Tesla Model 3 Review - 6 Months Later

The Tesla Model 3 may very well be the most important car of our time. With its release, the Model 3 ushers in a new era of affordability around electric vehicles accompanied with the sales and scale never seen before for an EV after only one for over six months it's time to dive deep and take a look and if the Model 3 has lived up to the hype we'll look at which core features have been the most important what issues we've had thus far and what could be improved with the car the first thing I got my Model 3 all I could think about doing was throwing up to actually become a Tesla owner was surreal what was I going to wreck the car would it live up to the hype a million things were going through my head when I was actually signing the paperwork for my Model 3 which took like five minutes by the way in stark contrast to the normal experience at a car dealership my first day of ownership was more about the car and not about the paperwork most of the time I spent at the Tesla store was on an overview of the car and an overview of its features looking back on the first day of ownership now I was right to be nervous and filled with excitement this car has matched and exceeded all of my expectations and to say the Model 3 is a great car is an understatement in my book it is the best car you can get for its price range. So what makes the Model 3 so good? Let's dive in. First the looks this car simply looks stunning the design language is clearly Tesla and it turns people's heads everywhere you go they've done a good job making a great-looking electric car which is something almost no other car manufacturer has been able to do at scale up until this point it doesn't look like a weird mobile and it also doesn't look like an ordinary car which let's be honest if you're going to try to get people to switch to driving an electric car you actually need to make that car look like something that people will actually desire Tesla gets this and has exceeded at this with their design language the grille this front angry headlights sharper lines that run the length of the car towards the hips all work in tandem to make the model three look aggressive but not too aggressive the interior is just as stunning as the exterior and also turns a few heads with how sparse clean and simple it looks it's also quite practical I love the storage space and the phone dock as well as the USB ports up front going to the model threes into your ear from any other car that has a ton of buttons and gauges it's like going from a phone with a physical keyboard to an iPhone and once you go to this experience you're never going to want to go back now when the model 3 was first announced having one screen in the center of the dash without anything behind the steering wheel caused a bit of an uproar in the Tesla community and in the media questions arose like how we ever see the speed and is that even safe so after six months of owning the car was all of that discussion and concern valid no it wasn't not having a screen or gauge in front of you is actually pretty free Tesla was able to make the steering wheel smaller allowing for better grip and ergonomics thanks to its nifty vent design technology you can actually push air through the steering wheel at your face which on a hot summer day has been a very welcomed feature looking over at the top left corner of the display to read the speed only took me a few hours to get used to and now that I'm used to it I can't say it's any different than just reading the speed from behind the steering wheel plus Tesla gives you a speed chime that you can set in the car as well and it's something that I actually use a lot you can set the car to give you a chime when you hit a certain number over the current speed limit some people would probably find this chime annoying but I highly recommend setting it when you first get the car if you're not used to how a Tesla accelerates I found it hard to figure out how fast the car was going when I first got it without looking at the speedometer so the chime certainly helps ergonomics is something Tesla thought a lot about with the Model threes interior design and honestly I think overall it's better than the interior design of the Tesla Model S the cupholders are where they should be there are pockets and the door coat hooks the arm rests on the console and the doors are very comfortable and my arms never get sore the seats are also one of the most comfortable seats I've ever sat in in a car I've taken the car on six-hour road trips and never felt sore which is something I personally have never experienced before riding in a motor vehicle another nice thing about the interior especially on long road trips is the premium sound system it's crisp it has a nice base and it's one of the best sound systems of any car that I've ever experienced and it's become one of my absolute favorite features of this car maintenance of the interior has been pretty minimal thankfully since everything in the model 3 is pretty easy to clean the seats are very durable since they're made out of a vegan leather the only area of the car that is not very easy to clean is that piano black finish on the center console even if you take a ton of precautions and try not to get any scratches you're just gonna end up seeing micro scratches on that thing almost no matter what you do even if you use microfiber cloth it's almost inevitable that you will see some scratching on that material now on to driving the Tesla Model 3 after six months the thing I still can't get over is the electric torque this thing produces its quick and the non performance version for me has been plenty fast in day to day situations where I'm not trying to impress my friends it's basically like Elon said in the past it's like owning your own personal rollercoaster and even after six months of ownership I still feel good every time I punch it what powers that great instant acceleration of course is the model threes electric motors and battery having an electric car over the past six months has taught me a lot and I found that I actually enjoy having an electric car more than I thought I would I start off every morning with the equivalent of a full tank of gas and I don't have to go to gas stations anymore which I don't miss at all especially in situations where people are freaking out over an inch I mean hurricane like they did this past summer and all the gas stations in the area started running out of gas I didn't have to panic at all with the model 3 which was great the only downside I found with owning an electric car of the past six months is with road trips no matter how you look at it typically it will take you longer to drive an electric car on a trip than a gas car because of the limits on the cars range as well as the time it takes to charge now there are some ways you can mitigate that extra time on road trips and something that I did on the several road trips I took this year with my model 3 was to plan my charging stops during meals so that way by the time I was finished eating the car was charged up and ready to go either to the next super charging spot or to my end destination the upside still vastly outweigh any of the negatives that you may experience when going on a road trip you're still getting that instant torque comfortable interior and drive and that awesome software that comes on the model 3 is screen the software on the model 3 is amazing and it's been so interesting to have a car that just like my cell phone receives regular software updates and these are just little small improvements or bug fixes sometimes these software updates are major features that are released to the car or major overhauls to the cars UI in my experience I've gotten several new features since taking delivery including a new version of autopilot with 360 degree view on the center display of the cars around the model 3 blind spot visualization on the center screen a dash cam feature Auto high beams and better regenerative braking intensity the software is snappy and responsive the navigation is hands-down one of the most useful things I've come to love about my model 3 it's easy to navigate anywhere you just swipe down on the navigation bar to either go home or go to work the live traffic built in is a godsend the live traffic is also built into the navigation which will route you on the fastest route which in my testing has been equal to the experience I get with Google Maps routing safety is another area where the model 3 has held up over the past six months it's been given one of the highest safety ratings ever given to a vehicle here in the US by our government and I've already had some experience with its safety features including the forward collision warning which has saved me from accidentally running into a car once I've also experienced the side collision avoidance system and it does work as advertised I had a truck coming in to my lane all of the sudden and before I had time to react my Tesla moved into the other lane avoiding the truck while still sounding and alert now let's move on to reliability I put out a video early on into my ownership of the Model 3 and it proved to be a bit controversial with all of the issues I ran into most of them were minor issues the charge port door sensor wasn't working correctly so the entire charge port door assembly was replaced the driver's side windshield wiper was loose and scraped the underside of the hood and caused a chunk of the wiper blade to fall off as well as the hood wasn't aligned properly Tesla fixed all of these issues early on however when they realign the hood they did scratch the paint in several areas of the car causing the car Daffy to go to a body shop for repair and lead paint when the car came back from the body shop the steering wheel had scratches on it so that that also had to be replaced the only other issues I've had that have been more recent are that the center armrest squeaks when you pull it up and the rubber part above the wood panel on the dash is actually discolored a metal piece fell out of the charge port door it appears that the adhesive Tesla used for this metal piece just doesn't hold up well in colder climates now while these issues do sound like a lot and chirp it has been a longest list at least to me it just doesn't feel like that big of a deal I have felt very taken care of by Tesla they've done everything they've can and done all the right things to fix the car the total time my car's been in the shop has been about two to three weeks which may sound like a long time for a lot of people out there but do keep in mind that what all my car was in the shop I was given a Tesla Model S loaner which made it very hard to complain about the time that my car spent in the shop because I was just whizzing around town you know going ludicrous speed and just having fun while on the subject of things that didn't go correctly with my Model 3 let's talk about some of the things that I think could be improved with the car the largest area in the Tesla Model 3 and all Tesla's for that matter that needs to be improved is the music streaming service availability currently all the cars come free with Slacker which has been fine but it's just not a great experience because Slacker is more like pandora than Spotify when you ask slacker to play a specific song it's going to start a radio station of that song rather than just playing the song outright like you would expect on most major other music streaming services another area of improvement Tesla could focus on with the model 3 is the windshield wipers the auto wiper mode has been inconsistent though it has gotten better in the past few months it still doesn't work well at night though which makes sense given the Tesla's using the auto pilot cameras to sense rain well the aerodynamics of the car are extraordinary one consequence of that is dirt seems to collect at the back of the car a lot more than anywhere else which makes sense given how water comes down the back glass and drips down the lid and deposits dirt in that area here's a short list of some other improvements I think could be made to the car as well a more scratch resistant black finish on the console and a manual release for the two front doors that is less accessible so passengers don't extinct if Lee pull it first before pressing the button to try to get out of the car with all of these improvements and minor issues I've had with my model 3 I'm still in love with this car and don't regret my purchase for a second what Elon Franz JB and all the other Tesla teams have done with this car is nothing short of extraordinary once you get a model 3 you'll never want to drive any other car and that's certainly how I still feel 6 months later thanks so much for watching this video if you like this video please be sure to give us a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel if you'd like to see more Tesla videos like this one thanks again for watching for 6 Months Later Reviews, I'm Josh Teder.

Channel: 6 Months Later Reviews

Views: 1,212,995

Rating: 4.5264764 out of 5

Keywords: Tesla, Model 3, Review, 6 Months Later, Features, Issues, Improvements, Driving, Road Trips, Upkeep, Software, Electric Car Ownership, Dashcam, Josh Teder, Raleigh

Id: HKHI8PWCXVc

Length: 13min 14sec (794 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 17 2018