Here's Why the Tesla Model 3 Is the Coolest Car of 2017

this is the new Tesla Model 3 and it is the coolest car that's coming out this year today I've borrowed this Model 3 from a viewer here in California and I'm gonna show you what I mean now before I get started I should mention that I'm not one of those irrationally crazy Tesla fans with an obnoxious vanity plate like kick gas in fact I've only driven a few Tesla's and I don't hold the brand in higher or lower regard than really anything else but folks this is the coolest car that's come out this year for a little proof consider this tens of thousands of people waited in line outside Tesla dealerships to reserve this car sleeping outside dealerships like it was a Harry Potter movie where's last time you saw someone sleeping outside a car dealership to get a car let me give you a hint there's nobody sleeping outside Toyota of Indianapolis when the new Highlander goes on sale and it's more than that these people were lined up outside these dealerships to give Tesla a $1,000 deposit not so they could bring home a Model 3 today but on the chance that they could bring home a model 3 sometime in the next two years regardless of whether you like Tesla or hate Tesla this car is a phenomenon and that's why it is the coolest car of 2017 or 2018 as it's turning out for most people but that's not the only thing that makes the Model 3 so cool today I'm gonna take you on a tour of this car and I'm gonna show you all of the cool courts and features that make this car so exciting and then I'm gonna drive it and give it a dug score and for more of my thoughts on the Model 3 click the link below to go to autotrader.com slash oversteer where I've written a column about my model 3 experience now before I get started with the quarks I want to give one little disclaimer I'm not some crazy obsessed Tesla fan who's gone on the forums and read all the threads about this car I know a little bit about it but probably not as much as some of the people watching so please don't email me and say oh the windshield break is actually four degrees more than you said I'm gonna get something's wrong I'm sure this is not intended to be a perfect technical briefing it's just sort of a general overview and with that on to the quirks I'm gonna start with maybe the most interesting thing about the Model 3 and that's simply unlocking the door and getting inside now in every other car you walk up with a key and you start pushing the button in and unlocks the doors or you leave the key in your pocket this car you don't do any of that because there is no key instead the key is contained in an app on your phone so I've got the owners phone in my pocket I'm gonna walk up to the car and it's going to automatically unlock as I approach watch the mirror on the driver's side of the car it's set to fold out as the doors unlock and if you watch the mirror you'll see when they unlock as I walk up to it take a look well I can up owners phone in my pocket mirror unfolds and now the doors are unlocked and I can get right in there's no key that you use at any point when you're getting into this car and when you want to get started and go just basically put your foot on the brake put it in Drive and you're gone now if you want to lock your doors it's pretty simple it's basically the exact reverse procedure just walk away with your phone in your pocket and when you get far enough away the doors lock in the mirrors fold right back which is the state they're in right now and you might be wondering what happens if you lose your phone or if you let someone else drive your car how are they gonna get in do they have to bring your phone with them not quite this car has a secondary key situation and it's this it's basically a hotel room key size little key card that you can stick in your wallet and if you lose your phone or your giving you a car to someone else tomorrow simply give them the room key and in order to unlock the car they walk up to the side of it you'll notice it's locked right now because the mirrors fold it in you put the room key here mirror folds out and now the car is unlocked I get inside I place the room key right next to the cupholders and then it's on and I can start driving it now it's working on that key card doesn't have a little slot where you can put it on your key ring but you wouldn't want to do that anyway it's a card that fits in your wallet most owners will simply just use their phone keep it in their pocket unlock lock the doors get in and drive away and the phone app does a lot more than just lock and unlock the doors for example the owner can use the phone to flash the headlights in case you've lost the car in a parking lot in case you've really lost the car you can use the phone to honk the horn you can also use the phone to open the rear trunk or you can use the phone to open the front trunk you can even use the phone to start up the climate control so if you're getting ready to go to work in the morning you can turn on the climate control and have it the perfect temperature when you get inside the car obviously the phone can also be used to control various charging functions and even open the charge port and close it again I'll show you more on that in a minute and another amazing capability of the phone app is it can give remote access to the car no matter where you are so if you let someone borrow the car and they lost a little key card well that's no problem you can unlock the doors from anywhere you don't have to be standing 25 feet away you could be in Europe and you could unlock the doors or charge it or open the charge port if you want to it's all possible from the phone app this is the future this is how it should be and it means that maybe someday soon we won't have to carry around a giant keyring like this won't that be nice about back to the charge port you saw it open just a second ago and I was showing you all the things you can do with the phone but there are about a million ways to open the charge port all of which are interesting now if you want you can just tap it and it pops right open and you can also tap it and it closes that's probably the easiest way but there are several others my favorite is that you can simply walk up to the charge port with the charger itself push a button and then it pops right open now when you insert the charger into the charge port the little status light is a Tesla logo and it pulses in green to let you know that it's charging unplug it and it's blue it's kind of cool to see it change colors the other cool thing about the charge port when you simply walk away after having charged the car it will close automatically so all those ways to close it and open it you don't even have to worry about that it'll do it for you now speaking of that charge port one of the things I like best about it is that it's integrated into the taillights so you never really know it was there unless you're actually charging the car unless you know it's there now on to the back of this car and the trunk this is not a hatchback even though it sort of looks like one it has a regular trunk although there are a couple things about the trunk that are far from regular one of which is just how far up it goes it goes halfway up the c-pillar it's it's almost like it wanted to be a hatchback but it just couldn't and so now the trunk is open and there are a couple of interesting things worth noting inside of it in fact there are three especially noteworthy things inside the trunk the most unusual of which to me is the fact that if you get inside the trunk and you look up at the ceiling of the trunk you'll see sort of a little see-through grate there it's very uh it's almost like they put that in there so people could look into the trunk and see what you're carrying case they want to rob you instead it's probably there to dissipate air when you close the trunk because it has to go somewhere the other two interesting things in the trunk number one is there's a little area where you can store small items below the floor of the trunk and I really like the fact that they cover over this area sort of flips right up so you can rest it against the ceiling of the trunk that means that it's easy to just close again and speaking of items you load into that area take a look at the charger bag and you'll notice something about the charger bag it's sort of this material that would slide around in the trunk if you're going around corners so Tesla has smartly fitted it with some velcro stick it on the trunk and then it won't slide around you'll always have your charger stuff now since we're talking about the rear trunk we might as well move on to the front trunk or the front as some people call it now because there's car doesn't have a huge combustion engine up front they can put an extra storage up here a trunk and in fact they have it's not that big but it is relatively large you can stick some stuff in here and there is a little escape light all trunks by law must have a little way to get out of them if you're stuck inside so you can't be kidnapped and stuffed in a trunk in this car it's actually really cool in the front they've integrated it into the regular trunk light so the trunk light lights up so you can see what's in there or you can push the trunk light and it's a latch to get out I'm not really sure exactly who can fit inside this trunk but I suppose they just have to do it no matter how big the trunk is for regulations couple of other interesting things inside the trunk one of which is there are little grocery bag hooks so if you don't want your groceries to fly around you can use these hooks just stick them on there the other thing that I find interesting is the fireman's label this is a label for firefighters and it shows exactly where they have to cut in order to disable the battery so this thing doesn't blow up now there's also one of those labels in the rear trunk but while the front trunks label makes it seem like you can easily disable the power supply with I don't know it are some sort of gardening tool in the back you need to take a saw to the c-pillar and that makes it a little bit more challenging in order for the model three not to explode after an accident now when it comes to closing the front it's actually a little bit more difficult than I expected it closes initially pretty easily just like this like it is in a lot of other cars but then when you actually close it you have to put some force here in order to get it to close all the way now before I move into the interior of the model through a couple of other interesting exterior details starting with the windshield wipers there a couple interesting things about the windshield wiper is one of which is that when they're off they're sort of tucked in as low as they can possibly be almost underneath the hood for aerodynamic purposes getting them off the windshield let's air pass over the car makes the car more slippery and it increases the range probably anyway the most interesting thing about the wipers is that in order to get them down there they had to kind of weirdly shape the bottom of the windshield take a look at this it sort of comes to like a widow's peak point under the hood and it isn't even symmetrical but they had to do that in order to find a spot for the windshield wipers to fit another interesting thing about the model three it doesn't say model three on this car anywhere the only place where it does is when you open the doors says model three and only aluminum sill plates other than that you don't know what you're looking at in fact it doesn't even say Tesla it only has the Tesla badge in the front and the back otherwise nothing all right now it's time to get inside the model three I've already shown you how to lock it unlock the doors at the phone actor with the little hotel keycard but how about the door handle itself now if you're familiar with the Model S the door handle pops right out it doesn't do that in this car instead to open the door you push the back of the door handle the front part comes out and you open it right up it's actually pretty simple now I'll get into the specific quirks of the interior in a second but I want to talk about maybe the quirkiest thing of all about this interior and that is just how simple it is when you get in this car it's hard not to just be amazed and you get into all sorts of other cars and there's buttons and switches everywhere and this thing there's so little basically no labels or buttons anything to distract you but this is just a complete 180 from more and more complicated car interiors that you might be seeing okay so I've shown you how to get in the car using the exterior door handles now it's time to move on to the interior door handles but they're not handles at all this car is way cooler than that and said they're just little buttons you push it and the button unlatches the door and it also swings it open a couple of inches then you have to do the work from there now interestingly those buttons are electronic so if the battery dies they won't work fortunately Tesla has placed a manual solution on the front doors it's right above the window switches you pull it and then you manually unlatch the door in case the battery dies in the electronic buttons don't work but notice I only said on the front doors the rear doors don't have a manual door release so you're driving along your model 3 and you're in the back seat of the battery device you won't be able to get out the back doors because your button won't work and say you'll have to climb into the front seats and use the manual release up front now interestingly you're not supposed to use that emergency interior door release regularly only in an emergency because when you do use it a little bit morning light pops up on the center screen and tells you that it could damage the window trim if you use it which is interesting now speaking of the windows I'm going to start this interior tour in the back and one of the most interesting things about the back of the car is the rear windows they roll down but not all the way not even close to all the way it's actually kind of interesting there's like six inches of window still left when the window is all the way rolled down now the rear seat is a bench and it folds down if you have stuff in the back that's too large for the trunk there are three seats back here two on either side and one in the center and it's pretty roomy this seat is moved all the way forward so of course I can lie down but I can even sit behind the driver seat which position how I would said and it would be tight but it would be fine and I'm six foot four now if you don't have someone in the middle seat you can put the center armrest down goes down pretty easily and it's just like any other center armrest it's leather it has a couple of cupholders it's pretty simple the most interesting thing I think about the center seat is that the center headrest raises which means that you can have someone in middle and you can give them a headrest and if they're not there you can put the headrest down for better visibility another interesting thing above each rear window this car has little coat hangers and when you push them they pop out ever so slowly so you can hang your coats it doesn't have those handle things in back like some cars do where you can hang your coats instead these coat hangers aren't what you're gonna use alright moving on to the front seats we have a few different storage areas there's a little storage area in the center console pretty standard there's the cupholders also pretty standard there's a storage area in front of the couple which was actually surprisingly deep and then there's my personal favorite that would be the storage area right under the giant Center screen now the reason I like this one is because it has little slots where you can just stick your phone and you can charge it while you drive underneath the storage area that plugs into a USB so you can switch out if you have an iPhone or an Android or whatever now the coolest thing about this is you can just stick your phone in there while you're driving you never take your eyes off the road and a phone will charge and you could just use the screen for everything and then when you get out of the car you have to remember that your phone is plugged in there it's worth noting however that the lid is a little finicky it uses a magnet to stay down and if you push too hard it pops back up you have to close it just right for the magnet to hold it in place a couple of other things before we move on to the center screen which is probably the most interesting part of the car one of those things is the hazard lights now I believe it's a federal regulation that the hazard lights must be an actual physical button so Tesla couldn't integrate it into their screen which has basically everything else but they didn't want to clutter there they're simple interior with a hazard light button so instead they stuck it on the ceiling so I'm you're looking for the hazard lights on a Model 3 it's up here next to the driver's head and at the top of the windshield also interesting and that part of the screen are the stalks that come out of the steering column they have your normal function on them the one on the Left controls the turn signals and it also controls the windshield wipers annoyingly it's one of those turn signal stocks like BMW that doesn't stay in position you put it on and then it pops back into the middle so you never really know if your turn signals on or off over on the right is the gear shifter you move it from reverse to neutral to drive if you put it in park by pushing the end of the stock and maybe most interestingly if you want to turn on cruise control or autopilot you double tap the stock down and that turns it on also interesting are the Sun visors you open them just like any other Sun Visor but the cover over the visor mirrors this flimsy little piece why is it so flimsy because it's a magnet this way you can stare at yourself with how it affecting your forward visibility with the visor down and next up is the climate control vent which is another really interesting thing in this car I say vent because there's just one it is a giant climate control vent that goes across basically the entire dashboard and when you adjust the climate setting using the screen the giant climate control event does whatever you tell it to but that's not the most interesting part of the climate control vents the most interesting part is right above the little wood trim there is a second vent and that's the one that directs the air basically the way it works is the air blows on you when it's in its default position it just blows out of the giant vent and on to you now if you want it to blow up words instead of events under the dashboard changing their position the secondary air vent behind the wood paneling that starts to blow upwards and it changes the direction of the air that's coming out of the giant vent so it blows higher in the car this is totally crazy it's a bizarre solution to changing the direction of the air fan how do you control where that air comes out why that would be the center screen of course the center screen is gigantic it is incredibly responsive to your touch and it is completely fixed you can't move it and it's actually really really thickly stuck on there even if you want to try to push it around and do whatever with it it doesn't go anywhere it's really bolted down and it has some amazing functionality let's take a look first off it's truly amazing how responsive this center screen is better than any other screen in any other car just move around your finger and the map moves without any lag or delay and of course pinch-to-zoom works perfectly this is just as good as the screen on the very best phones next up it's time to cover it's the items along the bottom starting with the windshield defogger it's normally white but tap it once and it turns blue for cold air tap it again it turns red for warm air the next button is the rear window defroster which of course just turns red when you turn it on then there's the icon for the heated seats push it once for full heat and push it a couple other times to lower the heat next up is climate control which is incredibly easy to adjust and when you turn it up all the way you'll be stunned how much air comes out of that giant Center then it feels like a hurricane inside this car just listen for a second what are those weird icons on the side of the climate controls that's the position of the center vent move around the dial and it moves around where the air is coming out on the driver's side but the coolest part is if you push this little icon it splits the air vent and now you have even more control over where it comes out of course you have the same functionality on the passenger side meaning you can have two vents driver and passenger or three or forward if you split the vents the next buttons are fairly straightforward the music icon brings up the radio the phone icon brings up the phone controls and of course volume brings up volume which is a bit annoying I think we'd all rather have a traditional circular dial on the left side of the screen you have the gear you're in in the warning lights and that's also where the car displays the speed you're traveling in the turn signals note that it's not directly in your line of sight you can also use the left part of the screen to open the front trunk push it and it opens or to open the rear trunk same deal push it and it opens the screen is also yet another place where you could open the charge port though it conflicts with the trunk you can't open the charge port if the trunk is open when the trunk is closed you can use the screen not only to open the charge port but also to close it and when you do anything with the charge port it brings up the cars current charging information showing its range letting you pick what percentage you want to charge it to and providing a scheduled charge option to allow you to take advantage of lower power rates overnight also on the left side of the screen swipe over and you can find the windshield wiper controls there on the left stock shared with the turn signal but you can also turn on and off the wipers using the screen but the most interesting item is the button on the bottom left as it brings up the car settings this is where you do basically everything in fact this is where you turn on and off the headlights it's also where you do something really cool adjust the mirrors and the steering wheel this is by far my favorite center screen related item now when you get inside the car you'll notice that there are two little wheels on the steering wheel do they control volume the track that's probably what you think but actually they control a lot of different stuff depending on what you're doing if you're in the stereo yes they can control the volume in the track but if you're in the car settings they can control for example the mirror movement move the wheel up or down and it adjusts the position of the mirror move the little control to the left or to the right and it also adjust the position of the mirror and of course the control on the other side of the steering wheel adjust the other mirror and it doesn't there check this out put it in steering wheel adjustment mode and those little wheels adjust the position of the steering wheel one of them tilts it up and down the other one telescopes it forward and back and yes as I showed you the school wheels go up and down of course that they also go left to right and they feel pretty high-quality they don't feel like they're about to fall out of it jiggly or anything you got to admit this is a lot cooler than the volume button on your car steering wheel back to the center screen there's no switch for the dome lights instead you turn them on and off right here and they respond quickly to whatever you set the next interesting cab is for driving and we must talk about the little setting for creep creep is one of the most interesting things now you know how in your car your automatic car when you let your foot off the brake it sort of rolls forward just a little bit well in this car that's configurable you can turn it off and then it won't roll forward or you can turn on and then it will roll forward like a typical automatic car it's something you can change you can change everything about this car there's also an autopilot tab for Tesla's automated cruise control system it lets you set your following distance and there's a tab for safety in security which oddly is how you set your parking brake normally you won't need one of course but if you're on a big hill you also use the screen to open the cars glove box as for the buttons on top use this one to lock and unlock the doors this one is home link linked to your garage door opener and it's aware of your location meaning it pops up as you get into your neighborhood and it senses you'll want to open your garage door the last item opens up some model three Easter eggs my favorite of which is the little drawing program that lets you paint a nice little picture as you drive down the street the other interesting one is the planet push it in the image of your car becomes a rocketship push it again and it goes back to being a car again one other cool thing in the screen when you put this car in reverse obviously the backup camera comes up that's not particularly interesting but check this out when you get really close to something it doesn't just start beeping or show you with a little red green how close you are instead it tells you the exact number of inches away from something you are so you can perfectly Park this car in your garage exactly where you want it so those are all the cool quirks and features of the model 3 it's amazing how many interesting quirks you can pack into a little midsize compact sedan thing and now it's time for me to do something I know thousands of you are waiting for the chance to do I'm gonna take the model free out on the road I feel like the coolest guy in California right now and this is the kind of place where people are gonna recognize this if I was in Texas people be like is just a Tesla but here everybody knows the differences they're all really obsessed they're hyper obsessed alright so I'm driving along for it okay wow that that's pretty quick let's do that again Wow you know I Drive a lot of fast cars and so that's you know it's not like a Ferrari but there's two aspects of that speed that really are impressive number one is obviously that it's noiseless I mean that's incredible you put your foot down and you hear nothing and the other one is you put your foot down immediately you just hear it's incredible how fast it just happens from the stuff that feels reasonably quick but it's still a heavy car that has to get going where it really feels impressive is when you're going 40 and you put your foot down that's where this car is I think really gonna take over BMW and all them it just those cars have to gear down a couple gears and the engine has to spool up and this thing you know you're cruising along at 25 26 27 28 whoa okay now one of the things that people who have driven this car have talked about is the the center screen obviously takes the place that even the gauge cluster so when I look directly ahead of me it doesn't show the the speed that I'm going I have to look over to the side and I do find that a little bit disconcerting I think that you'd get used to it and it's worth noting even though that's been a huge deal it's not all that uncommon the Saturn Ion had the gauges in the middle the Nissan Quest did the BMW z8 did it's not even unusual performance cars so this isn't the first car where people have to look into the center but of course I'm used to looking directly forward and I find it to be a little bit unusual now the owner tells me the most unusual part of it is the turn signals the speed you get used to quickly and it's kind of in your periphery it's a pretty big font and it's sort of right there at the top corner of the screen the problem is the turn signals and I can totally see that when you put on the turn signal it's not blinking right in front of your face it's sort of over on the side and it's a rather small little indicator that shows that the turn signal is on and so you have to kind of remember that the signal is on steering is is quite precise it's kind of interesting it's very responsive the moment you start to turn the wheel the car starts to make a turn even like a lane change or something like that and as a result it's very predictable it's very it has a very linear steering feel it doesn't have any bond Center vagueness the moment you start to turn it it starts to turn so it's not like you know your grandfather's old Lexus where you can move it an inch in either direction and nothing happens it turns quite quickly I will say it's very light steering as is the case in most modern you know sort of luxury cars it's not a sports car in that sense the steering is designed it's sort of over assisted designed to make it easy for you to turn I've switched the steering mode over to sport the moment you do it you can feel it's heavier it's still just as as immediately responsive as it was a second ago but it just feels instantly it feels heavier it's not it's still not sports car heavy it's not like I'm driving around and like a you know Miata or anything like that but it does feel like it's tightened down it's very quiet obviously I mean it's a it's an electric car there's no engine but it's very quiet when you're stopped now you do hear exterior noise you hear other cars driving by it's not bad it seems like about normal I think the zero to sixty number doesn't tell the whole story I think that that really the speed comes in when you're going 40 and you for it that's where you really really kick you if you're in a Model 3 and you come next to some guy at a 340 I at a stoplight you won't beat him but if you're going 50 you probably will the right quality seems about normal we're on kind of a rough road here it's not it's not dramatically comfortable I think it feels a lot like a c-class or a 3-series the owner tells me that the this car has 18 inch wheels is the upgraded wheel and the 18s are supposedly more comfortable but I don't find it to be that bad I mean if you're used to driving sort of sporty little sedans 3-series that sort of thing I think you'll find it about about normal one thing I think that's important to point out there's no creaking rattling jiggling of stuff inside the car I don't hear any of that stuff there's obviously a lot of concern in question about quality with these cars we all know that some of the early X's had some panel fitment issues and obviously they're very delayed with the production of this car and so there's like well why are they delayed you know our that yeah they're issues quality it doesn't actually I mean this this sounds and feels like any other vehicle any c-class 3-series that you would buy off a production line the visibility is really is really pretty good the mirrors are normally shaped or a little on but they show exactly what you'd expect them to you get a ton of visibility out the front the back I don't see any visibility issues obviously this one has this giant panoramic roof and so there's you can see in every direction in terms of room roominess obviously I'm six foot four and so people always emailing Maskull hot tall you and how do you fit news times in this car I fit just fine it's completely comfortable and normal my knees have a lot of room I have a lot of room my legs have a lot of room a Headroom I got six inches or 4 inches or something above me in a glass roof you know I wasn't expecting anything crazy ultimately this isn't some weird sports car where it's like some sort of problem to get into now one of the things that impresses me about this car is it feels a lot like a normal car which is kind of the point I think of Tesla you can get all these cool things and you can get out of the future of you know propulsion but you don't have to make weird compromises you know I'm sitting here right now and looking at the thing it's this is 271 miles until ride time that's a long distance you don't have to do weird weird things like you know there's a hump in the rear because there's some battery situation it's not a craft this car is this cars just well engineered I think a great compliment that I can pay this car and I feel this way is that it's a car and it feels like a car I personally would prefer having engages directly in front of me or at least this like the mini like that Mini has all the stuff in the middle but then it has a little speedometer thing and a couple of other things right in front of you and I would prefer that I don't love having to look all the way over I think it kind of makes it a little bit more challenging I feel pretty confident oh wow Wow I mean I didn't really slow down that was a 90-degree turn but with a little the old thing I didn't really slow down on mine I took that at 30 35 miles an hour and it felt really good the tires didn't get loose and it didn't feel like sort of the tall car that I think it kind of looks like all right I'm gonna fawnia the autopilot I'm on the worst road with the worst lane lines my autopilot is not an exciting thing anymore right they pay everybody's kind of it was about it and I seen it it's turning and it's kind of losing the leg these lines are horribly painted but it's a tannery it better than I expected I think it's doing a better job keeping it within the lane lines that drivers from Maryland I'm also surprised by the build quality I think it's I think it's pretty good you know there's a little there's a little bit of panel fitment issue on between the driver door on the pillar I mean there's little things here and there there's a little bit of wind ROG I'm especially a little bit just putting the steering wheel there's some plastic on it it doesn't look all that nice Mercedes has this really nice looking steering wheel that the nave looks like a performance car or a luxury car or whatever but I think these are minor gripes and I think the complaints that I handle at this car are outweighed by the benefits I think people who have who put in reservations and gave that thousand dollars and I'm the theory that they might get one of these at some point I think they're gonna be happy with what they're come on and so that's the new Tesla Model 3 I don't care if you like Tesla or you hate Tesla and I understand a lot of the arguments on both sides but you have to admit this car is a sensation it is absolutely the most anticipated and coolest car that's coming out in 2017 I flew all the way across the country just to drive this car and check out its quirks and features and now to give it a dug score starting with the weekend categories and styling the model 3 is attractive but I don't think anyone would consider it gorgeous or beautiful it's maybe a little more attractive than average and it gets a 6 out of 10 acceleration this is the long-range model which is an upgrade and it does 0 to 60 and 5.1 seconds the base model will do it in 5.6 the 5.1 second figure gives this car a 5 out of 10 handling is good quite impressive but 6 and above the sports car territory and it's not quite there with light steering in a large four-door car to move around so it gets a 5 out of 10 next up it's cool factor and this one should not be in dispute if this car showed up at your local Cars and Coffee people would say what law firm and Moffat to see one of the first model threes in the world and it gets a nine out of ten same as the Lexus LFA one shy of the Porsche 918 Spyder the Doge score is dynamic and I suspect this number will change as model three production ramps up and they start to become more common as for importance it's not quite as high as cool factor but this is among the first electric cars with these sorts of numbers that's within reach of normal people the base model will go 220 miles for $36,000 and for nine grand more the long range one will go 334 miles which is an impressive figure that's a big deal in the car world then it gets an 8 out of 10 bringing the total weekend score to 33 out of 50 next up for the daily categories starting with features the model 3 is loaded with stuff but some things are still delayed to my knowledge it still doesn't have a traditional am/fm radio which is supposedly coming soon with an update still this car is the future and it feels like it and it gets a 9 out of 10 as for comfort it has a good solid ride not like an ultra high-end luxury car but a luxury car befitting its price tag and it gets a 7 out of 10 quality is a sore spot the interior is certainly not in the level of BMW or Mercedes especially that relatively ugly steering wheel but build quality wasn't as bad as I was expecting still first year of a new model from a new company I'm giving it a 6 out of 10 but if this car turns out to be shockingly reliable I might raise that next up is practicality in the model 3 is 14 cubic feet of cargo space would give it a 5 but the fact that it's fully electric and it's long range easily bumps that figure up to a 6 out of 10 finally there's value in the model 3 is an odd proposition it does 0-60 in five point one seconds placing it just short of a BMW 340i but it's five grand cheaper but the interior isn't as nice as the BMW and the model 3 doesn't quite handle as well but the model 3 has more tech more cool tech and model 3 is the hotter new model still top level model threes with all the fixin's will cost sixty to seventy thousand dollars that's big money so value can't go higher than a 7 out of 10 add it all up in the total daily score is 35 out of 50 placing it near the top and making it the highest car in its price range add it all up and the total dug score is 68 out of 100 which is by far the best score yet for a car at this price level admittedly a few points are due to its cool factor at the current moment so it could drop a bit but it's still a strong figure with good showings in both daily and weekend categories which makes sense this is a great all-around car [Music]

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 10,285,110

Rating: 4.7101603 out of 5

Keywords: tesla model 3, model 3, tesla 3, new tesla, model 3 review, tesla review, tesla model 3 review, tesla, cool tesla, newest tesla, doug demuro, demuro

Id: te6VqldjTT8

Length: 32min 19sec (1939 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 06 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/majesticjg]

Lots of positive comparisons to the BMW 3 and Mercedes C, which is exactly what Tesla's going for. It doesn't blow either competitor out of the water, but it's competitive in its price class and has the Tesla cool factor and tech.

After all, the BMW 3 series doesn't have much available driver assistance tech at all, so even if you want it, it's not available. I'm not sure about the Mercedes C, but I also don't know how good Mercedes' ADAS system is right now. I've seen so many mixed reviews, you gotta be sure you're reading a review of the 2017 iteration.

I'm really hoping the S and X get a 3-style interface fairly soon. That looks very polished.

[u/3FEV]

I am amazed /u/doug-demuro managed to get his hand on a Model 3 this early, but I am happy he did! It is good to see an unbiased review!

[u/passim]

20 minutes of features and quirks before even driving! I loved it.

[u/PostYourSinks]

Never thought about it this way but I love that, if you have a Model 3, you can call your car keys if you lose them.

[u/TeriusRose]

OK, I had my doubts about the center screen functionality before I saw this video, and I have to say this completely erased whatever concerns I had. That is just fucking cool. I already knew the trackball things were contextually aware, but they work a lot better than I feared they would. And that aside, is it my imagination or is the screen working far better than we've seen in some other videos on this sub? I swear there was one that just showed it to be a glitchy crashing mess.

I think Tesla still has some room for improvement in some areas, and I personally believe going with a sporty suspension over something a bit softer is kinda questionable... but I'm really damn impressed!

That aside, as always thanks u/Doug-DeMuro for doing such a great job explaining everything!

[u/luxendary]

He's my most favorite car reviewer! Was waiting for this so badly!

[u/ayyitsjameslmao]

but does it have BUMPER TO BUMPER insurance warranty?

[u/Lintrix]

I love watching Doug's videos! I was secretly hoping Tesla met their delivery est for me (OCT-DEC 2017) so I can have him do a review of mine, but it looks like someone beat me to it!

[u/HoratioDUKEz]

Loved the video, as a major fanboy even I learned something - didn't know about the weird shaped widows peak windshield. I will refrain from posting the couple of tiny inaccuracies I heard ;) Great job.