![\"Tesla](\"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/07\/tesla-300x168.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nListen, the first thing I said to the salesman was, well, it was hello, but then it was look, it\u2019s not happening. I cannot buy a Tesla car and even if I could, I\u2019d have to buy a new house first. My house doesn\u2019t have a garage and if you think I\u2019m leaving a \u00a360,000 car out on the street then please tell me where you think I\u2019d get \u00a360,000 in the first place.<\/p>\n
But Tesla turns out to be like Apple in that the hard sell is nonexistent. I think it genuinely is like Apple in that the sales people aren\u2019t on commission: I don\u2019t know that but it fits how unpressured, relaxed and practically casual they are. And I\u2019m afraid I also think it\u2019s like Apple in that they don\u2019t have to do much: the product does the selling.<\/p>\n
It is impossible that I can ever buy a Tesla car but unfortunately I now also cannot ever buy anything else. Take it from me, a car expert of several days standing or, if you must, a middle-aged man: this is an electric car and it is how cars should be. It\u2019s how cars should always have been and now are. Albeit with a price tag.<\/p>\n
The only way I can think to help you gauge my lack of knowledge about cars is to explain that it\u2019s even less than my interest in them. But I sat in the passenger seat while the salesman was walking around to the driver\u2019s side and I said Wow.<\/p>\n
Actually, I said wow followed by \u201cI hope he didn\u2019t hear that\u201d. He did. <\/p>\n
It was wow about the roof. Just barely interrupted glass from the windshield to over and beyond my head. <\/p>\n
And shortly afterwards I said \u2013 I\u2019m not proud of this but I said it and I said it loudly \u2013 \u201cFrack\u201d. There\u2019s some history to that word, it predates the ecological use of it in fracking, as it was a made-up swearword in the 1970s Battlestar Galactica. (Some sources spell it \u2018frak\u2019. Never say I\u2019m not thorough.) If you happen across the original show, watch for when exciting fighter pilots launch their ships.<\/p>\n
These ships are catapulted out into space from this analogy of an aircraft carrier and each time it happens, we see the pilots slammed back into their seats by the force of acceleration. I just had exactly that. Really. Exactly. The salesman was driving us out of Touchwood to a park where I was to take over and after waiting at some traffic lights, frack.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I don\u2019t think my own car actually accelerates at all and in comparison this was a punch to the chest. And not an exaggeration. It winded me. Not the speed, as this was a residential area, but the acceleration.<\/p>\n
Dear god. I nearly said nought to sixty to you like a male petrolhead. Fortunately I know you\u2019re supposed to follow that phrase with some seconds and to me seconds are when you go back to get more pudding. <\/p>\n
Anyway. <\/p>\n
In Solihull\u2019s Brueton Park, we swapped over. And then driving this car, it was as if we went from not moving to oh, we\u2019re moving: no big engine starting sound, no fuss, just moving. And then driving. And then going quite quickly on a motorway.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you okay if we try Autopilot?\u201d asked the salesman.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I nodded. I knew that Tesla has this thing that\u2019s like a bionic cruise control and I\u2019ve driven cars with that, it\u2019s spooky having the car drive while you take your foot off the accelerator.<\/p>\n
Stuff cruise control, though. Autopilot did that plus it steered the car. It steered the car. If you\u2019re a car freak you know this already but I\u2019m not and suddenly I get why the word freak is used. It took a bend in the motorway. It zoomed us up to two car lengths behind the next vehicle. Then when that car changed lanes, mine zoomed up to close the distance between us and the next one.<\/p>\n
Flick the turn indicator and the car starts looking for a gap in the next lane. It found one, started to change lanes for me \u2013 and then jerked back away because another car had suddenly crossed over from the other side and would\u2019ve been in the way.<\/p>\n
It is the spookiest, freakiest, best thing ever. I am simultaneously scared as the car accelerates to what looks like it\u2019s going to be too close behind another one and I am also certain that I want this.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how comfortable I got with autopilot in seconds. The salesman was answering a question about charging or Radio 4 or possibly my bald spot and I realised I was looking at the controls and hair care products he was telling me about. I wasn\u2019t looking at the road. I knew the car would do that for me.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t mean intellectually, that I knew because I\u2019m a car fan who understands how it works. I mean, I do understand, but really I mean that I knew it in my bones. I trusted this car.<\/p>\n
Oh, and then when we got back, this trusted car only went and parked itself. Found the space and parked in it.<\/p>\n
I write about technology and I feel as if I sit at the point where it and art cross: I have no more interest in electronics than I do in combustion engines but I am riveted and excited and thrilled at what technology can let me do. All my books, all my scripts, my video and audio work, it\u2019s enabled and empowered by technology and I am alert to that yet still I\u2019m focused on the job.<\/p>\n
Sitting in this Tesla car reminded me of this and of something so very long forgotten. The first time I owned a car and got into it. It felt like this was a whole world. I could go anywhere in it. That sensation vanished quickly but it came back in this Tesla. I am instantaneously addicted to Autopilot. I am instantaneously addicted to cars parking themselves. I enjoyed driving again.<\/p>\n
The salesman said he could arrange a 24-hour test drive for me and I can\u2019t do that to him, not when there is zero chance of my buying. But when he said \u201cand you could drop it back on Monday evening\u201d I had to ask: \u201cWould you have a team of specialists waiting to tear me away from it?\u201d<\/p>\n
I even like the colour.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m telling you this now chiefly because it\u2019s just happened but also because I am thinking of so many things. You know when you\u2019re writing and you can\u2019t see the words for the stress? It\u2019s been like that for me lately. Brilliant times in so many ways, tough in others. So I\u2019m thinking about Tesla cars and how I can\u2019t imagine getting one. I\u2019m thinking about male pattern stereotypes and nature versus nurture. I\u2019m thinking about technology and art, I\u2019m thinking about the cocoon feeling this car gave me and how it\u2019s similar to the very best moments in writing. Those distressingly rare moments when the writing is going so well and you are so into it that there is nothing else whatsoever in the entire world or in your entire head but the next word. I find those moments blissful uplifting and energising.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m also telling you because as I write this, Tesla is about to reveal details of a cheaper car. Damn them to hell. This \u201ccheaper\u201d car is merely \u00a335,000 instead of \u00a360,000 and when exactly did \u00a335,000 become cheap? I\u2019ll tell you when: it\u2019s at something like 1am tonight when there\u2019s a live stream of the first thirty Tesla Model 3 cars being handed over to their owners.<\/p>\n
Look, I\u2019m going to be walking everywhere before I can spend that money on a car. But this is a car and it is getting a live streamed launch event. Told you this is like Apple. I won’t be watching, I said lying, and I can’t find out where the stream will be but presumably on Tesla’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve just had a thought. If you gave me a pound toward a Tesla car right now, I\u2019d have an entire pound toward it. Can you tell 34,999 of your friends about me?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I know I overthink this, but I feel bad whenever I find myself slipping into male stereotype. When I\u2019m clothes … Continue reading