Odometer: 1,349

I haven’t taken any trips lately, so I haven’t had much to write about in Driving Lightning. That said, Lightning is settling into our household nicely. Recent milestones include:

• A new EZ-Pass transponder. The Massachusetts EZ-Pass office in Boston wouldn’t replace my 12-year-old FastLane transponder until it registered as “failed” on its tester. However, the Natick office on the Mass Pike recognized that 11-year-old batteries probably weren’t going to cut it with the Tesla’s windshield attenuation, and gave me one of the new transponders. I mounted it on the windshield, and so far it has been read by the Mass Pike toll readers realiably.



• My new ham radio plates. I received notification in June that my ham radio plates were delivered to the RMV, so I traded in my old plates for my new ones as shown. I’m thrilled with both the short license code (I can now actually remember my license plate when asked!) and the all-important lightning bolt logo for Lightning.

I do have a couple of minor issues that I’m going to have the service center address July 11: I get some resonant buzzing from the AC unit at low speed, and there’s a leather defect on one of the rear seats. Overall, though, Lightning is fully operational now. I’ve driven it into Boston, to the grocery, to Geeks Who Drink (Tuesday night Trivia in Waltham), and it is performing flawlessly. I’m seeing better efficiency (i.e., fewer watts per mile) than the car itself predicts, and that means more battery range than advertised.

Because I’m not driving much, I’m continuing to schedule my battery charging during peak solar power generation times. So on those rare occasions when I am driving my Tesla, I really am driving on sunshine.