About a year ago I bought a new 2023 Tesla Model 3. I absolutely love it. I can’t imagine owning any other car. Here are eleven thoughts on it.
- The best reason to own it is Total Cost of Ownership. First, I did the math, and I get the equivalent of around 125 MPG. That’s amazing. Second, there are basically no moving parts and almost nothing that will break or go wrong. No oil changes, nothing leaking, no belts or bad alternators. It just runs. The TCO is about that of the lowest end Nissan Versa. Or better.
- The acceleration is fantastic, and very useful in certain situations. It is also very quiet and a very smooth ride
- It is not uncommon for Teslas to be driven 400,000 to 500,000 miles without any major repairs.
- One downer is that because of the amazing torque, it goes through tires faster than other cars. The flip side is that because of regenerative braking — the car uses its kinetic energy to charge the battery while slowing itself down — you don’t use the brakes nearly as much, and they will last much longer.
- Charging it is easy, especially if you keep the car at home. I live in an apartment, and park in a municipal lot right next door that has a ChargePoint charger. Easy-peasy. The one downer is that it does take a modicum of time and planning.
- Long trips aren’t a problem. You just put in your destination and the car plans the whole thing out for you including timed charging stops. No worries.
- It’s a great car for Ubering — I’m making money on the mileage deduction.
- The car is quite smart, and what we normally think of as Cruise Control is great — it goes all the way down to zero, making bumper-to-bumper traffic much easier.
- It doesn’t catch on fire.
- Little amenities that I like:
- It gives a soft tone when the light turns green. Very nice
- It has Spotify which is great.
- Since there are so little to the drive train, the interior and the trunk — including the frunk — are quite spacious.
- The upholstery is some interesting material that is both comfortable and very easy to clean.
- Via a subscription with teslafi.com, I can turn on and off the climate on any schedule I please. It is quite delightful to get into a toast warm car on those cold winter mornings. It’s even warm again when I get done at the gym.
- Teslafi also tracks pretty much everything about the car (which has an API!), including charging, every movement, and efficiency.
- Things I wish it had
- I wish that the car had a way to ensure that you could never rear end anyone. It has all the data for that, but for some reason, it doesn’t do it. Same for stoplights. It could very easily keep you from accidentally running a red light.
- I wish that there were an App Store which would enable more apps. Right now, Tesla provides all the applications. It took forever to add Audible, and I’d give my right arm for a Libby app in the car.
- I wish the User Interface of the computer were better. There are screens where both Blue and Gray mean selected. The climate page disappears very abruptly if you turn the climate controls off. It frequently isn’t obvious how to either make things appear or make things disappear. The software all has the feel like the nerdy software engineers designed the interface and not someone who understands UI/UX.
- The automatic windshield wipers and automatic high beams leave something to be desired.
Overall, it is a great car, and I love it. It is astonishing to me that more aren’t sold.