Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Tesla Model 3: One Year Later”.
Thanks to speakin for sponsoring this, video that still never gets old. I’Ve had my model 3 performance now for a little over a year, and i still maintain the price to performance on that. Car is completely unmatched and all the reasons that i got it 14 months ago are still really valid and still a lot of reasons why people would want to get a model 3.. But a lot has changed. A surprising amount has actually changed in that little over a year since i’ve had the car. For starters, the model y is out and easily available. The model 3 has gotten with essentially a 2021 refresh, addressing a lot of concerns that i have with my car and the model. S and the model x have gotten complete design overhauls, especially on the inside. In fact, i was actually planning on getting either an s or an x instead of the three, and i was waiting for this design change and when it didn’t come, i opted to go for the car that had something new inside uh prior to the three i Drove a model x and model s before that, and i didn’t want to look at the same interior for essentially it would have been eight or nine years. So that’s what kind of drew me uh to the model 3..
So now that i am you know over halfway through my two-year lease i kind of began asking myself should i have waited to get the model 3 and did i make a mistake by getting it? I really enjoyed the model 3 and when i picked it up, i think like a lot of people who are going to tesla, there are concerns. So i talk about my family in videos a lot. I have three kids.
My youngest right now is about 20 months, and occasionally i was going to need to drive three kids, which makes the decision to get a model. Three, a curious one, to say the least. I had to strike a compromise essentially with my wife uh, but there has been times when i wish i could have fit three car seats across and i’ve seen the forums.
I’Ve seen the pictures where people show three car seats in the back of a model. Three, it did not work for me, and that was definitely a compromise i knew i was going to have to make going in tesla, with the model. 3 also decided to remove homelink used to be a thing that they included with their cars. You know it’s when you can control your garage from your touchscreen. I had to pay extra to get that installed aftermarket.
That was a an annoyance, an extra cost, but it was one i knew going in, so i can’t be too upset about it, but it would have been nice they’d kept it as an included thing. So there’s a lot of things about the model 3 that i knew were going to be annoyances going in, but there were some things that were kind of surprises. The more i drove the car tesla was evidently was also aware of those things because they fixed almost all of them with the 2021 model 3, which we have right here. So on my car, it came with a lot of chrome trim everywhere.
I didn’t like the look of it, so i paid aftermarket to get a chrome delete essentially put vinyl stickers on top of it. Uh tesla has gone black trim now across all of their cars, and i love the look. It kind of achieves the same thing as the chrome delete on the older cars, but now it’s from the factory and it’s just black trim and it extends everywhere that used to be chrome, i mean so all across here. Even down to the autopilot cameras. Did a really good job with the black trim to me, the car just looks slicker um, especially serving the door handles and right above so my car. I went for the bigger 20-inch performance wheels, mostly because i didn’t like how the aero wheels looked that much tesla’s. Also fixed that their new aero caps on the 2021, they look a little sleeker they’ll help with aerodynamics and increase range. You can also still pull those caps off. You’Ve got a pretty nice looking black underneath you can just buy these little tesla caps here, put it in and it looks pretty close to stock. If you want to go for bigger wheels, though, the new performance wheels are similar to the model wise uber turbine wheels, and i really like those look. Another knock people had on the model 3 and it wasn’t a huge deal for me, but one. I was aware of when i got the car was wind noise, the glass isn’t that thick and there’s a lot of wind noises, you’re driving the car’s, obviously not making any noise.
So you hear everything. There’S been some aftermarket options, but tesla just factory made the glass generally thicker reducing the wind noise. One new feature that you can’t see if you live in cold climates is going to be a huge one. Is a heat pump behind the frunk tesla introduced it with the model y essentially it’ll help the car in colder weather, get the car up to a temperature, that’s more suitable for driving and also inside the cabin and be less of a hit on your range.
Not a big deal here in california, but anywhere where it’s cold you’ll be really happy to have that, and it’s here on the 21 model 3.. So a ton of new stuff happening inside as well like. Obviously, this center console is pretty much all new and redesigns. First, there’s no more piano black glossiness that was everywhere in my model 3. I wrapped it to get rid of it, but the gloss is gone especially here on the door panels.
All that shiny black is really nowhere to be found with the exception of the border. Here on the 15-inch screen, but aside from the materials, this is also all redesigned so the cup holders here our new sliding mechanism is new, where you sort of push it in and it’ll close, there’s now usb type-c ports, the wireless charger is completely redesigned and new To this car, so there was an option you could buy one directly from tesla and install it yourself, there’s a ton of aftermarket options. Now it’s fully integrated in here and has kind of a felt-ish feel to it, and it looks and feels really nice and if you are into big phones, i’ve got the iphone 12 pro max.
There’S actually plenty of room here now with a charger. Even if you had a case on it, which wasn’t the case before with either the tesla wireless charger or the aftermarket one, so that is equally nice to see back. Here, though, i think is the biggest most welcome change to the 2021 model. Three power trunk and i get this – is like a bougie problem and i knew going in it didn’t have a power trunk, but i do like having it.
Sometimes i’m carrying kids or strollers and opening it manually is obviously fine, but it’d be a lot easier to have. You know be able to do it from inside the car from the app and also be able to very simply close it with a button. It’S really nice, so these are all small changes that, like i’ve, noticed that my car was lacking or things i tried to fix and i’m not salty at all about tesla making those changes. I think it’s awesome that they’re listening to consumers and ordinarily really pre-tesla when you bought a car that car was as good as it was ever going to get you weren’t going to get new features after the fact, my model 3 and everybody else who has a Tesla those cars have gotten better because of over-the-air software updates, and i think that is amazing to see and amazing, to have the hardware things that sort of they’ve changed now with 2021 would have been really nice to have, but i can live without them. The software improvements for me have made the car absolutely amazing to experience and treat it more like a smartphone that gets regular updates and the other stuff. You know i knew it going in. I can. I can live without whenever anybody sits in a tesla sort of the things that’s most jarring and different about the cars.
The center screens, especially a model 3 and a model y. A 15 inch display that controls everything is very different than any car that came before it, and it’s covered with glass and like any glass glass can crack and glass can scratch, and glass is also at least to my eye very shiny. So i opted to put a screen protector on top of it. You can fix it with the speaking easy fit. The brand that’s been around for 13 years and if you decide to get a model 3 or model y, this would be the first accessory that you should pick up. It comes in sort of a case that you just put on top of the car peel off a few things and it is installed and done. It protects the screen. First of all, it’s tempered glass. It makes it look matte, so you get less reflections on it.
There’S a clear version as well: that’ll retain the original glossy look of the model. 3. If you just want the protection, you have a choice with what you want to do and which look is best for you again incredibly easy to install. You can see the reason for it from the second. It is in your car protection glare. I think just looking better i’ve absolutely loved having it in my car and if you want to get a model three or model y, owe it to yourself to pick one up. If you’re interested, you want to learn more about it, link to it down below other than those changes that i talked about for the 2021.
The cars are essentially the same, and i have absolutely loved and adored my model 3. But there are some kind of questions that i’ve got so i opted for the full self-driving package. I’M not entirely sure why i did it right now. I’Ve seen very little value in it, but supposedly and allegedly any day, full self driving is going to come to the car it’ll be able to drive itself.
I think that will make the price worth it. The price on full self driving has gone way up since i bought it. I believe about 2500 bucks, it’s a ten thousand dollar package. Now, i’m not sure i would have spent ten thousand dollars on it, especially on elise, but the semi-autonomous features autopilot navigate on autopilot. All of those things have been absolutely amazing and so useful uh to have, and i went for the red, exterior and the white interior.
I had the white on the model x, i’m a guy who wears jeans and i have kids in my car. That might seem like an insane person decision, but the white has held up incredibly well any stains that have been on it can be wiped up very easily and if i wipe down the seats, they look brand new. So if you have any like reservations about getting a white interior, don’t i absolutely love it? I think it makes the cars totally pop when i open the door so range is a concern that everybody has with electric cars right.
You can have enough to get to where you want, so the performance version that i’ve got with the bigger wheels decreased range, and i should have had a max theoretical range of at 100 charge of around 315 miles. Now tesla doesn’t recommend you charge the car fully. They do what’s called like a rain charge. It’S like 90 uh. When i first got the car. My range charge was about 254. It’S now about 247 ish. I don’t know if the software is calibrated differently or if i’ve had some battery degradation.
It’S been plenty uh for me, there have been times that i’ve needed supercharging, and that is still one of the biggest benefits to tesla. Their network of supercharger stations are unmatched. You know, aside from you, know, gas stations for internal combustion cars be able to plug your car in and get power that quickly up to 250. Kilowatts is awesome all right, so the question at the beginning, like did i make a mistake with the model 3.
Should i have waited or got something different? I don’t feel that i made a mistake. If i could go back now, 14 months, i would still happily get the model 3. It has been one of the most fun cars to drive, even if it’s not like the most practical out there. But the car that i was waiting for was the refresh of the model s and the model x, and that’s addressed all the concerns that i had and fixes the problems.
I’Ve got with the model 3., so many new things with the s and the x and still so many questions about it as well. So i mean you got to start like that. Steering wheel is going to be interesting to see how government regulators, actually let them put that in it’s like a yoke style steering wheel, but even more drastic than that odd design, no stocks flanking the steering wheel. So, like turn signal and wipers, and that kind of stuff and gear shifters that were there before are now replaced by buttons and ai tesla is saying the car will know if you want to go and reverse and switch it to reverse.
But it is a drastic departure and i’m here for the new tech cars also have new stuff that they really haven’t had before. You’Ve got ventilated seats, which were originally there on the model x and then got taken out. The center screen now is 17 inches. So two inches bigger than the model 3 and it can rotate there’s a screen in the back now for games or watching movies for people that are sitting back there. The center console itself has pretty much as much computing power as a playstation, 5 and tesla’s gon na be leaning into their arcade. You know functionality. We can actually play real games in your car.
This is a computer powered by ai. That can also get you from place to place whether it’s the s or the x and that’s awesome. I think it’s something that a lot of other car manufacturers are struggling to catch up to. So both cars have what they’re calling plaid options and, if you’re not familiar it’s from movie spaceballs, where, anyway, it’s the fast version of the car. What used to be like the model s plaid is now plaid plus, which gives you over 500 miles of range and a zero to 60 time in under two seconds, which i don’t even comprehend.
What that feels like the big story is, i think, in the range it’s the first tesla. That’S achieved 500 miles electric range, and previously it hadn’t ever been done with the exception of the lucid air which, as of this filming, is not even into production. So we’ll see which of those two cars makes it out first but 500 miles of range.
That is a lot of range and presumably will be enough for almost anybody. It represents kind of the new next generation of electric cars, we’re sort of 200 miles used to be enough for people. Now we have to reset that with 400 and 500 miles, and it’s amazing to see these car trucks make it to the market. Even if folks aren’t going to buy them because of price or features, it does kind of reset the thought process. I think about what electric cars can do and are capable of now.
There’S certainly a significant price difference between the three, the y and the s and the x and my hope, and without having really sat in one of the redesigned cars that the interior quality reflects the price of the cars. It’S been really a knock. I think on tesla, but the very least the cars are different. I look at it like an iphone like it’s a new design.
We don’t get that all the time, and this is a very big deal for tesla, so i’m excited well. I thought originally, my next car is going to be an electric pickup truck. I think my next car is probably going to be another model x.
I love what tesla’s doing with software hardware. Their autonomy features are still unmatched as far as mass-market cars and the battery and the performance of it are amazing. I don’t plan on ever going back to internal combustion cars once i’ve gone electric, it’s hard for me to ever consider it. I have solar panels on my roof, essentially drive my car for free. It’S just been an awesome pairing of performance and technology.
For somebody who reviews tech for a living seems like a no-brainer .