First day with Model 3 experience

[RedT3]

After 2 years of waiting, the car finally came.
I had driven A3-A7, Q5&Q7, GLC300&C300. All of these are not even close to the Tesla Model 3 experience. I was worried about a lot of complains about stiff suspension, loud wind noise, but for some reason my car perform better than any of these cars listed. My other car is a GLC300 currently, wind noise and suspend is much worst than my new Model 3. The car acceration is something so different, q5 3.2 quadro sport+ & glc 300 sport+ isnt any where near.

After about 30 miles, the car made sound and i wasnt sure what it was. Looked down and noticed other cars appears on my screen as well as lane mark. I tested auto pilot for a good 10 miles on 495, bit scary since my first time but it handled nicely. On my way back the autopilot was bouncing back and forth so I took over, turned out it was strong wind while crossing the bridge.

Small issue: tiny paint issue on the edge of the frunk, will get fix next time i stop by service. Map search result was all the way on the right side where i kept pressing the wrong selection. Im sure it’ll get fixed in upcoming update. Other than these 2 issues my first 70 miles was a blast! I never so much fun driving.

The Tesla Model 3 is well worth the wait.

Great job to the Tesla development team!

 

[RedT3]

I’m looking forward to volunteering to my wife to the mall every weekends.

Reserved Tesla Parking! Free HPWC!

And also get to speed through the NOVA Hot lane traffic for free without worrying about tickets.

 

[Kipp]

Just received my Model 3 today as well. When I took delivery, the charging port wouldn't open reliably so they replaced it right away (1-2 hour additional wait) but they got it done quickly as we were heading out of town today. After the replacement, the port would open reliably.

We took a drive from Seattle to Portland with the whole family. Overall it was a good trip and I really enjoyed driving the car. Here are some thoughts:

1. Seats were a bit uncomfortable until I realized where the lumbar support was. It is a small disk to the back of the seat controls. That helped but I think the damage was done during the first 90 minutes of the drive.
2. Floor seems somewhat high in all locations. Having my legs outstretched to the pedals was fine but as soon as I enabled TACC and moved my legs, I noticed the high floor. Kids in the back (19 and 17) also felt the floor was very high making the back seats somewhat uncomfortable on long trips. My left leg was not doing great after the first 2 hour drive. Not sure what the problem was.
3. I'm 6'2" and was quite surprised that I didn't need to put the seat back to the furthest position as I have done in every other car I have driven. There was definitely extra room but if I did go all the way back, kids would complain about needing more room.
   
4. Turn signal is a bit different than I'm used to. It doesn't stay up or down when you signal a right or left turn. It returns to center but the blinker still operates until you turn or switch it off.
   
5. I thought autopilot would come on after 50 or so miles. After 120 miles, it was still not on but TACC had turned on after about 25 miles. When I made a comment, my wife said you have to enable it while in park. I pulled over on the next exit, put it in park and enabled it. After getting back on the freeway, it started working right away and was pretty fun except for a manual disable via slight tug on the steering wheel which causes the car to swerve, obviously. This shocked the rest of the family so I'd suggest giving everyone notice when you try this.
6. Navigation is fairly useful but it doesn't seem to have a "travel via" or a "find along route" feature where you put in your destination and then allow you to specify an intermediate stop (i.e., Starbucks or Supercharger). We always had to cancel the current navigation and specify the new navigation. Even my 8 year old Tom Tom allows us to find an intermediate stop along the existing route. Maybe I'm just not finding it.
7. Whole family was quite pleased with the amount of storage for our luggage.
8. Front USB chargers would not work. Tried plugging a known good USB cable to the front USB jacks and still nothing working. Plugging into the back ports worked fine for charging our phones. I tried charging the phone at delivery but since I had a case, it was not seating very well. Later, after removing the case, it still would not work. I'd suggestion when taking delivery, check USB cables are working even if you have to remove your case.

 

[tropical1]

The Model 3 seats have quite a few adjustments (including seat height) and like you I took a road trip without adjusting it which resulted in low back pain. It took me a while to get it right (I actually watched a video from a chiropractor on youtube). Once the seat was adjusted it is really comfortable.

 

[MrBilly]

On #6, navigate to one destination at a time only right now. Unless the car needs superchargers along the way in which case they get inserted. Nice thing about Tesla, the software is constantly (but so far very slowly) improving. The feature will probably come someday in an over the air update.

 

[Wolverinegeoff]

Front USB chargers would not work. Tried plugging a known good USB cable to the front USB jacks and still nothing working. Plugging into the back ports worked fine for charging our phones. I tried charging the phone at delivery but since I had a case, it was not seating very well. Later, after removing the case, it still would not work. I'd suggestion when taking delivery, check USB cables are working even if you have to remove your case.

I know you already checked this, but it’s something to be aware of relating how the phone sits. My iPhone X with the Apple leather case wouldn’t connect at first, but then I noticed if i dipped it under that lip at the bottom, it would connect properly. I wish there was a little more clearance there for a case!

 

[drawfour]

was pretty fun except for a manual disable via slight tug on the steering wheel which causes the car to swerve, obviously. This shocked the rest of the family so I'd suggest giving everyone notice when you try this.

What about tapping the brake? I have never driven a Tesla, but I would expect that would also cause it to disengage, and may not be as jarring to your passengers.

 

[MP3Mike]

What about tapping the brake? I have never driven a Tesla, but I would expect that would also cause it to disengage, and may not be as jarring to your passengers.

Yes that will work as well as tapping the AP/Drive stalk up one notch will turn off AP.

 

[SMAlset]

The Model 3 seats have quite a few adjustments (including seat height) and like you I took a road trip without adjusting it which resulted in low back pain. It took me a while to get it right (I actually watched a video from a chiropractor on youtube). Once the seat was adjusted it is really comfortable.

Can you link to the video for us? Thanks. Congrats on the new car!

 

[Saghost]

1. Navigation is fairly useful but it doesn't seem to have a "travel via" or a "find along route" feature where you put in your destination and then allow you to specify an intermediate stop (i.e., Starbucks or Supercharger). We always had to cancel the current navigation and specify the new navigation. Even my 8 year old Tom Tom allows us to find an intermediate stop along the existing route. Maybe I'm just not finding it.

This has been a limitation of Tesla Navigation all along - though with 8.0 it added the ability to put in Supercharger waypoints automatically for longer trips.

Supposedly the new Nav is supposed to start rolling out this weekend, and I think waypoints are on the list of things they planned to add, though they haven't shown up in the release notes that I've seen posted yet.'

The good news is that if you push the navigate to button on the map, in addition to the bar for entering somewhere new, you'll be offered a list of recent destinations, so it's easy to put it back on the final destination once you're done with your detour.

 

[Kipp]

What about tapping the brake? I have never driven a Tesla, but I would expect that would also cause it to disengage, and may not be as jarring to your passengers.

Yes, this was my first time disengaging. Typing up on the drive stalk is the least impactful disengagement control as you can put your foot on the accelerator and have no sense that anything changed except for the blue circles going away (and the disengagement tone). Break also works as you suggested but you get a change that is noticeable.

I just wanted to warn folks that when you have others in the car, who are not expecting this, it can be kind of jarring and worrisome.

 

[Kipp]

The Model 3 seats have quite a few adjustments (including seat height) and like you I took a road trip without adjusting it which resulted in low back pain. It took me a while to get it right (I actually watched a video from a chiropractor on youtube). Once the seat was adjusted it is really comfortable.

The drive back home (4.5 hours) was much better after having the adjustments in place at the beginning. Still fooling around with it. And, yes, I'd like to see that video as well if you can find it again.

 

[Kipp]

This has been a limitation of Tesla Navigation all along - though with 8.0 it added the ability to put in Supercharger waypoints automatically for longer trips.

Yes, we found that as well. When heading back home, Tesla Navigation suggested stopping at the Vancouver, WA Supercharger. We wanted to stop at an earlier Supercharger (Woodburn, OR) as there looked to be better food options but couldn't figure out how to switch the recommended supercharger. I really wanted the car to tell me how long I needed to stay at the earlier supercharger like it was doing for the farther supercharger. We ended up staying long enough to get home with 59 miles left.

The good news is that if you push the navigate to button on the map, in addition to the bar for entering somewhere new, you'll be offered a list of recent destinations, so it's easy to put it back on the final destination once you're done with your detour.

We used that a lot. The problem is that this was not ideal for overall route planning. I'm really looking forward to seeing the new navigation, with way points hopefully.

 

[Saghost]

Yes, we found that as well. When heading back home, Tesla Navigation suggested stopping at the Vancouver, WA Supercharger. We wanted to stop at an earlier Supercharger (Woodburn, OR) as there looked to be better food options but couldn't figure out how to switch the recommended supercharger. I really wanted the car to tell me how long I needed to stay at the earlier supercharger like it was doing for the farther supercharger. We ended up staying long enough to get home with 59 miles left.

There isn't a way to switch it yet that I'm aware of. Once you get there, you can get a prediction for how long by switching to the final destination after you started charging. Not ideal, but it works.

But as always with Tesla, it'll get better in the future. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day soon they'll (hopefully) give us a new firmware update and it'll address this issue.

 

[MP3Mike]

We used that a lot. The problem is that this was not ideal for overall route planning. I'm really looking forward to seeing the new navigation, with way points hopefully.

The Model 3 has always had the new navigation system.

 

[TexasEV]

Yes, we found that as well. When heading back home, Tesla Navigation suggested stopping at the Vancouver, WA Supercharger. We wanted to stop at an earlier Supercharger (Woodburn, OR) as there looked to be better food options but couldn't figure out how to switch the recommended supercharger.

“Navigate to (name of desired supercharger).”
When you plug in, say “navigate to home”