For our project, we focused on electric cars, especially Tesla. We have made interviews with Tesla owners and test drives. Our goal was to interview people that lived in Portugal and Kosovo and compare their experiences with electric cars. Finally, we wanted to add our own experience of driving a Tesla and give our readers a transparent review of our project.
Why have we chosen this topic?
Since we, Dani and Miguel, wanted to know more about electric cars, we wanted to make a project about it. At that time Edmond was still in our group and through him, we could get a collaboration partner in Kosovo and through Dani someone in Portugal. With these contacts, we could compare and evaluate the countries regarding electric cars. In addition, we drove a Tesla ourselves to gain experience with electric cars and share it with our readers.
Introduction of our collaborations partner
Our cooperation partners are from Portugal and Kosovo. João P. is our collaboration partner from Portugal and is 27 years old. He has been driving a Telsa regularly since 2018. He works as a financial advisor in a bank in Portugal and is recently married. In his free time, he likes to spend time with his wife and invest in stocks and cryptocurrencies. The other collaborator is named Meriton O. He is 31 years old and lives in Kosovo. He works as an IT Teacher. In his free time, he likes to spend time with his family and drive his Tesla.
The comparison between Portugal and Kosovo
If we compare the interviews with our two collaboration partners, we can see that they both have the same opinion about electric cars, although they live in different countries. However, they show small minimal differences from each other. Both have owned a Tesla for several years and drive it regularly. For João P. driving a Tesla is the same as driving his Audi, but again for Meriton O., it is different. Meriton O. describes driving a Tesla as comfortable as if he is driving on the clouds. In addition, he says in the interview that Tesla is easier to drive than the previous car that he had.
Both charge their Tesla at home and on business trips on the highway with the Supercharger. With Tesla, both can reduce their annual costs, since electricity is currently cheaper than gasoline. With the current features of Tesla, they use Autopilot and admire the technology behind it. Despite this technology, they still do not fully trust Autopilot.
The future of Tesla would be huge, said João P. and Meriton O. They think Tesla is currently a leading company. They also expect great developments from Tesla in the direction of technology as well as aircraft technology (SpaceX) and smartphones.
Interview with our collaboration partners from Kosovo & Portugal (PDF)
Our own experience with Tesla
Dani made a road trip with the Tesla from Zurich to France, because he visited his relatives. On the way there he especially noticed the comfort that Tesla offers. It is a suitable car to make such trips, despite stopping to charge the car. Nowadays there are many gas stations equipped with charging stations for electric cars. The most fascinating thing about this car was the autopilot. How the technology has evolved and will certainly evolve a lot more.
He experienced that the usage of a Tesla is better for short and medium distances. For long distances, you always have to calculate when you want to make a stop to charge the car. Overall Dani had a very good experience and would recommend it to others.
Driving a Tesla with Autopilot (vimeo.com)
Our reflection on our self-made project
With our project about electric cars, especially Tesla, we were able to gain a lot of experience. We partly underestimated the importance of teamwork. The biggest difficulty was the communication with our collaboration partners abroad, due to the time difference and their private life.
We learned a lot about Tesla, such as how to preserve the environment and save costs with Tesla. We would like to thank our collaboration partners for the good cooperation. In the end, we were able to gain a lot of experience and set up a good project.
Picture gallery
Authors
Dani Ribeiro Pires & Miguel Oliveira Rocha
Reviewer
Lúcia Oliveira Rocha
Dilara Demirci
Sources
[1] Tesla Model S (tesla.com), Tesla, retrieved on 25.03.2022
[2] Model S stellt Ringrekord auf (autozeitung.de), Sven Kötter, retrieved on 31.03.2022
[3] Informationen rund um den Elektro-Klasser Tesla (compdesign.ch), anonym, retrieved on 01.04.2022
[4] Tesla Inc. (wikipedia.org), anonym, retrieved on 01.04.2022
Photos & Videos
[a] Picture made by Meriton O.
[b] Pictrue made by João P.
[c] Video made by Dani Ribeiro Pires
[d] Picture made by Dani Ribeiro Pires & Miguel Oliveira Rocha
[e] Picture made by Dani Ribeiro Pires & Miguel Oliveira Rocha
Other posts on dontwastemy.energy about electric cars
Electric cars in Zurich
Overview of electric cars and personal experience
Zurich city without fuel-powered cars
Q59 – Living without electricity
Q70 – Electric Car’s Power
Q50 – Driving an Electric Car
☷ See the project teams here »
☵ Some words about the contributions »
It is interesting to see, how people from other countries use their Teslas. The autopilot issue in particular is still very controversial in Switzerland. Let’s see how that changes in the future!
I am impressed! Great post and I love Teslas. Wow, you couldn’t have done this any better. The video of the ride invites you to come along for the ride.
Thank you very much.