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Can folks spell out what features the newer years add, compared with the 2018 model 3? These are the ones I see:
  1. later years got a heat pump,
  2. later years lost radar.
  3. Fit and finish probably got better in later years
If you're not aware, Tesla doesn't do model years. They add new features whenever they're ready. And sometimes they take feature away. For example people commonly refer to "2021 model year" as having the new center console, new lights, heated steering, but all of those things were introduced at different times. For a lot of these things you can hunt down threads specifically discussing the feature and often there is an attempt by people to narrow down the change-over to a range of VINs. If you want to know what's in a particular car then look at that particular car.🤦‍♂️

2021+ got a heated steering wheel, and (I believe) the updated center console.

New center console appeared some time in calendar year 2020. The new center console also switched from USB-C to USB-A connectors (although the glove box remains USB-A).

As Terpman90 said, they added the heated steering wheel.

In late 2020 they started shipping model 3 with the new matrix/projector headlights (all variants of M3, whereas for the MY you only get those lights on the MYP). I think recently (calendar year 2022) there were some shipped with the old lights, but now they're back again?

Somewhere in 2021 they killed the lumbar adjustment for the front passenger seat.

I haven't been able to keep up with the options, but also somewhere in 2021 they didn't have data connections in the front center console USB (power only). I don't know if there were some cars that had no power there either (empty holes where USB ought to be?), and I don't know if the data has come back in more recent builds. You can buy third party modules to add back support for the USB data (but I think that assumes your car already has power there).

Newer cars have built-in support for CCS charging. Tesla may offer an upgrade kit at some point, and you can find threads on TMC with how-to descriptions of adding the support to some older cars.

When I test drove an M3 in February 2021 the car I drove (I don't know when it was built) had low and high settings for the regen. My car was built late March 2021 and by then the M3 only has one regen strength (i.e. it's not configurable).
 
They won't remove the radar, they'll just remove the functionality of it. By that I mean soon they won't use the radar as an input into TACC/AP/FSD. It will be the crappy totally vision based system. It totally sucked on my Y (w/out radar). Definitely better on my 3 (w/out radar) than my Y. My refreshed S still has the radar and I have absolutely 0 (zero) phantom braking events.
 
Let me restate my point given post above, it is not clear to me that on older M3’s they will disable the radar.
If they do that, would we not have had a software update on it?

None of us work for tesla, but since they also removed it (the radar) from new model S and X, its pretty clear to me that they dont intend to support that configuration long term. Yes, at some point there will be a firmware update that "silently" disables the radar, and then someone will figure it out, come to websites like this one and other, and complain up a storm, but its likely that what happens.

There is zero reason for them to continue to account for radar, when none of their new models will have the radar part in them. If they kept it going in model S and X I would agree with you. Since they didnt, I agree 100% with @DayTrippin here. At some point, the radar module in older cars will not be used for autopilot / FSD etc.

Now as to how effective that system is, we wont be discussing that here in this thread (or any thread in model 3 subforum) since there is an entire subforum dedicated to that discussion.
 
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None of us work for tesla, but since they also removed it (the radar) from new model S and X, its pretty clear to me that they dont intend to support that configuration long term. Yes, at some point there will be a firmware update that "silently" disables the radar, and then someone will figure it out, come to websites like this one and other, and complain up a storm, but its likely that what happens.

There is zero reason for them to continue to account for radar, when none of their new models will have the radar part in them. If they kept it going in model S and X I would agree with you. Since they didnt, I agree 100% with @DayTrippin here. At some point, the radar module in older cars will not be used for autopilot / FSD etc.

Now as to how effective that system is, we wont be discussing that here in this thread (or any thread in model 3 subforum) since there is an entire subforum dedicated to that discussion.
Appreciate your thoughts and opinion since as you stated none of us work for Tesla.
I guess we will have to wait.
 
Appreciate your thoughts and opinion since as you stated none of us work for Tesla.
I guess we will have to wait.
It makes no sense to keep the radar as input since they are not building any cars in the US with it anymore. It takes a lot more testing and work to maintain a lot of different code branches from a software perspective. It increases risk as well. Decreases the rate they can roll out new updates as well. Pretty soon, don't know when, but as soon as they can disable the radar they will. At least for the US anyway.

Other countries may have other regs they have to follow. I would imagine they'll drop it outside the US as soon as they can legally get away with it assuming the code is where they think it needs to be. Their idea of where they think is MVP (minimum viable product) and mine definitely differ based on my passed Model Y experience.