Part Seven- Three month progress report

Time flies when you're having fun

Three months into the experiment, Major Tom has now crossed the 4,400 mile mark. The car arrived with 17,741 miles on the odometer and currently sits at 22,166. My commute hasn’t changed much during that time, about 66 miles a day during the week, which has made the energy consumption data surprisingly consistent.

At this point, a pattern is starting to emerge in how the car uses energy day to day. The first month saw 1,517 miles of driving and 459 kWh of electricity consumed, which worked out to about 3.31 miles per kWh and roughly three cents per mile in electricity cost. The second month was almost identical, with 1,601 miles driven and 471 kWh used. Efficiency improved slightly to 3.40 miles per kWh. Month three was a little different. With colder weather and normal seasonal changes, the car used 512 kWh over 1,307 miles, which dropped efficiency to about 2.55 miles per kWh. Even with that swing, total electricity cost since delivery still sits at about $141. That covers the entire 4,400 mile period, which works out to a little over three cents per mile in energy. That's a hard read, so I did 18 revisions on AI to create this amazing chart. The Martian is one of my favorite movies, so I took some inspiration from the great Mark Watney:

For comparison, my friend Neil’s new 2026 Model Y (Long Range AWD) has traveled about the same distance since new. His car is averaging 262.7 Wh per mile compared to Major Tom’s 275.5 Wh per mile. Neil drives mostly city miles and has a shorter commute, so the small efficiency advantage makes sense. Interestingly, his car runs the 21 inch wheels while Major Tom is on the 19s.

New Shoes and a Quick Trip to Tesla Service

The tire experiment also continues to develop. At 20,925 miles I replaced the factory tires with Vredestein Hypertrac All Season tires and corrected the toe alignment at the same time. During the alignment we discovered that the right front camber is slightly more negative than specification and cannot be fully adjusted out. Tesla confirmed during a recent service visit that camber and caster are not adjustable on the Model Y and the amount of deviation is small enough that they would not consider it a concern. At least its documented in case of any end-of-lease surprises. As of now the Vredesteins still measure a full 9/32 tread depth across the tires, so it will be interesting to watch how they wear over time given the known camber condition.

This month also included the third service event for Major Tom. Earlier in the ownership period the car went in for its first service visit to replace the driver’s pillar camera. Not long after that Tesla mobile service stopped by to program the replacement camera assembly, which restored the key card reader that had not been functioning properly. The most recent visit was for a Tire Pressure Monitoring System warning that appeared about 500 to 800 miles after the tire swap. The pressures were all reading correctly, but Tesla diagnosed a weak battery in the right front TPMS sensor, and replaced it under warranty. There's a bit of negative "Tesla Service" press out there, but so far my Kernersville NC service center has been great, I pulled in at 8:00 in the morning, waited in the lounge for a bit, and was back on the road to work by 9:00 with no drama.

So far the ownership experience continues to be mostly uneventful in the best possible way. The car charges at home every night, consumes a predictable amount of energy each week, and aside from a camera programming issue early on and the TPMS sensor replacement, nothing major (lol) has appeared on the radar. Three months and 4,400 miles in, Major Tom is settling into the role of a very normal daily driver. Its refreshing so far.