[HKap]

Originally Posted by GutsyGibbon

Model 3 is supposed to have ludicrous mode, and summon mode soon. Right now it has Chill mode, and Normal mode. Chill mode accelerates like a regular ICE car, Normal mode is the electric beast. I never use Chill mode.

I test drove the Model 3 performance variant last week and OH MY GOD!! That thing is something else. 0-100 in 3.5 seconds. That's Porsche territory. I tried the acceleration run a couple of times and felt my eyes were going to pop out from the back of my head. I've never felt violence like that before. I was shivering for an hour after the drive. It was insane.

However, I was super annoyed by a couple of "features" that to me could even be deal breakers.

1) The blind spot monitoring is on the screen . I mean come on, how do you expect me to check my ORVM and the screen at the same time. How hard is it to include the blind spot indicator on the mirror? Everybody does it.

2) The indicator stalk. Everytime I tried to disengage the indicator, I ended up engaging the indicator for the opposite direction. I believe BMW had this issue in their last gen (bangle 5?) cars.

3) To me, its extremely distracting to look at the screen for every little adjustment. I prefer having switches and buttons for stuff like seat warmers/coolers and AC/heat controls. I'm not sure if they have voice commands to enable/disable/adjust these settings.

The things that I like about the model 3 (If I buy one in 2019 it will be the rear wheel drive with the standard battery which is due for launch in March 2019)

1) Insane acceleration

2) No maintenance

3) Super low running costs

4) Auto-pilot for when the Mrs wants to get behind the wheel (its not a sexist comment. She is a bad driver who always wants to drive)

5) The vegan seats. If possible, I would not want any animals to die in the making of my car (FYI. I'm not a vegetarian).

6) The white seats that are stain proof and look FANTASTIC and require nothing more than a moist cloth to clean.

7) Over the air updates that make the car better with age.

8) Possibly the biggest plus is that I can have a RWD Tesla Model 3 and still drive in snow with all season/winter tyres. The traction control in phenomenal.

What does the model 3 go up against in my case? The M340i xdrive. What does the BMW have going for itself

1) Inline 6 engine

2) Oh that engine and exhaust note (its a big plus)

3) Possibly better build quality??


Question for GutsyGibbon: Do you have issues with the blind spot monitoring in your model 3? I just could not get myself to look at the screen and not the mirrors while changing lanes.

I also ran into an auto-pilot bug/issue. I was preparing to exit the highway with auto-pilot engaged and there was another car merging onto the highway. Both of us were merging into the same lane and lets just say we came too close for comfort and I had to step on the brakes. The Tesla dude told me that the car would have managed to slow down but we were about 10ft away from impact and my reflexes wouldn't let the car decide if it should have slowed down

[GutsyGibbon]

Originally Posted by HKap

Question for GutsyGibbon: Do you have issues with the blind spot monitoring in your model 3? I just could not get myself to look at the screen and not the mirrors while changing lanes.

I also ran into an auto-pilot bug/issue. I was preparing to exit the highway with auto-pilot engaged and there was another car merging onto the highway. Both of us were merging into the same lane and lets just say we came too close for comfort and I had to step on the brakes. The Tesla dude told me that the car would have managed to slow down but we were about 10ft away from impact and my reflexes wouldn't let the car decide if it should have slowed down

In my observation, it is harder to look at mirrors for blind spot, and the screen for other cars, and an instrument cluster for speed. On the Model3 everything I need to look at is right there on the left side of the screen, including the car ahead of me. If I get too close to the car ahead of me without initiating lane change, the car ahead of me changes color to red, and there is a beeping alarm. If you allow the Autopilot to change lanes, you can see that the broken lane marker turns red to indicate there is a car in the blind spot, and it is not able to change lanes yet. I leave it in auto pilot and tap on the lane change/indicator stalk, it changes the lane when its safe, I don't do any of the double checking anymore (before initiating lane change). I have 10k miles on my Model3 now. I find it very hard and dangerous to drive a regular ICE car without any autonomous features. It is very easy to get used to doing less, its not the same other way around.

That said, it took me a week to trust the car, and my new driving habits. The screen shows everything including distance from obstacles in inches. While driving, the color of the obstacles seen by the radar is grey when far, orange when close, and red when its too close. To trust that instead of looking through the window is an adjustment. Like the rear view camera - people trust the wide view night mode camera more than what is visible through the windows.

[GutsyGibbon]

Updates: In the last few months, there were a lot of great updates to the UI. It now displays humans, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and exact type of car around it. (Truck, SUV, or car). Another cool update is Navigate on Autopilot, where it prompts lane changes to exit or to merge into other freeways.

This week the sentry mode is going to be rolled out. If someone tries to break in, all the cameras will start recording.

In the recent rains, I have used the summon mode several times. No need to walk in the rain to the car. We roll the car into the garage, or roll the car away from puddles , hop in and drive off. Very useful when the wife/daughter is all dressed up and are making faces at the thought of the rain drops washing their makeup off. The low single digit temperatures have had no effect on range, I still got close to a full 300+ mile range this weekend.

Thanks to the rains, caught a full rainbow over my TM3.

[kiku007]

Originally Posted by GutsyGibbon

Updates: In the last few months, there were a lot of great updates to the UI. It now displays humans, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and exact type of car around it. (Truck, SUV, or car). Another cool update is Navigate on Autopilot, where it prompts lane changes to exit or to merge into other freeways.

This week the sentry mode is going to be rolled out. If someone tries to break in, all the cameras will start recording.

It's amazing how Tesla takes feedback and delivers most features to all it's customers and not just the future ones.

The fix-refresh cycle for automobiles is now more in alignment with say an smartphone.

Of course, mechanical changes are a different topic.

Subaru won't program my car key to enable one click trigger to open all doors. And here I see Tesla offering the below feature.

https://twitter.com/Tesla/status/109...26autosize%3D1

[GutsyGibbon]

Today Musk announced that the Long Range RWD version that I have will get another firmware update. The range will get extended to 325miles. For me, it will be one year of ownership, and what a gift this will be for the first year anniversary! A car that gets better in such a fundamental way after a year of ownership is unheard of.

Last week, I got the Sentry mode, and the dog mode. I park my car inside my garage, and have not had to deal with vandals in the last 20 years, but it still feels good that I have this option if I were to park my car in a shady/scary place. I tested out the Sentry mode by rocking the car with the feature enabled. There was a whole bunch of videos on the USB drive, and the screen had a warning message. Pretty cool!

[GutsyGibbon]

My TM3 is now 15months old and crossed 15k miles. With the first service interval being 25k miles, it has not seen any service center, nor have I had to spend a dime on the car (fuel/energy costs included). I have at least 10 other friends who have bought the TM3, and California is infested with TM3s. With all the focus on the stock, and announcements from competitors - feedback from actual owners is either getting lost, or is not deemed to worthy of publicity. There are some owners complaining about minor issues with bluetooth, and other software issues, that get blown out of proportion. Honest feedback from owners I know has been super positive.

Sometimes, I wish Elon/Tesla spent some money on traditional media to advertise. That way auto magazines and journalists would not bash the TM3 to this extent.

[M00M]

Hi . How's the Model 3 doing ? Any updates ?

[GutsyGibbon]

Originally Posted by M00M

Hi . How's the Model 3 doing ? Any updates ?

Doing great. 20k miles. My utility company gave another $850 in credits towards electric bill for all EV owners. I still have not spent a single penny on maintenance or fuel/energy. Home solar and EV climate credits cover all the costs.

I use a bicycle pump to fill air when the on board monitor flashes a warning. I get a small workout as a bonus.

In sw updates, last week they linked the phone key to driver profile. When I open the door (with phone in my pocket) it switches the settings for seat, mirrors and steering.
I also enabled the need to enter pin, before driving as a security setting.

[el lobo 6061]

Originally Posted by GutsyGibbon

I still have not spent a single penny on maintenance or fuel/energy. Home solar and EV climate credits cover all the costs.

Superb. If that reason is not enough to buy an EV.

We need EV, especially Tesla in India sooner. Charging infra will develop with time.

Traditional ICE cars seem exorbitantly expensive per KM running & maintenance wise.

Plus with these regular software updates on EV cars, you would never need a new car for a long time.

[GutsyGibbon]

After 2.5 years of owning my Model 3, I scheduled its first service using the app. The Tesla Mobile technician showed up and walked through the recommended work. New cabin air filters, new wind shield wipers, AC service, brake fluid check, and tire rotation. I refused tire rotation. I handed the key card and continued my work indoor. He worked on the car inside our garage, and was done in under 30 minutes, asked me if I had any questions, and left soon after. Tesla emailed me an invoice with docusign, and billed my card on file. Labor for service was ~$80 and ~$120 for parts. This was by far the smoothest and quickest service of any car I have ever owned. No up-selling, no drama, and I stayed home the entire time.

Next month I am getting more credits from my electric utility company by means of Electric Vehicle Climate credit. In my opinion, EV plus home solar is a no brainer where I live.

[GutsyGibbon]

Charged at the Tesla factory in Fremont after a 500 mile drive. V3 charging at the rate of 950 miles per hour, its incredible.

Its raining Teslas in this part of CA.

[GutsyGibbon]

5 year update: I still have not had to do any maintenance at Tesla, or a repair shop. I replaced the cabin air filter, and windshield wipers myself. Got tires replaced at Costco. I wash the car in the driveway - once in a while and fill air - thats about it. The max range when I bought it was 303, I dont normally charge to 100%, I estimate this to be ~280 now. The hundreds of OTA updates mean that the car and driving experience has gotten significantly better over the 5 years I have had the car. But, for these few scary instances.

Had a blank screen on the freeway. Software crashed and restarted, takes a couple minutes - no speed info, no touch screen, no nothing. Brakes worked, accelerator worked, power windows also worked. It was scary, I filed a bug report immediately. No clue of status of bug.

Experienced phantom braking under a bridge, I have learned to expect this, I accelerated immediately.

This one time I went to the car in the morning, the screen was blank. I had done a SW update overnight, and it had failed. I had to do a Hard reset - and it never came back up. I was getting late to work, so I cursed Tesla and decided to work from home. I came back after 1 hour, and it had booted up, but with factory settings. I have connected mine to the cloud, so that I see the same settings on any Tesla that I drive - like my brother's car. So some of my settings were restored, not other drivers added locally to the car. Other settings like Home link for garage also had to be programmed. The phone keys stayed programmed. I think they store these in some Linux kernel Trust Zone/Secure memory area that is not reset. (My wild guess, I do not have domain expertise here). Some times I get the vibes of moving from a stable HP Unix with X11/X motif to Windoze 95 or 98. (Maruti 800 to Tesla Model 3) Enjoy all the UI features, but expect blue screens. I realize I am dating myself by talking about Windoze 95.

[GutsyGibbon]

It's been 6 years now. Filled windshield wiper fluid this year. It's now a boring car. Nothing to improve, nothing to fix. Does some 270miles on a full charge. I am beginning to like the Rivian R2 & R3