I've got a question for you Model 3 owners.
For context, my parents got a 3 and they've had it for about three months now.* They keep asking me things about it (is this normal? Should that happen?) like I'm some kind of expert or something. I keep reminding them I don't have the car yet so unfortunately they probably know more than I do!
The latest question is a real stumper. While using the UMC, even if the car is locked, somebody can walk up to the car, press the button on the UMC (at which point the cable unlocks), and remove it from the car! Oddly, this doesn't work at Superchargers, and my understanding is the point of the charge cable lock is to prevent random strangers from walking off with your expensive UMC or pranking your charging. I took a short video of my dad locking the car and subsequently removing the charge cable, and he sent it to a guy at the service centre who acknowledged that it shouldn't do that but didn't seem perturbed and wanted to see the car for service (however, if it works for one car, likely it works for all of them, don't you think?). Note that my parents' smartphones are too old for the current Tesla app and are not registered as keys; they rely 100% on the keycard. So proximity is not a factor. This has happened across a range of temperatures, including in the garage, and across a wide range of SoC, so it's unlikely to be related to the "feature" that's supposed to prevent the charge port freezing locked. For whatever reason the service centre doesn't just try it on one of their own 3s, so if you have a moment, I'd like to know from some of you if this issue isn't unique to this particular car. And do you find this concerning at all? If I had a 3 and I heard this from somebody I didn't have a reason to mistrust, I think I'd be concerned …
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Amazing car, wish I had one, and guess what, the LR RWD is still available only with premium upgrades, and no I can't pay that much to get it now!