Driving a Tesla Model 3! [Auto Focus Ep. 1]

hey what is up guys mkbhd here and welcome to the always sunny hawthorn california there's plenty of cool stuff here there's a hyperloop test track 400 yards away from me there's superchargers but we're here at the tesla design studio where you often see some of their latest and greatest stuff what we're here for is to look at our latest and greatest car tesla model 3. [Music] so shout out to tesla for this car for this week for this video shows they actually really care about you guys and this is only my second time ever in a model 3 as rare as this car is it makes sense but we should we should probably name this thing uh [Music] all right so for a little context model 3 is important because of what it represents which is essentially the final step in the master plan that tesla outlined a couple of years ago what they wanted to do was create number one a very expensive very low volume electric car which they did then use that money to create a slightly more high volume slightly less expensive car that they did and then use that money to create a mass-market affordable electric car that's this so the number they landed at was starting at 35 000. but as you probably know with a lot of cars that say starting at a certain price almost none of those cars cost that actual price you get some options you kind of spec it up to look the way you want it to and then you have that final price same thing with model three so almost no model threes on the road are actually going to cost thirty five thousand dollars despite this being the 35 000 tesla in fact this one that we're driving this week thanks to tesla has quite a few upgrades and ends up at 57 000 so the options on this car to get to that price are obviously the base price of 35 000 long range battery upgrade so that's nine thousand dollars the premium upgrades package five thousand dollars the red multi-coat paint which is pretty sweet that's a thousand bucks the 19 inch wheels over the 18 inch that are standard that's 1 500 and then enhanced autopilot which is five thousand dollars and then there's a destination fee of a thousand bucks and that's how you get to your 57 000 price so that's creeping up into model s territory not quite obviously the base price is lower but now you find yourself not really comparing this to other thirty thousand dollar cars but comparing it to other fifty sixty thousand dollar cars that's just me i'm gonna shamelessly compare it to the one car i know best which is my tesla model s and just embrace it but that's how i'm gonna figure out if those options are worth it and if model 3 turns out to be worth the price so uh let's get started [Music] so right off the bat something a lot of people have talked about in model 3 versus model s is air suspension versus this coil suspension model s that bigger slightly older but slightly better car has air suspension which is very very smooth and adjustable and this coil suspension is not adjustable so you can't change the height of the car so it rides at a certain height always and it'll always be a certain firmness just depending on how firm those coils are going over smaller bumps or potholes or even turning you can feel it like it's it's a little more pronounced and it's sharper so air suspension smooths things out a lot more some people prefer air suspension i'm one of those people some people actually prefer coil suspension when they feel like they like that firmer grip but yeah this is this is definitely a bit different from model s all right let's give low spark a shot uh probably don't need help parking in a spot this big but not a lot of 40 50 000 cars have auto parts so you pull up in front to the car next to you when you throw it in reverse you get a button that says start press start strangle starts moving car starts moving in reverse by itself and you can look at the rear view mirror if you want but it's going to do everything from this point on without your input this is for those of you who have a fear of parallel parking one thing you do have to get used to though but it didn't take me that long is looking to the right for the speed and generally the stuff that's usually behind the steering wheel there's no tachometer obviously because there's no gears but you still kind of want to know if you're in drive or neutral you want to know your speed you want to know your battery and while you're driving you don't want to look that far off the road but i've actually trained my glance now to go just over to the top corner of the screen instead of behind the wheel it's still just so quiet like when i turn the ac down here no noise no engine noise i mean it's electric makes perfect sense but still something i get used to sometimes you you start to hear every little anything that rattles anything that creaks you'll hear that instead highway driving like this gives you opportunity just to look around the inside of the car and i'm going to echo a lot of things i've like read about this car but you don't really feel that until you're in it visibility with the glass everywhere is awesome rear visibility the glass is huge you have the glass above you and the front glass and the hood slopes down so much that you can you can see right over the front of the nose of the car and you feel like you see just the road right in front of you so now we've made our way up to the edge of the canyons now it was time for some slightly more fun and more uphill canyon driving [Music] tv [Music] all right let's talk efficiency so model 3 is obviously a lighter car than model s so it's gonna have better efficiency slightly better so the past six miles we've been driving uphill to get into these canyons and the watt hour per mile rating that's a relative measure of efficiency for these cars is pretty high it's up over 700 but we're about to turn around and go back down those same six miles and you'll see the rating is of course much lower because that's what happens when you go downhill an electric car regenerative braking let's do it [Music] so doing all this driving in these windy twisty-turny roads up and down the canyons like this you really feel things like the smaller size of this car it's not a compact by any means but it has a smaller steering wheel and the steering ratio is actually tighter so the whole car feels tighter and more agile in handling so it actually handles better but overall yeah the driving reminded me still a lot of my car not as fast obviously but still zippy and smooth and the linear acceleration instead of gear shifting is still pretty unique i kind of love it all right just like i was saying the power of regenerative braking we started at the top of this mountain six miles ago with 233 miles on this car's battery but if you check out our efficiency on the way down we've used an average of negative 163 watt hours per mile which puts us at actually adding to the battery in our past six miles so now at the top we have 238 miles left on the battery right now we're headed out of the mountains leaving now and we're gonna head over to the tld studio which is about 45 minutes i'll show you exactly how many miles that is but we have plenty of range to go so uh i'm gonna go ahead and bring the car to them let them see it for a little bit check it out maybe they'll like it so on our way to john's studio still and this gives me a chance to demonstrate since there's a lot of cars on the road one of i think the most underrated features of any tesla which is autopilot in stop and go traffic that's actually the time that i use it the most so all i do is double tap the stock down which is a little different i kind of miss that dedicated autopilot stock but now i can just not focus on driving i don't have to worry about stopping if the guy in front of me stops my car will stop the guy in front of me goes my car will go it's that simple if there's one thing i learned model 3 has over model s it's that it's more of a unicorn especially out here in california where there are teslas and tesla enthusiasts everywhere this car is is still actually turning heads it's super rare anyway i figured it would also be useful to get some more candid opinions of some youtubers including one future tesla model 3 owner and current reservation holder looks like you've got a laptop up front he's like you left your laptop man yeah i normally don't like red but i like it on this one this is multi-coat red it's different from like the darker founders red which looks kind of brown yeah i like that i'm just doing a little video now that's a plenty of it's pretty cool right it doesn't even take gas wait it doesn't take gas oh wait wait where's the engine so yeah general consensus was no matter how you feel about electric cars yeah this thing is pretty cool just as cool as any other tesla so now as someone who has driven and experienced this model 3 for a little while what are my thoughts on it on the whole experience what you get for the money and are all the upgrade options worth it well at a base price of 35 000 i think it's pretty clear it's the best electric car in the price range right now but that's with no options but the options are worth considering the long range option is 9 000 but that brings you from a base 220 mile range to 310 miles so basically 9000 bucks for 90 more miles but that's basically plus 50 range and for a lot of people that's actually gonna be worth it people with longer commutes and longer daily driving the premium interior also goes a long way for five thousand bucks you go from a metal roof to the glass roof you get a much improved speaker system that for me qualifies as the loudest i've ever heard in a car heated seats power moving seats the wood trim in the front and the leather seats just it seems like a no-brainer to me so go for that the red paint you can totally skip and save your thousand bucks there but it is beautiful then again i am biased and then the 19-inch wheels that are slightly heavier and slightly less efficient you can also skip these no problem and get the baseline 18-inch keep in mind though if you're after performance it might be best to wait all around for an all-wheel drive version of model 3 to be announced and then autopilot for 5000 bucks i don't really see how you can get a tesla and not get autopilot but if you do decide to go that way and then regret it later you can pay a little more to enable it with a software update because every tesla out the factory has all the cameras and all the sensors to make it happen but bottom line i think this is a good looking good driving electric car and for the price it does some things even better than model s right now like the futuristic air conditioner vent that's controlled on the touch screen that can redirect air flow at your face or around your head pretty awesome the bigger area of glass around the back and the top of this car gives you more headroom or just like the little things like the way the front trunk opens and closes easier or the touch screen ui is a little bit cleaner and a little bit faster a lot of the stuff i'd expect to see in a model s refresh pretty soon but it's obviously all still great to see in this cheaper car too so it's pretty clear i'm a fan of the model 3. i was before i came out here to drive it and i still am now now that i have so that's been episode one of autofocus if you enjoyed it definitely hit that like button and let me know what car should i check out next thanks for watching and i'll talk to you guys the next one peace

Channel: Marques Brownlee

Views: 3,185,786

Keywords: Tesla Model 3, Model 3, Model III, Tesla, Tesla Roadster, Auto Focus, Episode 1, Tesla Model 3 Review, Model 3 review, driving Tesla, autopilot, Tesla autopilot, battery, electric car, MKBHD

Id: 9O5PhuW927w

Length: 12min 51sec (771 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 30 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Athabascad]

"Tesla gave me a car to test"

"Car is 35k"

"Car with options is really 57.5k"

"Car should really be compared to others around 50-60k"

"I'm going to compare it to a model S" (a 90k? car)

"I prefer air suspension over model 3 suspension"

"Car has autopilot"

"Car gets 700+ whr/mi uphill, -170 downhill"

"Car is more fun in turns"

"You have to look to the side to see the speedometer"

"Some bloggers I randomly meet love it"

"All the options are worth the money"

"I like red"

[u/ilikethefinerthings]

Not his best video but it was a decent quick look at the model 3 for his mass audience.

[u/SupaZT]

That was a weeks worth of footage? Or just Episode 1 of the model 3?

[u/thisismyfront]

I could be wrong but 238 to 310 range is not a 50% more increase. Seems more like 30%. But I'm not a rocket scientist.

[u/reefine]

That camera work was pretty awful. Disappointing coming from MKBHD. Hopefully he gets a new camera guy and films some more creative stuff.

[u/jipot]

You guys are giving u/Marques-Brownlee a hard time. His specialty is in reviewing smartphones and other tech stuff. Not cars.

MKBHD had the length of this video nailed down. Just search "<your_favorite_car> review" on YouTube and be prepared to be annoyed. Most car reviews tend to be 30+ minutes of pure spec readouts and 10 minutes of "this car doesn't compare to my Ferrari Demon Nimbus Killer 2000"

I have not found any decent car YouTubers, besides, maybe Doug DeMuro. I think if Marques were to improve some of the car visual shots, improved the audio work by using his microphone setup (instead of talking into a camera mic with the wind), and got rid of the weird vlog part at the end, this would have been a solid video.

Otherwise, I enjoyed this Model 3 review more than I have any other review (yes, including Doug's).

[u/langgesagt]

(At 8:30): Probably should have made it more clear that Autopilot is not perfect and the driver is still responsible if something happens.

[u/afishinacloud]

Auto Focus is pretty cool name for a car review series done by MKBHD, given his obsession with cameras. So, great job on the name!

[u/exjr_]

When he demo'ed Autopilot, was that unsafe?

I didn't see the car alerting him to hold the steering wheel, at all (Maybe it was edited to not show this).

But really, in a highway, assuming that you are fully paying attention and you can hold the wheel in time, can you just let the steering wheel go? Does the Model 3 have the same AP warning when not holding the steering wheel as its bigger brothers?