So who is getting a Model 3?

[RobDickinson]

Blaster72 said:

Ta for the link to the other story though, seems the brakes again need an upgrade. Understandable though with a road car on circuit.

TBH theres very few saloon cars you'd be ale to track hard and not cook the brakes.

I assume the p3D will have uprated brakes it does from what I can tell. Shouldnt be much heavier than the normal one.



The new options I think will add about $1/2 billion in revenue this year to tesla - not sure how significant that will be

[Blaster72]

Any idea what that performance upgrade option is Rob? Is that uprated brakes, motors etc??

[RobDickinson]

Dunno.
Carbon spoiler, 20 inch wheels and uprated interior.

Looks like more tweaked and tested motors - one ac Induction and one switched reluctance partial permanent magnet in the rear, silicon carbide inverters.
No idea on brakes etc

[caseys]

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/05/elon-musk-twe...

BMW M3 rival surely...?

[FurtiveFreddy]

A few more photos from my extended test drive....

View from the driving seat. Note very small rear view mirror and high rear shelf which restricts view out the rear to a certain extent.


Wearing polarised sunglasses caused a small problem (looks worse here than in real life). A different screen protector might help?


All the mirrors are too small IMO


Looks are subjective, but I quite like it


Seats folded from another angle


One for the geeks


Standard 18" rim with cover removed (owner waiting for delivery of centre caps).


Visited another Supercharger on the last day. Plug in, do some shopping in the mall, drive home. Very civilised.


To add 151 miles to the range on a Supercharger cost a grand total of $9.10

[p1stonhead]

FurtiveFreddy said:

151 miles for $9.10

$9 actually surprises me. Isn’t petrol about $3 per gallon? So 3 gallons to get 150miles on fuel equivalent. About the same cost to charge as petrol if you have a car that can do say 50mpg?

I thought the difference would be higher but I guess it’s partly down to how cheap petrol is in the US. Here it would be a much wider gap.

Edited by p1stonhead on Tuesday 22 May 20:26

Edited by p1stonhead on Tuesday 22 May 20:27

[jkh112]

Furtive Freddy, thanks for the info.
P1stonhead, thanks for editing your post.

Edited by jkh112 on Tuesday 22 May 21:32

[Tallow]

p1stonhead said:

$9 actually surprises me. Isn’t petrol about $3 per gallon? So 3 gallons to get 150miles on fuel equivalent. About the same cost to charge as petrol if you have a car that can do say 50mpg?

I thought the difference would be higher but I guess it’s partly down to how cheap petrol is in the US. Here it would be a much wider gap.

Edited by p1stonhead on Tuesday 22 May 20:26

Edited by p1stonhead on Tuesday 22 May 20:27

My car (which isn't comparable, admiitedly) averages out at 21mpg, so for $9 I could drive 60 miles or so. That said, I'm surprised at the cost, too. What would be interesting would be to see what the Supercharger KW/h cost would be compared to a normal electricity bill.

[caziques]

150 miles would be something like 40kWhrs of electricity. US$0.225 per kWh, around 17p kWhr - not excessive for a daytime rate.

Cheapest petrol in California is $3 a gallon, which I think works out around 60p a litre.

Petrol has 8kWhrs of energy in every litre, engine is about 30% efficient.

[FurtiveFreddy]

Some considerations:

The cheapest regular gas in that part of LA is just under $3.43 currently. Most places are $3.50 and above.

Don't forget a U.S. gallon is about 3.78 litres, not 4.5 litres as in UK.

The performance of the Model 3 puts it much more in the same league as a BMW 340i, so 50 mpg is a bit unrealistic. Driving my 335i, I get 23 imperial MPG average. That's a fairer comparison IMO.

Most of my driving in the Tesla was, shall we say, 'spirited' and that 150 mile charge was effectively a 'fill-up'.

I can't do the math(s) right now, but more sums/comparisons required methinks.

Edited by FurtiveFreddy on Tuesday 22 May 21:35

[jkh112]

What would a charge at a UK supercharger cost?

[RobDickinson]

Looks like UK is 20p per kWh.

[RobDickinson]

I personally don't expect fast charging to be particularly cheap for a while, it's an occasional use option.

I charge at 12c kWh over night if I fast charged here its 25c kWh plus 25c per minute.

[FurtiveFreddy]

OK, so my original comment of 'only $9' was me comparing how much I spend on petrol here with what it cost me in the Tesla in LA.

So I reckon that $9.10 for Supercharging the Tesla was the same as me spending about £36 on petrol here in a car of similar performance (at least up to 80mph).

If I had a petrol car in LA of similar performance then 150 miles would have cost me $22.

Either way, it seems good value to me unless I've got my calculations wrong.

[gangzoom]

jkh112 said:

What would a charge at a UK supercharger cost?

Just charge at home. I've had an EV for the last 34K miles. I'm on E7 rate electricty at home, so day time rate is 1.5 p per kWh more expensive than standard rate but half the cost overnight which when I recharge the car.

My total electricity bill for doing 34K miles....roughly £1000. I've done 4K in business tirps which I have claimed back from HMRC. So my net cost for fuel over 34K is currently around £0 .

[gangzoom]

FurtiveFreddy said:

From what I've heard and experienced now, if you think the Model 3 is just a smaller Model S, you'd be completely wrong. It's a different car aimed at drivers, not just those who want an EV car and don't mind compromising on the dynamics.

Thanks for your posts, great to hear what real people think rather than journalist reviews.

The 3 sounds aweason, just need Tesla to hurry up and start giving them to us. I am actually more excited about the 3 than our current X, which is a bizzar thing to say given how much more expensive our X is than even the Performance version of the 3!!!

[gangzoom]

Never thought I see the day when an EV outsells the 3 series but there it is in black and white...Change is coming .

https://electrek.co/2018/05/22/tesla-model-3-beats...

[p1stonhead]

gangzoom said:

Never thought I see the day when an EV outsells the 3 series but there it is in black and white...Change is coming .

https://electrek.co/2018/05/22/tesla-model-3-beats...

Doesn’t surprise me. Not sure how many of you lot have been to California recently but Tesla’s are literally everywhere! In the big cities like San Francisco they appear to be every second car.

[caseys]

https://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-3/2017/long-te...

Quite an update/review. I still want to like this car, though at the moment it's got some interesting features.

[Blaster72]

caseys said:

https://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-3/2017/long-te...

Quite an update/review. I still want to like this car, though at the moment it's got some interesting features.

Thanks for that, an honest review. Some pretty bad niggles there and a 3rd visit to the service centre booked already isn't good. The same things pop up again and again as issues with the Model 3 so by the time it arrives in the UK in 2020 it should be pretty well sorted.