I realize I'm a bit late to the party here but I just got this blog up and running so it seemed like a good time to jot down my thoughts on this vehicle. We won't be discussing Elon or any political statements here. This is just about the car, which I have very much a love/hate relationship with.

Pros

Fast

This car is faster than it has any right to be, given it's price and market segment. 0-60 in ~5s. Now I am not one to drag race in the streets, but I believe there is a certain amount of power required to navigate traffic. When I need to get off a highway, or change lanes for any other reason, I can either slow down and cause congestion, or I can speed up temporarily to move into an open spot in traffic, or merge onto a highway. This is the "correct" way to do it, and how I was taught in Driver's Ed.

Smooth

I am not a car reviewer, and have not driven 100 cars, but from the ones that I have, this one maintains a fairly smooth ride while also being relatively sporty. Of course, if you upgrade to the larger wheels, that degrades your ride quality, as the tire sidewall does actually serve as a form of suspension, compressing and absorbing bumps in the road.

Sporty

This is not, by any means, a "sports car". It doesn't have coilover shocks or an active anti-roll system. However it is more than adequate, and relatively easy to control and predictable around corners.

Aesthetics

I know a lot of people will disagree but I really do think it's a very good-looking vehicle. Most "good-looking" vehicles are often defined by the lights. Headlights and tail lights and fog lights. And Tesla was one of the first to come out with these style of really well-diffused tail lights and running lights. The interior of the headlights are all black, which just looks SO much better than the shiny Chrome interior. In it is an array of cool-looking LEDs. Mine is the 2021 refresh model, so it has the black trim as well, which is a huge improvement over the Chrome trim in initial models. Although, strangely, they replaced everything except the chrome T badge in front and back, which I had to paint myself.

The stock wheels have a rather hideous aero cover on them.

Service

Tesla service has been phenomenal. I make an appointment and they just show up wherever I am and fix it in the driveway for the most part. Everyone is very kind and professional and it feels like they're trying really hard to earn your patronage.

Shifter

Funny enough, this is one of those parts that was literally just taken from a Mercedes. The column shifter is the best shifter. It is small, easy to press without looking, and does not clutter up your center console.

RWD

My first BEV was a Chevy Bolt. It was FWD and it was atrocious. It actually had a decent amount of power but it couldn't actually do anything with it. Every time I tried to accelerate even a little quickly, it would just spin the tires like crazy. It was fun doing burnouts on occasion but in daily driving it was really quite boring. RWD is just such a rare thing in general, but exceptionally rare on compact cars so it's very cool to have that feature.

Acceleration and control

I have always been a manual transmission enthusiast, since I was a kid. The reason for that is mostly that I just hated automatics. Still do. They're just always in the wrong gear. They can't predict what you're going to do. As a result it's very hard to control acceleration. Give it some gas, nothing happens. A bit more gas, nothing happens. A bit more gas, nothing happens. A bit more gas, and suddenly the thing drops a couple of gears and starts absolutely screaming and you go flying forward, only to let off a second later because you didn't need that much acceleration, and now you've wasted a bunch of gas unnecessarily in the process.

But you know what's even better than a manual transmission? No transmission. Electric motors just have such a wide powerband that you're nearly always in the peak powerband. Your pedal input and acceleration are constantly 1:1. The motor puts out exactly as much power as you command from it, all the time, which makes for an incredibly smooth and satisfying driving experience.

Again, I haven't driven many EVs so I'm not sure how exclusive or not-exclusive this is to Teslas.

Infotainment

Many modern infotainment systems are clunky and slow and confusing. Tesla does a pretty good job at navigation (not like driving navigation, but like navigation of the interface) that's reminiscent of the way you would navigate an Android or iOS device. I would say it's brilliant, but it's not. It seems blindingly obvious, but alas so many clueless OEMs did not and still have not caught on.

Efficiency

The Model 3 "Standard Range" Rear-Wheel Drive is one of the most cost-effective EVs you can buy (or could, you can't buy it anymore), which is largely due to its insanely efficient design. Only the Lucid Air tops it on the list of the world's most efficient production cars. More efficient than the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight. It's wild.

The modern long-range version is obviously a much better deal, with about 150 miles more of range at a very similar price, but it's still not as efficient!

Matrix headlights

Matrix headlights is a very cool and groundbreaking technology and my Tesla had them way back in 2021. Unfortunately the laws did not catch up with the technology until the last few months, that's when Tesla pushed a software update that enabled their operation.

Essentially they are able to narrow and divide the light beam in such a way that, instead of turning off when an oncoming vehicle approaches, it only turn off a segment of the light, such that the road in front of you stays illuminated without blinding the oncoming driver.

The Tesla App

Most of these cars apps are just bad but the Tesla one is incredibly fast and powerful. The sheer number of things you can do with it is pretty wild. I can:

• adjust the charging speed in 1 amp increments, or stop it entirely,
• Turn on/off a charging schedule or create a new one
• Adjust HVAC, including precise temp control and pre-heating or cooling the vehicle, melting off ice and/or snow.
• I can also adjust the seat heaters on each seat and the steering wheel heater, individually.
• Put it into "Dog" or "camp" modes, which start/keep the HVAC running.
• Turn on/off "cabin overheat protection", which runs the fan or A/C to keep the interior <105*F
• Open/close the windows.
• Honk the horn
• Flash the headlights
• Unlock the vehicle
• "Start" the vehicle to let someone else drive it
• Open/close the trunk
• Open the frunk
• Track whose driving (based on their driver profile) and where they are.
• View the camera feeds from each individual camera
• view the vehicle mileage, VIN, and current software version

And I can do all of this from pretty much anywhere in the world, and it all actually works...

Phone as key

I must say I do enjoy having one less thing to carry in my pockets. Honestly it was kinda bad for several years. I would often have to take out my phone and open the app before the car would unlock. But honestly I can't remember the last time I had to do that. And I did not switch phones or anything.

If you don't like this, that's understandable, and you can still purchase and use a standard keyfob from Tesla.

Autopilot

Autopilot is pretty great as a safety feature. Sometimes I get a bit drowsy and turn it on just as a precaution. My mother is an otherwise exceptional driver, but she does have a tendency to periodically drift off the right side of the road for some reason. Autopilot would be great for her. Cons are listed below, haha.

Heat Pump

I feel like this should be a given with any EV, as it increases efficiency of the cooling system by literally 300%. Unfortunately it is not. But Teslas do have this, and it's awesome. In fact, the way they handle thermal management throughout the entire vehicle is really friggin' cool and smart. Think about it, in various times you need heat in some places while removing heat in others simultaneously. I won't go on too much of an engineering tangent here but if you want to read more about it, do a web search for "octovalve".

Driver profiles

Honestly pretty friggin brilliant. Unfortunately no one else drives my vehicle so I never really make use of this. Basically every driver makes a "profile". Absolutely every setting in the vehicle is saved to this profile, from the seat and steering column position to the exact temperature setting you last used. So if you share the car with someone else, and you switch drivers, the car automatically recognizes this from your "key" (phone) and applies all of those settings for you. Or you can also create and switch profiles manually.

Removable wheel covers

This is, as far as I know, an industry first. The 18" wheels that came standard on the model 3 actually have "hub caps". These hub caps are specifically designed to maximize aerodynamic efficiency. While many vehicles have had hub caps, what they don't have is actually a really cool-looking wheel underneath. This means when you hit the road and need to maximize range you can throw them on, but when you're just commuting back and forth to work, you can keep them off and greatly improve the vehicle aesthetics.

Value

I've never even considered owning a new car before. And the Tesla was a stretch for my budget. However, I knew I wanted electric, because it would basically pay for itself over time, in fuel and maintenance savings. It was also dead smack in the middle of COVID, which meant interest rates were close to zero, and used cars were actually selling for more than the new ones. While being fairly expensive, the car still represents an excellent value.

Today the car sells for ~$2k more than I paid for it, but gets about 150 miles more of range, and charges faster, along with obviously a slew of other advancements (but loses the shifter that I adore so much, in favor of more touchscreen BS).

Cons

Automatic God damn everything

Headlights, wipers, climate controls, etc. I'm not necessarily against automatic anything, but very often it's poorly-executed. Automatic headlights are not very effective, often coming on in the middle of a completely clear and sunny day. The wipers similarly come on at random on a completely dry windshield while also failing to wipe in very wet conditions.

Automatic high beams turn off when they see a street lamp or something, and then just never turn back on. Turning on autopilot automatically turns on automatic high beams, even if you previously manually turned them off, then it leaves them on. So your auto high beams are pretty much just on perpetually, whether you like it or not.

The HVAC system has a manual mode but there are a variety of conditions which it will simply turn itself back on without consulting or notifying you, the owner and driver. This is an extremely annoying problem when you have a "standard range" model which you're trying to maximize the range for!

For example, if you turn the HVAC system off completely and then let the HVAC window close, you literally cannot open the window back up without turning the HVAC back on. Why!? If it detects that it's too cold outside it will turn the HVAC on to defrost the windshield. MF I can see when the windshield needs defrosting, I do not require your assistance! I turned you off for a reason!

If you put it into manual mode and then change just about anything, it just goes right back into auto mode.

For a while there they removed the seat heater controls from the display entirely as part of a UI refresh, being replaced with "automatic" seat heaters. Later Elon would respond to this complaint, proclaiming "all user input is error" as if his automatic systems were completely infallible. Eventually they did add this functionality back but there was no notification and you had to dig into the settings to find them and pin them to the "taskbar" (for lack of a better word).

There is an option to manually disable the AC, but none to manually disable the heat! Why!?

I'm going on a bit of a tangent here but why the heck isn't there a hot and cold temperature setting!? Smart thermostats seem to be the only HVAC devices in existence that acknowledge that a comfortable temperature has a range, and it doesn't need to conform to any particular temperature as a rigid number.

God damn glass roof

I live in Texas. It's fucking hot. I also, once again, have a "standard range" Model 3, so I need to maximize that range as much as I can. In the Summer, that sun beams on my fuckin head, making it very hot inside, meaning up I have to increase the HVAC output, which uses more energy, which reduces my range.

On top of that, the roof is so darkly-tinted that you can't see anything out of it, and it doesn't let any light in.

Unfortunately these glass roofs have become a bit of an industry trend. I don't know why, it makes no sense if you don't live outside of California or really anywhere with a tropical climate. It reminds me of all the Android OEMs that blindly copy all of the dumb things that Apple does.

Infotainment

The lack of nearly all physical controls makes the experience really shitty and dangerous. I alluded previously to the problems with the wipers. Unfortunately they have no physical controls, so the only way to fix them wiping for no reason, or not wiping when it's pouring rain, is to start poking at the touchscreen, which is not something you ever want to be doing, but especially not when it's pouring rain and you are already experiencing visibility issues.

The updated Model 3 ("Highland") removed the shifter stalk that I waxed poetically about above completely, opting to instead migrate it into the touchscreen functionality. I'm so glad I don't have that. Although it seems they have since backtracked on that decision.

The "FSD visualizer" consumes about 40% of the giant display in perpetuity. This thing was really fun for about 3 days, after which I wanted that God damn screen real estate back. At least use it for quick access to the non-existent physical controls like headlights, wipers and climate controls.

Roof height

Most people would probably put this into the "Pro" column under "headroom". Personally I keep the seat allll the way down and as a 6' tall person, there's about another foot of headroom above me that seems unnecessary. This tall roof gives the side profile a sort of "bubbly" shape that I'm not a fan of. Also there's room for even more efficiency gains there by decreasing the frontal area, although the reason they may have done this is to keep a "bubbly" aerodynamic contour without compromising rear seat headroom, as there is measurably less of that. But I dunno, I am not an aerodynamicist.

Service

Oh my God, the fucking app. It's horrendous. If it weren't so shitty, it would be great. And by that I mean, I love the idea of self-service, and being able to essentially write my own service ticket without some ignorant white collar service advisor omitting imperative information from my complaint. But it's not. Often times the complaint you have does not suit any of the categories in the app so you just have to pick a random one and cross your fingers that they figure it out.

Have a question? Go fuck yourself. Your local service center will not talk to you. They have a phone, and they can call you from it, but if you try to call them back, no one will answer. Similarly, if they send you a message, it comes CC'd through SMS, but if you try to reply via SMS, you just get a message that says the account is not monitored, and to reply in the app. Except no one reads the messages in the fucking app. You cannot have a fucking conversation with anyone unless you drive your ass over to the service center.

And this is a personal problem but Tesla servers block connections from VPNs so I have to go and disable it to read and reply to their messages.

No Android Auto

Some people say Tesla has the best infotainment in the industry and at that point I can't do anything but laugh in their face. Android Auto/CarPlay should be the bare minimum for a "good" infotainment system. This would be a fantastic use for that otherwise complete waste of space that is the "FSD visualizer".

Aggressive traction control

The traction control in the RWD model is very aggressive. It will not let you slip the wheels at all. Most of the time, that's great, but it does badly impair acceleration off the line.

Interior durability

Maybe it's a good thing I waited so long to write this because the interior has not held up well. The "faux leather" has gotten really badly pitted. This may be because I sweat excessively (like I said, it's fucking hot) but I've already replaced my driver's seat cover, and the center console cover is ready to be replaced as well.

Autopilot

Autopilot is really not great at assisted driving. Driving in stop and go traffic will make you sick, as it accelerates and decelerates really aggressively. When following behind another vehicle, it will often fall WAY behind, requiring manual acceleration intervention (which fortunately does not disable Autopilot). Changing lanes will automatically disable autopilot, which then has to be re-enabled. Why? Because you didn't pay enough money for that! You need to purchase Advanced Autopilot to get that kind of functionality! For these reasons, I rarely use it. When I was in for service I asked the tech if they could disable it and replace it with normal cruise control like the earlier models had, and he said they could not do that.

Last year I drove my car to Colorado. For some reason, all the way through Texas Tesla thinks the speed limit there is 55MPH. In reality it is 75MPH. And for that reason, Autopilot would not go >55MPH. Sometimes it will go over the speed limit (Don't ask me when or why because there doesn't seem to be any consistent rhyme or reason), but in this case, it simply refused. So I had to drive for about 6 hours on the highway with no form of cruise control! Tesla plans to unleash "robotaxis" on our roads that can't even read a God damn speed limit sign!

Conclusion

I do really like the car, and likely will keep it around for a while longer. As for the political stuff, I think the only thing I could do that would affect that is to burn it to the ground, but I really can't afford to do that. I already own the car, might as well keep it.