said that he’s seen charging stations here and there on his travels–he mentioned six or eight at the PepsiCo headquarters in Purchase, New York–but isn’t a member of ChargePoint or any other network of stations.

His only disappointment with the Volt, he said, was that public charging infrastructure on the East Coast is relatively less developed than in other regions, particularly the West Coast.

He recalled driving down the coast in Oregon, seeing multiple charging stations every 25 or 30 miles.

Environment and energy security

What led Jeff Kaffee, a 20-year military pilot before entering commercial aviation, to buy his first Chevrolet since the 1970s?

“Two things, really,” he said. “First, using less gasoline is simply better for the environment–that’s why I bought my first Prius.”

“But second, I want to help reduce this country’s oil consumption,” he continued.

“I was thrilled with the 45 mpg that Prius gave me, but the Volt is everything that car was and a lot more–better driving, and with more overall range.”

Soon, plug-in to replace hybrid

The other car in the Kaffee family is a 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid, which routinely gives his wife 37 mpg.

That’s the same real-world fuel economy that the Volt delivers when running in range-extending mode.

Because the two cars are equally efficient in gasoline mode, he said, when they do take a rare road trip, the couple takes the Camry–because it’s bigger.

When the family Camry’s time is up, will Kaffee replace it with a second plug-in car?

“Oh, absolutely!” he laughed. “There’s no question. I’ve been looking at the Ford [Fusion Energi] plug-in–and I’d love a Tesla Model S, but a $100,000 car isn’t in my budget.”

So, two years to the week after the first mass-produced plug-in cars went on public sale, chalk up Jeff Kaffee as one more convert in the expanding group of electric-car owners.

This story originally appeared on GreenCarReports, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners.

Renewable energy, especially solar, is making inroads into the U.S. power grid, but it’s a very slow process.

And especially in the wake of the Solyndra collapse, it’s one fraught with political wrangling.

But there’s another country that plans to invest heavily in solar power, hoping to provide fully 30 percent of its energy needs from the sun in just 20 years.

That country is…Saudi Arabia.

Yes, the conservative kingdom and longtime U.S. ally wants to cut its own oil use.

Today, Saudi Arabia burns 850 million barrels of oil a year. That represents almost a third of its total production.

Later this year, the nation is expected to approve very ambitious plans for a massive array of renewable energy projects. The first installations should be completed next year.

The goal within two decades is for the country to have 25,000 megawatts of electricity coming rom solar-thermal plants, which use huge mirror arrays to focus sunshine into a concentrated ray that heats fluid into steam to drive turbine generators.

It also expects to create 16,000 megawatts of capacity using large arrays of photovoltaic solar cells, which are slowly but consistently falling in price as more production capacity comes online–particularly in China, which has made the industry a government priority.

Saudi Arabia also plans to add an additional 21,000 megawatts from other non-oil sources, including geothermal, wind, and nuclear plants.

The entire plan is expected to cost $109 billion, for which the country is seeking investment partners.

Industry analysts say the country can earn a healthy return on the investment by displacing a third of the oil it now consumes and selling that on the open market.

In other words, one of our major sources of imported oil thinks that spending more than $100 billion to cut its own oil consumption is a good deal–because we’ll pay them more than that for the oil they don’t use.

The next time U.S. drivers pay $4 a gallon or more for gasoline, that may be worth keeping in mind.

This story originally appeared on GreenCarReports.com, one of VentureBeat’s syndication partners.

Solar panels photo via Shutterstock

We’ve been subjected to a spate of dire headlines today covering Toyota’s statement that it’s killing plans for its eQ two-seat urban electric-car program.

Reuters reported, “Toyota drops plans for widespread sales of electric car,” which is at least an accurate headline.

Some seem to take a “sky is falling” tone, which we don’t feel is the case.

Most of the stories focus on Toyota management’s view that battery technology isn’t ready, the market for pure electrics isn’t there, and hybrids are a much better bet.

Those are all debatable points, but as Reuters gently points out, Toyota has always “taken a more conservative view of the market for battery-powered cars” than Nissan, General Motors, and other companies.

Another way of saying that might be to note that Toyota bet the company’s future technology direction on parallel hybrids almost 20 years ago, and has reaped the benefits of what was likely a very expensive R&D program.

Toyota has sold well over half of all the hybrids on the planet, and its 50-mpg Prius Liftback is the most fuel-efficient gasoline car sold in the U.S. market that doesn’t have a plug.

But as any auto journalist will confirm, Toyota executives and engineers relentlessly argue that parallel hybrids are the best way to meet the broad array of consumer needs.

They also frequently contend that plugging into the grid often isn’t as ecologically sounds as it seems. (That’s a whole different article we won’t get into here.)

Toyota has worked on its own electric-car batteries for quite some time, but it hasn’t had very good luck thus far.

The company admitted in 2010 that it had bet on the wrong lithium-ion cell chemistry, ending up turning to an outside cell supplier for the lithium-ion battery pack of its 2012 Prius Plug-In Hybrid.

And its first and only battery-electric vehicle was to be the eQ, an electric version of the tiny Scion iQ two-seat urban car. The company showed several prototypes of the car as the FT-EV and FT-EV II in 2009, and FT-EV III last year.

A two-seater with a projected range of no more than 50 or 60 miles: Does that sound like a winning electric-car strategy to you?

Toyota is left with just one all-electric car, the 2012 Toyota RAV4 EV, whose powertrain is entirely designed by Tesla Motors.

That was quite an impressive car to drive, but it’s strictly a “compliance car” to let the company meet zero-emission vehicle requirements imposed by the powerful California Air Resources Board.

So now Toyota will sell just 2,600 RAV4 EVs over three years, and only 100 eQs.

Not the sign of a company that believes in battery electric vehicles, for sure.

But Toyota has never believed in battery-electric vehicles, and it’s been unable to develop one–unlike Nissan, General Motors, Ford, and others.

The sales of plug-in cars, while likely to double this year, have undoubtedly been slower than the most optimistic projections.

But frankly, Toyota canceling its battery-electric car program is roughly akin to General Motors deciding not to offer a plug-in Two-Mode Hybrid system in the Cadillac SRX because it didn’t perform well enough.

Few people knew either car was coming, and not a lot of people would have cared if it did.

We think the eQ wouldn’t have been an appealing car in the U.S., even to electric-car fans. In that light, we think Toyota made a smart decision.

It’s just not the end of the world we seem to be reading about.

Related articles

• Toyota kills electric car plans, says ‘capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society’s needs’ (venturebeat.com)
• No Toyota EV Minicar For Now (elonmusktesla.wordpress.com)

It all began with a late-night tweet two weeks ago by Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk.

In it, he announced that Tesla would unveil its much-discussed Supercharger network of dedicated quick-charging stations — only usable to 2012 Tesla Model S drivers — on September 24.

Well, today’s the day. And this evening, the world can watch to learn details of a device that, Musk says, “will feel like alien spaceships landed at highway rest stops.”

OK, then.

Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] plans to reveal not only the looks and details of the Supercharger but also its deployment plans in a webcast tonight from an event that starts at 7:30 Pacific (10:30 p.m. Eastern).

Starting at 8 p.m. Pacific (11 p.m. Eastern), you can watch a webcast of the Supercharger event online.

Tesla calls tonight’s event, to be held at the company’s Design Studio in Hawthorne, Calif., not an unveiling or a launch but a “Premiere.”

The announcement, we note, appears to have caught Tesla’s communications staff slightly off guard. Rumor has it they first learned of today’s date via Musk’s tweet.

The need for quick charging has to do with the large lithium-ion battery packs of the Model S variants. The 85-kilowatt-hour pack would take 12 hours or more to recharge fully using a conventional 240-Volt, Level 2 charging station.

Thus far, here’s what we know about the Supercharger:

• The 90-kilowatt charging station is said to add as much as 150 miles of range to a Model S in half an hour.
• The unique charging connector on the 2012 Tesla Model S accepts both Level 2 AC charging and Supercharger DC quick-charging over the same set of pins.
• Last year, Tesla confirmed it would build a Supercharger corridor between the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles.

For more beyond that, tune in to tonight’s event.

If past events, including the first public showing of the Model S prototype and the unveiling of the Model X crossover concept early this year, are any indication, the event will follow a set format.

It will have questionable lighting for photography, hordes of fans and reporters crowded into roped-off areas, and a lot of tired-looking Tesla employees applauding enthusiastically.

Again, the URL for the webcast is: http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger

We’ll provide a rundown of the details and the event later in the week.

Originally published on GreenCarReports.com, one of VentureBeat’s syndication partners.

Well, that didn’t take long, did it?

It’s not unusual to see rare and exclusive cars pre-sold to buyers before cars are delivered. The practice has been going on for decades, every time the latest supercar hits the streets.

We didn’t expect to see a 2012 Tesla Model S sold so soon, though, and with a Buy It Now price on the eBay auction of $145,000, the seller stands to make a healthy little profit should they find a buyer.

The model being sold is one of the thousand limited edition Signature models, and the buyer will get the actual car, rather than a reservation slot — something Tesla will not allow.

With Signature Red paint, a white leather interior and the 85 kWh, EPA-rated 265-mile battery pack — as well as other Signature edition features — the car will certainly be to a high specification.

It also features an upgraded tech package, Dolby 7.1 premium sound system, and other Model S amenities.

The car is already being built, and is set to be delivered on October 14. The auction itself runs until 10:18 PDT on September 20, provided someone doesn’t pay the full price–over $47,000 more than MSRP–to end the auction early.

So why is the car for sale so soon? The seller doesn’t say, but it’s not beyond possibility that they were banking on pre-selling it all along, hoping to make a tidy little profit in the process from someone wishing to jump the queue.

It also has us wondering: How long until more Model S Signature editions appear on the market? And what price would you pay to get behind the wheel?

Hat tip to Martin at eCars.bg

Photo source: Tesla Motors

This story originally appeared on GreenCarReports, one of VentureBeat’s syndication partners.

Talk to any independent auto-repair mechanic, and you’ll learn that the single most important item that keeps a shop in business is brakes.

But hybrids and electric cars use their friction brakes far less aggressively than regular cars.

That’s because when the driver presses the pedal, some or all of the slowing comes from engaging an electric motor that acts as a generator to turn the car’s momentum into electricity that recharges the battery pack.

So what happens as hybrids and electrics grow more popular over the years and decades to come?

Enter Joe Ferrer, owner of BS&F Auto Parts in the Bronx, New York. He’s the star of “Hard Parts: South Bronx,” a show based on the day-to-day life of his busy store.

Ferrer says that brakes are easily 35 to 40 percent of his total business. Replacing rotors, calipers, and pads keeps his shop humming.

But on hybrids, brake jobs aren’t needed every 15,000 miles as they are on conventional cars–more like 45,000 miles, he says.

“That will have a tremendous impact on my business,” he worries. “It’s an area where parts stores and shops make a lot of money.”

And he worries that the complex power electronics and computerized control systems of electric and hybrid cars mean they’ll only be serviceable by dealerships, not independent shops.

“If we go all electric,” he says, “it’ll be a catastrophe for me.”

Over the course of a long chat with Ferrer, he admitted that such a change wasn’t likely to happen overnight.

And we noted that even the most optimistic analyses project that by 2020–eight years from now–hybrids and plug-in cars will only total perhaps 10 or 15 million vehicles, out of more than 1 billion vehicles on the planet.

In other words, there’s a very long tail of older vehicles that will continue to need servicing. And because cars are better built and longer-lasting now, they may have a longer service life than those built in the Eighties, when Ferrer first got into the business.

It’s true, however, that one selling point of battery-electric cars is how little service and repair they need.

Or as one owner crisply summarizes it, “Yep, wiper blades and tires, that’s it.”

That doesn’t apply to plug-in hybrids, though. While they too use regenerative braking, they still carry engines, which will need exhaust systems, accessory-drive belts, spark plugs, and so forth.

But over time, Ferrer probably does have a point: Continuing system integration, more electronics, and improved quality mean that independent shops may have less opportunity to do the run-of-the-mill repairs that have kept them in business for a century.

What do you think? Should Ferrer worry, or is it the next generation of auto mechanics who may not be able to open their own shops?

Leave us your thoughts in the Comments below.

And if you want more of Joe Ferrer, you can watch “Hard Parts” on Speed TV (Tuesdays at 9 pm Eastern, 6 pm Pacific).

This story originally appeared on GreenCarReports.com, one of VentureBeat’s syndication partners. Photos: GreenCarReports.com.

Tesla likes to do things its own way.

So while the company still refuses to report sales in the usual manner–at the end of every month like every other automaker–it does release bits and pieces of data on its corporate publicity site.

On Thursday, Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] said that since June 22, when it started deliveries of its 2012 Model S, it has built 50 cars.

Of those, 29 are destined for customer deliveries–it says more than 12,200 buyers have put down deposits for the all-electric sport sedan–and 21 will go to Tesla stores for display.

Tesla is now building 10 cars a week, and company spokesperson Christina Ra told the San Francisco Chronicle that it intends to build 50 more in the next two to three weeks.

Production of the 2012 Tesla Model S will accelerate thereafter, and the company is standing by its goal of 5,000 deliveries of the car during calendar 2012–with 10,000 or more next year.

Collectively, those first 50 cars have already covered almost 40,000 miles, two-thirds of that distance during short test drives offered to depositors on the company’s “Get Amped” drive program.

The first Model S sedans to be built are all Signature Series cars with the largest 85-kilowatt-hour battery pack, which is rated by the EPA at 265 miles of range.

The lengthy post Thursday on the company’s site also detailed a few minor specifications changes that it attributed to the need for maintaining high production quality levels.

VP George Blankenship noted that Tesla had temporarily deleted both the lighted vanity mirrors and the rear-seat reading lights from early Model S cars in order to maintain acceptable quality.

Wires remain in place for the rear-seat overhead lights, but the company said that it would be a while before it provides the lighted vanity mirrors due to concerns over the quality of parts provided.

This post originally appeared on GreenCarReports.com, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners.

Photo credit: Tesla Motors

Let’s make one thing clear right up front: I think the 2012 Tesla Model S is the coolest freaking car in the history of Western Civilization.

I put down my $5,000 deposit more than two years ago. I’ve chugged the Tesla Kool-Aid, extra-large size.

But after a 7-minute spin in a dark green Model S last week at the Tesla “Get Amped” test-drive tour stop in Mahwah, New Jersey,  I have to conclude–sadly–that the car is not (yet) perfect.

Yes, the acceleration was mind-boggling, the ride and handling were sublime, the in-dash technology is whiz-bang. But, in my humble (perhaps idiosyncratic) opinion, a few little things just aren’t right.

1.  No “creep” mode. Every automatic-transmission car in the world creeps forward when the driver’s feet are off the gas and brake pedals.  We’ve driven this way all our lives. The Nissan Leaf,  Chevy Volt, and Toyota Prius Plug-In all have built-in creep mode to mimic this effect.

Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] has inexplicably omitted this feature. A driver-selectable idle-creep mode, with the option to turn it off, would make everybody happy.

2.  It’s hard to get in and out of. I’m 6’2″ and hardly limber, so I’m accustomed to a bit of gymnastics getting in and out of small four-door cars, like my Chevy Volt. But to my surprise, the larger Tesla required virtually the same level of contortion. It’s the price I pay for a low-slung, swoopy, aerodynamic car.

Fortunately, the Model S’s adjustable air suspension can take some of the sting out of the daily in-out routine. There are four ride heights: Normal, Low (for aerodynamic efficiency above 60 mph), High (for snow and rough ground below 20 mph) and Very High (below 5 mph).  The car defaults to Normal and squats automatically above 60 mph.

The high settings are driver-controlled on the center touch screen; if I touch “Very High”  as I pull into my driveway,  the car will silently rise about two inches, thus facilitating a more graceful exit.  It will then stay up on its haunches until I return.

3. Regenerative braking settings are awkward to change.  Like the Volt, the Model S has two settings for regenerative braking: “mild”, to simulate the engine-braking feel of a normal car when you take your foot off the gas; and “strong,” which gives a sharper, sportier deceleration and feeds more power back into the battery.  Strong regen has become a signature of electric-car driving.

To change settings, the Volt driver flicks the floor-mounted shift lever back and forth between D and L.  I quickly learned to integrate the two regen settings into the Volt driving experience. It’s actually kind of fun, like downshifting.

But sadly, the Model S regen control is controlled solely through the central touch screen, a few screens down, which  takes it out of the driving loop.

“It was never meant to be adjusted on the fly,” a Tesla rep told me. Too bad. It should be.

2012 Tesla Model S Charging Connector

The paragon of regen control is the Volkswagen E-Golf, which features four regeneration settings, controlled by paddle shifters behind the steering wheel. Leave it to the Germans to integrate regenerative braking into the driving experience seamlessly.

4.  Charge port location is inconvenient.  The 2012 Tesla Model S charge port is cleverly hidden under the left taillight lens. Okay, there’s no unsightly charge port door to mar the flawless lines of the car. And yes, it certainly demonstrates that Tesla engineers are clever fellows.

But it’s an obviously inconvenient location that requires a longer charge cord and more driver fussing around–especially at public charging stations designed for nose-in charging.

This bloody sacrifice of utility on the altar of beauty calls to mind the original  iMac.  Obsessed with its curvy aesthetic, Apple supplied the first iMacs with a round mouse. Sure, it looked cool. But it proved to be utterly useless;  there was no way to orient it by feel. I bought a standard replacement mouse the next day.

Too bad I won’t be able to do the same with my Tesla charge port. And this is one Tesla can’t change in software, either.

5. Turn-signal lever badly placed.  Three times during my test drive, I attempted to signal a turn and hit the cruise control stalk–which is positioned precisely where the turn lever is on every other car–by mistake. The turn lever itself is inexplicably placed well below it.

Blame this one on Mercedes-Benz. As part of its deal with Daimler, Tesla uses an off-the-shelf Mercedes turn/cruise lever assembly. Mercedes-Benz engineers will tell you that forces drivers to put their hands “where they should be on the wheel.” Great.

Tesla should come up with its own, with the lever positions reversed–or at least rotate the assembly to put the turn signal where it ought to be.

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It may not be long before electric car owners on America’s Pacific coast can drive all the way from Canada to Mexico using quick-charge stations.

Thanks to Oregon’s new ‘electric highway,’ it’s now possible to charge an electric car every 25 miles down a 200-mile stretch of Interstate 5.

That, says an NBC News video, makes it the longest stretch of electric highway in the country.

It’s set to improve even further, as the state has funding for another 35 quick-charge stations. That’ll make things pretty easy for the state’s current 1,200 electric cars, and means that even if one station is occupied, you won’t have to search too long to find another.

The Oregon stations join a long string already in place in California, and a number of level 2 and fast charge stations in Washington, too.

It’s all part of a larger plan to create the West Coast Electric Highway, which would allow electric vehicle drivers to travel the length of Interstate 5 from Canada through Washington, Oregon and California, right to the Mexican border.

That would make an otherwise time-consuming journey little more difficult than it would be in a regular combustion engined car–and likely encourage a wider market for electric vehicles down the West coast.

This article originally appeared on Green Car Reports, one of VentureBeat’s editorial partners.

Photo credit: Justin Pickard/Flickr