I've recently come back from one of the biggest drives done so far in our model 3 SR+. I drove from Bishops Stortford in Hertfordshire to southern France (Bordeaux way). There were a few things I noticed on the way which I wanted to share.
- Autopilot almost caused a crash: On the approach to Folkstone the road markings aren't very clear and some old markings are still somewhat visible (they're black like they've been blowtorched off). Using autopilot on this section of road was not a great idea as it caused the car (after a few minutes of driving in the correct lane) to suddenly swerve into the other lane. The person behind was almost hit and we were a bit shaken. Lesson learned.
- Autopilot almost took our heads off: Heading into tunnels in both the UK and France sometimes confused autopilot and had it slam the breaks on. I tended to start putting my foot on the accelerator before going into tunnels to prevent it.
- Autopilot otherwise: made the drive much nicer.
- Supercharger details in France: Some of the superchargers required codes to open the gate. These codes were supposed to be on the in-car map but are not shown on mine. A French person had them on his along with other details like wifi and food which I don't see on mine. I'm on the latest version and paying for premium so not sure why I wouldn't see this?
- Window gaps are not a given: I've put it with some pretty bad wind noise on the driver's side as I thought it was just how they were built. However, after driving as a passenger for a while I noticed that the passenger side is almost silent by comparison (the driver side sounds like its almost open slightly). Going to try and get this fixed next week.
- Supercharger speeds: I only seemed to get 120Kw, at least in France. Should I be expecting more?
- Superchargers: I'm not buying any other EV until their charging networks are sorted. The supercharges made the entire trip possible.
- Glass roof: Really comes into it's own on a long trip. It made the car feel larger and was great for spotting birds etc.
- Luggage space: There's a lot more space that there appears to be in the model 3. We had plenty of room for a family of 4.