No spare tire. No jack. No lug nut removal tools.
Most drivers are expected to call for Tesla Roadside Assistance. A few, I see, carry tire puncture repair kits and/or sealant, and a small air compressor, to potentially make a tire functional and drivable until the puncture is properly repaired. And that may work for simple punctures.
Tesla’s expectation is you’ll call for help and they’ll send a truck out to lift you on a flatbed to a repair center, or send a truck out with a jack and new tire – the environmentally inefficient way to get a spare! And Tesla, apparently, does not repair flat tires – they replace the entire wheel, which can cost up to $800 or more, according to some online posts (if you do not have a service/warranty policy in effect). It does appear that tire shops might be able to do the repairs for you at lower cost.
What if you have a tire blow out, or a valve stem failure (both have happened to me) – and you are in the middle of no where? What if this happens where you have no cell phone service? Puncture repair kits are useless for these situations.
Being in the middle of no where without cell phone service is common in the mountainous west. 50 minutes traveling on the state highway to my west we then lose cell phone service for about an hour of travel. Headed east, there’s almost no service for 100 miles, then service in one small town area, then no service for another 75 miles.
You are going to be stuck for a long time in those situations. Lacking a spare tire, you can only wait for a friendly motorist to give you a ride into cell service coverage and call for help, which may itself take hours to reach you.
All because you can’t change to a spare tire. Tesla fans think carrying a spare tire is just old fashioned. I think they are spoiled by living in big cities and traveling on Interstates.
I just realized no matter how much I like the Tesla, this sort of omission rules this car out for us due to where we travel. Tesla’s are for Interstates with cell coverage. Obviously, there’s a market for that but too bad they omit the spare tire for those of us traveling in out of the way areas.
Am I missing something?
