We got behind the wheel of a Tesla S electric car. We didn't hate it

Slurping up the juice

The trip shows the power consumption in kilowatts per mile, just as we are used to the mathematically complex miles to the gallon in the UK and litres per 100km in Europe. For a more detailed understanding of how that power is used, there are energy consumption graphs show what the effect has been of your driving style over the last 5, 15 or 30 miles.

The heating and cooling can be set from the touchscreen or from the iPhone or Android app which lets you make sure the car is comfy before you even get into it. You can, however, unlock the car from the app. However, if someone steals your phone*, they will not be able to start or steal your car. They will be able to open the sun roof, boot and bonnet, but they can’t steal the car itself as the car won’t move without the key inside it.

The sat nav uses Google Maps.

The rear view camera is HD and exceptionally wide angle. Combined with parking sensors it makes getting the long car into tight spots quite a bit easier.

One man who has lived with the Tesla S is Rob Meades, a Reg-reader who works for the chip vendor U-Blox. He bought his Tesla S to replace an Audi A3 and isn’t a particularly pro-car person, or especially green. He just sees electric power as the right solution for its feeling of effortless and silence.

“It just makes sense” he told us. Rob says that you end up driving slowly because you enjoy the silence and it “feels good”. The other car he looked at was the BMW i3 but that, in his words, was “too weird”. Rob's Tesla S was ordered two and a half years ago – yet, even as one of the first 50 UK customers, it was delivered ten days ago.

Rob likes the touchscreen, which he didn’t expect he would before he got the car. He describes it as “fully slidey user interface” and counters the view that you have to look at it too much by saying there are anchor points – buttons which don’t move – to call up the essential screens for things like the lights and windscreen wipers.

He does, however, find it too bright at night. There is a night mode but Rob would like to see a dimmer control. The options he went for were the 300 mile range, the tech package – which includes a better satnav than Google maps – and the panoramic roof on his green car.

He likes the pioneering sense of community, the feeling that he and fellow owners are following Elon Musk in the exploration of a proper electric car. The start-up nature of Tesla cuts both ways, he says that the company can be flaky but that no-one cares. But what Rob most likes is the audio. A fan of the Max Bruch Violin Concerto Number One, he plays it at full volume and the Tesla is a great place to do it.

Rob only lives 12 miles from work and charges his Tesla S at home but won’t yet go further afield as Tesla has not yet given him the 13 amp charging cable. His car has the dual charging system and so is eligible for the free-charging-for-life deal on Tesla's own superchargers.

From my initial impressions driving a Tesla S and from talking to Rob it seems like the Tesla S is the first fully electric car to shake off the spectre of "not quite ready for prime-time" which has dogged the 'leccy auto market for over 100 years. ®