Why My Tesla Is The Best, And Worse, Car I Have Ever Owned
I love my Tesla Model 3. It's a dream to drive, has a bigger battery than our previous car (a Nissan Leaf), and the Supercharger network makes longer journeys simple and stress-free. My wife and I had always coveted a Tesla, and when the Model 3 bought a Tesla model within our price reach, we jumped at it. That was nearly five years ago, and I've never regretted it. It's by far the best car I've ever owned.
On the other hand, it's also by far the worse car I've ever owned.
(Yes, I know I once bought a shitty, 12 year old Vauxhall Cavalier with a broken, hot-wired ignition, a driver's door that wouldn't open, and a passenger door that couldn't be locked — but that cost £50 rather than £42,000, and it come with a full tank of petrol worth £20, so in cost-terms, the fact that it ran at all made it a excellent value for money).
Why's my Tesla the worst car I've ever owned? Well let's start with the build quality. The driver's door closes, but isn't quite straight. It looks like it's about to fall off (even after we've had them look at it). We've previously had to take the car in because of a loud squeaking from the driver's side door pillar, which they did mostly fix. The heater once failed (and the problem there isn't that you get cold, it's that the windscreen mists over). The tailgate once filled with water. You could hear it sloshing about when you lifted it up, then one (dry) day, I opened it up, and a stream of water poured out from a corner for thirty seconds or so.
The seal on the front passenger door has just come off.
The large glass rear window once just spontaneously cracked and needed replacing. The clip that holds the passenger side sunshield has come off. One of the rear light assemblies has moisture in it. It's started squeaking again, but from underneath this time.
So far, our experiences with Tesla service have been pretty good, but I dread anything going seriously wrong, because it's not like you can just take it into your local garage, and I hear tales of people waiting months for the parts needed to fix their broken cars. And we're about to run out of warranty.
The car is controlled almost entirely from the touchscreen, which periodically rearranges itself. There's been times where I've wanted to put the radio on, but have had to pull-over and find where the radio button has got to (it had disappeared from the main toolbar). The headlights are supposed to turn on automatically, which would be fine if they turned on when it was raining and your wipers were on, except that it doesn't.
You'll be driving through pouring rain, and realise that the lights aren't on - which then requires a hunt through touch screen menus to change them from auto to on. (Note: in the UK it's the law that you have your lights on when it's raining). Of course, that's if the wipers have automatically turned on, which to be fair, they mostly do when it's raining. Just not always.
You can only open the glove box from the touchscreen.
Then there's the issue of range. Now the range is better than our Nissan Leaf. Significantly, we've gone from a range that was a little less than my bladder range, to one that's quite a bit more. But the range doesn't seem to be as much as it was supposed to be, and worse, the built-in satnav is in on the lie.
What do I mean?
Well our old Nissan Leaf had a satnav/range display that was very good at predicting your range, taking into account the temperature (batteries work better in the summer than the winter) and how economically or otherwise you were driving. In summer, on a full charge, it might show 137 miles. In winter, on a full charge, it might show 108. If my wife was driving, it might show that we had 45 miles in "the tank". If we switched seats and I took over, and it realised that "Driving Miss Daisy" was now behind the wheel, it might revise its estimate up to 55.
That's not how the Tesla works. If we charge it to 90% (you're only supposed to charge to 100% in exceptional circumstances) it will show 195 miles, whether it's a baking hot summer's day or there's frost on the ground. But the frustrating thing is that it knows how much range it has, just like the Leaf did — it just chooses not to share that information with you.
Let me give you an example. Say it's winter, and I've charged to 90% and it's showing 195 miles of range available. I put in a destination to the satnav and it tells me that this is 120 miles away and I will arrive with 20% left in the battery.
So I do some maths. If 90% is 195, then 100% would be 217 miles, so 20% would be 43 miles. And its calculations are pretty much always bang on. If I drive at my usual reasonable, steady speed, I'll get there on 20% with perhaps 42 or 43 miles showing. It means you can trust it to know if you can get to your destination without charging, and if not, to pick charging stops you can safely reach. Except that 195 minus 43 is 152 miles, and according to the SatNav this was a 120 mile journey.
Basically, what you cannot do is look at the range showing, compare it with how far you have to go, and then — if it says you have enough miles — set off without using the satnav. You don't use the satnav to tell you how to get there. You use the satnav to know if you can get there (without charging). You have to remember that when you compare your estimated "miles in the tank" with the length of your journey you're very much comparing Apples and Oranges: or in this case, comparing the "Tesla Miles" the display is showing you with the actual miles you're going to drive.
"Tesla Miles" is the phrase everyone uses, by the way. I didn't just make it up. The standard advice given on Facebook groups is to ignore the miles in the tank figure and instead look at the percentage shown in the SatNav (or actually configure the display to just show a percentage instead of a miles range).
I don't mind. The range is enough for me, which is what counts. And people tell me that while I, nerd ex-programmer, might understand that the Leaf's display was a real-time, constantly recalculating estimate, regular people apparently find that confusing as hell. They can't see how the amount of juice in the battery (which is what they assume the estimated range is) could go up, just because they slowed down. But me? I really would like an option where the range displayed is the accurate one that the satnav's using.
Also, when it comes to the satnav, I should say that supercharger routing / planning aside, as a satnav, it's not very good; our old TomTom had a much more intuitive display and more efficient voice descriptions.
Then there's the elephant in the room, or to be less metaphorical, the worryingly fascist-sympathetic owner of the social media site formerly known as Twitter. I got into EVs because I was trying to protect the environment, but I confess I used to think I looked really cool driving my Tesla around.
Now I feel like I'm wearing a reg MAGA cap.
So. There it is. Best car I've ever owned. Worst car I've ever owned.
Still. Could have been worse. I could have bought a cybertruck.
P.S. If you're not yet ready to believe me, check out this video (20 Things I HATE About My Tesla Model 3) from Jack Massey Welsh (a.k.a. Jack Sucks At Life).
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