Tag: Driving

Tesla Model Y Conquers the Winter Wonderland: A Snowy Road Test | January 26 2026, 03:50

We tested our Tesla Model Y on a winter road in weather that almost one hundred percent of people here consider “unflyable.” I’m serious, on the way back, at 8-9 PM, we encountered the first private car on a four-lane highway after 45 kilometers of travel. Meanwhile, snowplows appeared literally every two minutes.

A lot of snow had built up, and then it started to rain. After a few hours of parking in a snowbank at a friend’s house, the car was covered with an inch-thick layer of ice. We even got a bit stuck on the exit, but together we managed to push the car out of the “snow pit”. The most challenging part is the last mile on small paths, which the machinery doesn’t clean quickly enough. Now, I’m writing at 10:30 PM, and right outside my window a tractor is clearing the driveways, while in most places, this is usually the homeowners’ responsibility, and of course, everyone prefers to wait it out. Actually, we didn’t even make it to the friend’s house because the last 100 meters were just knee-deep snowdrifts, and even walking through them was difficult, let alone driving.

Very pleased with the Tesla’s behavior on snowy roads and maneuvering in snowdrifts. Here, nobody uses winter tires (the snowy season is very short), and everyone has “all-season” tires on their wheels.

On the highway, there’s a lot of snow removal equipment, and overall the highways are in pretty good condition – the driving is very predictable, with no skidding. But as soon as you try to turn off onto a smaller road, that’s where the test for the all-wheel drive and clearance starts. Again, no surprises at all – it passes like a tank wherever needed. 627 “horses”, dynamically distributed across four wheels, apparently helps.

Exploring Aescape: A Robotic Massage Experience | December 19 2025, 21:26

Nadia and I tried out the Aescape robot massage. Well, I was interested to see the technical side of it all. Overall, it’s quite interesting, but driving 45 minutes instead of 15 to get a robot, even if it’s slightly cheaper… not sure it makes sense to go there regularly. It’s a different story if you’re already at the gym and want a massage right now, without an appointment – it’s like a deluxe massage chair. Yes, in that case, it’s exactly what you need.

The system scans the body with four cameras on the ceiling, creates a 3D model, and then on the whole, the robot arms do a pretty good job of kneading the muscles just right, stronger in some places, gentler in others – considering the overall anatomy, and the specific person on the table. Some might wonder, won’t they accidentally maim someone due to some bug, but we drove there and back on Tesla’s autopilot, and if the cars were going to kill us, they’d have had an easier chance.

Living Without Autopilot: A Surprising Reunion with My Tesla’s Upgraded Skills | December 09 2025, 19:30

Lived several months without autopilot in the car, now I turned it on, and during this time the car has learned not only to drive to a location across the city and through backroads, but also to find parking at the destination and park itself. But when I told it to come home, specifically pointing it to where it gets fed (charger), it stopped in front of the neighbor’s house. Makes you think;) but overall, very cool, Tesla

Alien Encounter and Parking Woes: A Bizarre Day | December 07 2025, 01:21

Such a “facehugger” jumped out of an egg nearby and attached itself to the windshield of my RAV4, just like that to implant its embryo, but the little car held its ground.

It all started when I went outside with my keys and realized that the car was not in the yard. Damn! I had used it to get to the metro, and Nadia brought me back from the concert in Washington in her Tesla. Well, okay, I’ll call an Uber.

The Uber took me to the metro parking lot, where the local parking attendants had found my car overnight and slapped a yellow card on it. Removing this thing takes five minutes; you just need to pay the fine by scanning the QR code. Luckily, the fine was divine, just 75 dollars accumulated. If I had remembered later, it would have been more.

Cultural Expectations of Driving for Work: USA vs Russia | November 22 2025, 16:21

Here’s what I’ve noticed. In the USA, there’s an expectation that an employee drives themselves if their job involves traveling. Companies often issue a company car or provide compensation for using a personal vehicle. This is commonly considered a regular part of job responsibilities, and having a driver’s license is often implicitly assumed. For example, Nadia, a volleyball coach, occasionally drives a small bus for us.

As I recall, the tradition in Russia is different: in organizations, especially in government, large corporations, or among managerial staff, it is more logical to expect a designated driver.

Am I mistaken?

Smart Car Seat Selection: How My Tesla Knows the Driver | November 03 2025, 14:29

Incidentally, in my Tesla, there’s a very clever system for identifying the driver. If I enter the car first but sit in the passenger seat, placing my phone immediately in the central console for charging, and then Nadia enters second but sits in the driver’s seat and also places her phone there, her profile is selected automatically because she’s the driver, even though both phones are on charge under the central console.

So, there are two possibilities: either there is an antenna which can precisely detect that a phone has crossed the driver’s door rather than entering the car in any other way, or there is a camera focused on the driver. In any case, it’s very reassuring that it “just works”.

From Tesla Model Y to Model S Plaid: A Swap Experience | October 14 2025, 16:51

Recently, my Tesla Model Y fell ill, and the dealership gave me a Model S Plaid as a loaner car. It’s simply a monster, accelerating to 100 km/h in 2 seconds. Over a thousand horsepower. But after driving it for a week, Nadezhda and I realized that we would still not trade our Model Y for a Model S.

Well, the fact that it’s unusually low to the ground is a minor issue. We would get used to that. But getting out from behind the wheel is always incredibly awkward for me. My belly isn’t that big, but in the Model S, it’s like a real cockpit. You have to carefully sit down and climb out, whereas in the Model Y, you just jump in somehow and go.

Moreover, the Model S is really noisy inside compared to the Model Y. You can hear the road. And this is for a price twice that of the Model Y. Also, for some reason, the mode where you just walk away from the car works less sensitively, and locks the car only when you are already quite far away.

And then there are the turn signals. What idiot decided to put their buttons on the steering wheel? It’s impossible to get used to that. The steering wheel still turns, and the buttons are always somewhere unclear.

But, damn it, it’s very beautiful from the outside. Especially with a light interior.

By the way, Tesla has somewhat poorly thought out the mechanism for issuing a replacement car, and it works with only one driver. You can’t set two keys for two different phones. Moreover, it would be nice to store the settings in the cloud and receive a replacement car already adjusted to your preferences.

And the car fell ill in an interesting way too. It’s funny when the car on the highway tells you that there’s a little problem, the engine is dead, but you should not distract yourself, just keep driving. After parking, the car might theoretically not drive, but so far all is normal. If not, we will tell you. Meanwhile, your drive will not sound the same.

As I understood, the car simply switched from 4-wheel drive to 2-wheel drive. Funny that such a fallback exists at all. Already fixed, it needed an inverter replacement.