Resurrecting this thread... seriously considering a Model 3 long range for my next car. I would use it for commuting in town and weekend day trips. I have some friends who have had one for 1 year and love it - no major issues with theirs. After the test drive of a 2020:
Pros:
-#1 by far is the auto drive. The autonomous driving features are what make me really want this car for driving in my city. This thing will drive itself for about 80% of my daily commute (mostly highway). Stop/go traffic is painless. The car handles it all. Adaptive cruise behaves like a human driver following at a human distance. Tesla demos of full autodrive capability are pretty convincing.
-Handling is quite good. It is a very nimble car for weighing 4200 lbs. The acceleration is phenomenal. This is the long range, not performance model.
-Regen while braking makes me drive safer. I don't mind slowing if that energy is going to be reused and there's no wear on the brakes. Personal quirk for me...
-Windows/cockpit for this thing offer superior driver vision. You can see everything very easily. Way better visibility than the S.
Cons:
-Ride quality is a little rough. You can feel the road. It's similar to a 3 series BMW with big wheels. Fun for me as the driver, maybe not so much for others.
-Interior is basically what you would get if Boeing designed the inside of a car to coach standards. It works, but it feels distinctly cheap and plastic.
-Rear seat thigh support is nonexistent. Probably fine for trips <1 hr for adults. Basically the floor is way closer to your butt in this car than in any normal sedan.
-Lots of weird for the sake of weird features. Like the vent controls for the AC -- there's no vane on the dash to move. You have to use the iPad thing. Turning off the windshield wipers, opening the glovebox, opening the trunk/frunk, setting parking brake, etc are all buried somewhere in the pad interface.
-No spare tire (same story for the model S).
-Autodrive does have some minor freakout moments with the model 3... Freakout meaning it slowed to 50 on the highway for reasons that were unclear... I also drove an S and the autodrive was less twitchy.
-Garage renovation required to add the right charging plug...
-Repairs based on youtube reviews are expensive and slow due to weirdness of Tesla parts and delays in parts orders. Solution is not to break it, but don't always have control over that. Insurance premiums are comparable to our 2014 Audi Q5.
Other oddities/miscellany:
-Exterior styling. Not really my preferred look, but whatever.
-Canopy sun protection. May need an aftermarket mesh or fabric to cover up the sun overhead.
-Tesla doesn't really have model years. They continuously update hardware and software, so evaluating used inventory is difficult. What infotainment, what self driving chip, what suspension, what version of motor, etc etc. Typical used car sites don't have the database fields for describing a Tesla.
-For reason above, I feel like this is one car I actually want new as opposed to 1 or 2 years used. Used cars bought through the Tesla store do not go for much of a discount.
-Recent article that the newest Model 3 has the hardware installed that allows dump of power from the battery back out the charging plug. So maybe soon you can use the pack to store cheap electricity and sell it back to the grid at peak times? No idea how this would work exactly. Maybe it's not even for this, but to allow charging a 3 with another 3?
-3 has the usual interior cubbies and coat hangers like a normal car would. I just point this out since the S is lacking in many basic things I take for granted in a sedan. Like, the S doesn't have coat hangers and there are no pockets in the doors to put things.
-Many other cars in this price point are moving to hybrid drivetrains with inferior autonomous drive features and complex controls. I feel that simply removing the gas engine makes the product simpler overall for city use. In theory, maintenance 1x per 2 years is needed for tire rotation and filter swap. Brakes at 130k+ miles?!
-Buying is a millennial thing. Talking to humans is discouraged. App and software use, encouraged.
www.reuters.com
