2021 Tesla Model 3: E1 - First Impressions

hey boys and girls welcome back to monroe live um we've got a little bit of a treat today um back of the black curtain over there um is a brand new uh model three at 21. pretty much everybody else in the crew has had a chance to drive it around or look at it and they've gotten their first impressions we've had it for about a week almost and now it's time for me to have a look uh i'm hoping for a lot this could be a big big deal as far as i'm concerned i want to see what what the boys over at tesla have been doing and i want to see if they've listened to any of the suggestions that we've given them so with that um i'm hoping for um something really spectacular so let's have a look hmm well the gap at the top and the gap at the bottom is not the same dare i uh dare i do it it actually is smooth they must have fired the guy in charge of the paint department so uh let me get my little um my little tool out and let's see what what uh what's what okay so um while everybody was getting into position i got the opportunity to look a little bit and the first thing is the paint job is far superior to anything i've seen so far off of a tesla first off did you guys wax this or anything no and there's no rubbing no nothing okay so this is uh this is uh this is a really nice paint job so that's that's number one that hit me number two the chrome's gone and we all know i i don't really fancy chrome the big problem for me right off the bat as soon as it rolled in in fact i think it might be on the original shot is what's going on here this is i can't even get my little stick in here this hasn't even got one millimeter clearance and i don't have to have a stick for that it's i'm banging up against five so again we're getting into the build issues i don't understand why there's still build issues this is not that's not acceptable um if tesla wants to kick some serious the number one thing they've got to work on which is the easiest thing is a perfect build why why is it that every time i look at one of these things the build is not right i mean there's tons of guys out there i keep recommending all these different kinds of people that can come down and help you out here with this but this this does that doesn't work for me and if you want to take over all the market and not just the market you have now that's got to be that's got to be fixed so let me just find out because that's so close well they didn't but that's so close that my guess is that it would kiss but it hasn't so we need to oh closing efforts are harder which i don't understand because uh the closing efforts used to be really good so i can see that around here the gap is quite large and then right here you can you can tell it's like there's a big zero here and this whoops not even that's so tight it's grabbing my uh my little gauge tool so let's uh let's have a look uh let's have a look here and uh see what's what's going on with the different uh the different aspects that's flushness is not flush so you take your little flushes gauge and you can see that it isn't going where it's supposed to and this area right here still has a bump on it we we can go and this is a big gap this is kind of like the gaps you'd see on a on an off-road vehicle my jeep has gaps that size that's just so you can wash the dirt out let's look at the headlamp or the tail lamps here now they're not flush either which means that there's something doing something going on here with the the deck lid so again if we look at this you can see that there's a quite a large gap there and i'm taking the contour to the edge so the radius is what i'm going to not i'm not cheating okay so that's uh that's a good i don't know a quarter of an eighth of an inch okay so over here now this is what it's supposed to look like this is this is off a little bit but not enough to catch your eye whereas that thing over there has got a a lot of a lot and this one here is off a little bit but not not like that one so build quality again is uh is one of those little things that that's always going to plague them until until they get some some different kind of different kind of expertise now this side this side doesn't look this slide is perfect so what is the deal one side i can throw rocks out all day long but this side no problem the driver's side is that's where you should spend most of your attention because the driver is going to be probably the buyer but at the end of the day why is it that they can connect on this side but not on the other side these are it's i don't know i i was kind of hoping that i was uh i was kind of hoping that i was going to see like a brilliant design i was really hoping i was really hoping that i was going to come out here and it's going to be just so marvelous that i i would have nothing bad to say but once again i was disappointed so but you know what okay so let's put this into perspective um when i saw this car the model 3 couple three years ago in 2018 i i about puked i couldn't believe how bad it was i mean these are these are flaws that we would see on a kia in the 90s or something this is very very unusual for a car that you know is used to pairing you know producing luxury vehicles i can't imagine i can't imagine how the how they released this it's just a surprise okay so i can criticize some gaps here and there but at the end of the day this is a gigantic improvement over the three that i looked at before now i'm going to be doing a ride in drive and hopefully this is going to please me like like the model y did i i still i'm really i was really excited about that again the same thing though what was wrong with the model y gaps paint so they got rid of the paint you still got gaps on the on the passenger side let's have a look inside i'm not going to go into a lot of detail i just want to i just want to have a peek at what's happening or what's different about the uh the the tesla okay so first off i said this before but the interior is nice nicely employed appointed i don't um i didn't have much bad to say about the um about anything that when we were looking at this um oh that's a lot more rugged than it was let's move that over there so um let me just take a shot at sitting in it i was a giant in here before but hey no actually this feels good this i i feel good my back is supported uh my legs and lumbar everything here is just hunky-dunky um these are not a big change i don't see any uh major issues with interior fit and finish yeah i think uh i think this is uh this is well done the interior is definitely definitely well done i i like this a lot let's let's try out the back seat i love that new car smell i don't know i'd love to have that as aftershave lotion so um we're looking back here the seams are all nicely done these things i i don't need a gap gauge for this the uh these are all what they call french french stitching and um and i i kind of like it it's a single stitch i'm much happier with the inside than than i am with the gaps on the on the passenger side door everything here seems to be like i say as good as anybody's this is this is fine the interior is as good as anybody a little tough for getting out so this is going to be this is going to be our first little look at things um we're definitely beginning we're going to be getting into some detail here um in the next episode we'll go in a little bit deeper and we'll probably be taking a few parts out or at least maybe what we're doing is putting on the hoist many of uh many of you subscribers or viewers have talked about some of the things that are coming up with nishta the national highway safety guys and saying things about parts not being there in suspension and stuff like that and things falling apart we're going to check that as well make sure that this car anyway is uh is suitable for the road because we're going to be taking it out and driving around a bit so we're going to have a look at the underside and we're going to check and see if we can find out whether this has got the mega casting or not i believe it does and we're going to just check things out as it were in the next episode to just have a look at the suspension before we take it out for a road drive and then after that we'll start taking it to pieces so anyway thanks so much for watching uh keep tipping those cashiers things haven't lightened up as far as i'm concerned they got those guys are risking their lives every time you buy a banana so let's uh let's make sure that they uh they know we appreciate it anyway see you next time thank you and have yourself a great day thanks like if you if you've talked to the old days with rolls-royce and bentley they built those cars five times i mean it was just ridiculous it was absolutely ridiculous taking it apart putting it back together taking it apart putting it back together taking it apart no not a lot of you no you can't do that you have to you have to tune it and blah blah no you don't you do not you you build it so that it's to print and you put it in place and you go thump thump and it's done and

Channel: Munro Live

Views: 312,149

Rating: 4.9503469 out of 5

Keywords: Model Y, Elon Musk, EV, BEV, Tesla, Tesla Motors, Tesla Model Y, Teardown, Sandy Munro, Munro, Electric Vehicle, Elon, Benchmarking, Electric, Insight, Lean Design, Design, Performance, Model 3, Model 3 vs. Model Y, Model Y vs. Model 3, Comparison, MunroLive, MunroLive.com, New Model 3, 2021 Model 3, ElectricCars

Id: jPBGVI2oFLI

Length: 11min 59sec (719 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 15 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/SpellingJenius]

TL;DW

• Paint much improved
• Panel gaps on one side of the car were bad (gap went from ~5mm to <1mm on front passenger door
• Bad alignment on passenger side tail lights
• Inside as good as anyone makes

[u/[deleted]]

I am less certain that this Model 3 has the same types of Mega castings used in Model Y.

My recollection is that Elon was asked about this on Twitter last year, and he said that (a) Model 3 would get the upgrade at some undetermined point in the future, but (b) that Tesla needed to commit its engineering resources to new vehicle lines rather than existing production lines.

What I'd like to see is a comparison between Model 3s built in Shanghai and Fremont. From what I've seen of posted photos, the Shanghai cars are flawless. The fact that cars built in Fremont still have inconsistent build quality is odd. Is this an employee issue? On the Fremont car, why is the driver's side door installation perfect, and the passenger side door slightly crooked?

[u/courtlandre]

Even though Sandy is long TSLA I still think his analysis is unbiased and will watch his teardowns to see how Tesla is improving (or not- panel gaps...).

[u/fyzle]

I suspect they pair up one experienced person with one new person at certain points in the assembly line for "training" - My car also exhibits build quality issues only on one side.

[u/[deleted]]

I can attest that my 2021 Model 3 had flawless paint on pickup. I also only noticed two panel gaps at the rear on the trunk but they weren’t THAT bad and don’t let in water or anything. Believe me, I had a high pressure wash and nothing got into the trunk.

I spent a good 15-20 mins going over the inside and out of the car before signing anything. Had a checklist. Focusing on paint especially. Definitely pleased with the build quality so far.

[u/codykonior]

Thanks for sharing.

[u/Thermodynamicist]

I wonder if there is any weight difference associated with the mega casting?

[u/ilikemypizza]

The Model 3 I just ordered last Friday better not have any panel gaps or alignment issues. What the actual fu**? I can't believe this is real. Falling down a rabbit hole and regretting my decision to purchase this car now... What kind of bad experience and issues is my car going to have?

Is there anyone out there with a 2021 M3 who has zero of these problems? It doesn't seem like it....