I posted this in this section since we do not have pics. I will attempt to provide an review of our Model 3 as well as track long term reliability under this thread.
Disclaimer: I am an EV fan (not a Tesla fan per se as you will see in the review below) so will try to keep my review as unbiased as possbile.
Choosing Model 3:
We test drove the RX-350 as well as the Model 3. We were just looking for a entry level luxury vehicle and did not have any specific requirements (space, seating, handling etc.) so we test drove these.
What made us gravitate towards the Model 3 was
1) For me: More than 200$ a month in gas savings (This car is expensive (at-least for me) so gas savings is really not THE deciding factor but is one of the small factors.
2) For Wife: Exclusiveness: In GTA you will probably see more RX-350's and the BMW's than Civics but not many Model 3's
Buying process:
So Telsa says you can buy the car online. Thats not completely true. Even when you put your deposit online, you will be contacted multiple times to finalize financing, insurance, trade-in etc. Said that the amount of time and paperwork and human interaction one has to go though is much much lesser than buying a traditional car.
Tesla does NOT negotiate on price. We tried.
Delivery:
We heard a nightmares about people rejecting delivery, missing paint, misaligned panels etc. I printed out a 5 page checklist and went through it before taking delivery. We found a very small scratch in the rear of the car. They touched up the paint and fixed it (dont like the quality of the touch up job). so it was not perfect. However we did not find any missing paint, unequal panel gaps, missing trim and other complaints.
They deliver the car without any floor mats which is a pain and an additional expense.
Another thing i did not like is that the dealer does not stock accessories. I assumed i would be able to pick up the adapter that will allow me to charge the car at home using the dryer vent plug and they did not have it. They asked me to order from the Tesla store online which i did. It ships from California, so i still don't have it. Luckily the battery holds enough charge, so i can charge at @ 120V and still be ok for my 140KM daily commute.
Initial Impressions of the car so far:
Quality of seats and Interior (materials): The quality of the leather (fake) and interior is better than the BMW and the Toyota. For me quality benchmark was set in a 1995 Camry which had soft touch materials throughout (even in areas you do not see). Even the 2007 Camry and the BMW does not have soft touch materials near the panel that houses the front speakers inside the doors but the Tesla has it.
Panel gaps: There are panel gaps. The panel gaps are more or less same as the 2007 Camry. BMW was the best and had the least panel gaps.
Exterior Paint: On par with the Toyota and better than the BMW. The Toyota paint looked new after 12+ years. I don't like the paint job in the BMW
Road Noise: Much higher than the BMW and the Toyota. It's not that different in the city but is noticeable at speeds greater than 100. It is because of the glass roof. I have heard you can buy aftermarket kits to put around the glass panel. I may do that in the future.
Sound System: The sound system is better than the Camry. When parked the sound system is close to the BMW but not as good. When on the highway its worst due to the road noise. The HD radio reception range on it is better than BMW. I get HD reception in areas where the BMW went blank.
Pains: I hate that it does not have AM radio. Also your favorite radio stations list auto refresh depending if it can detect a signal in the area. This can sometimes take time to populate which is not good.
Touchscreen and controls: Awesome. One of my skepticism was lack of buttons, but the screen is extremely well laid out and i don't miss any buttons so far.
Handling and performance: Better than the Camry. I am used to a tight steering, so i have to set the steering on it to sport to match the BMW. The handling is on par with the BMW (not much better as stated in other reviews) and the acceleration much better.
Autopilot: This seems to be the most controversial aspect (given the reported accidents that occurred on autopilot). Here is my 2c on this.
If you have a Toyota with Adaptive cruise control or lane keep assist, you still keep you eyes on the road while driving it. I know at-least on the Toyota and Acuras when lane keep assist kicks in the car jerks abruptly into lane. In the Tesla it is very smooth, plus the autopilot always looks at the lane markers and keeps your vehicle in lane.
This makes people feel overconfident and take their eyes off the road which causes accidents. So far, i have driven about 400+ kms on autopilot and you HAVE to keep your eyes on the road. I had atleast 2 occasions during this time when a transport truck turned into my lane abruptly and would have resulted in an accident if i hadn't braked (I could have waited to see if Auto Emergency braking kicked in but didn't want to take a chance).
To summarize: Telsa autopilot is the best system that exists out there but you HAVE to keep your hands on the steering and pay attention on the road. PERIOD.
FSD: It was $7800 extra and we skipped it. We tried the summon feature and although it worked, it was too slow and did not bring the car close enough to the curb. Fail for us. Also, we tried the self park feature 3 times and it only parked once successfully. Another Fail for us. This is not ready for prime time.
Given that we can upgrade to this feature later, we will wait for the software to be refined (as well as pay down the car a bit) before we can get it (if we get it).
Efficiency: I consumed 8KWh on my 71Km commute. About 60kms of it was on the highway and about 55 was in autopilot set @110Kmph. Ask you can see, i only used 8Kwh for this trip. There was very little traffic and it was very efficient so it may be a little bit biased. Considering all hidden hydro charges, our off peak rate is 0.0787c/kwh plus 5% HST and 5% wall losses (energy transferred to the batteries compared to the energy consumed) the total rate is about: 0.0868c/kwh.
So this 71km commute cost me about 69cents. This is very impressive, especially given the fact that EV's love cities and do not like high speeds (for efficiency)
Adding efficiency loss over winter months and some aggressive driving i will be surprised if i have to pay more than $2 for a 140K coummute daily which is about 10$ a week. In comparison the BMW fill up was about $80 a week.
Overall:
I am very happy with the Model 3 so far. The only pain areas i have is that I wished that the car was quieter and had AM radio. Lets hope the reliability keeps up. I will try to post updates periodically as and when things happen.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
