Launch Mode
About a year ago, I read about Hertz receiving a hundred thousand Teslas and thought, cool! My chance to experience the future without risk of being torn apart in the time/space continuum.
To be clear, Mary and I have absolutely no interest in owning one of Musk’s innovations, especially now that Elon’s lost his tweet. But renting an electric, that we could do. And so, this Christmas, when Mary instructed me to find myself something special, I thought of two things, a new watch and a day with one foot in launch mode.
We’ve done something like this once before, with Mary rented us a Mini Cooper for a couple weeks on my birthday. I loved scooting around in our Mini, and then I was done. Poof! itch scratched, back on the bike. This should be no different.
“Have you driven a Tesla before,” the woman behind the Hertz counter asked.
“No,” I said a little sheepishly. I’d watched a couple of YouTube videos that morning, but thought better of admitting to this pathetic Boomer fact.
“Is that why you brought him?” she asked, pointing the twenty-four year-old, Ben.
I like this person, her direct approach to a job I can only guess allows little room for improvisation. “You’re going to need some time to get used to it.”
At this point, Ben and I are thrilled to be in the Hertz line and not the neighboring Thrifty’s.
“Must be and hour wait,” Ben says looking a the endless line snaking around the left of our completely empty maze.
“We’re paying for better service, better cars, and no wait,” I say, repeating what my Dad must have said to us. Mary and I have rented Thrifty, and Alamo and even Dollar before, but never again. No, my parents introduced me to Hertz, and other than some wayward years when discount seemed attractive to me, we remain loyal.
“It’s a Christmas present,” I offer, to which my attendant loosens up.
“Are you going somewhere fun, like New York or something?” She asks.
“No, just tooling around,” my answer, having not considered anything but trips around the block at this point. I’m kind of seeing this rental like those E tickets Disney used to dole out for the big rides, like Space Mountain. In this case, maybe an E ticket to the what’s in store for human kind.
“Do you want the insurance? Do you want protection? Will you charge it before returning?” she asks before handing over not a key, or even a fob, but a plastic card like one of these hotel key cards we all forget to return. “Sign here, then down those escalators and find the woman at the desk… space 716,” and off we go.
“Shun the man,” my friend Jeffy writes when he sees my post featuring a yuletide fire on the Tesla’s huge LCD screen. This car’s got a bundle of little tricks built in, and thanks to Ben, we begin exploring.
“Open the trunk,” the guy at the Hertz exit says once we finally get the thing rolling.
“Don’t know how,” my answer. Ben finds the toggle on the over sized touch screen that more resembles a large iPhone than a car’s dashboard.
“Open the window Dad, he’s talking to you,” Ben says, and again I hold up my hands. “It’s the button on the door.”
But that’s kind of it when it comes to physical buttons, window and door controlled the old way, and the rest relegated to a computer. OK, not quite everything. There’s a steering wheel with two toggles, an accelerator and brake pedal, and you still set and maneuver the rear mirror with your hand. But everything else is software driven. Kids think in dropdown menus and decision trees, while I’m more spatially oriented. I’m not sure how to categorize how we Boomers think. Not at all, some might think.
When we finally exit onto a service road, I hammer the gas and off we go.
“Comin’ in hot,” I can hear Ben say as we race around the very first corner we encounter, hugging tight to the road.
“What’s the fastest cornering car on the market?” I ask him.
“Tesla?” he answers.
“No, a rental car.” Bad Dad joke.
Immediately, I feel a difference, like riding a fixed gear bike, my body connected to the road in a new way both when accelerating and especially when decelerating. Electric cars don’t coast, they go and don’t go. When you press on the accelerator, instantly you move forward. When you release the pedal you slow down as if the brakes are on. There’s no coasting. A little like slot cars. Press the button and your little toy car races forward. Take your finger off the trigger, and it slows to a stop. Gun the thing around a bend, and off you fly. I have the same feeling in this Model 3 and can sense Ben bracing himself for a dizzying ride. Still, after that first curve I won’t push it, and don’t even consider flooring it until Mary’s brother Mark laments not doing it himself.
“Who wants to drive?” I offer a few times during the day. Mark, Christina and Mary all take me up on it.
“Ben, how about you?”
“Nah. I’ve driven them before. On the lot.” Ben works for Toyota. Knows all about the bells and whistles powering hybrids and the like. He’s shown us ‘Light Show’, ‘Fart’, and my favorite, ‘Romance Mode’. Mary and I even started a game of backgammon at one point, though you will be glad to know not while driving.
We’re not driving a car, we’re sitting in an iPhone with wheels with some of the features turned off for the safety of, well, me. Features like ‘Launch Mode’ and Tesla’s ‘Auto Pilot’ capability. Launch able to create G’s as if piloting a jet fighter. Auto Pilot the contentious vision of a man who’s currently trying to drive Twitter into orbit. I’m glad to have ridden in the silence of what’s surely to come, but we will wait before trading in my trusty steed, a 2005 Volvo wagon featuring cassette player and emergency brake.
