![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/aSMiPA4.png "[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]")
Summary: Absolutely wonderful to drive, and a totally unique driving experience compared to a typical ICE (internal combustion engine) car, but it's still not a useful daily driver for most people.
Driving experience, acceleration, and handling: 9/10. Wow. If you haven't at least ridden in one of these (but even better if you can drive it) you just won't understand. Even my mom, who drives a 95 Accord and doesn't care about cars, was impressed. I didn't push it hard with her in the car but I did floor it for a couple seconds and "it feels faster than an airplane" haha. I took a bunch of other people for rides too and every single one of them was amazed.
The way it instantly and silently (well, a slight whir of the electric motors if you have the music off) and smoothly accelerates is just nuts. A regular car, even a performance car, you floor it, the engine revs up, it starts to go, it shifts, etc. Is not at all the same. And the dual motor AWD system just makes it so much better. You can put your foot down at any point in a curve and/or at any speed and there's no screeching of tires or drifting - ever.
The center of gravity is very low since a massive heavy battery pack is basically the entire floor. Just can't achieve that with a regular gas car.
If you love to drive, you'll love this car. Sure on a track it can beat out more expensive performance/exotic vehicles but that doesn't matter. What matters is how it feels to drive and I had a smile on my face the entire time. You will too. So, why did I not give it 10/10 in the driving category?After all, it feels like you're going 75 when you're going double that, it goes 0-60 in 2.9 seconds, surely that deserves a 10/10? Well, no. You have to remember that this car is a giant iPad on wheels. You're driving a computer which is driving the car. This is why it's so frustrating when once in a while the car decides what it's going to do, even though you're asking it to do something different. And even worse, that behavior can, and will, change over time with software updates.
I got a little annoyed when I tried to enable the self-driving autosteer functionality at 90mph and it said "Autosteer disabled for the rest of this trip" basically if you try to engage it at 90+ you can't have it until you pull over, get out of the car, lock it, unlock it, get back in, etc. I totally understand not allowing autosteer to enable at 90+, but don't tell me what I can and can't do for the rest of my drive!
That leads me to...
Self-driving features 8/10.
Except for auto-park which is super awesome and adaptive cruise control, the rest of the self-driving stuff is downright useless. Nice party trick and everyone oohs and ahhs when it steers itself and changes lanes by itself and it's fun to play with it in different situations... but it's not there yet. It gets confused easily and once I had to yank the steering wheel to the left because it got confused when one lane turned to two and it seemed like it was going to drive into parked cars on the right side of the street. Would it have? Probably not, but I wasn't going to take that risk. My point is, it's easier, smoother, and more relaxing to just drive the car manually vs letting the car drive and constantly keeping an eye on it.
Ride quality, comfort, and interior: 10/10. They got it right. Even with super skinny tires this thing is so, so smooth. It just glides over minor imperfections in the road.
The interior is a nice place to spend time. That said, it's very simplistic... you have regular power window switches, turn signal stalk, and column "shifter" but everything else. Yes, absolutely everything else is controlled by a massive touchscreen in the middle of the dash. That's why I call it the iPad on wheels. While this is super cool, even as someone who loves and understands technology (I'm a developer, I refurbished and repaired computers for 7 years, so I am no stranger to using different interfaces), it's just not really that intuitive sometimes.
I found adjusting the mirrors to be annoying, for example. In my Escape and Suburban I can adjust them without taking my eyes off the road. WIth this, I have to tap a bunch of stuff on the tablet-like thing and look at exactly what I'm doing, then fiddle with the knob on the steering wheel, then tap Save. Really? But I can't really complain about this because you know before you buy the car how the interface works so it's not like you don't know what you're getting yourself into.
The sound system is good. Not as good as I hoped it would be, but still, very good. Not great. I like that I could use Spotify directly within the car's computer vs connecting to my phone and Bluetooth streaming my music. It also has Hulu, Netflix, multi-player games, and a (slow) web browser. based on where in my area it lost signal, I suspect it uses AT&T cell service but don't quote me on that.
Exterior design and build quality: 7/10. To me, it's a boring looking car. Really, I find all Teslas plain. At least on the Model 3 the proportions are right, unlike the gross Model X. I do prefer the look of the Model S personally even though it's an "old" design... And the "Cybertruck" they just announced? LOL. Anyway, I think that they could definitely have made the car more interesting looking. I also think it could be put together a bit better. Inconsistent body panel gaps on any modern car, especially one this expensive, with only 16K miles on it? Unacceptable IMO.
I did find the door handles a bit annoying. I wish it had regular car door handles.
The headlights are great and the automatic high beams work perfectly.
Charging/range/etc 9/10. If you go to a Tesla Supercharger, it charges very quickly. You can get an almost full charge in about an hour. The charging speed does taper off as the battery gets closer to full charge... the last 10% takes a really long time. But getting it to like 80% is plenty good and gets you to like 250 miles. If you use a "universal" charging station (not a Tesla Supercharger) it charges much slower. I didn't get to try this because I didn't have the adapter so I had to go to a Tesla Supercharger to plug it in. You can also plug it in with a regular wall outlet, but that's really, really slow. I was told it takes about a week to charge on a standard 120V wall outlet. LOL.
Therein lies the problem with this car. Unless you own your own home with a garage in which you can have a charging station powered by a dedicated 240V AC circuit (which can charge the car up overnight) you can't really own a Tesla. And, while there are plenty of Superchargers around here (I used the one in Corte Madera as well as the one in Petaluma) this is in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the most of the rest of the country, there are not Superchargers everywhere so you're stuck at universal charging stations at like Target or whatever... and heck, the only reason the Target here in town has one is because, well, it's Marin County!
You can totally take a road trip in your Tesla... as long as you don't leave the SF Bay Area!
I do think that electric cars have a future. They are superior to ICE cars in SO, SO many ways. They definitely have a use for commuters who are homeowners and/or can charge at work. But unless you're around here, good luck getting your employer to install EV charging stations! And for many businesses, EVs are perfect. For example, the parts store I work at? We have a Frontier, Ranger, and Versa. If we had three Chevy Bolts and charging stations, we'd end up saving a lot of money over the course of 5 years. Go on delivery (usually a few miles in stop and go traffic) then plug it in when you get back. Perfect!! No maintenance beyond tires, brakes, and wipers, and there are plenty of high mileage EVs of various brands (mostly Teslas because they're the most popular) so it seems EVs are pretty reliable. That said, I do understand that if something breaks after the warranty is over, it's going to be spendy to repair!
Value: 8/10. The Model 3 starts at about $30K, the Model 3 Long Range starts at about $40K, and the Model 3 Performance starts at about $50K. The one I drove was fully loaded cost about $65K according to the Tesla website. While you do get a lot for your money, the "Full Self-Driving Computer" is a $7K option that I believe should be included for free. If I had to buy a Model 3 I'd buy a Model 3 Long Range, because that gets you the bigger battery and AWD - the Performance model is super fun but an extra $10K to get from 4.4s to 2.9s when it comes to the 0-60 just isn't worth it IMO.
In conclusion, the Tesla Model 3 is a great car that's so, so, so fun to drive, but unless you live in the SF Bay Area and/or are quite well off and have a short commute, you'd always need at least one ICE car in addition to your Tesla.
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