First impressions in wet conditions
I took delivery of my Model 3 last week and have been waiting impatiently for the inevitable Portland-area rain to fall to see how the it does. Sunday afternoon didn't disappoint- I took the opportunity to take her out for a couple hours. TL;DR: I'm extremely impressed with how this car does in the rain- good thing, since it's kind of the default condition around here for a lot of the year.
Tires:
The Michelin AS tires that come with the 18" wheels handle quite well in the wet. Even with a fair bit of water on the road, and hard steering across refuge lanes (which are notoriously slick since they get so little traffic), the car feels very sure-footed. Same with hard braking and acceleration on banked corners- I was able to break the backend loose just a bit at the extremes, but the traction control recovered it quickly. TBF, I'm coming from a 2013 Leaf with the OEM low rolling resistance tires (which will torque-steer badly even on a dry day), so it's tough not to do a whole lot better, but wow.
Straight-line acceleration:
I never broke it loose, even under full acceleration. There's no indicator that I've seen that the traction control is limiting your inputs, so it may well have been, but anecdotally, it felt just as snappy as on dry pavement. Not much more to say here- it definitely gets the job done.
Cornering:
Holy crap. While the dry-handling of the Model 3 in corners under power is extremely impressive, the wet handling is even more so IMHO. I was able to try out a lot of different cornering conditions, including a very large empty parking lot nearby, where I could really go nuts. The Model 3 felt very nimble and stable with everything I threw at it. I was only able to get a bit of understeer with extreme cornering at 30-40mph in the parking lot- not under any "normal" driving conditions. Negatively-banked cornering under heavy throttle was the only time I was able to induce a little oversteer, which the traction control corrected quickly. There's an acid-test corner near my house that I've dealt with regularly for the last 25 years- it's a steep hill with a stop light, turning right onto another steep hill that's a pretty busy road. Starting from a stop, my old RWD Lexus would break loose on it even dry, and I'd have to be extra-gentle with it in the wet. The Leaf, with its LRR tires, would torque-steer badly on it when wet, so I'd have be sure to leave plenty of room when pulling in front of other cars coming up the hill, lest I have someone steaming up my tail while trying to keep control of the car. The Model 3 handled that corner wet better than any other car I've driven handles it dry. Color me stunned.
Braking:
Again, not a lot to say here. I got the ABS to activate noticeably under "full stomp" braking, but under normal braking, I feel very comfortable with the stopping distance. I usually give plenty of following distance anyway, especially when it's wet, so the Model 3 doesn't disappoint here in any way.
Rain-sensing wipers:
This was probably the area I'd been the most nervous about, since it rains so much here, and the car was designed in CA. A typical wet drive in Oregon with the Leaf involved a lot of fiddling with the wiper stalk, adjusting wiper intervals and speeds. I was really dreading needing to do that on the Model 3 screen, but I'm thrilled to report that the rain-sensing wipers worked flawlessly for me. Other than needing to manually do a single wiper-stalk poke when starting a drive with an already-wet windshield (as others have already reported), I didn't have to touch a thing. The rain-sensing wiper system seamlessly cleared the windshield from fine mist to heavy drizzle conditions (adjusting both speed and interval perfectly), and activated quickly on the first appearance of water after a clearing. The wipers are still new, so they leave a brief haze behind, but it'll be even better once that's worn off. Not once did I feel the need to manually poke the stalk for an extra wipe, so I'd strongly disagree with others that say it doesn't activate quickly enough or wipe frequently enough. I did occasionally notice the "jerky" wiping behavior that others have mentioned, and it only happened with the auto wipers (eg, if I manually poked the wiper stalk, it'd wipe smoothly). Not sure what's going on there, but I didn't find it distracting.
Other:
The glass roof looks really cool from the outside when it's wet. In today's overcast conditions, looking at it straight-on, it appears bright orange, and when you move more overhead, it looks blue/purple. I'm guessing this is some refraction magic from the tint or something, but pretty neat, anyway.
I had a couple of minor nits at delivery that I didn't ask to be fixed (a tiny paint flaw just under a window, a small scratch on the front driver's side fender), but the one that I did ask them to document was that the roof seals looked sketchy. Parts of the rubber that lay against the edge of the glass seam on top appeared to be torn or cut clumsily, and there was some apparent manual application of a black sealant in a couple places. The roof on the other Model 3 that was being delivered the same time as mine looked a lot better, so I asked them to document it and reserved the right to ask them to fix it if there are water issues. So far, so good, but this was my one potential delivery issue that would be a big problem here in Oregon if it ends up leaking...
Summary:
I'm glad I didn't wait for the dual-motor AWD version. That might be even better, but I don't think I need it. The Model 3 kills it under all wet conditions I tried, even when driving much more extremely than I would ever do normally. I'm so excited about this car- not a drop of buyer's remorse!
I took delivery of my Model 3 last week and have been waiting impatiently for the inevitable Portland-area rain to fall to see how the it does. Sunday afternoon didn't disappoint- I took the opportunity to take her out for a couple hours. TL;DR: I'm extremely impressed with how this car does in the rain- good thing, since it's kind of the default condition around here for a lot of the year.
Tires:
The Michelin AS tires that come with the 18" wheels handle quite well in the wet. Even with a fair bit of water on the road, and hard steering across refuge lanes (which are notoriously slick since they get so little traffic), the car feels very sure-footed. Same with hard braking and acceleration on banked corners- I was able to break the backend loose just a bit at the extremes, but the traction control recovered it quickly. TBF, I'm coming from a 2013 Leaf with the OEM low rolling resistance tires (which will torque-steer badly even on a dry day), so it's tough not to do a whole lot better, but wow.
Straight-line acceleration:
I never broke it loose, even under full acceleration. There's no indicator that I've seen that the traction control is limiting your inputs, so it may well have been, but anecdotally, it felt just as snappy as on dry pavement. Not much more to say here- it definitely gets the job done.
Cornering:
Holy crap. While the dry-handling of the Model 3 in corners under power is extremely impressive, the wet handling is even more so IMHO. I was able to try out a lot of different cornering conditions, including a very large empty parking lot nearby, where I could really go nuts. The Model 3 felt very nimble and stable with everything I threw at it. I was only able to get a bit of understeer with extreme cornering at 30-40mph in the parking lot- not under any "normal" driving conditions. Negatively-banked cornering under heavy throttle was the only time I was able to induce a little oversteer, which the traction control corrected quickly. There's an acid-test corner near my house that I've dealt with regularly for the last 25 years- it's a steep hill with a stop light, turning right onto another steep hill that's a pretty busy road. Starting from a stop, my old RWD Lexus would break loose on it even dry, and I'd have to be extra-gentle with it in the wet. The Leaf, with its LRR tires, would torque-steer badly on it when wet, so I'd have be sure to leave plenty of room when pulling in front of other cars coming up the hill, lest I have someone steaming up my tail while trying to keep control of the car. The Model 3 handled that corner wet better than any other car I've driven handles it dry. Color me stunned.
Braking:
Again, not a lot to say here. I got the ABS to activate noticeably under "full stomp" braking, but under normal braking, I feel very comfortable with the stopping distance. I usually give plenty of following distance anyway, especially when it's wet, so the Model 3 doesn't disappoint here in any way.
Rain-sensing wipers:
This was probably the area I'd been the most nervous about, since it rains so much here, and the car was designed in CA. A typical wet drive in Oregon with the Leaf involved a lot of fiddling with the wiper stalk, adjusting wiper intervals and speeds. I was really dreading needing to do that on the Model 3 screen, but I'm thrilled to report that the rain-sensing wipers worked flawlessly for me. Other than needing to manually do a single wiper-stalk poke when starting a drive with an already-wet windshield (as others have already reported), I didn't have to touch a thing. The rain-sensing wiper system seamlessly cleared the windshield from fine mist to heavy drizzle conditions (adjusting both speed and interval perfectly), and activated quickly on the first appearance of water after a clearing. The wipers are still new, so they leave a brief haze behind, but it'll be even better once that's worn off. Not once did I feel the need to manually poke the stalk for an extra wipe, so I'd strongly disagree with others that say it doesn't activate quickly enough or wipe frequently enough. I did occasionally notice the "jerky" wiping behavior that others have mentioned, and it only happened with the auto wipers (eg, if I manually poked the wiper stalk, it'd wipe smoothly). Not sure what's going on there, but I didn't find it distracting.
Other:
The glass roof looks really cool from the outside when it's wet. In today's overcast conditions, looking at it straight-on, it appears bright orange, and when you move more overhead, it looks blue/purple. I'm guessing this is some refraction magic from the tint or something, but pretty neat, anyway.
I had a couple of minor nits at delivery that I didn't ask to be fixed (a tiny paint flaw just under a window, a small scratch on the front driver's side fender), but the one that I did ask them to document was that the roof seals looked sketchy. Parts of the rubber that lay against the edge of the glass seam on top appeared to be torn or cut clumsily, and there was some apparent manual application of a black sealant in a couple places. The roof on the other Model 3 that was being delivered the same time as mine looked a lot better, so I asked them to document it and reserved the right to ask them to fix it if there are water issues. So far, so good, but this was my one potential delivery issue that would be a big problem here in Oregon if it ends up leaking...
Summary:
I'm glad I didn't wait for the dual-motor AWD version. That might be even better, but I don't think I need it. The Model 3 kills it under all wet conditions I tried, even when driving much more extremely than I would ever do normally. I'm so excited about this car- not a drop of buyer's remorse!
