It also has a lot of useful, high-tech features, such as a 17” touch screen and built-in 3G connectivity (so you have web access and can receive over the air firmware updates). This allows Tesla to add new functionality to the car without even having to physically touch the car.

The Tesla Model S is a battery electric vehicle (BEV).  That means it is not a hybrid, there is no gasoline engine. There is no drive tunnel in the center of the car, and there is a second trunk (called a frunk) where an internal combustion engine would be in most cars. There is a hatchback in the rear, and the rear seats fold down, so you have as much storage space as many SUVs.

My Model S has the larger, 85KwH lithium-ion battery pack that has an EPA-rated range of 265 miles. Your actual range depends on how fast you drive, your elevation change, the outside temperature, and whether there are headwinds or cross-winds. This gives you more than enough range for normal day-to-day driving.

The current weak point of the Tesla Model S is the proverbial “road trip”, the one that everyone talks about, but very rarely actually does. Right now, it is possible to drive a Tesla Model S anywhere you want to go, with some planning and extra patience. The current high-speed, public EV charging infrastructure is still somewhat lacking.

If you need to do a complete charge of an 85KWh battery, it will take some time, unless you can use a Tesla SuperCharger (which is free). Right now, there are only a relatively small number of Tesla SuperChargers in California and in New England, but Tesla will adding many more SuperChargers around the country over the next year.

There are also some pretty strong rumors and hints (from Elon Musk) about faster SuperChargers, a faster SuperCharger network build-out, and some form of battery swapping option in the very near future.

In the meantime, Table 1 shows the charge times and charge rates for various power sources.

Table 1: 85KWh Charging Time Table

It is pretty common and relatively easy and inexpensive to get a 240V, 50A, NEMA 14-50 outlet installed in your garage that will completely charge an 85KWh battery overnight. This is more than sufficient for day to day use, especially since you are very unlikely to completely run down your battery during normal daily usage. You will have a full battery every morning, with no trips to a gas station, ever. It costs about $9.00 in electricity to fully charge the 85KWh battery, which is about 25% of the equivalent gasoline cost.

The Tesla Model S is an amazing, game-changing automobile. Not just an amazing electric vehicle, but an amazing vehicle, period. It was awarded Motor Trend Car of the Year for 2013. It was also awarded Automobile Magazine 2013 Automobile of the Year.

More recently, Consumer Reports gave the Tesla Model S the highest test rating (99/100) they have given any car since 2007.

Here are a number of other reviews:

2012 Tesla Model S: Riding Shotgun

2013 Tesla Model S

2013 Tesla Model S Review

Tesla Model S first drive: Quiet satisfaction

Tesla Model S

2012 Tesla Model S Review

Tesla Model S review

In case you are wondering, “Tesla Time” is a term among Tesla owners that refers to the time that we typically spend answering questions and showing the Model S to curious, but generally interested and enthusiastic people. It is extremely common for people to approach you with lots of questions about the Tesla and EVs in general whenever you get in or out of one. This is something we generally don’t mind…

On the other hand, I am perfectly aware that there is a lot of anti-EV hostility, primarily from the conservative side of the political spectrum. There is a pretty predictable set of talking points that you will see trotted out in the comments for any mainstream story on the Internet about Tesla or EVs. There is not much I can do about that, except to accurately relate my experiences and try to address some of the more glaring misconceptions about EVs.

To go with it is an updated, blank 2005 results spreadsheet, where the tabs in the spreadsheet are labeled and in the same order as the queries. The idea is that you can run these queries one by one, click on the top left square of the results grid, and then right-click and select “Copy with Headers” to select and copy the results of the query and then paste them into the matching tab of the results spreadsheet.

Many of these queries only work on SQL Server 2005, although some of them will work on different versions of SQL Server. If you are using a different version of SQL Server, you should use the version of my diagnostic queries for that version of SQL Server.

As always, I welcome any feedback you may have about these queries

To go with it is an updated, blank 2008 results spreadsheet, where the tabs in the spreadsheet are labeled and in the same order as the queries. The idea is that you can run these queries one by one, click on the top left square of the results grid, and then right-click and select “Copy with Headers” to select and copy the results of the query and then paste them into the matching tab of the results spreadsheet.

Many of these queries only work on SQL Server 2008, although some of them will work on different versions of SQL Server. If you are using a different version of SQL Server, you should use the version of my diagnostic queries for that version of SQL Server.

As always, I welcome any feedback you may have about these queries.

To go with it is an updated, blank 2008 R2 results spreadsheet, where the tabs in the spreadsheet are labeled and in the same order as the queries. The idea is that you can run these queries one by one, click on the top left square of the results grid, and then right-click and select “Copy with Headers” to select and copy the results of the query and then paste them into the matching tab of the results spreadsheet.

Many of these queries only work on SQL Server 2008 R2, although some will work on older versions of SQL Server. A few of the queries also require SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 or newer. If you are using an older version of SQL Server, you should use the version of my diagnostic queries for that version of SQL Server.

As always, I welcome any feedback you may have about these queries.

To go with it is an updated, blank 2012 results spreadsheet, where the tabs in the spreadsheet are labeled and in the same order as the queries. The idea is that you can run these queries one by one, click on the top left square of the results grid, and then right-click and select “Copy with Headers” to select and copy the results of the query and then paste them into the matching tab of the results spreadsheet.

Many of these queries only work on SQL Server 2012, although some will work on older versions of SQL Server. If you are using an older version of SQL Server, you should use the version of my diagnostic queries for that version of SQL Server.

To go with it is an updated, blank 2012 results spreadsheet, where the tabs in the spreadsheet are labeled and in the same order as the queries. The idea is that you can run these queries one by one, click on the top left square of the results grid, and then right-click and select “Copy with Headers” to select and copy the results of the query and then paste them into the matching tab of the results spreadsheet.

Many of these queries only work on SQL Server 2012, although some will work on older versions of SQL Server. If you are using an older version of SQL Server, you should use the version of my diagnostic queries for that version of SQL Server.

The first one is SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 CU12, which is Build 10.50.2874. This CU has seven fixes in the public fix list.

The second one is SQL Server 2008 R2 SP2 CU6, which is Build 10.50.4279. This CU has 13 fixes in the public fix list.

The two cumulative updates for SQL Server 2008 R2 add a new feature that lets you backup and restore databases from SQL Server to Windows Azure Blob Storage.

The final CU is SQL Server 2012 RTM CU7, which is Build 11.0.2405. This CU has 17 fixes in the public fix list. Many of these look pretty significant. You may be wondering where the “matching” CU for SQL Server 2012 SP1 is. The answer is that the RTM and SP1 branches of SQL Server 2012 are “out of synch”, so that the RTM branch is one month ahead of the RTM branch.

Microsoft is not planning on changing this, so you should get used to it.

Scaling SQL Server 2012

How can you scale SQL Server 2012? Scaling up is relatively easy (but can be expensive), while scaling out requires significant engineering time and effort. If you suggest hardware upgrades you may be accused of simply “throwing hardware at the problem”, and if you try to scale out, you may be thwarted by a lack of development resources or 3rd party software restrictions. As your database server nears its load capacity, what can you do? This session gives you concrete, practical advice on how to deal with this situation. Starting with your present workload, configuration and hardware, we will explore how to find and alleviate bottlenecks, whether they are workload related, configuration related, or hardware related. Next, we will cover how you can decide whether you should scale up or scale out your data tier. Once that decision is made, you will learn how to scale up properly, with nearly zero down-time. If you decide to scale out, you will learn about practical, production-ready techniques such as vertical partitioning, horizontal partitioning, and data dependent routing. We will also cover how to use middle-tier caching and other application techniques to increase your overall scalability.

You can get a copy of the flyer for both pre-cons here: SQL Saturday #197 Pre-Cons

Here is the session I will present on Saturday:

Hardware 201: Selecting Database Hardware

The foundation of database performance is the underlying server hardware and storage subsystem. Even the best designed and optimized database application can be crippled by an inadequate hardware and storage infrastructure. Recent advances in new processors and chipsets, along with improvements in magnetic and SSD storage have dramatically changed the evaluation and selection process compared to the past. Many database professionals struggle to keep up with new technology and often simply let someone else make their hardware selection and sizing decisions. Don’t let this happen to you! This session covers current and upcoming hardware from both Intel and AMD.

My friend and SQLskills colleague, Joe Sack will also be speaking at SQLSaturday #197.  I hope to see a lot of people at this event!

My employer, SQLskills gave away a certificate for a $500.00 discount on a future SQLskills Immersion Event class at the SQLSaturday preconference event. I also gave away a copy of SQL Server Hardware and a copy of Professional SQL Server 2012 Internals and Troubleshooting in a raffle at the end of the event. 

Here is the preconference session I delivered on Friday:

Scaling SQL Server 2012

How can you scale SQL Server 2012? Scaling up is relatively easy (but can be expensive), while scaling out requires significant engineering time and effort. If you suggest hardware upgrades you may be accused of simply “throwing hardware at the problem”, and if you try to scale out, you may be thwarted by a lack of development resources or 3rd party software restrictions. As your database server nears its load capacity, what can you do? This session gives you concrete, practical advice on how to deal with this situation. Starting with your present workload, configuration and hardware, we will explore how to find and alleviate bottlenecks, whether they are workload related, configuration related, or hardware related. Next, we will cover how you can decide whether you should scale up or scale out your data tier. Once that decision is made, you will learn how to scale up properly, with nearly zero down-time. If you decide to scale out, you will learn about practical, production-ready techniques such as vertical partitioning, horizontal partitioning, and data dependent routing. We will also cover how to use middle-tier caching and other application techniques to increase your overall scalability.

To go with it is an updated, blank 2012 results spreadsheet, where the tabs in the spreadsheet are labeled and in the same order as the queries. The idea is that you can run these queries one by one, click on the top left square of the results grid, and then right-click and select “Copy with Headers” to select and copy the results of the query and then paste them into the matching tab of the results spreadsheet.

One new feature (since February) is that I have modified the initial comment for these queries to make them work better with Mitch Wheat’s SQLDiagCmd program that is a standalone .NET program to run these queries and automatically capture the results in a nice Excel spreadsheet (which saves you the time and trouble of doing it manually). I recently discovered that Mitch also has a WinForms application that is even easier to use.

Many of these queries only work on SQL Server 2012, although some will work on older versions of SQL Server. If you are using an older version of SQL Server, you should use the version of my diagnostic queries for that version of SQL Server.

You should be aware that both Query 52 and Query 56 could take some time to run, depending on the size of your database and the speed of your hardware and storage subsystem.

As always, I welcome any feedback you may have about these queries.