Tag Archives: tesla

My Model 3 1-year review

I have owned my Tesla Model 3 for just over one year. So now is as good of a time to update this on this dead blog I guess.

In the interest of time and brevity I’ll try to cut the fat.

Key details: I live in NJ and we get all 4 seasons. Last winter had a few brutally cold days (<15F or <-10C). The car is a Long Range RWD, black paint and interior, 19″ wheels, with the EAP package at the time. It’s kind of mind boggling that for the same price of my car, I can basically buy the Dual Motors version today. It’s basically the difference of the Federal incentive.

Those were, basically, what I’m lampshading regarding this car.

There weren’t any real issues at delivery. Panel gaps were on average, average. Other than maybe a couple places things were within tolerances.

Day to Day Stuff:

I love the car in terms of just normal, every-day handling. The range is no problem for normal local driving. It’s fast, and the acceleration is extremely notable at higher speeds. Like a gas car can do just as well 0-60 as electric, but if you are already going 65 on the highway, it is a cinch to get to 85 in my Model 3, where as it’s a downshift and uprev in a gas car. The time it takes to get that 20mph probably is less than the time it takes to shift and for the turbo to ramp for some cars. This aspect I love a lot, mainly because it is a practical performance characteristic, and thrilling to apply.

Engine sound used to be my audio cue to how fast I’m driving on the highway often, so in a car without an engine it means I have to learn again how to not speed. With its fast acceleration even at high speeds it was easy to get to 90, 100mph with just stomping on the accel briefly. Only the wind noise cues me in.

I also kinda love summon, and this is not even the enhanced one Musk shows off with these days. At the base level, it lets me park the car into my small garage without having to mind opening the car door inside the garage. The car can pull in and out on its own. Unfortunately the feature was kind of not reliable in version 9 of the software and earlier, but it’s pretty good now. There are also some tricks. For one you need relatively even lighting to let the camera see your garage versus outdoor lighting. Having a person behind the car while it pulls out is also good, as a marker of sorts. The car technically lets you automate the doors as well if your garage opening system is hooked up to it, but I don’t use it. I think it’s possible to hook Alexa up to it and tell it to open the door and pull out your car, but I didn’t look into this.

Having to charge at home means I never need to get “gas” unless I am on a road trip. One less thing to do, but as someone who don’t normally drive this is not a big deal. If you drive everyday this is a huge deal I imagine.

The UI took getting used to but I was over it pretty early, maybe a month in owning? There were some tips that I learned on youtube which were helpful. The most helpful one is, how to stay awake when Autopilot nags you to keep your hands on the wheel. To do that, just rotate any of the dials on the wheel, and it will go away.

I do have EAP package, so I use Autopilot on the highway more often than not. It is extremely helpful for long drives on the highway, and makes things much less tired if just not having to center the car the whole time. A month ago I was driving around all day in a Honda Fit rental in Japan and it made me miss Autopilot a lot. I can totally attest how driving while tired is actually not going to kill you in this car.

Navigate on Autopilot is neat but it isn’t very good, so I don’t use it often. Mainly two reasons: it is not great at lane changes, and it is not great at adjusting speed (it doesn’t, but it ought to). You can manually change lanes to avoid NoA from doing stupid things, but why bother with Navigate on Autopilot at that point.

Issues:

The only trouble I have encountered purely as a matter of the car was the frozen charging cable latch. I was unable to engage it once on a road trip (thus could not charge my car when it needed charging), and I was unable to disengage it once when it was parked in my (detached) garage. Both times, the temperature on average was 17F or less. This is not a deal breaker but a major issue since you can get stranded (in the first-mentioned case).

The solution is to heat up the trunk of the car, so the charging latch defrosts. It is a mechanical device that comes up from the bottom of the charging port and locks in the charging cable. There is a manual release for it, but when it’s frozen it does squat. Really it’s just a proxy for the electronic release available from the dash or your app.

I have contacted Tesla roadside assist the one time it locked up on my road trip, who told me about the workaround: turn heat up, lower back seats, let air in. Their preferred method is a hair dryer (and maybe heat gun but they don’t wanna melt anything).

I also visited the local service center (about 40 minutes away) twice. Once to address my front right wheel which was slowly leaking–that turned out to be a bent wheel due to jumping a curb (don’t ask). I was immediately given a loaner wheel that day when they sent me home with a large bill (~700) so to wait for the replacement wheel to come in. It turned out I actually did not have to pay for it. Long story–about 6 weeks after the visit, I was contacted to make a follow up appointment to do the replacement. I was also quoted a price about half as much (all by a separate dude). I’m like, well ok. So the week before the appointment another guy called and said if they can do the mobile service thing at an even later date. I said OK as it sure beats driving 40 minutes back and forth on a Saturday that I had free, at any rate. Then on the day before the appointment I got a reminder call. On the day of, I left my car in my driveway the day of, and when I got back I got a bill of zero and the work was done. It’s hard to complain about 2 months late service if I didn’t get billed for it. Plus it was not a pressing problem due to the loaner wheel that I had.

So yes, service can be very slow, but if your issue has to do with, say, a leaking wheel, that is high priority and you can just go to the service center, they have to send you out in driving shape. YMMV I guess.

As for damage, my car had some curb rash on one of the wheel (I am all too familiar with this as my Miata had the same proclivities, both having low profile tires) and the front bumper has some minor scratch on the bottom, just because sometimes I can’t see the curb and drive just over it.

As they say, the black interior is not the best for hiding dirt. I haven’t had much time spent wiping down the interior. The center console can look grimy. It fogs easily inside the windshield but I solved this by applying an anti-fog spray/cleaner.

Road trip:

I don’t drive regularly, but I did drive to Toronto twice, Baltimore twice, DC/NoVA once, and just normally on weekends around the area.

Autopilot definitely is great on long drives. I guess part of the difference here is my last car, a MX-5, is pretty intense even on long trips. LIke, I don’t fall asleep because it’s such a responsive car, even when driving at highway speeds it feels really exciting, just going straight (or around traffic or what have you). But I am very much not tired out by driving anymore with the Tesla.

Navigate on Autopilot is a different bag. I think it’s mostly useful on simple use cases, but it still has a lot to make up when it’s going through a ramp or interchange. For one, it does not automatically change speed well. Some ramps have also no posted speeds but the map says 5 or 15mph, which is ridiculously slow. And once you’re out of the ramp the speed autopilot is on is sometime stuck at the low speed. Likewise, when you are about to exit the highway it doesn’t really slow you down more than it has to, which can be going from 75 to 45 to 25 while you’re making a really tight corner.

The other issue is how it sometimes does not know when not to change lanes. You could let it run the course but it isn’t always making lane changes at the best time.

If normal autopilot is like “co-pilot” or as I say, driving with a new system, NoA is like babysitting an AI and you really need to work with it or work around it to drive smoothly.

Range isn’t a problem. Supercharging location is kind of a problem. Going from where I live to Toronto requires 2 stops, maybe 3 if I don’t have destination charging or I don’t stop for the full time. That’s not too bad, other than I kind of have to stop 30min each or more every time.

DC Metro area is really not bad at all. It’s just one stop and maybe zero if I have destination charging, maybe 2 if I don’t. In my prior trips I did 2 and 3 for each round trip, depending. By the way NY State needs more going up to Toronto. I have really 1 route due to the way things are laid out. But it isn’t far at any time, between you and the next Supercharger.

Range anxeity:

Range anxiety is definitely a thing, especially in winter and you have no power left, LOL. Also for long trips you have to plan your stops, at least if you want to be efficient and stop at places that are more optimal (schedule, distance, amenities).

You also get used to it. I don’t fret much at all now.

Supercharging is also not really cheap but it’s not much. Maybe half the price than gas, on a per-miles basis?

The other issue with managing range is that speed matters a ton. If you are driving fast your range will go down. I like to drive between 75-80 on road trips so I get maybe 230 miles for each full tank. Not great. It’s also one of those conceits of ICE cars–highway is more efficient than city, and it’s the opposite for electric cars. Just something to be aware of–you’re more likely to not get your full range unless you are driving close to the limit.

Another anxiety-inducing thing is the range calculation in the Tesla does not take into account elevation. Going up hill will suck way more juice than down. Real-time energy measurements will adjust to that eventually, which means the car will tell you you might not make it to your destination before needing charging, but it’s not taken into account on the navigation level.

When I go to superchargers, sometimes I want to blog about them. There is probably such a thing…

Accessories:

The Model 3 barely had any accessories when I bought it. Now it has a ChaDeMo adapter, roof rack, floor mats, and even a wireless charging pad, all from Tesla. I obviously did not buy any of them–I got 3rd party floor liners…and that’s pretty much it. Air freshener? But the floor liners are holding up and are of decent quality. I thought about a trunk mat, but I barely use the frunk (and it’s small as it is), and the trunk mat would block the underneath compartment that I actually use quite often.

I might go buy that center console liner at some point and ask my dad to put it in. Oh, I tried buying some 3rd party USB-C L-head cable but it doesn’t really fit. Not sure if I want first-party ones, because too often I pick up the phone. Usually I leave it in the cup holder.

So more as a to-do for me: I’d like that ChaDeMo charger especially when Walmarts roll out their fast charging. Maybe a tow package in the future? A better charging situation would be nice too, which I will detail below.

The third-party stuff nowadays is plentiful and if you have any great tips please let me know. Of course a lot of things that you’d put on a luxury sedan will work well on a Tesla, just note that it is fairly low maint.

Sound System Nitpicks:

I want to talk about the sound system a bit. It is definitely very good. I would say it is audiophile level. When you’re on the road, since there is no engine noise setting the floor, you hear more of it. The dual-edge-sword of all that though, is that you also hear more road and wind noise in your music, let alone the quality of the audio source showing.

The best way to get high quality audio in the car is from streaming directly via Slack or Tunein, or by the USB drive feature. The car supports bluetooth audio over AAC, which is pretty okay but not the best. Depends on your perspective, that is already above average, or not good enough. I want LDAC or at least AptX support, which all Android phones support since version 7, but I don’t think Tesla is interested in adding these features. They just want to port more unity games, I guess.

I’ve tested highres flacs in the system and they work fine usually, maybe 9 out of 10 times. On the road, sometimes the USB connection skips due to vibration or something, and the cache is not enough. I wish there was more tweaks to this.

Another headache in USB audio mode is how the system will order your music basic on tags. It displays and order the tracks by the ID3 title field. So you have no way to play albums by track order unless you also rename the title field. This is a major problem for people like me, as it basically relegates playback to random play or single track play or a playlist. Supposedly if you use album view it does order by track order? If you google this stuff the internet is full of people who is frustrated by Tesla neglecting the lame-o media playback aspect, and it has been the same complaints for years.

[Sort of an aside, in order to set up the dash cam and sentry cam features, you have to use a USB drive (usually usb stick of sorts) and format it to FAT for the car’s system, and create a “TeslaCam” folder. This happens to clash with the car audio part, as there are only 2 USB ports and you don’t want to use up both of them for data and leave none for charging. To get around it some folks use a hub (lol a USB hub for your car), or you can partition the dash cam/sentry stick to put music on it by doing it a certain way. All of which is PITA at first but now there are some guides for. Forget about racing games, how about some DOCUMENTATION, huh?]

Charging at home:

At home, I have not installed a 14-50 NEMA. I use 120V wall. I barely drive, as said. As of this writing there’s like not even 7000 miles on it. And it works fine. Part of it is also since my garage is kind of far from the house, I will have to pay to wire it out there and all, so it’s a hefty cost (~1500).

I mention this also because 120V charging is only like 70% efficient, where as you get about 90% with the other methods. Still, since I have residential solar now, there are times when I basically can charge my car for free.

Most of my charging costs are at superchargers, which runs me somewhere between $15-18 at a time. Maybe half as much as gasoline? But it’s a lot versus charging at home, or at a free charging station that you can occasionally find.

Conclusion:

It’s a good car. It is about average at this price range in terms of build quality (taking into account the 7500 tax incentive). Performs above average at this price range (love that acceleration), and the low body roll is the kind of trade off I would take in exchange with the rougher ride (especially in terms of road noise).

The best description of buying the Model 3, in my estimate, is that you are buying an American luxury car. This is a foreign concept to someone like me, because, like, American luxury cars kinda…are not great? This is just a market phenomena–people generally do not buy American luxury cars when they do buy a luxury car. No matter how good the CTS-V may be–and it is a fine car–how does it hold up to the likes of Lexus and Mercedes Benz? And I don’t mean “on the track” or “list of specs” but in terms of cultural cache, in refinement, in residual value, and in practicality.

Turns out the Model 3 has very good residual value for a luxury sedan. It has well-below-average maintenance costs (which is an area of research I’ve done more after I bought it LOL). It has obviously above-excellent fuel economy, and probably will beat most of said cars on a track. It wins on paper and does at least as good as a push in reality.

Culturally…it’s a car that’s in the news regularly. Nothing really needs to be said, at least, because it’s been said by all the news outlets.

It’s quite practical, if you put aside the electric aspect–that can be argued as making the car more practical or less practical. It has more cargo space than a lot of other comparable cars thanks to the frunk, and it is about average in terms of creature comfort features, considering the trim I got was more or less the “standard” at the time. The “Partial Premium” interior that is available today isn’t even that different. There are interesting and useful features like autopilot and the OTA updates, which are definitely practical to me.

So the only real improvement the Model 3 needs to make is in terms of refinement. And that is not just panel gaps or whatever, but also the overall quality of ride and just some of the attention to details that is missing during Tesla’s rush to market.

Which is to say, even having the experience of sitting in a Model S and Model X for some time, Tesla has a long ways to go in that generally. Maybe it’s not a priority today because, it is not like the ride isn’t fine, it just isn’t as fine as their European competitors. And even the CTS-V. But owning and living with the Model 3 really feels like owning and living with American luxury. It just isn’t quite as fine.

But if you think that is a good tradeoff versus the features you get in a Tesla–the OTA updates, the self-driving features, the fact that it’s the only electric car worth buying (supercharging network, range, overall value)–then this is probably the car to buy for you. Since I took ownership of the car, I got free dash cam upgrades, games, stupid easter eggs that are worth a few laughs, and bug fixes. It’s definitely worth that crushing depreciation as luxury cars does.

Now if Elon comes through with that robotaxi stuff and if indeed, as George says, Tesla will win it, well.

My Tesla Model 3 Review Part 2

[Part 1 here]

After picking up the car from the service center, I didn’t really get to drive it much. I originally expected 1+ months of waiting, from ordering till delivery, but I got it in 2 weeks. August is a bad month for me as I have cons and other trips. The Model 3 can’t fly so it doesn’t work going to Japan…

I managed to squeeze in a road trip with it, however, so here’s a very different perspective than the part 1 post, which was written before the road trip. The odometer had 129 miles before I went on the trip, and after the trip it’s almost 500 miles, so here goes.

The main points I want to talk about are the more well-known aspects of the Tesla cars: charging an electric car, the autopilot features, and just the overall experience after spending more than a half-dozen hours in the car in the span of 28 hours. It turns out, this car (judged as a car) is actually really good. The car reviewers and the youtubers out there are largely right. I don’t think it’s a car for everyone, but it’s a good deal and I don’t think I will regret buying it.

First of all, while the car displays its “fuel” or battery levels in both % and miles remaining, both are not really that exact. It’s fairly accurate, but not super exact, I should say. I definitely realized the mile thing, while close enough to real miles to count on, depends a lot on how fuel-efficient your driving style is. You can definitely squeeze that aerodynamics and get more from your tank of electricity than my driving style, which is largely keeping it around 75 mph up and down I95.

I did touch 90mph in a short burst, and the car feels more or less the same as it does at 80mph. It’s really stable, not only because there isn’t a roaring engine, but the Model 3 motor doesn’t even whine. It’s just road noise and wind noise. The latter isn’t even really notable.

As far as charging the car goes, I left the house without bringing my cord. Which I think is the intended mode of use? LOL. I had maybe 290 miles left when I left the house, and one-shotted my friend’s house with about 12% left, or 40 miles of range. The next day, I drove to a nearby supercharger (it’s in Northern Virginia so there are quite a few destination chargers and a few superchargers in 40 miles range). My friend didn’t get the difference between the destination charger at the Tesla dealership at a nearby mall versus the supercharger, so I had to look it up and explain. Anyways, the closest supercharger was about 11 miles away and I had a nice lunch while charging. After an hour I was at about 85%, and I took another 20 minutes to go to 95%. That gave me enough juice to one-shot back, plus a detour.

As a M3 owner I should have to pay for my supercharging, but to actually use it, it is just plug-and-go. There was nothing to fiddle with. Supposedly the bill comes later on your Tesla account, but I didn’t see it when I looked for it later in the same day. So yeah, it feels like supercharging is not as convenient as going to the pump, but it does make me feel like getting Extended Range model on the M3 was a good choice. If I didn’t, I would have had to stop over once on the way down and once again on the way back.

I come to realize that, at least in sports mode, the M3 steering is very sensitive. Maybe this is why some people say the ride is rough. Compared to the Miata, this is actually pretty similar. It manages to tell you a lot about the road and about the car itself. Without an engine, though, there’s not a lot the car will tell you about itself. So that leaves the road. And maybe it is a little more chatty than some likes. Not for me though. To me this is a hallmark of a fun-to-drive vehicle. You have to feel the road in some way. Some say this might be partly due to how pressurized the tires are (and the tire pressures are displayed in PSI numbers in one of the on-screen views, which is very neat). It’s at like, 50 PSI, which is kind of high.

I don’t know, however, if a very responsive steering is a good play for Tesla, given its autonomous driving system. And it’s a hard thing to talk about. First of all, I get this from all kinds of people, but there is a lot of misunderstanding about Enhanced Autopilot in the form that other manufacturers have similar features already in their cars. This is partly true, but mostly false. First of all, if we break autopilot down into the features working together: adaptive cruise control, autosteer, auto lane change, I don’t think there is anyone except GM Supercruise. [Nissan comes kind of close…] The Germans and Japanese cars have similar but differing features. For one, a lot of them have lane detection but it’s to make sure you don’t drift out of lane. They don’t steer for you: if you let go the wheel, it will ping pong between the lane markings. It would also complain if you let go the wheel in a curve. It’s a very subtle distinction that a lot of car guys don’t get, but the point of Autopilot is that it’s driving, and you’re just awake enough to make sure it doesn’t screw up. A lot of the alternatives people say it’s the same are the reverse: you’re suppose to be driving and the automated features make sure you don’t screw up.

This is really the core thing and I don’t blame them for not understanding it as it is very unintuitive. Truth is it’s hard to advertise autopilot features when society is probably not fully ready for it, or welcomes it. However, there is value in such a system and unless you know how it works and the different versions of it on the market, you don’t know if it’s worth the money or understand how it fits in a car/automobile ecosystem. And I didn’t until I drove the M3 for a few hundred miles…

Basically, it’s the distinction between “driver’s assistant” system and “self-driving.” The former is normal driving with bells and whistles (basically every other system except Tesla’s, GM’s and maybe Nissan’s). The latter is driving in a new way and learning how to drive all over again.

So the thing about Autopilot is that, at first when I was using it, I felt awkward. It was partly a trust issue. It was partly an instinct issue. I wasn’t sure I could trust leaving steering to the machine and I wasn’t super sure if I can trust adaptive cruise control to do its thing. Driving is muscle memory of hand-eye reflexes. I got over that on this road trip after seeing how Autopilot works in a variety of conditions, and in some difficult environment (night time driving in heavy rain). But make no mistakes, Autopilot drives the car in a certain way. You have to get used to it, and learn how it works, in order to make the right decisions (when it is likely unreliable; when to best disengage autopilot; when to enable auto lane changes to smoothly pass a slow car; etc). It’s literally learning how to use this system, learning how to drive this particular way.

After the psychology, the next barrier was trying to de-program myself. I had to be hands-on-the-wheel for Autopilot, but it was hard to do this while not trying to drive the car, LOL. Unlike GM Supercruise, you had to keep your hands on the wheel. It will nag you every 90 seconds when you don’t, which is fine if you wanted to stretch or get a drink or something. But it’s not what you’re going to do most of the time. What I did was, eventually I learned to “pretend driving” in order to coexist with its detection system. And in essence, that is the whole point. You don’t have to do anything except hold the wheel and look at the road. Well the latter is even optional LOL, since there’s no face tracking in the Tesla.

And using Autopilot like that was a learning curve that I had to get over with. It’s not trivial, in that ultimately I am still the guy who has to get a benefit out of the system. I shouldn’t be a servant of the autopilot AI, babysitting the car-computer to make sure it doesn’t screw up, even if that was what I had to do. It’s pretty weird, but I guess I can get used to it, and thousands of other Tesla owners?

How was it being the safety driver instead of the primary driver? I can say it’s definitely less tiring on a longer road trip. The Tesla Model 3’s “vegan leather” seat generally did not get very warm after sitting on for hours on end, so that’s a plus, but it still gets a tad warm. With Autopilot you can take plenty of time to stretch, to shift your butt on the seat, pull up your pants, whatever, without any worries. That helps a lot, LOL. However, it is still kind of “work” supervising Autopilot, and its strict wheel-holding requirement meant my arms can’t be slack while driving it, unless I want to just wiggle the wheel every time it nags. That felt like too much work–I just want to zone out driving, freeing my consciousness from low-level driving tasks and think about other stuff without interruption.

And this is another reason why maybe the Model 3 isn’t for everyone…Well, this is more a self-driving isn’t for everything thing. All consumer self-driving system require this sort of babysitting in the present and in the near future. Even GM Supercruise requires you to look at the road, which is much less tiresome but probably just as annoying.

I think once I get more practice with Autopilot I will become happier about the car. There was definitely an initial wow period when you realize this car really could drive itself. The fact that it can’t some of the times, is no big deal. It’s more like even when it could, you are required to play this role as Autopilot’s spotter, that is problematic. But I think even with practice that could be a better experience than what I had to go through.

The real question is, why let the computer drive this car when the human probably enjoy being the driver more than being the spotter for the computer? That is not fun. Which is just to say, if the Model 3 was less fun to drive, it might make Autopilot more compelling. As is, driving the car is a good break from being bored as the spotter behind the wheel, trying to pay attention to the computer not screwing up and killing both of us.

Okay, it is still not the pure joy of driving that was the Mazda MX-5, but the Model 3 is pretty good, all in all, and still can be entertaining as a car, in more than one way. It might be the little things (like knowing it can play hi-res flac in the USB port, or that the charger cover opens and closes automatically, and that the car is full of undocumented features AKA Easter Eggs). It might be the way it accelerates and corners. It might be that you get to relearn how to drive. Thankfully this car gives you some options between all those things.

Next…

My Tesla Model 3 Review Part 1

For proper entry to mid-life crisis mode, I have purchased a Tesla Model 3. I guess this is probably the first post of at least two parts, since I’ve not driven it enough to give a good assessment and a car is a thing you probably will live with for some time.

Just to keep all of this as personal as possible, it’s going to be mostly compared to my previous “daily driver” or the Mazda MX-5 Miata (NC 2012, MT, PRHT). In quotes because I don’t drive that often, but yeah I traded it in for the Model 3. So here is going to be a review of sorts from someone who came from a really fun-to-drive, emotional and just all-around blast of a car and “downgrading” into a mid-range luxury sedan. If you know me well enough you might know that for most of my driving life I drove a variety of cars. Before the MX-5, they were: a beat up Acura Legend (RIP x2) or a beat up 240SX (RIP), and occasionally in a CR-V, a Ridgeline, or an old RAM (RIP). Those who know me even better might know I used to rock a Mazda MVP (RIP). Very decidedly middle-class, and no, I don’t Toyota (although I did rock a ’91 Corolla for a very short while–was fun wondering if the car had enough juice to get over some on-ramps…). I am probably missing a car here or there, but that’s what happens when your Dad sold Hondas for a living (at least for a while) and gave/sold good value used cars as a charity to help out poor Chinese immigrants. Very Christianly of him to buy out the cheaper used cars (his customers’ trade-ins) and then turn them around, which meant I got to use some of them while we were “storing” these.

I thought the Miata was enough of a midlife crisis kind of thing, but I got a great deal on it and honestly it was priced similarly from a well-equipped Accord or Camry anyway. Why would anyone drive those cars when they can drive a Miata? I had the support network of beat up pickup trucks and sedans in the rare case I need to move or carry something big. The MX-5 is by a long shot the most fun I’ve ever had with a four-wheeled vehicle. It’s like you just need to drive normally and the whole thing is fun. No need to go to a track–just any nice, scenic road without a lot of traffic, and maybe nice weather so you can roll down the top. Revving up that linear engine to a massive whopping 40MPH in the MX-5 was as much fun as drag racing anything. It rolled more than you’d expect in turns, but what it really is doing is teaching you how to shift a car’s weight coming into corners. It is definitely the most exciting teacher I’ve had. And I miss it.

However the Model 3 is a good consolation.The TL;DR is that the Model 3 is an alien spaceship but that electric motor acceleration is sugar crack cocaine. Overall car is still just a compromise between luxury, utility and performance, once you get past its disruptive features and the fact that it’s electric from the ground up. Not that those things are bad by any stretch, if you can get used to how alien it is. And compared to the Tesla S and BMW/Audi generally, you’re getting a sweet bargain at this price.

The Model 3 I have is the primary config Tesla is actually delivering in 2018: rear wheel drive only, extended range, and with premium interior upgrade. I added the 19″ wheels and Enhanced Autopilot to bring it to a total of ~55500 before doc and delivery fees. There are no taxes in the State of New Jersey for electric vehicles, which is a nice touch, but it isn’t as plush of a incentive than some other states. This is all on top of the Federal tax incentive, an issue that really got me thinking of picking up the car now rather than later.

Before deciding to take delivery, what I wanted was actually the same car, but standard range. Truth is, I drive very little these days–before I traded in my MX-5 it had only ~12000 miles on it after 6 years. I don’t know if I will drive my M3 more, but I don’t think working in the City and commuting by train will make things any different than before. That $9000 extend-range upgrade will largely come into waste I figured, but it should mean there’s some residual value I can count on. Plus, it’s cold in the winter here, so maybe that range could still be useful as a buffer.

Since most people buying the M3 are buying Teslas for the first time, the current process is like this. First you have to go and commit to a configuration. I was a day-1 reservation holder, which just meant I put down a $1000 refundable deposit 2 years ago (all-in-all, it took about 26 months? LOL). That $1000 reservation thing is something newcomers can ignore. The new, non-refundable $2500 deposit guarantees your config and if your config is one that they can produce now, until someone jumps in front of you in the priority queue, you’re going to be in line for that car. In other words, say if you want a M3 Dual Motor, which is the hot new one people lining up for, and you didn’t have a $1000 deposit on top of your $2500, you will lose priority to people who did and want the same car and paid the $2500 around the time you are in that queue to manufacturing and VIN assignment. But at some point, you will still get your car even if there are others waiting for it with priority, if they didn’t put that 2500 down early enough. The factory is working non stop to crank these out, so you might get lucky. If you are going for a config with a shorter queue, such as the one I got, you probably can get your car in a month or so barring any odd configurations. For example, I think eventually they will make the white interior available as an option to more M3, and that one is definitely a thing you have to wait for even in the M3P/M3DM.

It took me exactly 14 days between putting down the 2500 and taking delivery of the car. It was frankly way too short, less than what I expected, and a learning experience. The configurator said 1-3 months, given my standing and config. I even made a minor change the day after I put down the deposit (before getting the VIN), but that didn’t make a difference (adding Enhanced Autopilot).

The process, as up to that point, was largely hands-off. I got maybe 4-5 emails over the 2 years from Tesla proper on Model 3 updates, but the news cycle does a good job telling me what’s going on, since it is a certified story in mainstream press. I would rather not this has to happen that way, but I follow tech news and such is life.

Oh I guess the reservation process was not entirely hands off–the initial $1000 deposit I made was at a Tesla store in Manhattan. I waited in line for like 30 minutes, and got my preorder at around 1pm. I talked to a sales guy then, I looked at the MS and the then-new MX. Not too interested given those price tags. I got a couple emails after that to make sure I can log in and see my order, the estimator, etc.

Anyways, back to the near-past. On Thursday, or about 48 hours after my 2500 deposit on that Tuesday, I got an email from a rep based in Brooklyn about my order. He explained all the steps I need to do to get the car, at a high level. It was basically the same things on the website linked to you after you put in the deposit. You can make changes to config, you can input your driver info, insurance info, trade in, and financing. It was nice to have a human explain some of the things, even if the online configurator and process was straightforward.

The email also gave me a VIN, and gave me some rough estimate when my delivery would be. Yikes. It was soon: either 7/30 or 7/31. I got called a day later to walk through the items and I completed my trade in info later that week on Saturday. I also had to photograph a proof of ownership the week after because I had forgotten. The week after was also when I called about auto insurance, and shopping for insurance didn’t make that much sense, so I stuck with Metromile.

I didn’t figure out my financing situation until Tuesday the week after, but by Thursday I was just about completely done, which meant I can just chill and read up on the car over the weekend… Riding my MX-5 that one last time? LOL.

I probably spent the most time dealing with financing. My sister works for a credit union so I asked her to check their rates. It was worse than what Tesla was offering. Well, then. Second was the car insurance. For some reason, I guess due to billing cycle ending the same time as the delivery date, they can’t change it once I make the change? It was weird, but all it meant was I had to call the Monday before Tuesday’s handover date.

Metromile also had another wrinkle. For those who don’t know, Metromile is a bill-by-the-mile insurance system, and it requires the cars to have a GPS/cellular dongle installed. Typically it goes into the OBDII port. First, all my bad, I left my old dongle in my MX-5 but I got that recovered thanks to the helpful Tesla employees at the service center where I picked up the car. Second, the Model 3 does not have a OBDII port. I did not know this until I googled it–and it isn’t even reported by any official source. The two Metromile reps I talked to didn’t know either. The Tesla employees don’t know, as far as the ones I talked to. What I did find was that others have had this same issue, so Metromile (the entity and the system) does know about it, so it’s easy to get that addressed you if you call and ask. Basically, Metromile will mail you a different dongle, one that looks just like the OBDII plug you had, but the box also comes with a cigarette plug extension cord that you can plug into the same outlet in your M3. Well, I got that done too. The only complaint I have is that the plug is a little too long, and it runs into the tray inside the armrest storage thing. I hope it doesn’t damage the cord.

Well, I also hope Tesla allows 3rd party apps that could integrate more directly with Metromile, for example. A car is ultimately just a platform, so ways for 3rd parties to integrate with cars is vital. Just like how you can buy a camera lens case for iPhones and enable added features, you can do all kinds of things with a car. Like, how some people swapped out the spring shocks for the M3 and lowered it for a better ride, for example…

Or in my case, I bought some aftermarket floor liners. It is supposed to dampen road noise while being all-weather floor mats. I kind of don’t like the way if you put them on top of the existing floor mats, it makes the space from the back seats, between the floor and the front seats, kind of crammed. It works well for the front seats though, and given there isn’t a first party solution, these mats are pretty decent…for $200 that I got off of eBay. Tesla needs to make some M3 all-weather floor mats pronto.

On the day of the pickup I drove to the service center in Springfield, NJ and overall it took about 45 minutes to get the car. A lot of it was waiting and going over paperwork. I got a quick tutorial on the M3. We walk through setting up the app on the phone, registering the car, and the one guy helped put up the temporary plates in the rear license plate holder. Other unique things worth noting is how the trade in required an extra waiver because Tesla is a Californian company. And they won’t do vanity plates for you. You were given the option of keeping your old plates or get new ones, which I presume gives you the usual 4-year inspection waiver as it typically does for new cars in NJ. All of that gets mailed to you, supposedly, a month later. So I don’t have my new plates or registration yet. In comparison, it typically takes 2-3 weeks at a normal dealership, as fast as a week sometimes.

It’s through this exercise I “feel” that what Tesla is doing is different than what dealers do. And that’s true, it’s direct sales versus franchising dealers. Okay, I guess, but I still have to pay a doc fee and a destination fee. It feels like if I am not going to get a red carpet type handling without the middleman, this direct sales model is a bit of an inferior product that the customers are still going to pay for. Dealing with financing and everything is stuff you have to deal with at a dealership but someone is there to help you through the process. It isn’t like I needed that someone, but it would be nice to not have to put up most of the elbow grease on my own, jumping through hoops that other dealers don’t have to deal with.

I was worried about the M3 fit and finish, as with most people. Turns out it’s mostly FUD because mine was pretty flawless. It’s not super tight, but it’s uniform and lacking in obvious flaws. I talked to the delivery dude about this and he says this has been the case with all the recent deliveries. Only the ones from last year were bad (and some were very bad). So let’s put that to rest. If there was a little quirk…it would be the wipers. Feels like they pushes on the windshield too strongly. Not a bad thing until it squeaks.

Driving away from the service center, I realized I didn’t actually pair my phone with the car yet. This is important because while setting up your phone as the key is one thing, that’s separate from the bluetooth audio connection needed to play music from your phone. I also left my EZ Pass tag in the trunk, so I had to pull over on the NJ Parkway to address these items. It’s not unfair to say getting into the M3 is like switching on an Android phone if you are a long time iPhone user, getting his or her phone for the first time. There are a lot of things that are just done differently in this car that there are few analogs to in other cars. I suppose the blinkers, for one, are like some luxury cars where the stalk doesn’t stay up or down while blinking. The nav is like Google Maps, minus auto traffic routing/Waze functionality (a big negative IMO) despite the ability to show traffic on the map. The Nav does a lot of other stuff Google Maps don’t do, such as automatically giving you waypoints if you need to Supercharge or something.

The on board audio, which is upgraded via the interior option, sounded pretty great. It comes with free internet streaming (AT&T) so TuneIn and Slacker is there. I didn’t get the time to poke around with it but it comes with some Utada, Cowboy Bebop, and the Pillows. Just weeb enough. That said I have not had the time to really play with it yet. Googling and researching says I should first get my login to my Slacker account and up the bitrate. It sounded better than Bluetooth from my phone (SBC probably), but only now I found out it can take files from the USB ports.

And that goes for other tidbits, besides the OBDII port and audio features. It extends to not just these kind of day-to-day experience stuff, but a lot of the car is an enigma. Maybe a never-ending Easter Egg kind of thing. I still remember a line from the customer rep at the service center, among all the “omg new fancy car” excitement, that some people enjoy discovering the features. I’m not sure I’m one of them, but I sure am discovering stuff…!

During the past month or so I did a lot of research on the Model 3, as you’d imagine. What I found was there is a lack of definitive source of all the info. What I also found is that your orientation changes before and after owning the car–you actually know exactly what to google now, rather than before it was more just a vagueness. The basic car-related functionality is well documented, the autopilot, the acceleration, etc. The car itself, however, is badly documented I think. The important stuff is the manual, but a lot of the things are just not documented outside of Reddit and the other two big Tesla forums. I hope someone put it all together in a way that is easy to read, but I also think this is one of those versioning nightmares since newer cars of the same model might have different features, and all of it can change after each firmware update, which comes out more frequently than Android versions, LOL.

Well, the driving experience is well documented, but as someone coming from a Miata it felt a little one dimensional. Maybe a better way to phrase it is that it drives like a quality, solid luxury sedan with little body roll. Paired with that instant and big acceleration the whole vehicle feels almost a bit go-kart-y. As much a 4000lb thing can be a go-kart, anyway. Is it good? It does not feel heavy and solid like German luxury, but in exchange it has a more lively performance characteristics. Perhaps, it feels more American? I only really handled the car in sports mode setting, for reference.

I’m not a huge fan of this steering wheel, coming from the Miata. The M3 steering wheel is a good wheel and I like the texture, but I don’t like the button placements. I didn’t use the buttons on my wheel much back when driving other cars, come to think of it–maybe only the Acuras were well-used, and the buttons were ergonomically well placed given the way that steering wheel was designed. It’s just okay on the Tesla. I’m sure part of it is I’m not fully used to it, and frankly I don’t know what it does half the time.

The big touchscreen that controls everything is fine. It is pretty sensitive and does the job. I sometimes wish the touch interfaces (buttons, dials, +/- signs) were a bit bigger so it’s easier to hit while on the road. My strategy has been to use the bottom menu buttons as the go to. The car icon brings up all the important controls immediately. Pressing the same thing again bring up the background, which is usually the map. Having to swipe up and down on a big screen to get the audio menu up is probably the worst part of the UX I think.

The real holy grail of in-car interface is really voice. And it works for the most part. I speak with poor/below average pronunciation so it doesn’t do a great job picking up everything I say correctly, but it generally works okay. As long as I stay away from anime names I guess. In other words for nav, it works well. For audio, it barely works. I don’t even know how to change inputs via voice (probably the most important thing). Anyways, YMMV on this, I don’t think it’s bad but I’ve not gotten used to it yet. Nor do I know where I can find a list of commands to try…which goes back to what I was saying earlier.

Oh, I guess I should also say that the even better UX solution is “auto” mode that is right. Light and wiper are automatic, and for the most part they do a fine job. I’m a bit OCD about wiper speeds, and they would be PITA to change on the M3 if I were to manually change the speed. Auto is fine usually.

I do use the summon feature. Oh, so I had to clean out my garage to fit the M3, since it’s full of my Dad’s junk, and the Miata is a tiny car by comparison–mostly in length. And the M3 fits, barely. Surprisingly Summon can drive the car in it automatically. It has this really cool display in the interior touchscreen when it’s in that “parking” mode, and it’ll show you literally the area near the front or rear of your car and the distance of the closest point to collision. Great for parking in a tight spot as you can now get a 180 degrees view of all the nooks and crannies. Which is to say my garage is small, so God bless summons, which lets me park and pull out the car without opening the door. Although I might still want to drive in to the garage manually…

Charging the car is a big question mark even today. Because my garage is detached across the backyard, it will cost me like 1400 to wire up a 10 gauge and plug in a NEMA 14-50. We would have to trench the driveway. Thankfully the 120v in the garage juices up to 5 miles per hour, which is more than plenty for my use. If I go on a long road trip I will have to user a Supercharger anyway. In this sense it is really just like charging a cell phone… One that can blast air conditioning and have kickass speakers. (Hey Musk, Camper Mode before the summer’s over please?) Well, more like I have not driven enough to have a conclusive thought on the range and electric aspect of this yet.

I can drone on for a few more. But in retrospect, the lack of good information and easy-to-access information on how to get to all the nook and crannies of the Model 3 annoys me almost more than the fact that I have to drive an electric car that doesn’t “creep” or trying to get used to Autopilot. Those are straightforward things I can adjust to. Not knowing how stuff works because it’s not in the manual is a very different thing. Sometimes it’s kind of important, like not having a OBDII port.

And yes, that acceleration. In the car, you let it roll, on highway speeds, you stomp on the gas pedal, it zooms. It’s better than a go-kart. It better be better than a go-kart. I wish they would release the track mode mod for even the regular M3…

To be continued…