Tempted with one as a next company car due to no BIK on them after next April.

Anyone got one or have any experience of them?

Thinking more ‘real world’ range – how close to the quoted figures do you get?

Someone around here has one but he doesn’t like to mention it much.

There’s two down the road, both black and both parked up when I came around the corner.

I don’t have one, a near neighbour picked theirs up a month ago. It’s the lower range 2wd model. It has a quoted 250 miles, when I asked soon after he got it he suggested roughly 190-200 on a full charge before he starts looking urgently for a fast charger. I think when you get more used to driving it you can improve on this if the local guy who has had a P85d for awhile is anything to go by.
The model 3 owner has a 7kw home charger so can get from 20-80% over night I think.

I looked at swapping my i3 for a TM3 recently. And whilst it’s a great car, when you look at it, i simply couldn’t find the will to spend that sort of money on a car so “low rent” in appearance and detail. The design of my i3 is streets ahead where it matters, and particularly in ways that make it feel ‘special’ whereas the Tesla feels like a dishwasher. Yes, a really efficient, superfast, and bang-up-to-date dishwasher, but a dishwasher none the less!

So instead, i’m currently waiting for BMW’s M3 CS’s to just drop a little more and buying one of those…..

(and keeping the i3 for pootling around because it’s basically free motoring)

The model 3 owner has a 7kw home charger so can get from 20-80% over night I think.

I’d be interested to know if that’s what he chooses to do or that’s what it’s capable of. My calculation suggest it’s a 50-55kwh battery so with a 7kw charger he should be able to charge 0 – 100% overnight with a bit of time to spare.

The design of my i3 is streets ahead

I went in a friend’s i3 and it was amazing, like being in a spaceship!

https://ev-database.uk

Is good at giving charge times of various models.

Colleague has one. He gets to charge it for free at work. About a 30 mile each way commute. Seems happy with it. This after some bmw 3 series. He doesn’t have kids, so no comment on family carability.

I sat in one in the US store. Felt like a mondeo with a big iPad in the middle of the dash and poorer build quality. I don’t really do cars though.

A customer came in with one this week. Looks very nice, inside was very nice. Went like a rocket. Loved the screen showing the scan of the road ahead. He is bring it in so we can fit some graphics on the side, classy!

i3s do not look good, but at least they’re not as pedestrian as a Model 3. I couldn’t spend sizeable money on something that has no emotion in it whatsoever.

Also wouldn’t have an EV anyway as I’m not bought in to the hype, but that’s for another thread.

Model 3 pedestrian? Not the one I was sat in on Wednesday. (Private road, before the hand wringers get started)

Drove a mates one the other day. Obvs fantastic to drive etc etc but hmmm not really a looker!

Having said that I have a leaf so….

Got picked up by another mate today in his MX5 . I reckon if Mazda did an EV version with say a 60kwh battery and 2wd rear motor they would clean up.

I have the performance version – bought through limited company.

Its a very good car, great fun to drive. The reviews generally echo what the car is like.

I’d agree that it’s not the best looking car out there but it is fairly inconspicuous. Build quality seems good enough on mine.

Main downside is that the auto wipers are pretty cack.

I’d recommend a test drive – all the people who have been in mine have been pretty impressed with it.

Oh and the stereo is great as well.

Main downside is that the auto wipers are pretty cack.

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen someone directly complain on Twitter about this and Elon Musk said he would sort it, so watch this space. This is the sort of thing that now is sorted with a software update. This is what I like, traditionally A new car was handed over and the manufacturer washed their hands, but Tesla continuously update your old car beyond purchase, like your smartphone on android one or iOS. So, enough people say “fix the wiper action cos it’s a bit rubbish” and it’s fixed with a software update for everyone, not just the next new model 3, years down the line. Other big car companies will have to follow suit which is good for the consumer (having your car kept up to date beyond purchase). I’m not a Tesla fanboy, but I can see them positively disrupting and changing for the better an old engrained traditional market that needed a shake up.

Got one on 1 October, drove to France, drove back. It’s amazing.

I’ve wanted an electric car since riding up a long drag and having my lungs filled with all the shite from the engines passing me – happens loads but that time was once too much and I started to lay plans.

Had to be able to do distances as we do 10,000 miles a year but very little local driving (cycle/train to office).  Also must be able to take bikes. The only one option was a Model 3 (240 mile range) with towbar for bike rack.

I have never bought a new car before so cost was an issue.  New full EVs are 100% offset against tax in 1st year for business and I am self-employed. So that helps. I scraped the barrel and sold the diesel for the deposit to bring monthly payments down to a level I could sustain for business.

So to drive. Fast. Even with bikes on the back. Acceleration is basically, ‘you think you want to be there?’ Oh look you are already.

It’s  comfortable, great for a long drive (we did France to Yorkshire in a day). Sits happily at 70mph / 130km /hr – will definitely go faster if it weren’t for pesky speed limits.

Charging is easy – the car calculates where it’s going to need to charge on a long trip and sends you there. The Tesla network is well set up and the cars know what they’re doing so you just plug in, go for a coffee and it’s all pretty slick. Obviously you’ll probably mainly charge at home if you’re not on a long one. Bikes on back cut your range – still experimenting but more if you go fast – it’s the drag

I like that it’s a steering wheel and an iPad  to drive – not sure everyone will but it makes complete sense to me.

Will find pics next.

Tesla’s aren’t slow. The entry level sub 40k 2wd base model does 0-60 in 5 seconds, so well into fast hot hatch territory. The performance model that is £10k more 3.5 seconds, so you’re well into >£100k super car territory, so more than enough performance for anyone who wants to make progress and risk their licence. And I think their real strength is their charging network and Google maps based nav system and integration into how it plans your journey the most efficient way via all the fast chargers, so your door to door time is similar to what it would be with a conventional car…well not that much slower. If I was visiting my brother in Aberdeen which is an 8hr door to door journey, in a model 3 it would be 2 maybe 3 ‘splash and dash’ fast charges, which by the time you nett off the time I’d spend on a couple of stops for fuel and coffee anyway would only be maybe an hour more on the journey time. The current lack of availability of fast charging infrastructure with other EV’s would make such a journey impractical – not than an EV would be for longer family journey’s, we’d use my wife’s car for that, but handy to have the capability on hand just in case and the Tesla charging network is really showing the way for the others. It’ll get there, a case of when not if. Oh and they have the Whoopi cushion mode which would keep my kids entertained for hours.

Tesla have stolen a march on everyone so have the best EV’s out there right now. It won’t last as the other manufacturers are hot on their heels and will catch up, but for now and the next few years if you can afford a Tesla it has to be up there for consideration. I’ve been looking at EVs’ recently. I fancied the iPace initially (look great, very fast, good range), but too large for my needs and beyond my budget – though some half decent lease deals around, but still too pricy, looked at i3 which was the favourite at one point – I like its funky looks, but it’s Model 3 price, so why would you when you could get a Model 3? they’re faster, larger and more practical and you can open the rear doors without having to open the fronts. But BMW are ditching the i3 soon and replacing it with new models so might be some deals coming.

Once you take all those runners out of the equation everything else is nowhere near as good and just bland and boring. Taking a look at an eGolf today which looks like it could fit the bill from the practicality side, but just looks like a bog std dull Golf (they could have styled it a bit more GTi ish instead of TDi ish) and think its a bit slow. I don’t mind boring looks (Teslas look dull and boring too), but has to make up for it elsewhere, which Tesla’s do.

BIK is zero on EVs from April too Clover which is an added bonus. I even bet some discount on my hybrid from then.

Wobbliscot there’s a whole new range of EVs coming out next year which will hurt Tesla as they’re far cheaper but yes still worth considering.

Waiting for a Rivian.

This is the sort of thing that now is sorted with a software update. This is what I like,

Absolutely, this has to be the way forward.

I’m looking at the future and thinking, v.3.5.1 is ready for update and you either plug it in or it wifi/blutooths itself and does it for you.

Brilliant.

Watching the trip that Clover has just done to France and back, gives me much more confidence about one as my next car, hopefully change of jobs mean I won’t be driving nearly as much as previous role, so fingers crossed, should be able to cut my emissions pretty considerably in the future!

My mate has had two P100d’s, he uses them to got to Garda with his Moth dinghy on the roof… says it takes ages but he’s a convert. Does about 220 to a full charge, so it can take ages to get anywhere.

For instance, he and his mate (in an A4 diesel estate) drove back form Les Arcs and the A4 was 5 hours quicker and they both stuck to 70mph on the m’ways.

If you can stomach the current mileage and charging time, then why not get one..

Finally found out how to post Clover’s pic on here… (You’d think I’d be good at it…)
Here’s the Model 3, with optional towball mounted bike rack. Without the towball, it wouldn’t fit more than a road bike in it, I reckon, as it’s not a true hatchback, but with a Thule three-bike rack, it’ll fit three people./three bikes no problem.

How much time charging adds to a trip depends. We started from Valenciennes on full, had lunch in Reims and a coffee later on so arrived in Alsace in the same time as we would have done if driving diesel.

Setting off back we set off on 30% so charged for longer on the way back between Colmar and Calais (2 x 30-40 mins). Then Maidstone and Grantham on the way North on the UK side. One of those stops we wouldn’t have done in the Doblo. So probably an extra 40 minutes between Calais and Yorkshire.

My impression is that the Model 3 charges faster than the older Teslas. I can’t see trips within the UK taking significantly longer.

The other thing to think about charging vs buying diesel is – yes, on a long journey it might take you an hour longer to get there. But you’ll have saved £50 or so in fuel. So what price do you put on your time? If you’re worth more than £50 an hour, then you’ll find it annoying to stop to charge (though you can work/pee/eat/drink coffee while doing it, none of which you can do on a petrol forecourt… 🙂

If you’re happy to set off an hour earlier/get there an hour later and save the money, then you’ll find that this slightly more relaxed travel approach is more than worth it.

One thing, we ended up getting the longer range model (340 miles) due to Tesla double matching our car. The longer range one was the only towbar ready available in the country. It was crazy busy collecting the car – people and new deliveries arriving in waves – so if you do go for one there can be flakiness but also they are very keen to help and there’s no pressurised upselling or ‘you really need this extra doodad’.

We reckon that putting bikes on the back of it pulls the range down about 20% if you’re going 50 and 30-40% if you’re tanking down the Autoroute so the extra range has been handy. That said, there’s a website called abetterrouteplanner.com which you can use to calculate journey times with charges for your model of car and it wasn’t adding too much time when I tried it for the 240 mile range model.

Can you not put roof bars on these model 3’s?

As for the dodgy wipers being fixed with a firmware update, surely most ‘more mature’ car manufacturers wouldn’t have let it out of the factory without decent wiper functionality in the first place? It’s all well and good being able to get new functionality via software updates, but it shouldn’t be used as an excuse to push crap out too soon just because you can fix it later (see garmin smart watches as a case in point).

As it happens my bmw gets software/firmware updates over the air too, but i haven’t felt the need for it because it all works well out of the box.

though you can work/pee/eat/drink coffee while doing it, none of which you can do on a petrol forecourt…

Is that the sound of a gauntlet being thrown down?

Thanks all.
Sounds pretty positive.
A couple of lads at work are getting theirs in a few weeks so will have a good poke around when they turn up.

If you do go for it hit me up for a referral code – we both get 1,000 free miles on the supercharger network.

Can you not put roof bars on these model 3’s?

You can (apparently) but I’d have thought that would decrease the aero even more than a towbar mount. And while you’re not worrying about the extra money it’ll cost you in drag, you are aware that it’ll reduce range.

How much more range would you get doing 60mph?

surely most ‘more mature’ car manufacturers wouldn’t have let it out of the factory without decent wiper functionality in the first place?

My citroen auto wipers respectfully disagree.

Ha! Aye the auto wipers on both BMWs I’ve owned also disagree, absolute shite. Either too fast or too slow.. even with fine tuning the little dial thing. I really do pine for an old school intermittent wipers setting.

echo the above the BMW intermittent wipers are terrible, and there won’t ever be a software update!!

We have a Model X. It’s brilliant overall, but yes the auto wipers are flaky – although slightly better in the last software update. But then they are no better or worse than auto wipers I’ve had in several other cars. Pretty much everything else on the Tesla is better/faster.

My wife has a Model 3 on order, but putting it off until April for the zero BIK to kick in.

Future software update will include low speed pedestrian warning sound options including jungle rain forest, goats and Monty Python Holy Grail coconuts.

I came close but decided I just couldn’t justify the lease cost, on a 9 + 35 & 8k miles it was just over £500 a month for the performance model (the LR not a whole lot cheaper). Given my commute is about 5 miles and I don’t drive much on weekends I decided it would be a bit silly spending that much (which wouldn’t have been spare change, would have meant cutting back on pretty much any frivolous spending) on something that’s sat on my drive most of the time. I sort of regret that decision every time I read threads like this or watch a YouTube vid with one 🙁

Wobbliscot there’s a whole new range of EVs coming out next year which will hurt Tesla as they’re far cheaper but yes still worth considering

Not sure which ones you’re talking about but the base Model 3 isn’t a whole lot more expensive than some of the pretty basic EVs coming onto the market. You have to remember the Model 3 is a mid-market car with a pretty high spec interior (and thankfully not lots of stupid optional extras you get stung for with other manufacturers).

VW ID 3, MG ZS, Zoe, Peugeot 208, Leaf and Hyundai Ionqui for starters.

VW ID 3, MG ZS, Zoe, Peugeot 208, Leaf and Hyundai Ionqui for starters

They’re either not competing with the Model 3 (range/performance/interior quality) or are similar pricing/more expensive. You didn’t fall for the sub £30k ID 3 pricing did you? That’s for the crippled version, the usable version (close to the standard Model 3 range/performance) will more likely be £40k

Not saying the Model 3 won’t have competition, it will, but not from anything in the same league that’s “far cheaper” any time soon.