10 things I love and 3 that I don’t about my new Tesla Model 3

I have to say that the Tesla Model 3 is the first car I’ve been motivated to write anything about, ever. I don’t consider myself a car enthusiast, even though I’m a mechanical engineer. My goal in a car had always been that it is safe, reliable, gets good gas mileage, and looks reasonably good. 

That all changed when I picked up my new Model 3 a couple weeks ago. That was my first day of ever driving an all-electric car. Yep, no test drive, just an act of faith ordering it and then hoping for the best. I have been driving Toyotas pretty much my whole life (from a 1991 Toyota Corolla, which was my first car, to our current Camry and Highlander Hybrid). Driving a Tesla is quite a bit different, and a nice step up. Here are the features that I have fallen in love with:

1.      Adaptive cruise-control. I use this all the time. Not only can I set the max speed, I can change how many seconds following distance I want my car to be from the car in front of me (dynamically, while driving). That means that in rush hour traffic, I don’t have to touch the accelerator or brake. If the car in front of me slows, so do I, even to a complete stop. Then, as long as I haven’t been paranoid by touching the brake, it starts driving again once the car in front of me goes again.

LIMITATIONS: While I love this feature so much, I have noticed that it doesn’t perfectly mimic how I drive. For example, if in rush hour traffic the car in front of me changes lanes, the Model 3 accelerates to close the gap. I would normally ease into the space more slowly. It also isn’t able to anticipate (yet) what other cars are about to do. So if I see a car up ahead with their turn signal on possibly getting into my lane, I usually adjust for that. Model 3 doesn’t react until that car starts moving into my lane.

2.      Instant acceleration.  That fact that there is no delay between me hitting the accelerator and the car going makes it really fun to drive. You know those times when you want to turn onto a street and there’s a car coming and you’re not quite sure if you can make it in time in front of them because you don’t want to cut them off. Well in the Model 3, you can make it. No questions asked. You just hit the pedal and are at the same speed as the other car in seconds. Makes me think that I’m a race car driver (ok, not quite, but close).  

3.      Never having to buy gas again. There are so many reasons this makes me happy. While there are the obvious environmental and economic benefits, I think what makes me happiest is to not have to think about when/where to go get gas every week or two. Just plug it in when it’s parked in my garage and I never have to worry about it. Especially here in Oregon where we can’t pump our own gas and I have to wait for the attendant to get around to my car. I just love that I don’t have to wait on anyone ever again! 

4.      Simplicity and cleanliness. I love how little I need to do to maintain this car. No more oil changes and when I pop the hood, I get a front trunk rather than all the usual components. While those of you that are car guys may be saddened by this, I love it. Especially when I went to clean my car the first time. Normally I ignore what’s under the hood. This time I popped it open and cleaned it just like I clean my trunk. No grease or grime, just sparkly and clean like the rest of the car.

5.      Lower trunk. The thing I use my trunk for most often is groceries. In my other cars, I always had to think about how to place the bags so they didn’t fall over. I love the lower part of the trunk since I can fit 3 grocery bags full of food, and not worry about them falling over with items rolling out and all over the trunk.

Picture shows 3 grocery bags in the lower trunk, and two behind it at the normal trunk level (those unfortunately are more likely to fall over)

LIMITATIONS: I did find that after the car was parked on a rainy day (which is most days here in Oregon), when I opened the trunk, some of the water ran down the back windshield, and splashed past the weather stripping into the trunk. This is an area that could still be improved. 

6.      One-pedal driving. The Model 3 uses regenerative braking so it starts to slow the car as soon as you ease back on the accelerator. This took a little bit to get used to, but now I really do love not having to switch my foot between the brake and accelerator when I slow down to make a turn. Just releasing the accelerator is enough for pretty much every operation other than coming to a complete stop. 

7.      Hold feature on brake. When I do actually use the brake pedal and come to a complete stop, the car automatically holds it in that position. This is great on hills since you don’t have to worry about the car starting to roll back in the time it takes you to move your foot from the brake to the accelerator. However I have to say that this feature is my favorite when waiting at a red light with another car next to me. While they have to take the time to move their foot from the brake to the gas pedal, my foot is already hovering in anticipation over the accelerator, so as soon as the light turns green, I’m off. Yep, that’s a little more of my race car driver persona coming out again.

8.      Automatic parking brake. I’ve always set my parking brake regularly in every car I’ve owned (call it paranoia that the car may start to roll away). This also means I needed to remember to disengage it before I start to drive (which I usually did, but sometimes forgot). I love the fact that on the Tesla, the parking brake is set automatically every time I press the button to get it into Park. Plus it automatically releases it when I come back and put it into Drive or Reverse.

9.      The sound system. Hands down, the Model 3 (we have the premium package) has the best stereo I own. Maybe other people have experienced really good sound systems before, but wow, the music sounds amazing sitting in there. Plus in my other cars I was always worried that if I kept the music playing too long when the car was off it would drain the battery. I no longer have to worry about this and can listen to music while the car is otherwise off for as long as I want. 

LIMITATIONS: I would really like it to have better voice command options. While I can tell the car to play a certain artist, I wish it was smarter so I could give it more precise commands.

10.  The back-up camera. While I have a back-up camera in our 2013 Toyota Highlander, I never found it all that useful so would usually just look over my shoulder like when I learned how to drive. However, the Model 3’s back up camera is so good that it’s actually useful. It has a much wider field-of-view so I can see better with the back-up camera then just looking over my shoulder. Here's what it looks like when I back out of my driveway.

For comparison purposes, here's the same view of my driveway when using my 2013 Toyota Highlander's back up camera:

With all the features I love, there are a few that I don’t:

1.      Breathability of seats. So I may be the only one on the planet to say this, but I actually prefer fabric seats. They are more breathable, and I don’t get as hot when sitting on them. That said, the Model 3 seats are super comfortable, I just wish they either had seat coolers (they have seat warmers) or a more breathable fabric. Helps now that the weather is cooler, but I worry what will happen in summer (especially since they are black).

2.      Auto-Steer. To be fair, this feature is in Beta mode. I’ve tried it a few times and it works fairly well, but the fact that I have to keep my hands on the wheel while the car steers for me, makes it kind of annoying. I understand that they have it that way for safety reasons while they optimize auto-pilot, but it doesn’t really buy me much to have the car steer for me if I have to grasp the steering wheel anyway. When it finally lets me do auto-steer without constantly touching the wheel is the day when I’ll start to use it more regularly.

3.      Voice commands. As mentioned above with the sound system, I wish the Model 3 had better voice recognition. With my cell phone’s voice recognition, I can tell it to call my husband with the word “mobile” at the end and it knows which number to use for him. The Model 3 doesn’t seem to be able to do that, so I have to manually select on the touch screen which of the three numbers to use. Luckily this can be improved with each firmware update, so I do hope we’ll start to see more options and a better experience via voice.

As you can see, there are a lot more features that I love than that I don’t. Overall, I’m very pleased that I got it and think it’s the perfect car for what I need. It’s a great commuter car and has made my daily drive to work a lot more fun. Plus, from an engineering perspective, it’s been awesome to be on the forefront of all the features that are leading up to a full self-driving experience. It may not be the car for everyone, but if you’re a Toyota loyalist looking to covert, you’ll likely not be disappointed.