It's hard to believe that it's been a year since we first put down what seemed like a staggering chunk of money for the first of our two Model 3s in late July/early August of last year. The first one came pretty quickly a matter of weeks, and I was so blown away by the car and the overall genius of it that I ordered another one for my wife just before the free unlimited supercharging was about to expire. That second purchase decision now looks to be one of my smartest moves ever.
First things first. While the car is hardly perfect – what a piece of technology is? – it's been the most fun to drive, most practical, and the most economical to operate and (potentially) trouble-free car either of us have ever owned. It's too early to know whether or not the drivetrain reliability advantages on paper prove out over 100,000-200,000 miles and beyond but we're cautiously optimistic that they will. We tend to keep our cars for a very long time, so we will find out!
My take-home message to folks who've never experienced this car is, first of all, test drive one! I probably sold at least five or six Model 3s to various contacts and colleagues without getting any official credit via use of the Tesla referral code but I guess that's what they call a “first world problem”. My other take-home message to potential buyers is that this is essentially a four-door electric Ferrari that gets over 100 MPGe, pretty much doesn't require maintenance, is the best long distance driving car ever, has one of the best navigation and infotainment/stereo systems you've ever seen or heard in a car, has the best space utilization in a vehicle you've ever seen, and is the safest vehicle on the road you can currently buy, while having performance that pretty much torches every other sports sedan . . including that perennial and iconic class leader, the BMW M series, and the vaunted Mercedes AMG 6.3 group – both of which guzzle gas like drunken sailors. Most people's reaction to that report – of such an impossible compilation of best-in-class virtues – is to be highly skeptical, until they test drive it and experience the performance first-hand, and then they see the other collective evidence regarding safety, economy of operation, etc.. Then they are uniformly wowed.
Pros:
1) an amazing dynamic envelope of overall performance, including great handling, braking, with instant acceleration. The car has a pretty decent ride too, especially after Tesla revised shocks and springs in early to mid 2018. The Instant acceleration is quite linear (G force proportional to how much you depress the pedal), unlike anything you’ve ever experienced, even in comparably powerful ICE vehicles. Totally addicting. Total absence of wheelspin or noise makes this addicting level of performance and acceleration far less likely to attract undesirable attention.
2) Easiest car ever to drive, perhaps one of the biggest surprises. Can be a low effort, relaxed crusiemobile when you want to loaf and take it easy. Autopilot for sure is part of this, but it isn’t just the EAP. Great steering, feedback from all the controls is generally excellent, and you can position the car on the road with considerable precision and little effort. It's both a drivers car –more so than its somewhat ponderous if faster older brother – and a very easy car to drive!
3) Brilliant, paradigm-shifting integration of all the car’s systems through the big, bright and beautiful 15 inch touch screen, complemented by NFC card keys and Bluetooth phone access. I particularly love the virtual detents within the touchscreen operation in terms of dragging submenus from the bottom especially the audio system menu. This whole effort to consolidate the entire operating system into a touchscreen was incredibly brave of Tesla, particularly given the risk that the absence of traditional speedo and gauge clusters – to say nothing of keys or even key transponders – might disorient and turn off some potential buyers. But Tesla pulled this off, and I think it now sets the standard for the industry in terms of operating system integration, ease of use, etc. We could never go back to keys, key fobs, and all that stuff now seems like typewriters. Again, both a giant leap forward in convenience, and virtual elimination of what have become punitive costs around lost key fobs (vs. $20 for two NFC cards). Remote access via the phone is a game changer, allowing remote activation of locking/unlocking, monitoring, climate control, charging, etc.. Everyone is scrambling to equal Tesla's brilliant operating system, and it contributes significantly to overall ease-of-use.
4) Over the air updates that regularly and significantly improve functionality of multiple systems. This has included the famous anti-lock braking fix but also significant horsepower increases, improvements in the screen layout, cold weather behavior, enhanced supercharging, etc.
5) Speaking of supercharging, the best charging network hands down. Not even close. Version 3 superchargers and the enhancement of Version 2 charging rates to 150 kW will continue to cut down on trip travel time. We are particularly glad we got the unlimited free supercharging – even if for a lot of people that's not a great value at an estimated $5000 price tag. We will get more than our money's worth.
6) One of if not simply the best navigation system, with excellent speech to text input in terms of destinations. This prevents tedious and what could be on the road potentially distracting typing of destinations. Excellent integration of potential supercharger destinations and their current level of availability into the nav system, with battery conditioning now whenever you have a supercharger as a destination.
7) Enhanced autopilot. Yes, we know all about its quirky and even occasionally frankly unsafe behavior, and the occasional strange phantom braking, and other gaffes, but it's simply a brain-saving and stress-reducing Godsend on long drives, the trade-off being that you have to monitor the car versus do the tiring grunt work of driving it. We'll take that trade-off any day of the week on any long drive, even just 15-30 miles. It removes the most cognitively fatiguing aspects of driving – lane centering and speed matching (although all forms of radar-guided cruise control on many makes of newer cars take care of the second of these challenges), and trades those for a simpler and perhaps wider angle monitoring of your environment. We believe that this ability to take your attention off the minutia of driving actually enhances traffic awareness and safety. While we find it sometimes too conservative due to an ultra safety-conscious set of paradigms in heavy traffic especially around lane changing, I vastly prefer its operation to the stress of squeezing out a few more miles per hour by relentless tailgating and lane surfing (what almost everybody else on the road is doing most of the time).
8) Excellent infotainment and sound system (but see cons regarding some of its quirks).
9) Best front seats I've ever experienced. Excellent and highly customizable driving position, savable across multiple drivers which is hugely convenient (and reduces family squabbling!)
10) Track Mode 2.0. Look out for 3.0, especially if it includes ‘sliders’ (adjustable max torque front and rear)! Excellent car for the track junkie at least in shorter sprint type races.
11) Speaking of tracking and tweaking, there are excellent options for aftermarket tuning, particularly from Mountain Pass Performance (our personal fave!), but multiple vendors are getting heavily into the Tesla mod market. Excellent coilover kits are available, along with a wide range of wider and lighter alloy wheels, a great front spoiler from UP, etc. Tesla Tuning Addiction on the other hand requires a full 12 step program to kick!
12) Mobile service can fix a lot of issues without your having to bring the car in (but see cons).
Cons:
1) Interior materials simply do not match up or even get close to best-in-class. This includes carpets, trim pieces, door panels, etc. This makes the cars look and feel cheap at their price point, particularly relative to the best German and Japanese sports sedans, which typically have uniformly excellent interiors.
2) Long wait times for service, and although service has been generally excellent, Tesla in our case did not agree that a structural issue with the glass roof is a factory quality control problem versus some kind of rock or other impact problem, despite the absence of evidence for clear impact. Cracked roof glass has been one of the Model 3s bugaboos. Service centers are typically a long way away. This can mean a three-hour drive just to get an issue taken care of that mobile service can fix.
3) Quality control still is not up to snuff, although in general our cars were delivered in good shape excepting a funky computer board in my wife's car, and a too tight trunk latch in mine. Getting better, by all accounts, but paint quality, panel alignment, and a host of other theoretically minor but ultimately annoying QC issues still seem to find their way into delivered vehicles.
4) Wind noise as you get above 65 miles an hour. We've mitigated this with the RPM Tesla noise kit, plus additional door seals, plus extensive door and trunk dynamatting. We doubt most users are willing to put this kind of time and energy into mitigating something that Tesla should have taken care of, especially in the pricier dual motor cars. We've gotten an estimated 5 DB of noise reduction, but again better noise mitigation should have been part of the standard equipment of the car. This problem of wind and road noise is of course amplified by the total absence of drivetrain noise – one of the vehicles great charms.
5) USB music drive no longer supports Apple lossless files. This valuable functionality was deleted for uncertain reasons, never acknowledged by Tesla, and never fixed. Workaround may not be sonically as good – playing back lossless files via phone Bluetooth.
6) Lack of support for both Apple Car Play and Android Auto. While we personally don't especially miss them, we know that a lot of people do.
7) Vulnerability of performance wheels and tires to damage and even failure from road impacts – this is not really a knock on the car, and as everybody knows, just an intrinsic trade-off of radical low-profile wheels and tires. But it might be nice to have performance versions with 19 inch wheels and tires, or even 18's if the buyer so desired.
8) Lack of an RS version – this could include an upgraded and lowered suspension with cockpit adjustable shocks, 265 or 275 series tires, forged lightweight wheels, upgraded inverter with extra ~50-75 hp, and a taller drive ratio to put horsepower peak higher than 45 mph along with enhanced motor and battery cooling that would allow full power output until running out of juice. Okay now I'm getting into fantasy wish lists. Currently some of this is do-it-yourself aftermarket, except of course the extra 50 hp which is complete vaporware but might become available, while the enhanced cooling and the taller drive ratio would have to be factory redesign.
9) Lack of an LS version – this could include extra sound dampening materials, upgraded interior leather choices, upgraded interior materials, etc. More fantasy wish list stuff obviously. Probably will never happen, but who knows. In any case Tesla should consider that they're making the best car in its class with only two interior color choices – black and white!
Realistically the Cons are fairly minor, although someone getting a car delivered with poor paint and other quality control issues is not going to feel good about their Tesla experience as it gets started. But on balance, these cars are the best cars we've ever owned, and even the best cars either of us have ever driven, price no object. That includes many expensive sports sedans, Porsches, and even an occasional Ferrari. Indeed it has taken the Ferrari Italia 458 off my bucket list. Overall, great work Tesla! But Tesla cannot sit on their achievements and needs to keep improving in multiple areas. My impression is that they get this.
First things first. While the car is hardly perfect – what a piece of technology is? – it's been the most fun to drive, most practical, and the most economical to operate and (potentially) trouble-free car either of us have ever owned. It's too early to know whether or not the drivetrain reliability advantages on paper prove out over 100,000-200,000 miles and beyond but we're cautiously optimistic that they will. We tend to keep our cars for a very long time, so we will find out!
My take-home message to folks who've never experienced this car is, first of all, test drive one! I probably sold at least five or six Model 3s to various contacts and colleagues without getting any official credit via use of the Tesla referral code but I guess that's what they call a “first world problem”. My other take-home message to potential buyers is that this is essentially a four-door electric Ferrari that gets over 100 MPGe, pretty much doesn't require maintenance, is the best long distance driving car ever, has one of the best navigation and infotainment/stereo systems you've ever seen or heard in a car, has the best space utilization in a vehicle you've ever seen, and is the safest vehicle on the road you can currently buy, while having performance that pretty much torches every other sports sedan . . including that perennial and iconic class leader, the BMW M series, and the vaunted Mercedes AMG 6.3 group – both of which guzzle gas like drunken sailors. Most people's reaction to that report – of such an impossible compilation of best-in-class virtues – is to be highly skeptical, until they test drive it and experience the performance first-hand, and then they see the other collective evidence regarding safety, economy of operation, etc.. Then they are uniformly wowed.
Pros:
1) an amazing dynamic envelope of overall performance, including great handling, braking, with instant acceleration. The car has a pretty decent ride too, especially after Tesla revised shocks and springs in early to mid 2018. The Instant acceleration is quite linear (G force proportional to how much you depress the pedal), unlike anything you’ve ever experienced, even in comparably powerful ICE vehicles. Totally addicting. Total absence of wheelspin or noise makes this addicting level of performance and acceleration far less likely to attract undesirable attention.
2) Easiest car ever to drive, perhaps one of the biggest surprises. Can be a low effort, relaxed crusiemobile when you want to loaf and take it easy. Autopilot for sure is part of this, but it isn’t just the EAP. Great steering, feedback from all the controls is generally excellent, and you can position the car on the road with considerable precision and little effort. It's both a drivers car –more so than its somewhat ponderous if faster older brother – and a very easy car to drive!
3) Brilliant, paradigm-shifting integration of all the car’s systems through the big, bright and beautiful 15 inch touch screen, complemented by NFC card keys and Bluetooth phone access. I particularly love the virtual detents within the touchscreen operation in terms of dragging submenus from the bottom especially the audio system menu. This whole effort to consolidate the entire operating system into a touchscreen was incredibly brave of Tesla, particularly given the risk that the absence of traditional speedo and gauge clusters – to say nothing of keys or even key transponders – might disorient and turn off some potential buyers. But Tesla pulled this off, and I think it now sets the standard for the industry in terms of operating system integration, ease of use, etc. We could never go back to keys, key fobs, and all that stuff now seems like typewriters. Again, both a giant leap forward in convenience, and virtual elimination of what have become punitive costs around lost key fobs (vs. $20 for two NFC cards). Remote access via the phone is a game changer, allowing remote activation of locking/unlocking, monitoring, climate control, charging, etc.. Everyone is scrambling to equal Tesla's brilliant operating system, and it contributes significantly to overall ease-of-use.
4) Over the air updates that regularly and significantly improve functionality of multiple systems. This has included the famous anti-lock braking fix but also significant horsepower increases, improvements in the screen layout, cold weather behavior, enhanced supercharging, etc.
5) Speaking of supercharging, the best charging network hands down. Not even close. Version 3 superchargers and the enhancement of Version 2 charging rates to 150 kW will continue to cut down on trip travel time. We are particularly glad we got the unlimited free supercharging – even if for a lot of people that's not a great value at an estimated $5000 price tag. We will get more than our money's worth.
6) One of if not simply the best navigation system, with excellent speech to text input in terms of destinations. This prevents tedious and what could be on the road potentially distracting typing of destinations. Excellent integration of potential supercharger destinations and their current level of availability into the nav system, with battery conditioning now whenever you have a supercharger as a destination.
7) Enhanced autopilot. Yes, we know all about its quirky and even occasionally frankly unsafe behavior, and the occasional strange phantom braking, and other gaffes, but it's simply a brain-saving and stress-reducing Godsend on long drives, the trade-off being that you have to monitor the car versus do the tiring grunt work of driving it. We'll take that trade-off any day of the week on any long drive, even just 15-30 miles. It removes the most cognitively fatiguing aspects of driving – lane centering and speed matching (although all forms of radar-guided cruise control on many makes of newer cars take care of the second of these challenges), and trades those for a simpler and perhaps wider angle monitoring of your environment. We believe that this ability to take your attention off the minutia of driving actually enhances traffic awareness and safety. While we find it sometimes too conservative due to an ultra safety-conscious set of paradigms in heavy traffic especially around lane changing, I vastly prefer its operation to the stress of squeezing out a few more miles per hour by relentless tailgating and lane surfing (what almost everybody else on the road is doing most of the time).
8) Excellent infotainment and sound system (but see cons regarding some of its quirks).
9) Best front seats I've ever experienced. Excellent and highly customizable driving position, savable across multiple drivers which is hugely convenient (and reduces family squabbling!)
10) Track Mode 2.0. Look out for 3.0, especially if it includes ‘sliders’ (adjustable max torque front and rear)! Excellent car for the track junkie at least in shorter sprint type races.
11) Speaking of tracking and tweaking, there are excellent options for aftermarket tuning, particularly from Mountain Pass Performance (our personal fave!), but multiple vendors are getting heavily into the Tesla mod market. Excellent coilover kits are available, along with a wide range of wider and lighter alloy wheels, a great front spoiler from UP, etc. Tesla Tuning Addiction on the other hand requires a full 12 step program to kick!
12) Mobile service can fix a lot of issues without your having to bring the car in (but see cons).
Cons:
1) Interior materials simply do not match up or even get close to best-in-class. This includes carpets, trim pieces, door panels, etc. This makes the cars look and feel cheap at their price point, particularly relative to the best German and Japanese sports sedans, which typically have uniformly excellent interiors.
2) Long wait times for service, and although service has been generally excellent, Tesla in our case did not agree that a structural issue with the glass roof is a factory quality control problem versus some kind of rock or other impact problem, despite the absence of evidence for clear impact. Cracked roof glass has been one of the Model 3s bugaboos. Service centers are typically a long way away. This can mean a three-hour drive just to get an issue taken care of that mobile service can fix.
3) Quality control still is not up to snuff, although in general our cars were delivered in good shape excepting a funky computer board in my wife's car, and a too tight trunk latch in mine. Getting better, by all accounts, but paint quality, panel alignment, and a host of other theoretically minor but ultimately annoying QC issues still seem to find their way into delivered vehicles.
4) Wind noise as you get above 65 miles an hour. We've mitigated this with the RPM Tesla noise kit, plus additional door seals, plus extensive door and trunk dynamatting. We doubt most users are willing to put this kind of time and energy into mitigating something that Tesla should have taken care of, especially in the pricier dual motor cars. We've gotten an estimated 5 DB of noise reduction, but again better noise mitigation should have been part of the standard equipment of the car. This problem of wind and road noise is of course amplified by the total absence of drivetrain noise – one of the vehicles great charms.
5) USB music drive no longer supports Apple lossless files. This valuable functionality was deleted for uncertain reasons, never acknowledged by Tesla, and never fixed. Workaround may not be sonically as good – playing back lossless files via phone Bluetooth.
6) Lack of support for both Apple Car Play and Android Auto. While we personally don't especially miss them, we know that a lot of people do.
7) Vulnerability of performance wheels and tires to damage and even failure from road impacts – this is not really a knock on the car, and as everybody knows, just an intrinsic trade-off of radical low-profile wheels and tires. But it might be nice to have performance versions with 19 inch wheels and tires, or even 18's if the buyer so desired.
8) Lack of an RS version – this could include an upgraded and lowered suspension with cockpit adjustable shocks, 265 or 275 series tires, forged lightweight wheels, upgraded inverter with extra ~50-75 hp, and a taller drive ratio to put horsepower peak higher than 45 mph along with enhanced motor and battery cooling that would allow full power output until running out of juice. Okay now I'm getting into fantasy wish lists. Currently some of this is do-it-yourself aftermarket, except of course the extra 50 hp which is complete vaporware but might become available, while the enhanced cooling and the taller drive ratio would have to be factory redesign.
9) Lack of an LS version – this could include extra sound dampening materials, upgraded interior leather choices, upgraded interior materials, etc. More fantasy wish list stuff obviously. Probably will never happen, but who knows. In any case Tesla should consider that they're making the best car in its class with only two interior color choices – black and white!
Realistically the Cons are fairly minor, although someone getting a car delivered with poor paint and other quality control issues is not going to feel good about their Tesla experience as it gets started. But on balance, these cars are the best cars we've ever owned, and even the best cars either of us have ever driven, price no object. That includes many expensive sports sedans, Porsches, and even an occasional Ferrari. Indeed it has taken the Ferrari Italia 458 off my bucket list. Overall, great work Tesla! But Tesla cannot sit on their achievements and needs to keep improving in multiple areas. My impression is that they get this.
