Oh dear, what have I done

[Bugtownboy]

Well done Nowty

We currently have the quandary of needing a car for occasional long journeys/shifting stuff and the rest of the time we walk a lot

Last year we did 4000 miles - combination of being retired and lockdown.

How do we justify a major capital expenditure to sit on the drive 5-6 days a week ?

Will we ever get to PAYG for cars/shared ownership that is acceptable and practical ? I know on a previous forum, booking an autonomous vehicle to turn up at home was discussed.

Will this ever be realistic, particularly somewhere like we are in a rural bit of Somerset.

[Mr Gus]

Joe,

We reserved it in late 2020 (you probably saw the tortured thread of going to look at other EV's & the disdain / crud knowledge encountered) pretty much the wife forced my hand, at that point it was not Octo-pump (heat pump) which we knew how valuable that was on the Leaf, so with the wife having reserved one I convinced her to wait for the online rumblings of the imminent arrival of the Octo-pump & possibility of heated steering wheel (wife has nerve related problems which would have been helped by heated steering wheel "possibly" ..however, in context the cabin pre-heat means she's never said there is a problem, so all good on that front, AND she'd be using the cabin temp more than the average joe (no pun intended).

Even with the SR+ battery capacity being significantly lower than the other models you do not think twice about heating /cooling settings compared to the Leaf 24.

Unlike your tekna our leaf didn't have heated seats, clearly useful low current body warmers that the wife used & zero squabbling about an overly stuffy car as a result, overall the combined efficiencies of the heatpump / octopump & seat-warmers efficiency should not be overlooked.

Glad we waited, because obviously buying the base model with a "mere" singular motor on an already heavy car producing more tyre wear (potentially) bought for the sudden heap of miles the wife's new job demanded (but pay for) it was more than the leaf could reasonably be expected to do in workday manner, in your own time fine, "but"

Not looking forward to replacing the cost of our (smaller tyres) when that happens, but hopefully the lower weight will result in less tyre micro-pollutants long term.

We are happy therefore to save weight, have a decent range & still granny charge it at home on a slow & low local energy demand.
Speed / acceleration pick up? no complaints (none on the leaf either)

Build quality has been fine, we did experience a loose side pillar camera upon pick up but it was booked in for a polish for a couple of light transit scratches ...otherwise very nice, seats (front) good for bad backs (regardless of whether the lumbar support is there) I've smashed mine to hell & back & so has the wife, it is at least as comfortable to us as the Skoda Yeti seats (which are recommended by osteopaths apparently & have won awards or at least a good reputation (well deserved) as a result. (if your inevitably aging back wondered)

Sound proofing? a bit noisier than our Leaf's but marginal.
Conversation between we two deaf persons & 1x mumbler are good as a result.
the loudspakers, are "only ok" absolutely nothing special to audio orientated folk so don't believe the hype in terms of what they achieve (SR+ has less speakers ACTIVATED than other models) ..but good enough considering everything is streamed & all that, ok for average ears but could be miles better (nothing to do with quantity, just quality)

The interior trim grey (upper portion) attracts dirt like no-ones business ..meh.
Glass roof "superheats" in the sun (pretty much any south facing element) & regularly gets up to 43c ..as such we hear the protection kicking in too often, which was never a problem on the leaf with its combination of tinted / non tinted windows (although it still cooked inside)

Sentry eats the battery a bit but that is completely understandable, camera quality has been exceptional (better than when seen on youtube algorithms) good clarity, again nothing to worry about.

Central display is very easy to adapt to, ours has remained standard, we have brightness set typically at 42% & that pops in all but the worst momentary blips of direct sunlight.

We bought a set of ok front & rear car mats in a colour of our choice from a uk manufacturer for around £36 ..the SR+ doesn't come with mats.

Haven't tested the rear seat airflow (it's own little vent) however the 10 settings of screen directional "all of front" vents do a damn good job in either mode.

Real life battery range in relation to ownership from early march 2021 onwards has been very good & true to form, having encountered the south downs just this week regen was as anticipated (positive) however the tesla green regen line is negligible compared to the leafs clarity on the dash,
a thicker more obvious line would be better on the 3 (a line of software code, simple fix) because currently it is a game of hide & seek ..we like to see re-gen in relation to economical driving that the leaf promotes.

Bought a frunk boot liner from ali express, which is useful & wife is able to store all her PPE kit & training (oo-er) devices in it very handy compartmentalisation leaving life from work separate, you don't realise it till you try it.

A boot hook (singular) is a worthwhile purchase (ali express) for hanging milk filled shopping bags upright & covers that otherwise exposed long screw nicely (BOOT not frunk)

It must be said that the boot light is utter garbage in terms of lumens versus a dark, dark interior, bought a replacement however it turned out to be old style, & I ought look again as the fittings are different now on the 2021.

Speaking of lights, the footwell lights in the SR+ are turned off, whilst we don't wish to pay £300 for the rear heated seats (also off in the SR+) the footwell lights would be nice to simply leave out to save some plastic or add on at your leisure, I understand it simplifies the production, but I still don't like it, if you stick it in make it useable.

[Stinsy]

Mr Gus, how is reliability and build quality? I ask as US stuff is not normally the best. Also heard a few early ownership failures on the new gen Leafs and spoke to a lassie who's land rover hybrid died within a week and they can't get it to talk or wake up. She opted for replacement vehicle and all ok now but at last of hearing the old one was still fully failed and much headscratching going on at dealership.. Makes me wonder who is top of pile for longevity of production line and QA in these days of EV ownership. Model 3 must be quite high on that list? What range do you get?

Tesla have an appalling reputation for build quality and reliability. Basically what you'd expect from an American brand. Examples from the "S" are: inconsistent shutlines you can see from across the street, and doorhandles that fail every 6 months and cost £2k to fix. Tesla originally had a decent reputation for customer service, but that quickly disappeared and is now terrible.

I've heard things have improved a lot, but still not up to German/Japanese standards by all accounts.

[Mr Gus]

Any questions on SR+ please ask, TBH i'm hung over & suffering in the way that strong cider & perry does to a bitter drinker, the x2 alcohol by percent is hitting home today, so cannot anticipate exactly any concerns, thus the generalisation as I remember.

Body panels ..well, like everyone this was on my mind, as was produced in china (ethics on a large item compared to thousands of small ones ...go figure) however the panel fit is excellent, (& we've seen our share of Tesla usa body panel horror stories at the BCA auction house) ..it was needless the level of fit has no cause for complaints nowadays (bar the rare production blip of anything going down a production line).

The plastic delivery wrap was 99.9% removed, nothing obvious, handled by guys on this end not china.
Wood scheme works well no flaws that my QC trained eye could see, everything interior wise is "tight" & well picked, no sign of fillers.

Software updates, simplified compared to a few months ago, you get info on your phone app, turn off sentry mode, (via app) & press start, ..compared to having to sit, disable & press in-car as per a few months ago.

Updates have been every fortnight or so, the only complaint I have is that I have to go online to find out exactly what i'm updating, considering the latest has been asking for folk to opt in / out for cabin camera crash data it would be useful to have that detail beyond mere numbers!

The Wi-Fi (WI-fe FI-nder) is very useful for getting the kettle on at the right moment, down to the second.
Having the app able to be applied to anyone's phone has been very handy "keyless" access (limited or otherwise) esp in rainy weather, again the wife finder meaning the daughter can access the app in school & determine whether it is possible to grab a lift whilst her mum is maybe driving home unaware of daughters school day going t+ts up, saved us a good few times doubling back to pick her up AFTER the event (precious kWh's & time saved)

Obviously remote unlock can be applied if they simply call & ask you to as well.

Any prior to purchase concerns (buyer jitters) have been completely banished by driving, & it must be stated other drivers do seem to take more care around you when they see it's a tesla, & behave generally in a "camera aware" manner (unlike the craziness of the Wham Bam Teslacam channel)

Spoken commands, getting better, a faux merican accent to get it to function is dropping off the "awkwardly flawed technology" scale ..not perfect, ask it (verbally) to pull up all the current list.

Works well (generally) to "I'm too hot" (takes temp down by 1.5c) et al reducing the need to poke the screen, however the mic is (obviously) driver centric, thus as a passenger you need to raise your voice & enunciate ..after they've pressed the steering wheel button.

[Mr Gus]

Mr Gus, how is reliability and build quality? I ask as US stuff is not normally the best. Also heard a few early ownership failures on the new gen Leafs and spoke to a lassie who's land rover hybrid died within a week and they can't get it to talk or wake up. She opted for replacement vehicle and all ok now but at last of hearing the old one was still fully failed and much headscratching going on at dealership.. Makes me wonder who is top of pile for longevity of production line and QA in these days of EV ownership. Model 3 must be quite high on that list? What range do you get?

Tesla have an appalling reputation for build quality and reliability. Basically what you'd expect from an American brand. Examples from the "S" are: inconsistent shutlines you can see from across the street, and door handles that fail every 6 months and cost £2k to fix. Tesla originally had a decent reputation for customer service, but that quickly disappeared and is now terrible.

I've heard things have improved a lot, but still not up to German/Japanese standards by all accounts.

Essentially Stinsy that was really a problem for U.S. produced vehicles, in the past, they've upped their game there too, but yes I have witnessed & measured with BCA catalogues of 90 odd pages, panel gaps on the S (others I cannot comment on based on being at the auction house, in person & flow of vehicles that at that time were Tesla model S, not the others, & all dated back to problem times.

Having come from a QC background I was ready to refuse our 3 upon delivery, but problems of the struck thumb variety seem to be in the distant past, so a head check is necessary to re-evaluate your brand perception to 2021 standard, its not like years of rusting fiats, however the " new boy in the car brand ring hate brigade" had far more reason (& the internet) to short stock, based on genuine & imagined problems.

This was highlighted by the "recall not a recall" software update on the model 3 ..all done over the air so how much of a drama was it really, ..except for grinding out anther column inch for print journalism.

we jumped in when we were confident of the brands capability, & more importantly what our own eyes saw (we likely saw, touched, sat in a lot of Teslas in auction, possibly exceeding 100 in total)

Plenty of faults (as i've mentioned) on anything mass produced if people deign to look, another reason we excluded all but the E-honda in essence, & most of those vehicles have neither the sales numbers data opinions to feed into by comparison, not helped by dead eyed, disinterested willing to LIE car other sales guys, ..compared to the detail we got when speaking to tesla staff.

[Joeboy]

Mr Gus,
A heroic biop of the car in particular in hangover mode! I'm a fair bit away from the mental switch being thrown to change vehicle but it's out there. Wouldnt consider other than EV now. Might fancy a look at the Honda and the golf id 4 type for kool kid kudos also maybe the mg for sheer praciticality. I'll be keeping an eye on model 3 too.

I think we need a genuflect emoj added? Purely for the review and Nowty's OUTRAGEOUS bought but not driven. I love that!

[nowty]

Thanks for the comments,

Apart from one time when there was a too good to miss deal, I have always generally bought an second hand car circa 1 to 2 years old with 10k to 15k miles on it, seemed to be the sweet point on car value. The most expensive car to date I have bought (for me) was the last one at £17k.

The Tesla's (and maybe most EVs) don't seem to have such a cliff edge depreciation and I wanted the best spec available with the longest warranty. My friend has had two second hand model S's and he said he would not buy one out of warranty because things do go wrong on them. Nothing particularly major, but he's had central locking problems or door handle failures. Then he had a recall for something to do with possible steering corrosion.

From what I have read, reliability has improved with the Model 3.

Like BugTownBoy, I'm similar mileage, so cant justify it financially, but I remember my father always wanting a Jaguar, he could afford it, but always bought a cheap car, then age caught up with him and now he cant even drive anymore. If I bought a cheaper EV or even didn't pay for the full self drive capability, I don't want to regret it. I re-filled my dirty diesel the other day and the experience of pumping dirty fuel was pretty revolting, a combination of dirty fuel and my own conscience. I just thought, I don't want to be doing this anymore. Maybe it was the last time I ever visit a petrol station.

Anyway a few more clicks on my ipad last night got me a £20k, 8 year loan with my bank at 3.4% with practically no penalty for early repayment. So very little to actually repay before my Pension Lump sum comes through and that takes me within spitting distance of the final balance.

[Mr Gus]

Mr Gus, how is reliability and build quality? I ask as US stuff is not normally the best. Also heard a few early ownership failures on the new gen Leafs and spoke to a lassie who's land rover hybrid died within a week and they can't get it to talk or wake up. She opted for replacement vehicle and all ok now but at last of hearing the old one was still fully failed and much headscratching going on at dealership.. Makes me wonder who is top of pile for longevity of production line and QA in these days of EV ownership. Model 3 must be quite high on that list? What range do you get?

Long term I simply cannot answer, but the initial look was better than many nasty bland plastic yank tanks we've looked at.
I never knew Landrover now do a hybrid, ..the early "disco" was enough to repulse me back in the 90's & then forget my love of the Landy / Rangey, which I struggled with environmentally

I guess we are test guinea pigs for the new battery data, but all good in terms of supercharging speed when used (yes we do look at pace of pick up & drop off) ..yesterday remotely whilst the wife was charging at dartford galleria lower floor crowded due to wife suspecting some of the chargers were inoperable) even after achieving supercharger to 80% state of charge was achieved it was still pulling 46 kWh on "slow"

(she went in with 31% from her return from the south coast) ..stated charge time was 1 hour **crazily wrong** but in reality was less than 30 minutes to 98% when she unplugged) ..park, pee & a coffee / sweetie stuffed milkshake including the queue for drinks.

wife is not a slow driver, she is an EV orientated driver driving a mixed variety of road so drives in bursts according to the road type & "idiots that must be passed" a purely speculative guesstimation is that she is achieving minimum 180+ miles per "tank" ..we have never measured it properly as she does insist on having a supercharge without logging data.

IF there is an easy way of doing this she hasn't found it, but it would be damn handy for all those work mile trips, london & back / south coast & back etc, we just work on the premise of matching the Leafs 4.2 miles per kWh we atypically achieved & were happy with.

[Mr Gus]

Short reply version, estimate 180 miles return per tank, likely more, wife does accelerate short bursts to 100mph but more commonly accelerates & sticks at 89mph on a dual carriageway overtaking type thing.

We have a few hills & valley routes here that she regularly drives (nigh on daily) so regardless of location (flat lands) they feature in the mileage returns mix

Will try to work out something to get actual data collated.

[nowty]

If I can get to my parents 250 miles away, at a constant 77mph and including one grand prix racing start to a ton out of the toll booth exit (has to be done), that will do it for me.

And if my father complains about all the leccy I use charging it from his house, I'll just remind him its all really free because I signed him up to the Ripple wind turbine at 3 times what he uses.