5 Things I Like and 5 Things I Dislike About My Tesla

Now I've had my Tesla Model 3 for over a year, I've finally decided on what's good about it and what's not so good.

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[kevinsyd]

I bought my first house, in Wimbledon, for £48, 500. It was the early 1990s. Wow, how things have moved along for both cars and houses..!

[melvinmazda]

I really appreciate your honesty about the things you don't like about your Tesla. It's important to be realistic about the limitations and drawbacks of any technology, especially with all the "hype" teslas get!

[ricequackers]

The biggest issue imo and which made this (and many other cars) a complete non-starter for me are the lack of physical controls. Just feels really dangerous to me to take your eyes off the road, especially at high speeds, to do something as simple as adjusting the heating, the heated seats or the media player/satnav.

It was a big part of my decision to go with a 5 series as the important stuff has a dedicated and unambiguous button or knob on the dashboard, and everything else can be interacted with either via the iDrive knob or the steering wheel buttons. There's a touchscreen and voice commands too but they're completely optional. I can fiddle around a lot while keeping my eyes glued to the road.

Unfortunately it seems that BMW are now ditching physical controls in their very latest cars like the iX and i4, so they're off my list for future cars. The lone standard-bearer for buttons is now Mazda.

[paulcollyer]

Fair analysis.
Your point about being able to charge at home is one of the biggest factors stopping me go electric (plus I can’t afford to atm). I cannot guarantee my parking space at home. While 95% of the time it’s there right beside the house, occasionally I have to park across the street. My voluntary work takes place a county over, and, well, need I say more???

[DaveP]

Adaptive cruise is by far the best addition to any car if you are doing the miles on busy motorways. I did 600 miles over Christmas and used it on all the motorways.

Set cruise and its like being on a train, the car just speeding up and slowing down with no input. The only downside is the car needs to detect the car in front slowing (either using brake light recognition, or the distance reducing) whereas I can see brake lights of cars way ahead so can prepare to slow far earlier leading to a smoother ride.

[neiltill]

I personally think they are good looking cars and seen loads on the roads of Hull. I can't stretch to one at the minute but when it comes to replace my current car I'm definitely going to look at getting my first electric car but whether it will be a Tesla only time will tell.

[MK-]

Great video - super slick! You could have a motoring programme on regular telly! The Tesla does seem really good - there's a reason there are a lot on the road now.
£45k for a new car - Jeez, the world has gone mad. My first car cost me £450 - albeit it was 17 years old and that was 25 years ago. 100 times the cost. Will the Tesla last 17 years? I guess that's one for the follow up video - looking forward to that!

[bit]

Yup, i'd agree with all these. My biggest gripe about the Model 3 is the noise though. They totally failed to put any sound insulation in the car to stop road noise, and it does get annoying on long journeys.

The charging network is truly spectacular. For anyone thinking to buy one - i drove from central Norway to Northamptonshire last summer in 3 days in a Model 3. No problems at all. I've also been all the way up to the top of Norway in it, again without any trouble charging.

[philipgeorge]

The other problem with electric cars is lack of charging points, especially at home. I live in an apartment, and whilst I have my own space, there is no possibility of getting a charger for the space. What's more, the car parking spaces are too small for anything larger than a smaller SUV, let alone a bigger limousine.

[kristofprovost]

I've had my Model 3 for nearly 4 years now, and I agree with Ashley's points here.
Especially dislike #1. Quite annoying when parking. Not an issue at all when driving, of course, but still.

I also don't understand why they didn't add a simple heads-up-display. It would have removed a lot of the criticisms about the display (and lack of other dashboard info in front of you), and should be relatively simple to integrate. Those are standard components they could have bought from several vendors.

Having done a number of long-ish road trips (e.g. Brussels to Berlin) I can only echo Ashley's sentiments about the supercharger network. It really is great, and at this point I don't bother to plan ahead for road trips any more. Just tell the navigation system where you want to be and it'll work it out. (Minor wishlist item there: it'd be nice to be able to tell it that I want to arrive with a certain level of change, but I can generally make that work by just charging up a bit more at the last supercharger of the trip.)

[ukloneparent]

great Video, I run a polestar 2 so have a EV, would be useful to have some insight from yourself on how to drive a Electric vehicle and your views on driving an EV

[nigelcox]

I've had the opportunity to ride in several Teslas, mostly the Model 3, and have always come away with mixed feelings. Like you, I would like to see more physical buttons and switches, as going through the menu for heating options is tedious, and only safely done when stationary.
A wiper switch would be nice, in fact, for me, imperative. A few months ago, travelling on a busy motorway at 70mph, dry sunny day, the wipers came on. There was a squashed bug on the rain sensor. The driver had only had the vehicle for two days. To turn the wipers off needed two menu selections, not safely possible on the motorway. Luckily, I, as the passenger, could do that for him.
The big screen showing me the clever picture of what is ahead is unnecessary. Just look out the windscreen, you get the same picture, but bigger, and real. I find the screen distracting.
Some time ago, in an early example, the driver was unimpressed at the build quality, but the poor fit of the upper brake light did give a red glow to the rear screen when the lights activated under regenerative braking, whereas the later, better built ones don't tell you when the brake lights come on.
The lack of legroom in the back is a feature of all the electric vehicles I've ridden in. A necessity of placing the batteries under the floor. I was told, 'if you want to carry passengers, you'd have to get an SUV'. But those tend to just raise the whole vehicle, increasing roof height, but not seat height. So despite the size of these things, they're really only two-seaters for other than local journeys.

[garethhann]

I've had a Y for just over 9 months and pretty much agree with all of your points, other than:
- I don't think the Y suffers from the same rear view and rear passenger space problems.

I do have some other dislikes, though, mostly around the toys/driver aids, which is disappointing given the way Tesla markets these as being market-leading. For example:
- I've got the enhanced autopilot on mine and the self-parking is poor. My previous car was a 2014 Citroen(!) and it had much more effective self-parking.
- While the autopilot is generally very good on the motorway, it can also be a bit twitchy, e.g. suddenly braking for no good reason. The auto(ish) lane-change can be a bit variable, too. Sometimes you come up behind a slower vehicle and it prompts me to authorise the lane change at pretty much exactly the point where I would have started indicating if I was driving manually; other times it leaves it far too late and the car ends up slowing down before suggesting the maneouver.
- The sensitivity of the auto wipers is very patchy. Often I've found myself having to manually activate them (which involves a pretty inconvenient on-screen menu) when it's been raining quite heavily. Also the headlight don't always come on when the wipers do, which seems a bit dodgy to me. Another area the Citroen did much better on.
- Dashcam/sentry mode doesn't cover diagonally in front of the vehicle, meaning there are two large blindspots in the footage.
- It's also frustrating to not have a 360-degree birds-eye camera mode. Yet again, something I became used to on the Citroen as it's really helpful for parking. Given the price and level of tech on the car, plus that the hardware is presumably there for it, this is a surpsing omission.
- I don't pay the £10pcm for "enhanced connectivity" but I can get streaming media etc by connecting the car to my phone on hotspot mode. This is fine, except that the car's wifi gets turned off any time the car is shifted into park and has to be manually turned back on (except, it seems, when it's on my driveway and connected to my home wifi). This is needlessly annoying and could be fixed with a simple "wifi always on" option, I think.
- It's great that software updates keep adding features, and hopefully some of the above will be fixed over time, but you have to keep on your toes as sometimes an update will quite dramatically change the way the car behaves. For example, the "navigate on autopilot" mode on the motorway used to take the car off at your junction and then hand control back once you were on the slip-road. Following a change in EU rules that banned this, they disabled it so it would hand over control as you approached the junction. This came as rather a shock when it first happened as I wasn't aware it was coming!
- Finally, the suspension is pretty hard - a hydraulic suspension option would be a great addition to the car - but I'm used to it now.

This sounds like a bit of a rant, but actually what Ashley has said about how the car drives, its performance, etc. still outweigh these niggles and I'm generally thoroughly enjoying it.

[cw]

Cheaper to run a diesel if you have no charge port at home

[tomhayden]

Not a bad analysis although my other vehicle is an old Defender so I'm used to horrific turning-circles! As for view out the rear window; I honestly have no problem with it. Sure, I would it weren't for the near enough full-screen camera image that pops up when I'm in reverse, but, otherwise, I quite like that the headlights of tailgating cars are obscured below the screen rather than in my mirror! 🙄

[ChrisTaylor-xvtc]

Our Tesla 3LR arrived in December - looked at a Polestar but when you add in their "extras" they are dearer than the Model 3 & don't have the supercharger network. Also everybody has a go at Tesla's which in my mind means they are he one to beat

[charlesholder]

I have had two cars with inbuilt Satnav. However, I never use them because it is in the wrong place and requires you to move your head and take your eyes off the road. I fit my satnav at the bottom right of the screen. From here by moving your eyes, it is easier to navigate as well as checking your road speed and other information with no more effort than looking in your door mirror or instrument cluster.

[integralhighspeedusb]

Agreed. I have one and you are spot on. Although I am currently hating the constant nagging and false alarms from the ADAS.

[TheVicar]

Mostly out of many peoples' price range and I don't think I'll be rushing to buy any second hand models because I don't fancy buying a huge second hand rechargeable battery, and then having to replace it

[Haze]

Nice car. I'd consider one, one day, for sure.
I'll currently stick with my 2007 Skoda Octavia, 1 previous owner, got it for £4000 at 36, 500 miles. She's passed every MOT since I've had her (6 years) with little DIY maintenance, now at 90, 000 miles. Now that's epic. The only downside for me is that it doesn't have Cruise Control; the guy I bought it off had another one with Cruise Control, same price, but it was at 70, 000 miles and had a cream interior, not practical for my use! I also love having a sunroof and the other one didn't have one, seems a shame they aren't much of a thing any more.