Hope you don't mind but I've cut'n'paste this (almost) verbatim from a non-car forum I post to. Seems relevant though.
I went to the Solihull Tesla centre for my first Model 3 drive, and indeed first proper poke around a Model 3, having watched hours of videos on the bloody things and the competition.
It was a great experience all round. The covid booking process was really straightforward and I pretty much had my choice of slots, scheduled for an hour.
The fellow in the showroom as extremely accommodating. There are certain similarities to the church of Apple with the experience, but it was very positive. He showed me round the basic controls and how to set up the seating/mirrors/steering profiles, explained how the test drive would run - most of this was how to get out of the shopping centre car park for free - and that basically although they had programmed a route in the satnav I could go where I wanted in the time allowed.
I was the first to arrive for the 12pm slot so he gave me the choice of either the M3P or a LR with 18" wheels. Although I was very tempted to boot the Performance model around, I decided to go with the LR as that’s the exact config I’m interested in.
The interior quality was far higher than I was expecting. The seats seem extremely comfortable and everything was a lot plusher than the impression I got from videos. I was genuinely surprised by this. First impressions and all…
I found the handling to be excellent. I don’t put myself in the good driver bracket so I would never test the limits of what I felt was on offer. There was no sense of carrying lots of mass around, cornering was very flat and it seemed totally sure-footed in wet conditions on greasy roads.
The performance was quite honestly skull-****ing. God alone knows what the M3P must be like. From a standing start, or from any ‘in-gear’ speed it was just comical. My 330d is fairly perky, this was just mental.
The auto-wipers did just work. I know ____ will love to be validated there. They should still have a switch for adjusting them, mind.
I did have one negative moment to call out. On the motorway, I had the traffic aware cruise control on and I did get an instance of the infamous “phantom braking” while passing a lorry in the middle lane. Apparently the current software is especially bad for it but it’s something that has plagued Tesla (more than other manufacturers) for years. They really need to sort that *sugar* out, it is not cool. At all.
Then I had a moment that you could only describe as a Tesla plant, if you were of the tinfoil persuasion: I decided to go to Hopwood Park services on the M42 and sit in a Supercharger bay for a few minutes just so I could play about with the screen controls a bit.
There are 16 stalls and about 4/5 were in use. I had been there about 2 minutes when a fella in a shiny Taycan drove very slowly past me, then parked in one of the bays. Bit weird, I thought.
Then he gets out of the car, looks around a bit and walks over to the car. I lowered the window and he says “Are these only for Teslas then?”
“Yes mate”
“Oh right, I’m new to all this.”
The two Ecotricity chargers that you drive past to get to the Superchargers both had i-Paces in them, and I think a queue waiting to get on them. And they’re only 50kW.
So anyway, I’m pretty smitten with the car and If I order one I will just hope it doesn’t piss a load of water into the boot or have the doors hung on backwards, etc. The recently announced changes make the interior look even better and the thicker glass should cut down road noise even more, although I thought it was decently quiet at motorway speed anyhow.
I went to the Solihull Tesla centre for my first Model 3 drive, and indeed first proper poke around a Model 3, having watched hours of videos on the bloody things and the competition.
It was a great experience all round. The covid booking process was really straightforward and I pretty much had my choice of slots, scheduled for an hour.
The fellow in the showroom as extremely accommodating. There are certain similarities to the church of Apple with the experience, but it was very positive. He showed me round the basic controls and how to set up the seating/mirrors/steering profiles, explained how the test drive would run - most of this was how to get out of the shopping centre car park for free - and that basically although they had programmed a route in the satnav I could go where I wanted in the time allowed.
I was the first to arrive for the 12pm slot so he gave me the choice of either the M3P or a LR with 18" wheels. Although I was very tempted to boot the Performance model around, I decided to go with the LR as that’s the exact config I’m interested in.
The interior quality was far higher than I was expecting. The seats seem extremely comfortable and everything was a lot plusher than the impression I got from videos. I was genuinely surprised by this. First impressions and all…
I found the handling to be excellent. I don’t put myself in the good driver bracket so I would never test the limits of what I felt was on offer. There was no sense of carrying lots of mass around, cornering was very flat and it seemed totally sure-footed in wet conditions on greasy roads.
The performance was quite honestly skull-****ing. God alone knows what the M3P must be like. From a standing start, or from any ‘in-gear’ speed it was just comical. My 330d is fairly perky, this was just mental.
The auto-wipers did just work. I know ____ will love to be validated there. They should still have a switch for adjusting them, mind.
I did have one negative moment to call out. On the motorway, I had the traffic aware cruise control on and I did get an instance of the infamous “phantom braking” while passing a lorry in the middle lane. Apparently the current software is especially bad for it but it’s something that has plagued Tesla (more than other manufacturers) for years. They really need to sort that *sugar* out, it is not cool. At all.
Then I had a moment that you could only describe as a Tesla plant, if you were of the tinfoil persuasion: I decided to go to Hopwood Park services on the M42 and sit in a Supercharger bay for a few minutes just so I could play about with the screen controls a bit.
There are 16 stalls and about 4/5 were in use. I had been there about 2 minutes when a fella in a shiny Taycan drove very slowly past me, then parked in one of the bays. Bit weird, I thought.
Then he gets out of the car, looks around a bit and walks over to the car. I lowered the window and he says “Are these only for Teslas then?”
“Yes mate”
“Oh right, I’m new to all this.”
The two Ecotricity chargers that you drive past to get to the Superchargers both had i-Paces in them, and I think a queue waiting to get on them. And they’re only 50kW.
So anyway, I’m pretty smitten with the car and If I order one I will just hope it doesn’t piss a load of water into the boot or have the doors hung on backwards, etc. The recently announced changes make the interior look even better and the thicker glass should cut down road noise even more, although I thought it was decently quiet at motorway speed anyhow.
