EXPERIENCE: 2400 miles trip Model 3 SR Plus

[PittCaleb]

But backing out a car in a parking lot/space when cars are parked on both sides means the driver literally cannot see a thing

Are you familiar with summon? I hav used it a couple times just because I didn't want to exit the parking space from inside the car. Like a remote control, I can move the car fwd or rev and then jump into it once it clears the space. Used it at work the other day when I had 3 others join me. Why get in/out of the car in a tight space when you can pull it forward and open doors with ease.

I totally get you. Of all things, this wouldn't be my deal-break, but it's fine if it's yours, I respect that. I'm thinking it could be a software piece they could add at some point it the future to all existing cars. We have rear sonar and rear cameras, nothing more than my Outback had. No reason they couldn't do it I wouldn't think.

 

[youngmcdonald]

Are you familiar with summon? I hav used it a couple times just because I didn't want to exit the parking space from inside the car. Like a remote control, I can move the car fwd or rev and then jump into it once it clears the space. Used it at work the other day when I had 3 others join me. Why get in/out of the car in a tight space when you can pull it forward and open doors with ease.

I totally get you. Of all things, this wouldn't be my deal-break, but it's fine if it's yours, I respect that. I'm thinking it could be a software piece they could add at some point it the future to all existing cars. We have rear sonar and rear cameras, nothing more than my Outback had. No reason they couldn't do it I wouldn't think.

When summon gets at least one more update I’ll be using it exclusively in such situations.

 

[PittCaleb]

the 95% use of this car will be 18mi round trip commute, but I can't help but think in terms of longer range is better if not for me directly then for long-term value of the car.

Here was my decision tree:
95% of my uses will require zero en-route or even destination charging. 50% of my longer trips will be just 1 mid-trip recharge/destination.

With a 240 mi range, I can easily go almost 400 miles charging en-route and then topping off overnight at a desgination charger. Living in NJ, 400 miles gets me "almost anywhere" I could want to go.

With the exception of summer vacation. If the diff in SR+ and LR is $10k, so I need to pay $10k for 10 years works of annual vacations that I don't fly to? That's $1k/yr for this one-off trip. I can rent a large vehicle for a week for about $500. So best case, I'm still ahead $500/yr over 10 years by renting a car for those long trips.

My g/f said "how will you move furniture?" OK, I'm on my 3rd consecutive Subaru Outback and *love* the hauling capabilities. But guess what, I 'haul stuff' maybe 2 or 3 times a year. And said g/f drives a Honda Pilot. And there's a U-Haul about a mile from my house right next to the Big Box stores and they rent pickup trucks and small moving vans for $20/day.

So my decision was based on the negatives to the car being easily solved very cheaply for those "edge cases" as we call them in software engineering.

I'm looking forward to my first "road trip" this w/e - 100 miles each way. Wanting to not drive 55, I will charge - there's no destination charger at my hotel, but a supercharger at that exit on the highway, so I'll top off before my ride back home easily. With a 240 mi range, I could probably drive 65 MPH on the nose and get there and back, who knows. Maybe I'll drive "slow" on the way out and see what the state is and decide if I need to or not.

 

[11thIndian]

Thanks @PittCaleb . With the Tiguan as our second vehicle, there’s really no reason to have the M3 as anything but a short range commuter and short trip car. If I don’t add FSD (now that it’s 6K at time of purchase) I’ll only be out 10K once I get back the rebates. That’s pretty awesome.

My wife asked why not just hold onto the A3 e-tron. I put it down to a couple of things... First Right now it’s trade-in value is still pretty high. Second, I haven’t had to pay for any service yet, and when that starts I understand Audi’s are expensive. Third, I think the maintenance cost and resaleability of the Model 3 will be much better in the longer term. Even in a short range variant like the SR+.