2019 Tesla Model 3 - The Future Is Here
As the resident petrolhead in my family, I am constantly asked if I hate electric cars. For the longest time I didn’t really have an opinion. It annoyed me knowing that a Tesla could be bought by anyone and outperforms a large number of supercars on the road, but after having spent a fair amount of time with one, I feel as if my perspective has changed.
I love cars. I love the rumble of a V8. I love the scream of a V10. I love the supercharger whine in my MINI, I love shifting my own gears, I like cornering fast. I love speed. I like power. I like NOISE. Most of all, I like a visceral driving experience. But I’ve come to realise that there is just as much value in quietness, understated looks, comfort, usability, convenience, self-driving technology, good navigation, and especially good stereos; Normal car things. Sometimes I just want to be driven home listening to a good song while my bottom is warmed and my back is massaged. Every sane person would be aware of the fact that it is simply impossible to have all of these things in one car. You can get a car that gets close, but no car can truly do it all. But I’m here to show you that the Tesla Model 3 gets pretty damn close.
Before I go on praising every aspect of this car, I want to start off by saying yes, this car is not perfect. We’re all aware of who is behind Tesla and the controversies surrounding him. But that’s not what I’m here to tell you about. I simply want to review this car without any outstanding bias. In the past, I probably would’ve declined the opportunity to drive a Tesla, but opening up my horizons has turned out to be a very good decision. I ask you keep yours open too.
We have heard countless times that Teslas have quality control issues, and I’m sure those stories are valid, but I experienced nothing of the sort. It’s not a Rolls Royce, but it’s not exactly a Camry either. I do spend a lot of time in BMW and Audi products, and I will admit the build quality is not exactly up to snuff when compared to them, but it’s certainly better than your average economy car. The seats are very comfortable; the vegan leather feels relatively high quality. The wood trim on the dashboard is also smooth to the touch and feels a tad posh. It’s obvious Tesla made an effort. Even if this Tesla had really bad panel gaps and the wood was a little grainy and the stitching wasn’t perfect, I don’t think it would really contract from the point of this car. It’s not trying to be the most luxurious, it’s not trying to be the most sporty, it’s not trying to be everything. It’s its own mix and it still holds its ground fairly well. It’s only when you compare the build quality and material choice to a 3 series or an A4 that you realise it’s not as good. It’s a simple interior, and that is what they wanted. It’s still just as comfortable, and it’s still perfectly adequate.
The cabin in this car feel super light and airy. Almost a little too much. I’d get some pretty significant tints on my personal Model 3.
The ride is very good, much better than the 2023 330i- that car feels harsh. I know the 330i is meant to be more sporty, but it’s just uncomfortable sometimes. That car’s standard leatherette seats get super uncomfortable after about 30 minutes, too. This doesn’t happen in the Tesla. Keep in mind the trim here is the Long Range and not the Performance, and I’m not sure if the seats or ride quality are any different in that car, but either way, I feel as if the cabin is more spacious, and much more comfortable than the comparable BMW. One thing I really, really wish was an option is ventilated seats, because after a while of driving in the sun it can get a little sweaty, and the ventilated seat would solve this minor casualty. In this segment though, I’ve only ever seen the A4 with ventilated seats. BMW for some reason also doesn’t deem 3 series customers worthy of the ventilated seat. Why is this? Ventilated seats should be the new standard!
Another huge plus of the interior is the massive centre console storage space. Right in front of the very adequately sized cupholders is a very large storage compartment that the owner of this particular Model 3 is very much taking advantage of. It’s like Santa’s sack. Only complaint is here is the awful piano black trim that looks absolutely disgusting after 4 years of use. Definitely would get a matte black skin over this trim because I just hate looking at it. A small price to pay, though. The only real buttons inside are the window switches and the door buttons, which I much prefer over real door handles. They are very satisfying. Though, if the button were to break for some reason, there is a secondary escape which is a normal (and boring) door handle. For some reason, this is not offered in the rear seats for the rear passengers. Screw them I guess? The door handles on the outside take a minute to get used to, but they look good and don’t take away any convenience; no real issues there. Sometimes at the wrong angle with the wrong fingers it can be a little difficult to get in, but once you’re used to it, it’s second nature.
The wipers, the lights, the mirrors, and the steering wheel adjustments are all adjustable through the centre screen. The wipers and lights can be a little annoying, but the mirrors and steering column adjustment are actually kind of fun. You use the knobs on the steering wheel to adjust, and it’s just so different from any other car. I actually like the buttonless look. Tons of people complain about cars going buttonless but fail to realise there are actually some really massive advantages to this, chief among which being the fact the car is SO much easier to clean. No dust in-between any switches, knobs, or buttons. Just wipe the screen and you are clean. It is truly a beautiful thing. The climate controls being within the screen doesn’t bother me even a little bit. (Ok maybe when you’re watching Netflix in your Tesla and it gets a little too cold so you have to leave Netflix to adjust the temp). It’s so intuitive to use, and you don’t really have to take your eyes off the road once you get used to where the buttons are, because they don’t move about. Plus, you can bookmark options to the bottom of the taskbar on the screen, like your seat heaters or wipers, and reach them with just one click of the button. Overall, it isn’t so bad and is simply just a learning curve for most.
There are 3 departments where the Model 3 absolutely leapfrogs in front of the competition, that being the BMW 330i/M340i, the Audi A4/S4, and the Mercedes C Class. Those would be performance, infotainment, and convenience. I’ll go over them separately.
It’s all sunroof in the Tesla. Kind of a downside if you live in California, but it makes the cabin feel super airy and bright. It is heavily tinted though, more than this photo captures.
Let’s talk performance. The Model 3 Long Range that I tested does 0-60 in a very impressive 4.7 seconds. The Model 3 Performance does it in 3.1. THREE POINT ONE. Faster than a BMW M3, equal to the Audi RS6, and just .6 seconds off the LaFerrari, a 3 million dollar hyper-car. All of these cars are significantly more expensive and the Tesla is either beating them or right behind them. Yes, a Tesla Model 3 will not beat an RS6 around the Nürburgring, but at the lights, you’re gonna smoke him. In a petrol powered car, the engine needs to be primed. It needs to sit at a certain RPM before it can launch off at light speed, and it needs to shift. It needs oil changes, gallons of gasoline, and it’s expensive and much more complicated. The Model 3 just goes when you want it to and there isn’t much else to it. The throttle response is so immediate, it makes petrol cars feel ancient. It makes a V8 760i feel like it has a 2 stroke lawnmower engine. It’s just so addictive to have instantaneous torque, that it makes it hard go back to engines that need to first consume and explode fuel, downshift, and then get going. As a petrolhead, this is why I have come to absolutely love electric cars. Even the likes of the Nissan Leaf are fun to drive just because the throttle is so connected to the wheels. In some cars it feels like I put the throttle pedal down, and it’s sending a slow message of morse code to the engine. But in the Model 3, or any electric car for that matter, it is DIRECT and instant, which makes it makes it so much fun.
My brother & aunt having a blast in Beach Buggy Racing 2.
The one downside of electricity is having to lug around a massive battery. And the one in the Model 3 is heavy… REALLY heavy. It makes the car weigh as much as a Ford F-150. The Model 3 Long Range has a curb weight of about 4000 pounds, which is equivalent to two tons. That is a significant amount of weight. My MINI is about 1400 pounds lighter, so about one or two average Americans. Put a couple of average Americans in the Model 3 and you’re looking close to 5000 pounds on the road. That is insane. But y’see these heavy batteries are mounted in the floor, and everyone knows that a low centre of gravity is good for corners. I went around a few. It’s not amazing, but it goes. There is little body roll, and the amount of torque that shoots you out of each corner almost never gets old. The steering can be adjusted in the settings, sport is way too heavy for just normal driving and when going around a corner I don’t even care. It’s just not what this car is about. I left it in comfort steering the whole time, because handling isn’t what the Model 3 was designed to do. The 3 series is much more fun in a corner. The suspension is tuned for it, the steering is more direct, and it’s a lighter feeling car. It’s more checkable. The Model 3 feels super planted but out of place when cornering hard. Then again, I was in a Long Range, not the Performance. I really want to see what that car is like. Either way, it demolishes the new C300. It’s garbage. And this Model 3 I’m comparing it to is from 2019!!
The second massive advantage of a Tesla is infotainment. I’m gonna say it: I know I said I loved Mercedes’ infotainment, but Tesla has the best infotainment system on the market by an absolute landslide. The screen is absolutely buttery smooth, easy to use, and honestly perfect. I could write a book on all the stuff you can do, so I will have to just go over some highlights. First of all, sentry mode. When parked, the car will recognize movement around it and record people if they begin to tamper with your car. It has cameras all around, and when you return it will show you the footage of whatever it detected. It’s a brilliant idea, and if you didn’t know before, don’t snoop around random people’s Teslas. They will find you. It also has a built in dashcam that will save clips when you honk, or whenever you want. There’s a dog mode that keeps the A/C cool for when you need to keep your dog in the car for whatever reason. You can even precondition the car to be warm from the phone app, so it’s never cold when you get in, or never too warm if you don’t live in Wisconsin. What does the key look like, you ask? Well your phone is the key, and it knows when you’re around it and will unlock when you open the door automatically. You simply walk away to lock it. Of course, you can control all of these functions from the app, including venting the windows on a hot day if you don’t want to use the A/C to conserve battery. You can even allow the car to be driven for 2 minutes if someone needs to move your car while you’re on vacation in Kenya. But trust me, it gets WAY better than all this. There are video games built into the infotainment. You can play classic arcade games, or my personal favourite: Beach Buggy Racing 2. It’s a Mario Kart style racing game where you can use the real steering wheel to play. You can also connect an Xbox controller for more intense gaming experiences, but if you’re not feeling the games you can always relax and watch YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, or any other streaming service you can think of. Apple Music, Spotify, and even Tidal are built into the infotainment, which is absolutely invaluable. For the streaming stuff to work though, you must pay Tesla’s either monthly or yearly fee for their service they call premium connectivity, which is either 12 bucks a month or 100 every year. Personally, a small price to pay for all the stuff you get, especially when you consider how much you’re saving without paying for gas. I should also mention you can connect the car to WiFi as well to watch stuff, but why would you be watching YouTube in the garage inside your car? Hey, to each their own.
Being a rear passenger in a Model 3 is pretty good for what this car is. MUCH more legroom than the comparable 3 series or A4, with fairly adequate headroom for a 5’ 10” chap like me. Also, this is the only car I’ve ever heard of with 3 rear heated seats. Also they’re only controlled from the screen, so if you’re a rear passenger you’re gonna have to yell over the fabulous stereo to get the driver to turn your butt warmer off.
I’ll start to go into convenience/the ups and downs of electric car ownership, and let's start with one of the biggest upsides of Tesla. Autopilot. It’s Tesla’s self driving system. The car I test drove was fitted with the basic autopilot system, but you can opt for Enhanced Autopilot or Full Self Driving, otherwise known as FSD. I have experienced the highway self driving tech on BMWs, Audis, and Mercedes. Specifically the new 760i, the S8, and the GLE. Out of those, the 760i is by far the best. But even the basic autopilot on Tesla is a stupidly good system. The basic autopilot has auto speed and auto steer. You keep your hand on the wheel, and it won’t beep at you very frequently. There is no driver attention camera like in the 760i, so you can just look around and do birdwatching. The only downside to basic autopilot is no automatic lane changes. You have to turn the turn signal on yourself, switch lanes, and then go and re-engage autopilot. It’s not so bad, but this is the only downside. Keeping the car in the lane, reacting to other cars cutting in front of you, and slowing down properly for corners is all done better in the Tesla. Also, when you’re on those 55 mph roads with stop lights and you keep starting and going, the Tesla slows down for cars stopped at the light much better than the BMW does. You kinda feel like you’re about to rear end them in the BMW, but you never end up doing that. Of course, it’s hard to compare the 50,000 dollar Tesla Model 3 to a $130,000 massive twin turbo V8 luxury BMW, but from the perspective of self driving technology, it’s insane how good the Tesla is. I mean, it’s crazy to think I’m comparing this to a 7 series to begin with.
The charge port is on the driver side, and it automatically opens up when you click the button on ANY Tesla charger, it’s super awesome. You can also opening it by tapping it, or even going using the voice control inside. Just say “open the butthole” (not a joke).
If I was buying a new Tesla, I’d spring the extra for the Enhanced Autopilot, which gets you automatic lane changes, and the super cool but kind of useless summon feature. You basically can remote control the car from your phone, mostly a party trick but I can see it being useful if two massive trucks park you in and you can’t get in, you can move the car forward or back from the phone. You can also set a point in a parking lot and it can un-park itself and then drive towards you. It’s very slow and it freaks out when it sees pedestrians, but still a super cool feature. Tesla’s full self driving package is still in beta form, but it’s available to the public. It certainly has a long way to go, but I’m not one to speak on it since I’ve never experienced it myself. I prefer the system in the 760i on the highway because of the lane changes and the hands off “Assist Plus” mode, but I’m sure Enhanced Autopilot and especially FSD would probably take the cake. But I have not experienced that, so I shall stay quiet.
By far in my opinion the largest convenience of owning just ANY electric car, is running costs. First of all, because of one pedal driving, you never really need to replace the brake pads, at least for a very long time. There’s no oil changes. There’s no traditional engine issues. There’s no transmission or clutch wear to worry about. The only things you would have to worry about would be tires, especially if you have a super heavy foot, and then also batteries. Which is usually the biggest reason besides range anxiety that people are against electric cars. Well first of all, all Tesla’s come with a 150,000 mile/8 year whichever comes first warranty, which should cover anything in your ownership period. It’s rare that a battery drops below 70% capacity within 8 years or 150k miles, but if it happens to, Tesla will replace the battery pack that is affected. That’s the other thing, the Model 3 has two separate battery packs, so it doesn’t always mean that you’ll need to replace both if you EVER would have to. The long range that I drove still gets about 270-280 miles on a full charge according to the owner himself. From what I’ve heard, after about 3 years of ownership the battery should be at around 92-95% of its original capacity. Now I agree, this does suck. Imagine a car where every year you own it the gas tank shrinks. But I think honestly it’s totally reasonable when you take into consideration how amazing the rest of an EV is.
Overall design is pretty good. I like the shape, I love the wheels, and the front and back are simplistic and there’s not much I would change. Maybe the fitment of those door trims…
Tesla says that the battery pack in a Model 3 should last at least 20 years, and at that point you should be around 80-85% of its original capacity. Which is honestly, not so bad. Yes, replacing one of these batteries if you even need to is going to be at least 12 grand, but think of it this way. You spend merely 500 bucks on electricity to go about 13,000 miles per year, assuming you live here in Wisconsin paying about $0.16 per kWh of energy, but of course if you’re publicly supercharging it could be more expensive. So lets have the benefit of the doubt and say you spend $600 a year on electricity for the car, for my car, getting about 25 mpg, that same distance costs about $1,900 more every single year. Let's say you own my gas car for 20 years, and then the Model 3 for 20 years and then replace the battery during that time period. You’d spend $50,000 on gasoline in that 20 year period. You’d spend $12,000 on electric during the same 20 year period, and with a $12,000 battery replacement at the end, that’s still nearly HALF the cost of ownership during the same period. And that’s not even taking into account how expensive it is to own a normal ICE car, with brake pad wear, engine wear, oil changes, timing chains, fuel pumps, all this random shit that can go wrong on your normal car. So I think that puts that argument to sleep.
Although the trunk is big, the hatch to open it is not. Missed opportunity to go for a lift gate, like a 4 series gran coupe. But hey, I get it, they wanted the glass roof thing.
However, there is one other downside with electricity: road trips. But this argument is getting less and less of a downside as more EV charging infrastructure is installed worldwide. Yes, driving from NY to LA is going to take much longer, but you will definitely be able to make that trip nowadays. At least in a Tesla, the car will tell you where you need to stop, and for how long. It makes sure that you will get there in reasonable time, and it’s not like you should be bored while charging, since there’s so many entertainment options available within the infotainment system. Not to mention how much CHEAPER it is to road trip, with each electric fill-up costing (at least for me in comparison to my car) about a 1/4th as much. So yes it takes longer, but you get to enjoy Netflix breaks and you spend way less money. Also, most regular cars at this price point don’t come with self driving technology as advanced as this, making road tripping 1000x nicer and more convenient. Yes, it is still a deal breaker for some people, but in the next 5 years we’ll have more places to charge, and hopefully charge times are down below 20 minutes for about 300 miles of range. Also, imagine waking up every day with a full gas tank, and (at least in your everyday driving life) never have to visit a gas station. An absolutely lovely perk of owning an electric car. This is of course assuming that your living situation allows you to charge at home, and if that’s not the case well shit.
All in all, I am 100% on board for our electric future. Imagine a world where everyone is driving clean, quiet, efficient cars that are cheaper to run than your normal car, leaving more room for us real petrolheads to drive our classics. We can’t relive the past if we don’t begin to embrace the future. Honestly, a used Model 3 is probably going to be my next car. I was so on the opposite end of the spectrum before driving one, and I highly recommend aquatinting yourself with electric cars if you’re heavily against them now. Even as a car person, I had a super fun time driving one, and I don’t think there is a better daily than the Tesla Model 3. But hey, that’s just my two cents.
