A while back, when I was talking to a Tesla owner, I asked about the brakes and found out at that time that the regen WILL light the brake lights. I thought that was pretty cool.
Nice photo! I haven't seen the hard-top in place before.
About the data collection...
I recently found out that the Volt does the same thing. It uses OnStar to transmit the data. Some guys have started hacking them to collect and store data from their cars.
I already got some data from a Volt owner. I might be able to get more. It would be pretty cool to be able to pool data on Teslas or Volts and collect some real-world data right here on Ecomodder!
The other fun thing on the Tesla is the big dial right in the middle shows how much power you are using. To the right is power used, and to the left is regen. Straight up is zero energy use, like when sitting at a stop light. When I went for a ride, the driver hit the regen pretty hard to show me. I think the genenerated power went to something like 50,000 watts!
