Last November, while my diesel car was in intensive care for a few weeks, I decided to buy an electric car. Since I wanted the best one, I bought a Tesla Model 3. It’s comfortable, accelerates majestically and is cheap to run. For the next few months I expect to spend approximately nothing on charging it as it will draw electricity from my solar panels. What’s not to like?
Quite a lot, actually.
Let’s start with that majestic acceleration.
After we bought the Tesla, my wife was driving home. As she approached an intersection, the traffic light changed to amber just at that point where you can’t stop but feel guilty going through. My wife gave the accelerator a tap. The result was dramatic. My eyeballs bounced off the back of my skull and we experienced time dilation as the car accelerated to a significant portion of the speed of light. Fortunately we slowed down just as quickly and so managed to avoid rear-ending the car that moments earlier had been half a mile ahead of us.
Let’s be honest: 99.9% of people have no need for such power. It’s foolish. Indeed it’s arguably dangerous. We have now set the Tesla to Chill mode, which reduces acceleration from “crazy” to fast.
Let’s see. What next? The view from the driver’s seat is pretty good, except for the A-pillar which is pretty fat; indeed fat enough to obscure a bicycle or small car. So approaching an intersection or roundabout I find myself moving my head from side to side trying to ensure I’m not about to hit someone. My wife calls me Noddy.
The Tesla’s Autopilot is a limited but quite capable self-driving system. Once you’ve set it going you have to hold the steering wheel with a certain amount of turning force. If you don’t turn hard enough it disengages. If you hold too hard it disengages. So on the few occasions I have tried using it, I’ve got the beginnings of RSI (repetitive strain injury) from maintaining the pressure and MSI (mental strain injury) from worrying I am going to turn too hard, disengaging Autopilot and send me careering into the next lane in the highway. End result? I never use this expensive feature.
Twenty years ago I bought my first car with automatic windscreen wipers. They worked well. I cannot understand why Tesla’s auto wipers are so poor: either not working in moderate rain or going too fast when there’s the lightest of drizzle.
Then there’s that gorgeous display. It really is excellent, bar two issues. First a lot of the information can be seen only by moving your eyes quite some distance off the road. It would really make sense to have a second, smaller screen where cars traditionally have their instrument cluster - behind the steering wheel. I thought I had had a brilliantly creative idea until I looked at my son’s Tesla Model X and saw that it does have exactly this second screen. Why not on the model 3, too? And then a niggle: from time to time my wife has Google Maps running while we are driving and, on occasion, Google Maps finds a faster route.
So, is the Tesla Model 3 a dud?
No.
I do love its smooth strong acceleration - great for getting onto motorways. The seats are the most comfortable I've ever sat on anywhere. As I have a bad back, that's a big plus. I like being able to charge for free from my solar panels or, when the sun isn't shining, using cheap electricity in the wee early hours of the morning. The boot is a very good size indeed.
So my happiness is three stars out of five, which is not bad but I had really hoped for 5/5.
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