would you pay £1000 more for a MiC 2021 SR+ vs a likely US model?

[Mrklaw]

In the middle of trying to buy an SR+ but got caught by the PICG change. I ordered an inventory car at the original price, then did the finance, then Tesla updated the price to remove the grant before I finalised the finances. Then they updated the website to offer their inventory cars in March with a £2500 discount (quarterly targets I guess). I got someone on the phone who confirmed they should correct the price but I’m still waiting for it to reflect in my order page.

I’m half tempted to cancel (is the £100 refundable?) and buy another one that already has the discount applied. complications:

on the website, the one I ordered is listed as 267 miles WLTP - vs 278 for new ones and for some of the inventory ones. Is this their website not updating or does it mean mine is a US car vs china ones for others? I got confirmation mine is a 2021 model. So should have heat pump/powered boot and the picture shows the black lining instead of the chrome. But I’m not sure if it’ll have the matrix LED headlights.

Also the closest I can see in inventory stock is £1000 more (£41990) but is steel/grey which explains the difference. I don’t know if any possible difference between the two is worth the difference. And how long before Telsa unlock my price adjustment so I can actually finalise it? They’re impossible to get on the phone except when I got lucky with a callback from the chat. Since then chat has just bluntly said ‘email sales’.

What would you do? How long does the £100 hold the car for - I’m a little nervous that’ll get messed up as they keep emailing me to remind me I’ve not finished things..

Sorry for the ramble

 

[Burley]

If your car has a 267 mile range listed, then it is one of the last of the Fremont cars with the NCA battery. Those with 278 are MiC models with the LFP battery. The latter will also have a heated steering wheel, the Fremont cars didn't at that time at least. The door caps will also be different between them. It may be worth thinking about which battery chemistry you'd prefer. There have been reports of slower charging, especially supercharging with the LFP battery, but there has been an update which is said to improve this. The advantage of the LFP is that you can charge to 100% all the time, so you do get a more useable SR+ in range terms. Then there are the reported build quality differences.. If you want to know what I'd do; I was seriously looking at the SR+ for the past couple of months before we went for the LR, and I was looking specifically at the Fremont cars on the inventory, solely based on the more tried and tested battery technology. The LFP may be fine, but I intend to do regular long trips and didn't want to find Supercharging speeds were hobbled.

 

[Mrklaw]

thanks. Day to day I’d be fine with 80% charging and then leaving 100% for longer trips which should be no problem. Thats my gut too, while things settle down, although both have long battery warranties. Also saves me a grand.

 

[Peteski]

Yeah I would tend to go with the more proven battery too. I get the impression LFP is more about saving Tesla money rather than a step forward in tech. On the other hand MIC cars do appear to be better built on average, but it's early days yet.

 

[Durzel]

Late Fremont cars are apparently a lot better build quality wise, from what I’ve heard.

Heating steering wheel might be on the Fremont car, will almost certainly be on the MIC - but bear in mind on a SR+ it won’t be activated for you (only LRs are coming with it switched on).

There is a remote chance the SR+ doesn’t have the heated wheel hardware, but I think it’s more likely than not.

 

[Peteski]

Late Fremont cars are apparently a lot better build quality wise, from what I’ve heard.

Heating steering wheel might be on the Fremont car, will almost certainly be on the MIC - but bear in mind on a SR+ it won’t be activated for you (only LRs are coming with it switched on).

There is a remote chance the SR+ doesn’t have the heated wheel hardware, but I think it’s more likely than not.

My late Fremont car (2021 LR) is not very well built (in terms of panel fit, the rest of it is okay). But then again I have seen a few MIC cars with similar (or even worse) panel gaps. Mine doesn't have the heated steering wheel, which would have been nice. But it does have the new head lights, which are a big improvement over the old ones. I have the old interior door cards too, but I'm not sure if I would prefer the new ones anyway.

But the battery is probably the key thing to consider in making this choice. The rest is all a bit trivial unless you get a real dog of a build (which some Fremont cars unfortunately are). Badly flaking paint is one of the worst scenarios you could potentially face, but not sure how common that actually is. My paint seems fine so far, but I've only done 1500 miles. However it has already got a couple of very minor stone chips on the front, which took much longer to accumulate on my MX. Could be just by chance or maybe the paint is softer? Time will tell.

 

[BarryW]

I’ve also got the choice between a Fremont SR+ with black interior at £40,430 and a MIC with white interior for £41,990. I’ve chosen to go with the MIC one for a couple of reasons…

The range of the MIC car is a little higher so over time, any decrease in range will be less evident. There may be a heated steering wheel but it won’t be activated yet, you may have to pay a fee to unlock it but at least you’d have a choice. Apparently the build quality of the MIC Model 3 is better with a lower probability of panel gaps and better paintwork. The white interior is also something I very much wanted and wasn’t available with the Fremont-made car.

I’m a little wary of the slower supercharging speeds however as I live in an apartment and can’t charge it here. I have a supercharger a couple of miles from me so was planning on using this to charge the car roughly once a week. The reports of slow supercharging even after the update do scare me a bit though!

 

[Neilman]

...I’m a little wary of the slower supercharging speeds however as I live in an apartment and can’t charge it here. I have a supercharger a couple of miles from me so was planning on using this to charge the car roughly once a week. The reports of slow supercharging even after the update do scare me a bit though!

Supercharging will be slow if you drive straight from home to charge (e.g. to go on a trip) since the battery will not be warm enough to accept high rate supercharging.
Best approach would be to charge on the way home from a distant visit having set the supercharger as your destination so the battery will be preconditioned for optimum charging. Apparently it needs something like 30 minutes of driving & preconditioning to get max charge rate.
Also note you only get best charge rate at quite low battery state of charge (less than 15%?).
Just topping up a battery from, say, 60% will be at a lower charge rate and above 80% will be lower still.

 

[BarryW]

Supercharging will be slow if you drive straight from home to charge (e.g. to go on a trip) since the battery will not be warm enough to accept high rate supercharging.
Best approach would be to charge on the way home from a distant visit having set the supercharger as your destination so the battery will be preconditioned for optimum charging. Apparently it needs something like 30 minutes of driving & preconditioning to get max charge rate.
Also note you only get best charge rate at quite low battery state of charge (less than 15%?).
Just topping up a battery from, say, 60% will be at a lower charge rate and above 80% will be lower still.

That sounds like a good plan, I can certainly plan the supercharging to be on the way back from a 30 minute+ drive and when it has a low percentage. That way the battery would have time to be preconditioned and allow for the higher charging speeds.

I was just thinking that the Fremont battery would be better for my use case whilst I live in this apartment, but I plan to move next year where I’d be able to keep it plugged in constantly at home when not in use.

There are benefits to both battery types. It’s a hard one but the MIC battery comes out as the better option IMO.

 

[Tigermad]

My late Fremont car (2021 LR) is not very well built (in terms of panel fit, the rest of it is okay). But then again I have seen a few MIC cars with similar (or even worse) panel gaps. Mine doesn't have the heated steering wheel, which would have been nice. But it does have the new head lights, which are a big improvement over the old ones. I have the old interior door cards too, but I'm not sure if I would prefer the new ones anyway.

But the battery is probably the key thing to consider in making this choice. The rest is all a bit trivial unless you get a real dog of a build (which some Fremont cars unfortunately are). Badly flaking paint is one of the worst scenarios you could potentially face, but not sure how common that actually is. My paint seems fine so far, but I've only done 1500 miles. However it has already got a couple of very minor stone chips on the front, which took much longer to accumulate on my MX. Could be just by chance or maybe the paint is softer? Time will tell.

I wonder how your Fremont car has the new headlight? I thought this was only available in China models.

 

[Mrklaw]

I wonder how your Fremont car has the new headlight? I thought this was only available in China models.

i was wondering about this. I’d like the matrix lights in case they get software activated later. Heated wheel I dont know if you can buy the option but doesn’t really bother me

Luckily my local shell has installed a couple of fast chargers so that should help while I wait for a home install too

 

[Cardo]

I wonder how your Fremont car has the new headlight? I thought this was only available in China models.

The last Fremont batch came with the new headlights. R Symonds reviewed them prior to the latest MiC models arriving.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Headlights seem to be codes HL31 for the old style and HL32 for the new ones if you want to check on inventory especially when looking at Fremont built cars.

The more you get into these manufacturing codes the more revealing things become when looking at Teslas inventory. The new lights are desirable as they are but I'm not expecting anything fancy from them any time soon.

 

[Peteski]

I wonder how your Fremont car has the new headlight? I thought this was only available in China models.

I think all the 2021 cars delivered at the end of year had the new headlights. Only things missing were heated steering wheel and the revised door cards.

 

[Adopado]

If your car has a 267 mile range listed, then it is one of the last of the Fremont cars with the NCA battery. Those with 278 are MiC models with the LFP battery. The latter will also have a heated steering wheel, the Fremont cars didn't at that time at least.

The SR+ won't have a heated steering wheel even if MIC. (There is the possibility that the hardware is there and that it may be a paid for software enabled feature in the future .. like they did for the rear heated seats.. but there's no official confirmation.)

 

[Mrklaw]

Headlights seem to be codes HL31 for the old style and HL32 for the new ones if you want to check on inventory especially when looking at Fremont built cars.

The more you get into these manufacturing codes the more revealing things become when looking at Teslas inventory. The new lights are desirable as they are but I'm not expecting anything fancy from them any time soon.

where can you get this info? I have the vin but that’s about it so far

 

[Burley]

You can see a recent Supercharging the LFP battery video here on a new channel - Joe has posted a few since picking up his MiC SR+. This time charging from 3% in a pre-conditioned battery. Still didn't see over 100kW.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

where can you get this info? I have the vin but that’s about it so far

I tend to look at the inventory cars where sites like tesla-info list out the option codes (it has a wealth of info on there). I think on there they mention a way to look at your own car by looking at your car in mytesla and reading the raw html to find the config string - Tesla don't go out of their way to make it easy in fact quite the opposite sadly, so can't help much more I'm afraid.

 

[Tigermad]

It’s a bummer that if they activate the headlights as a paid for sub leasers won’t be able to get it :-(

 

[Aman792]

The last Fremont batch came with the new headlights. R Symonds reviewed them prior to the latest MiC models arriving.

I have one of the last Fremont made cars.my21. they have the new headlights.