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

Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “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.. 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 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 gon na 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 gon na 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 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 tv all right. Let’S talk efficiency, so model 3 is obviously a lighter car than model s, so it’s gon na 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 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 gon na 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 gon na 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 gon na, 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 .