6 Week Ownership Review Of My 2023 Tesla Model 3 Standard Range LFP

and when you go shopping even though you think you might only want to why I highly recommend you drive this car in this variant beach buggy racing I've seen kids sitting at their supercharging they're actually driving the car little kids driving the car that's brilliant marketing what kid is gonna buy something other than a Tesla if that car doesn't have fart mode you know emissions testing mode you can make this car fart I mean and I can play video games in it why would I buy any other car as soon as I turn 16 I'm saving my money I'm getting a Tesla don't even think twice about it welcome to another episode of out of spec Dave where today I'm going to be taking uh around 150 160 mile little road trip why I want to do a six-week ownership update on my model 3. this is the base rear wheel drive version the one with the lfp so stick with me I'm gonna just talk to you a little bit about my feelings about this car and how it's going so thanks again for watching let's get into it [Music] thank you so here I am at duchess this is a sort of a cult following little restaurant it's a fast food joint but they got actually a little bit better food than McDonald's or Burger King and more importantly than that I I've got to go get a breakfast sandwich on for my little road trip I'm heading out to New Jersey got a couple of videos to shoot um one is going to be a your EV Journey video so just a reminder for those of you that aren't familiar with that format I would like to talk to you about your EV Journey let's go for a ride in your car not me driving you driving I want to hear about what what is it about an EV that you like so I'm going to be shooting one of those and then an update video as well with an old friend that you'll you'll recognize when you see the video um so but what we have here is a 2023 this is a Tesla Model 3. this is the one with the lfp battery pack I've actually charged it up today to a hundred percent on my level two back home and I'm now in Darien here and and really what you're able to do with this battery pack perhaps not every day is not the best thing to do but once a week it sounds like Tesla is recommending that you top charge the battery so the BMS kind of figures out where it's at I don't really understand why but the benefit of this is that you're able to actually charge this car to 100 so I'm leaving with a hundred percent on a roughly 150 mile road trip today and I've got I'm showing 268 miles on the clock which means that I won't have to charge on this whole trip today now I could charge but maybe I will but probably not there's no reason to but what a great looking little car I have uh since I since I bought the car I purchased just some little um some center cap and and actually bolt covers I'll show you in a minute so you can pop those I don't know these Arrow Arrow covers you either love them or hate them uh I don't really mind them I had uh in my wife's model y we had those same Arrow covers but they were on the 18 inch wheels but they were actually silver these are these are almost like a I don't know a little bit darker color and for some reason I don't really mind them so uh but I've got that little kit so I can show you I think it's like 12 bucks on eBay or Amazon or something like that but uh look this car has been has been great so far I mean the pickup's great this is a rear wheel drive I drove it in some serious snow up in Utica which I'll talk to you a little bit about but it's a fantastic ride and for the money I don't think you can beat this car that's just my personal opinion great car now let me go and get my breakfast sandwich and then we'll continue thank you okay so here we are starting off on the trip now in Greenwich for those of you that maybe follow the channel you may have noticed that I made a little purchase the other day uh just a lucid Grand Touring I bought it pre-owned I was I've been looking at the lucids for a while and this particular deal came up with a car that a super I mean it had less than a thousand miles on it and I just decided to to buy that car I have no plans on selling this model 3 at this point in time and and what's going to be interesting is little change of plans that I was planning on taking this model 3 down to Florida in a couple weeks in April when Kathy has has Break um she's actually down in Florida right now with 300 kids with her orchestra band and chorus from Fairfield Ward high school and they're performing down there in a run around the parks having a good time but um that's not her relaxing time in Florida that's going to be that's work but when we head down to Florida in a couple weeks when she does have off for spring break instead of taking the model 3 I will be taking the Lucid Grand Touring on that round trip so keep your eye open for that video that should be a fun one I'm real curious to see how many stops I have to make in that car going going down so so yeah so so the model 3 I've owned it for right around six weeks now excuse me the breakfast sandwich isn't going down so well although it was very good really greasy I like that and uh you know the the day that I picked up this car at uh Mount Kisco in at Tesla it was super efficient um I I made a video about the delivery experience and I would suggest you watch that I mean Tesla they just have it down to a science the the love of what you might get from a Mercedes or a BMW uh dealership or a Lexus dealership the hand-holding or Genesis can't forget Genesis um the hand-holding is a little bit less let's just say they have it down where it's like you know you have this they have this express delivery and I'm sure if you asked for help they would help you but you got to be prepared when you're buying a Tesla it's it's a little different experience than than than most um for those of you who bought them you know and I love the experience it's great I know everything about the car just give me the car here's the money and let me let me get the car what was funny was I just uh I wanted to pay for the car by sending a wire and and and and I did um I I said I I put in the app that all right I want to pay for the car just like you would pay for um maybe FSD or something like that on an existing account and and it said thank you for your payment and I was like okay and I didn't even put in the right account checking account where I had the money in to buy the car and and they said you paid for the car but I didn't pay for the car and so I went to I called the sales manager up in uh Mount Kisco who I've known for years and I said listen you know I don't want there to be any hassles I'm not trying to take Tesla's car but they're telling me that I can come pick up this car and it's paid for and it's not paid for so I he said all right Dave do me a favor just go to the bank and get a get a you know a certified check and bring that and um and I said okay that's fine I'll do that so so I went when I went to pick up the car they had it all set for me um they drove it up they had a clipboard I had to go over a few little pieces of paper sign a couple of documents and they're like okay see ya and I said well I haven't paid for the car yet and they go oh no the system says you paid for the car so I said all right look you know I haven't you got a problem with your system so so um so anyway I gave them the show certified check and and then a week and a half later I get a call from Tesla saying you haven't paid for your car yet as you guys look you're building a great product you got a super efficient process but something went wrong in my transaction because you're asking me to pay for a car twice and I already bought the car I've had it for two weeks they wouldn't let me leave and let they go oh okay are you sure I said yeah I'm sure so do me a favor call call uh the salesman or the manager of uh Mount Kisco he'll tell you about the whole story so they went away a week and a half later they called me up again and I let the sales manager the manager know about this a week and a half later they called me up again and said you still haven't paid for your card so I I was like guys this is crazy I I had so the biggest problem that I've had with this car is the fact that Tesla wanted me to pay twice for the thing I'm not doing that I mean it's a good car but I'm not going to pay more than one time for it so but listen if that's the biggest problem that that I've had with this car since I got it I guess I'm doing pretty well um anyway when I when I did take delivery of the car um I noticed the trunk alignment was not good in my opinion the car should not have been delivered that way they were they said listen you don't have to take delivery today but I needed the car because I had just traded in or I just sold my my Model S um to CarMax back to CarMax and the one that I bought from them so I I for me I only had one car Kathy's gv60 so I needed a car and I said ah listen you know what I'll do is I'll make an appointment to have the car um you know the trunk align because it's a little little off kilter and look whatever I mean it's it's not been bothering me that much because I have honestly I haven't even made the appointment yet the difference with this particular situation is that they need the car at the service center in Mount Kisco in order to in order to fix it so it's not like they can it's not like they can actually uh just you know come with their mobile uh Tesla Model X or model y or Z or whatever that model c um so that got to bring the car in I just haven't had the time to do it uh because I've been busy buying other things like elusive so I will get to that but overall this car has been fantastic I I did a zero to a hundred percent charge and what's amazing about this car is that way down state state of charge low in the battery pack this car does not lose any power I mean at one percent state of charge it was pulling hard and um you know it's great and I've charged the car multiple times to 100 which I did today and uh it typically shows 270 272 on the indicated range again it's just a little bit of an indication but uh but you know one thing is that at a high state of charge pretty much in any EV the regen is very different it'll feel like you're coasting when you take your foot off the accelerator when you're at a high state of charge and this car feels especially um like no regen when you're at a high state of charge so I mentioned this on one of my other videos there's a there's a feature in the in the menu that you can actually blend friction breaks to mimic what the regen feels like um when it's in a low state of charge but even if you're at a high state of charge it will replicate that same feeling of regen braking uh by by blending friction breaks introducing a little friction breaks at a higher state of charge and uh that feature is that feature works works really well so I would men putting that on at a high state of charge now a couple other things about this car there have I have not had one problem with this car this I don't hear any creaks or rattles it is a very bumpy section of 287 that I'm on right now in White Plains but the this car it just it's amazing it really is there's a little bit of tire noise and wind noise more so than the Lucid so when I get out of the lucid and I get into this car you feel like this is not a hundred and fifty thousand dollar car this is a uh much less expensive car but don't let that fool you Kyle and I put a video up on the out of spec reviews channel that we believe this is the gold standard car on the less expensive side of EVS that you should really um base all of your decisions on go drive this lfp battery packed car it's amazing it's really good um the lfp stands for lithium iron phosphate iron is ferrous so lfp it's a little bit of a different compound and from what I hear um that the the longevity of that battery pack is supposed to far at last the longevity of the regular lithium ion or nickel metal hydride I don't remember exactly how those with the ones with the Cobalt in them so you know I think that this is one to consider again build quality except for the misalignment on the trunk I would argue that you want to um that there really hasn't been any issues with the car now rear-wheel drive oh I need to have all-wheel drive um right so you might think that well right now on the menu unless it's changed I heard Rumblings that they may be bringing back the long range uh all-wheel drive car but the time when I purchased this car it was you only had the choice of the base rear wheel drive lfp of which I just I didn't get any options in this car I just got the white paint I got the black seats um you know that's it and but but there if you wanted to get all-wheel drive you had to get the performance and it was it was like 10 or 12 Grand more than this car and I didn't really want that so I just I decided to go for the least expensive model 3 Tesla quite honestly the least expensive Tesla because the Y's are another 10 grand and they're great don't get me wrong but they're 10 grand More Than This base car so and they're basically the same I mean yeah it's a little lower I like the seating posture better in the model 3 than in the Y I don't know why but I feel super comfortable in this model 3. everything is just perfect though arm rest the I mean none of this is new for those of you who know model threes but 10 grand more for a model y for basically the same thing I I mean granted all-wheel drive I wasn't gonna I I don't know I I shot the uh all-wheel drive non-performance wide which you can buy uh great car by the way if you uh if you need a a little bit of a sport ute but look this car was 42 990 plus 1250 I think sales tax no no delivery free and and then I was able to get the two thousand two hundred fifty dollar cheaper which is a Connecticut energy rebate and they take that right off the hood back in the old days when Connecticut first introduced the cheaper I I remember that you actually as a consumer you had to file with the state and and actually um and then wait for the check to come back now at least in Connecticut you you just um Tesla takes it right off the price of the car which is great uh and then this particular car also qualifies at least between now and the end of March a qualified I'll explain why and it qualifies for the 7 500 federal tax credit so because it's under fifty thousand dollars this car also in the state of Connecticut's only a 6.35 sales tax instead of 7.75 so you're at the lower tax rate you get the cheaper rebate because it's under 50 Grand you get the 7 500 rebate if I only lived in New Jersey where there's no sales tax on EVs and they're given four grand back on the state I mean that's a no-brainer like go out and get one of these and I would say perhaps by by the end of the month March because what this this car has the battery pack is made I think it's catl I think it's made it's made in China and so I think the new rules or the new guidance that's going to be coming out from the U.S government is that the battery not only does the car have to be made in the United States in order to qualify for the 7 500 federal tax credit assuming you qualify you'll get that next year when you file your taxes for 2023. so you got to pay for the car now but if you look holistically over the whole deal it lowers your net cost of ownership for sure but because this car's battery the lfp is made in China I'm not sure after March 31st of 2023 that this car is going to qualify anymore for the 7 500 federal tax credit so I think it's a little bit of an Urgent Message if you're on the fence about buying a model 3 get an inventory car as soon as possible take delivery before March 31st just in case uh would be my strong advice now it's possible they may extend that for the rest of 2023 and who knows what the US government's going to do but I would just look if you know you got a sure thing and you're on the fence about buying the car I would I would get out there and and take delivery one right now now couple of other things I want to talk about when Kathy and I took the road trip up to Verona New York on in search of the magic dock uh which is Tesla's new superchargers that are fitted with this little secret CCS uh CCS adapter that you can plug into a non-cci or a non-tesla car we took this car and we drove it in search of all the magic docs now even though magic dock is out I'm going to be coming out with a video soon which is our road trip video Kathy's in mind it's going to be a super long one probably over an hour it's going to be us getting in the car lots of banter between Kathy and myself and driving all the way up to uh up to Verona or was it Vernon I can't remember they're two times right next to each other but there's a beautiful it's a hysterical video because I I ended up screwing up which casino I made reservations at but long story short we did find the magic docs we found four of them this was before they came out on the Tesla website and said here's where they are we now know of 11 at least as of this time uh but it was it was a lot of fun that trip but when we went up there we we hit snow and I'm not talking about a little bit of snow we hit from Albany New York through Utica New York for those of you who know Upstate New York that's the snow belt and you don't want to fool around with that snow belt that's where high winds uh you know it's just you just never know when a snow squall is gonna gonna pop up over there it's I don't know if it's Lake Effect there's no real you got the finger lakes around there I guess sort of um but just the the storms pop up so anyway I was concerned about this being a rear-wheel drive car and I felt at least when I started driving I was a bit White Knuckle but this thing handled uh I wasn't going up any major Hills or anything like that and I'm not I'm not suggesting that a rear-wheel drive car is better than an all-wheel drive car in inclement weather but what I am telling you is that this car handled the snow really well and it got pretty deep so I was impressed now part of the reason why this car is I would recommend if you live in the snowy area and they buy the rear-wheel drive model 3. definitely get yourself some some really solid snow tires um you know whether they're Nokian or any other brand and if you really want to go crazy put some studs on them and but the reason why rear-wheel drive is actually better than front-wheel drive in in a setup like this is because the motor is sitting over the rear axle so puts the weight down on the rear wheels now if you think about a traditional front-wheel drive car like a Honda Accord or a Honda Civic or Toyota Camry the motor the engine is in the front and the weight of the engine is pushing down on the front wheels so front wheel drive at least historically typically will handle better than a you know an old Chevy Impala rear-wheel drive where you got a big V8 up front and you got a rear wheel drive but because this car has the motor the electric motor sitting on the rear axle that's what we call the 911 effect for those of you who know Porsche 911s the 911 has the engine um in the rear behind the rear axle with all the weight on it and they're notoriously very good in the snow same thing with Tesla Model S for years um when Tesla Model S came out in 2012 these things were selling like hotcakes over in Norway and believe me when I tell you they got a lot of snow over there and people have been driving rear-wheel drive Tesla Model S's for years in the snow again good snow tires is is important but I have all season tires on this car and it was it was really good so I was I was pleasantly surprised with with the uh the results of that so that was excellent I also went and filmed I was just curious what the um let me check my my stats here okay I also went and and charged this car on the magic dock up in Brewster because I was curious to see how this would charge with a ccs uh with my CCS adapter and I kind of wanted to fake out the magic Dock and I had some fun playing with that um so let's talk about charging this car has a 60.6 kilowatt hour battery pack that's that's its entire size usable I think is 57 and a half or 58 kilowatts kilowatt hours usable um and because of the way this car is designed I don't really know it it only will charge at a maximum of 170 kilowatts at a V3 uh and I haven't actually charged this car in a V2 yet to see what it will pull but it won't pull the full 250 at Peak and then taper off it'll pull at most the most I've seen it's been 173 uh and and interestingly enough I pulled 173 when I was at the Brewster magic dock using my CCS combo only one kilowatt hour better than than when I plugged in with the NAC the nacs the Tesla adapter or a Tesla connector uh just the regular plugging into the Tesla so um yeah no look the charging is great I think this car I wouldn't hesitate to take this car anywhere the network as we all know the Tesla Network it's everywhere um you know you got a solid 220 230 miles of range even though the car has EPA rated 272. I'll I'll be doing a road trip in this car for sure as a matter of fact I think I'm going to take this car down to Florida in June and we'll keep it down in Florida for the summer I think and so we'll be able to see how that thing road trips uh there but look it's it charges very fast and and and it's a super efficient car that's something else you need to consider that it's it's very small light and Nimble easy to park easy to live with every day I've been daily driving this car to my workplace going to get groceries it's got a great turning radius so you know look this car is is just awesome for the money I mean you know not that long ago people were paying a lot more money for these cars before Tesla lowered the prices on them and I know there are a lot of people upset at Elon and Company for doing that but look you know look forward not back if you haven't purchased one of these Tesla Model 3s I can tell you after six weeks of ownership I'm super happy with this car and you know this is a great great car so I hope this uh I hope this little video helps you with your buying decision whatever you're considering to buy whether it's an ionic five maybe you want to get a pole star maybe you're thinking about an id4 be careful about the tax credits make sure that you research whether or not the car that you're purchasing qualifies under the new rules for the federal 7 500 tax credit no no that because the economic decision it's not just oh I like the id4 well if you buy a 2022 id4 um I'm not sure that one qualifies because it was made in Germany but a 2023 that's made in Chattanooga will id4 so just be a little careful cool and make sure you research whatever you're buying so you can nail down the economic decision first and and then go shopping and when you go shopping even though you think you might only want to why I highly recommend you drive this car in this variant the stated miles or 0 to 60 is 5.8 seconds this thing feels fast you don't need more than this I mean if you do go by the performance I'm not telling you you don't need it I'm just saying for the average person daily driving this car is Zippy let's not forget back in the 60s and the 70s if there was a car that was doing 0-60 in under six seconds that was insane that was you know crazy fast so here you got the base model uh Tesla for you know overall after all factors in my case living in Connecticut this car out the door holistically oh nice nice 911. beautiful oh man don't buy a Tesla get a Porsche 911 no I'm kidding get a take on um but you know like this car like I said it's at 0 to 60 5.8 seconds it's amazing but drive this car even if you're thinking about getting the model y because you'll save a lot of money and every time you get in this car and you know that you paid 10 grand less and for those few days especially depending on where you live where you'd feel more comfortable having all-wheel drive 10 grand that's a lot of money one thing this car does this model 3 and and quite honestly all the Teslas do is amazing low stop and go and the way with which this car so elegantly and smoothly when you are at a stop let's say you're using one pedal driving and you've got Auto hold on all you need to do is just touch the accelerator slightly and the car just so smoothly starts to accelerate and when you come to a stop and you've got your foot off the accelerator and let's say you've timed it perfectly so you don't have to use the friction brake at all to come to a stop when this car comes to a stop it comes to a stop so smoothly just beautifully by lucid doesn't do that and it's just it's remarkable to me that Tesla has refined the little things I mean the Lucid is unbelievable don't get me wrong but this Tesla without a doubt is much smoother and again I re-emphasize every Tesla I've ever driven they just they just have it down to a science as far as the smoothness one would think that lucid would have it just as good um it bucks a little bit when you come to a stop it's it's it's smooth smooth and then you get this little jolt and then when you start to accelerate from a stop you feel like it's almost like the friction breaks of are gripping and then and then it releases and then you have to push through that and then it goes and I don't care which mode you're in if you're in smooth Swift Sprint doesn't matter so really really good um really good you know low speed stop and go the other thing that this car does amazingly well is the autopilot now Tesla we all know there's three different flavors of of autopilot there's basic autopilot that comes with every Tesla currently this particular car is only Vision based and um and and so it doesn't use radar or lidar or sonar or any kind of other R you know just it's just basically the camera and so in inclement weather you're going to have limited visibility or snow is going to get in front of whatever you're going to have some hindrance in terms of the ability for the car to uh track through uh Advanced Driver assistance but the lane centering is just awesome I don't have enhanced I don't have FSD I just I just use the basic autopilot all the time for highway driving like what I'm doing right now and I love it it's great it works amazingly well the car wants to be all Teslas do this they all want to be in a certain part of the lane and and and so if you if you're in the right hand side part of the lane and you try to engage in this case you you tap down twice on the stock oh by the way round steering wheel and and turns proper turn signals and uh gear uh as opposed to the my Model S with the Yoke but but um you know in this model three when you're when you want to do a lane uh change what is going on here interesting I guess it didn't like I don't know what it didn't like but I'm fine when it doesn't like something I'm okay with that uh anyway the the lane changing with this Tesla the way that it works is when you're in you're in autopilot you're doing Lane centering you're doing adaptive cruise like I am right now as soon as I put on the turn signal nothing happens I still have Lane centering on but I put the slightest bit of torque to steer over to the left-hand Lane and the car releases the lane centering now once you get the lane on the left hand side then you have to re-engage and sometimes when you re-engage if you're too too far to the right it kind of swerves you over a little bit I think they could probably refine that a little bit better soften that Tesla could but you know in in the in the Lucid when you are traveling down the lane if you want to put your turn signal on it does the same thing where it's going to continue even with your turn signal on it's going to continue with the lane centering but the torque that's required to get the car to take the next Lane is too much and they need to refine that little piece as well in addition to the low speed uh refinements so Tesla's got it down here the only difference is that with both the egmp let's say the hda1 cars or the Lucid as soon as you as soon as you take the lane they re-engage into the next Lane whereas with Tesla you have to you have to double tap again to re-engage autopilot but just phenomenal for for the price point to have this is is autopilot excuse me but for the price point in this car to have autopilot with Lane centering and adaptive cruise do you know that in order to get Lane centering on a 107 000 Lucid touring you need to buy a ten thousand dollar option which is called dream Drive Pro and Dream Drop Pro gives you lidar radar sonar and and the hint of full self driving at least some sometime down the road but right now today if you just want to do basic Lane centering you got to buy dream Drive Pro for 10 grand this car comes with that and quite honestly FSD it's not for me I don't want to have a car drive around in the city I put a video up with Kyle I mean it's hysterical what this car does I know it's beta but man I'll tell you what the thing does some crazy stuff and I know there's a lot of people out there say oh it's great and it is great it's amazing what it's doing but I don't think it's downright dangerous that's my own personal opinion I'm not afraid to say it so I would say if you're using FSD be really careful out there enhanced I get enhanced but they want six grand for enhanced is it six grand I think so uh I think it's nine grand for full of FSD if you have enhanced so it's like fifteen thousand dollars to get FSD when you look at it that way maybe dream Drive Pro for 10 grand a bargain but you know it's amazing that the base car in Tesla comes with autopilot in order to have Lane centering on a lucid much more expensive car you got to pay 10 grand to get the full dream Drive Pro so look hats off to Tesla this is some package it's just amazing a couple of other points about this car that I think are worth noting the base in the stereo a lot of people say oh it doesn't have the subwoofer unless you're like some aficionado you're gonna be fine with the stereo in this base model three it sounds great um you know it's acceptable again these things are somewhat subjective but I don't think you're gonna sit home and write home and complain oh I wish I bought the bigger car or the fancier car because it the stereo's terrible the stereo's fine I mean it cranks it's really good and let's not forget if you're new to Tesla you get um you get a lot of fun toys uh in this car uh so for example you get the ability when the car is stopped to watch Netflix movies on this 15-inch horizontal screen you can watch YouTube videos on this horizontal screen Tick Tock Disney Plus Hulu and then there's a whole bunch of Tesla tutorials that are built into this car that are amazing there's also video games arcade star do alley cuphead beach buggy racing so go drive this model three anyway thanks again for watching another episode about a spec Dave we'll catch you on the next one take care now foreign

Channel: Out of Spec Dave

Views: 42,206

Keywords: car, ev, electric car, review, charging, acceleration, vs

Id: qRGlUulpJdM

Length: 38min 6sec (2286 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 27 2023