Tesla Model 3 Review | The TRUTH After One Year

Reviewing the Tesla Model 3 after 12 months of ownership, and breaking down the good and the bad of owning the cheapest Tesla.

Top 16 Tesla Model Y Accessories:
1. Screen Protector

2. Floor Mats

3. Performance Pedal Covers

4. License Plate Mount

5. Dashboard Cap Cover

6. Center Console Organizer

7. JEDA Dock, Hub & Organizer

8. Center Console Wraps

9. Sunglasses Holder

10. HEPA Filters

11. Scent Wedge: 5% OFF with Code: RYAN

12. Cyber Trash Mini Trash Can

13. PPF & Tinting

14. Cleaning Products

15. J1772 Charging Lock

16. Model Y Mud Flaps

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[donwilber]

Good explanation on regenerative braking. I’m an old guy who’s never driven an EV before, and recently test drove a model Y as my first. The regenerative braking took just a couple minutes to get used to, and during the half hour test drive I never once touched the actual brake pedal…amazingly simple!

[NeilBergman]

Totally agree about the one pedal driving, convenience of charging at home, and the quietness of the car. We love our 2018 LR RWD M3 and our 2021 LR AWD MY. Plus charging at a Supercharger on a longer road trip is a piece of cake and gives you a chance to use the bathroom and/or get some food.

[mitchellpinney]

I think this is a only a small aspect cause we don’t talk about rural smaller communities. I live in kansas; I do have the fast charging at home. Under cold climate my battery percentage will go from the initial 330 plus down to 286 in the winter. Sure with battery that can be expected but with the more crucial weather? Your battery goes quicker everyday. So the charging rates go up at home. Not to mention the hell of being in the most populated city we have one supercharging station (30 minutes from my home) and the nearest service center is 170 miles away. Relying on one day off being a business owner getting out there to get it serviced everytime? Wether it be tires, factory recalls (sent in recently and it took well up to 20 days to get in) and the like? This is absolute hell. I’m now having tire and alignment issues and they can’t guarantee any help. This is great for people that actually have a tesla service center close to them. However until it’s further developed and can be more outsourced for others to work on, it’s causing me to sell it at this moment right now. Not to mention within the time of having it the autopilot has gotten almost unusable with updates. I don’t even use it anymore cause as soon as it goes in it kicks me out. My overall experience has been bad and I would only recommend it to people who live in the big cities of the world or who live relatively close to service centers

[NeilBergman]

The Air Conditioner smell problem is spot on. Tesla really needs to fix this. I had Tesla "clean" the A/C vents on our Model 3 once and it lasted for about a year. I did it myself on the M3 once about a year later when the smell started coming back and it only lasted about a month. And now our MY had the same problem. I can't decide whether to do it myself again or take it to our Tesla Service Center and pay them the nearly $200 to "clean" the A/C vents for us because it seems to last longer. Urh.

[mauryk]

Everyone talks about how great adaptive cruise/stay in lane is on freeways. I love the combo in bumper to bumper and slow city traffic. Works great for that as long as you realize it won't stop at a light unless there is a car in front of you. One of my fave features.

[sdtaylor]

I cannot emphasize enough how helpful autopilot is during stop and go traffic, particularly on the highway. It really makes it less mentally tasking. This is not a Tesla exclusive feature, but I am very happy that my Tesla has it.

[lkendrix]

An easy fix for the stinky air conditioning in all cars! The fix is to turn it off before you get out of the car! There’s a flap that will open and will let the air out of the air conditioning system! When you get back in your car then turn the air conditioning on! That flap will close! The stinky air is trapped air in the system! EZ fix! Just try it! Never have stinky air conditioning again!

[raymondnowak]

I've owned a M3 Standard Range Plus for almost 2 years now and share nearly every observation that you make in this review. (By the way, I very much enjoy all of your postings). The only problem that I've encountered--and its not insignificant, since my wife and I both share usage of the car on an equal basis--is that the front driver seat power adjustment fails and is "stuck" in a position that makes the car not drivable by my wife, who is shorter than me. Tesla replaced the motor once but the same problem has reoccured. The seat fails to respond in both the "profile" mode, and to any attempted manual adjustment, and no amount of "rebooting" helps. It is simply ridiculous in a car of this sophistication to not have a power seat that reliably works.

[Outrigger]

If your brakes are not used enough, then they can rust. That would mean a brake job for lack of use. Tesla recently added an algorithm for their cars to use friction brakes more often.

[Hunterdietzman]

I will say the quality of the cameras are great, but one thing I loved about my 2021 S4 was the wheel cameras, there were cameras pointed directly at the wheels so you wouldn’t curb them when parallel parking. Tesla side camera kinda do that but not as well.

[sailorx]

I recently replaced my Model 3 AC filters with new Tesla ones since the aftermarket ones where out of stock. I noticed that the new Tesla ones are a little different than what I pulled out. It appears they added more charcoal filtering in the filter. I didn't have to clean the coils. New filters did the job. Also the old filters really smell.

[johnzorko]

I almost always get the estimated miles per charge in my 2021 M3P, and usually exceed it by a decent margin. I changed the 20" boat anchor Uberturbines to 19" EV01+ aero rims with LRR tires, and I make an effort to drive efficiently. The result is that I average 220-30 wh/m - far lower (better) than the rated 260 wh/m of the M3P. It is very possible to get close to / meet / exceed the range specification.

[Buggabones]

Iv always driven a stick shift and letting the engine slow me down is one of my favorite parts about it. This is what really gets me curious about the tesla.

[williamwalker]

Nice review. I traded my BMW 328i for a Tesla model 3 in 2019. The Tesla is a far better car for about the same price. I haven’t spent a dime on maintenance. My only gripes are 1) actual range is always 20% or more lower than Tesla’s claimed range, 2) lack of soundproofing makes it noisy at highway speeds, 3) no Apple music integration, phone works fine though, 4) not a fan of the glass roof, it feels like a furnace on top of your head on a hot day, and probably contributes to the lower range (more cooling needed) and noise.

[jman]

same car but red for 14 month here. 34, 000 KM， 2% battery degrade. I am very happy with model 3 SR+.

[jkcurti]

Same thing on dry day wipers started in Cruise or Autopilot. Stopped and washed bug debris off camera that senses rain, which corrected the problem

[t]

Thanks as always for being fully upfront about both the good and the bad aspects of the Tesla. Many reviewers skip over the bad stuff. No question that Tesla deserves their popularity, but they are now getting some really good competition, and I’m hoping that will make them improve a few things. While you referenced the rear cameras as being the best out there for reverse parking, I really struggled with them when I had the model Y to get the car in reverse into my garage. I’ve found that cars that have the rear plus the overhead view to be significantly better, and while that feature (surround view) used to be reserved only for the most expensive luxury cars, it’s now in some trims of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6, and I find reversing my Ioniq 5 significantly easier than I did my Tesla. The angle of the cameras in the Tesla is optimized to support autopilot and FSD without radar, and that unfortunately means that they’re actually not optimal for clearly seeing what’s in your blind spot, not to mention that they should really move that view up to the top of the screen to make it easier to see without having to lower your eyes.

The Autopilot is excellent, but again, compared to some other cars, it’s not actually the best in the market anymore in my view. It was, but newer cars are now better, or have a better execution of it. The phantom braking in particular can be very scary and dangerous and for a very small % of owners (unfortunately I was one of them), who experienced it 4 or 5 times per trip, in very random circumstances, causing a number of near collisions; causing me to not be relaxed in any way using autopilot on long trips. Instead, I had to constantly focus on having my foot ready to hit the accelerator in case of phantom braking. I understand this doesn’t happen to a lot of Teslas, but it’s unfortunate that the ones it did happen to (Google it) and that it took Tesla 6 months to only partially resolve, and they initially refused to admit it was even a real problem. Other than that, it’s a great car, but I definitely wasn’t happy when my radar was permanently disabled after I subscribed to FSD and I couldn’t re-enable it.l; and I also wasn’t happy when they removed the option of mid-level regen. So not all updates are great. Some do include things that not only are major changes, but are also not reversible. This makes the updates both amazing, and not so great, depending.

[JoesPhenomenal]

Thanks Ryan! One thing you didn't mention was something that was a big selling point for me, and that's the audio system. The standard range sounds nice, but the long range and the performance version have the premium system with more speakers and also a powered sub (I wanna say it's 600w). This sounds fantastic! It's one of my favorite things about my 3LR

[Peter-rqxn]

Nice review Ryan. I also have the 2021 SR+ with the LFP and I have to say, I appreciate it more with each passing day. I used to wonder if I made a mistake by not going for the LR, but at that time, the 10K premium was not worth it as I rarely take road trips. The one road trip I have taken so far was great the the supercharger network was awesome.
The bottom line, the SR+ M3 is a great car.

[Empire]

I test drove a Tesla a few days ago and now I _know_ that this is the car I want! If only I had a job...