Tesla Driving

We arrived in Zurich by plane on September 3rd and visited Tesla store while walking in old town Zurich.  Turns out it was the first store in Switzerland: it’s been there since 2009.  We met four members of the sales team; all very nice and helpful. They speak English well.  They showed us how to change the primary language for the car’s system from German to English in preparation of our rental tomorrow (Sunday the 4th). 

We learned that a road emergency kit comes standard with every car in Switzerland.

They taught us that in Europe the end of the power cord that fits into electric cars is universally the same.  Same for a Tesla as for a Nissan as for a BMW.  So no adapter is needed when charging at a public charging station.  This is one reason why the Teslas in Europe have a slightly larger diameter plug to insert into the car.  Naturally, Tesla superchargers are only compatible with Teslas.

In Europe, because the plug is so large, there is no room for the ring around the socket to show the charging lights so the lights are located in the rear side marker light instead of around the charing port.

They told us about the site Lemnet.org , popular in Western Europe, which can be used to find the literally thousands of power sources in Switzerland if we should find ourselves low between superchargers and planned destination chargers.  Then we told them about the Plug Share app which works well in the U.S. as well as here in Switzerland.  We saw a Model X come back from a test drive and there were three or more prospective buyers while we were there.