My first M3 review after 2 weeks of driving

[kimwin]

So far, I only drive my new M3SR about 160 miles. Here are what I have experienced:
1) on freeway, TACC + Auto Steer work quite well as expected, no surprise, including keeping lane and change lane.
2) on city street, I also use TACC to ensure I am drive at speed and not exceeding speed limit by mistake.
a) The car does run at speed limit, it knows the speed limit by GPS and not by the street sign
b) it slows down / stop if there is a car in front slowing down / stops
c) it also slow down and stop when seeing a red light and resume running when the light turns green
d) when it's close to an intersection with green light, it also slows down allowing me to check cross traffic before going thru the intersection (pretty well though TACC)
After checking cross traffic, I press the pedal slightly and the car speeds up to the speed limit of that road.
e) with TACC, it slows down when I am about to turn (right or left) , again, I had to press the pedal slightly: SURPRISE, the car even speeds up when I am turning !!! This is not expected. It should turn at slow speed before resuming its high speed. My guess to avoid this issue, I need to press the break pedal to disable TACC before I do the turn using the pedal to control the speed.

3) RAIN: last night, it happens to rain when I drive home. The wipers move like crazy. Since I have not learn how to control the wiper yet, I left it running that way until I got home. Then I immediately learn how to control the wipers, not difficult but got to know ahead of time. The rain also renders the sides and the back kind of dirty but not the front.

Overall, the Tesla car is great to drive, but I have to learn its behavior and adapt my driving to it to get its max benefits.

4) efficiency: some trips show 207watts/mile, some trips shows 196 wattsHr/mile. That translate to near 5 miles/kWh
The battery capacity of M3 is 57 KWh , that translates into near 280 miles on full charge. Of course this is just a simplified estimate.

 

[Kimmi]

Enjoy your new car and don’t get lost in the weeds about mileage.

 

[kimwin]

Enjoy your new car and don’t get lost in the weeds about mileage.

I do enjoy driving my M3. Since I was a software (firmware to be exact) developer, I keep watching the behavior of the car and envision what I would do (if I work on this software) to improve it. It's just in my blood. I did the same with various digital appliances that has user interface to make them work. Some of them are very user friendly, some of them (a toaster for example), it takes an engineer to figure out to to use it !!!

 

[kimwin]

Update#1: (2 days later)
I drove on freeway today and turn ON auto Steer. It keeps the car in the center of the lane very well. However, everyone is running at low speed due to heavy traffic, On my right side, a motorcycle speeds up to pass my car. My car suddendly jerked to the right, toward the motorcycle just a bit then went back to center of the lane. Big surprise: what this means I have to be alert all the time while driving this.
I learned a bit about wiper control 2 days ago, so push the button of the left stalk, the bottom screen shows some wiper control button and only AUTO is on. Other buttons are GRAY meaning pushing them result in no effect to the wipers. Five mins later, at a red light, I turned OFF auto pilot, and brioyght up the wiper control buttons again. This time all buttons light up and I can manually select OFF , 1 , 2, 3, AUTO as I wish.
I read somewhere in this forum about AUTO PILOT also set wiper to AUTO, driver has no way to control it. This little experience helps me to memorize this fact. To be more user friendly, the screen should display: "Note that Auto Pilot always sets wiper to AUTO mode".

 

[father_of_6]

a) The car does run at speed limit, it knows the speed limit by GPS and not by the street sign

As I understand it, TACC only goes the speed that you set. It's cruise control. GPS doesn't provide speed limit data, but the navigation has this data. Scary though, sometimes it tells me the speed limit is 55mph on residential 30mph streets... so be careful.

c) it also slow down and stop when seeing a red light and resume running when the light turns green

I drive my Model 3 manually 99.9% of the time, but I'm pretty sure you're describing FSD or FSDb. TACC does not stop at red lights or go at green. It doesn't observe traffic at all.

 

[rsmithnova]

As I understand it, TACC only goes the speed that you set. It's cruise control. GPS doesn't provide speed limit data, but the navigation has this data. Scary though, sometimes it tells me the speed limit is 55mph on residential 30mph streets... so be careful.



I drive my Model 3 manually 99.9% of the time, but I'm pretty sure you're describing FSD or FSDb. TACC does not stop at red lights or go at green. It doesn't observe traffic at all.

I think you miswrote. Traffic aware Cruise Control does observe traffic, just not traffic lights or traffic signs.

 

[father_of_6]

I think you miswrote. Traffic aware Cruise Control does observe traffic, just not traffic lights or traffic signs.

Hmm... not sure anymore what word I was intending to write, but good catch. Of course it observes traffic as in "vehicles"... but not traffic signs or lights.

 

[Jim R]

You may also find that the car will slow down for sharp curves, for fog that reduces visibility and as you approach a a sharp hilltop where you can't see far enough ahead. Oh, and it has brakes, not breaks.

 

[XPsionic]

it also slow down and stop when seeing a red light and resume running when the light turns green

WARNING: Unless you bought FSD, this behaviour will not always be available to you. You probably have 3 months FSD free or something from a trial. Normal autopilot will NOT stop for redlight or stop signs. There's another thread on this forum where someone almost crashed when their FSD trial expired and they expected the car to stop for them at a red light. IT WILL NOT.

I learned a bit about wiper control 2 days ago, so push the button of the left stalk, the bottom screen shows some wiper control button and only AUTO is on. Other buttons are GRAY meaning pushing them result in no effect to the wipers. Five mins later, at a red light, I turned OFF auto pilot, and brioyght up the wiper control buttons again. This time all buttons light up and I can manually select OFF , 1 , 2, 3, AUTO as I wish

Another tip, push the left stalk button, then you could use the left scroll wheel to change the wiper speed instead of taking your hand off and using the touch screen.