Thanks for the info! Unfortunately I've never seen any sort of Tesla in Japan anywhere. Maybe next time I go to the UK I'll see if I can rent one for a while.

Thanks for the info! Unfortunately I've never seen any sort of Tesla in Japan anywhere. Maybe next time I go to the UK I'll see if I can rent one for a while. A couple of quick points: the high pitched whine of the Leaf is actually a recording. It's legal requirement of all electric vehicles in Japan. All Japanese cars have exactly the same sound when accelerating, no matter what the make or model. I've never had any trouble with the gear indicator light. But then, there are only 2 gears :-) Forward and Backward (and it beeps when you are going backward), so I'm not sure I've ever looked. I've also never had any of the problems that you describe with the navigation screen. However, I'm pretty sure that the Japanese version of the software is totally different. I've seen videos of US versions of the navigation unit and I don't recognise it at all. It seems a shame. The biggest problem I have with the Japanese software is that adding way-points to your journey is insanely confusing. But other than that, I don't have any complaints at all. Especially, I have never noticed any issues with FPS. The charging infrastructure in Japan is all controlled by Nissan and Mitsubishi (joint venture) and it is incredibly good. There are none of the issue that it sounds like exist in the US. Controlling the charging infrastructure seems like it's going to be a very important battleground, so Tesla seems to definitely have the upper hand there. I'm curious to see what Toyota does when they roll out their all EV cars (which should be soon, I think... possibly at the end of this year???)