I wonder how many of you drove Model 3, especially Performance?
Tesla finally arrived to my piece of Eastern Europe, so I took 1hr drive over city streets and highway with my buddy.
Previously I did not even want to take a look due to poor charging infrastructure and fact that they had no service shop locally - both of those things are changing due to EU and Tesla.
Quick Impressions on 2020 M3 Performance with 990km on the clock
Good
- Amazingly fast, like a bullet train.
- Effortless driving experience, luxurious feel to powertrain. It just goes on. My 3.0 TFSI felt like crap afterwards in every way. Slow, noisy, annoying.
- Cheap locally, M3P is cheaper than A4/3 series/C class if similar equipped with 3.0 TDI engines (much slower and worse experience).
- Intuitive - things that annoy me with my 2015 A7 are much better here, like auto hold, cameras, smoother cruise control, little things.
- Big screen and two stalks work just fine, i got used to it all in minutes. It is fine.
- Multimedia looks good, big screen is useful.
- Firm, sporty but not trashy suspension - those batteries at the bottom really do help. Feels like sports rocket.
- SC network is ok even here and CCS fast chargers are being built everywhere.
- Exterior looks OK - feels like we can make it look really nice with some dark wheels and few other bits and pieces.
Mediocre
- Interior is like a nice Toyota quality. It is not luxurious in any way comparable to Lexus, even ES. Felt like it could be more desirable.
- There were some small squeaks even on brand new car, I did not even care to look at obvious panel gaps, it is what it is.
- Powertrain did make some interesting noises at 100 mph, hopefully it is just all normal and not some issue with motors or parts of suspension. It was fine.
- Space was little bit on average side, i thought due to not have an engine and transmission, etc, you would end up having with fair amount of space at the back. Not really. Like Corolla? Def not Camry or A6.
- Seats are pretty short and my legs were hurting after 1hr drive. Obviously worse than my A7 and even more than my IS seats.
- Autopilot stuff mostly does not work in EU so it was just nothing special. Good cruise control though?
Ugly
- At 100 mph (legal here), range just goes away stupidly fast. Probably a lot less than 200 miles range at those speeds. That sucks really bad. So you have this stupidly fast bullet train but if you drive it fast you have to charge it 2x more often than regular big/fast car at those speeds, and then it takes f. long time. So unless you drive at 70 mph and under speed limit, your driving experience at 100mph highways will simply suck. SCs are not every 10 miles here, i would end up charging at 50kwh if I am being bad boy.
- Premium Sound system is awful compared to ML and B/O. It matters to me - after reading how it is better than most premium audio systems by many Tesla drivers who are apparently professional sound engineers, it is just funny. Sounds like Corolla with added few extra speakers. Settings were fine, radio station same as i always listen, it is just very mediocre. I don't understand it really.
- No Android Auto, just annoying that I will have to plugin my phone for good nav as in old car.
So drive itself is future. Every other powertrain feels slow and unrefined. There is no other way about it.
I just wish there is another hook for me, ie if ONE of these was true:
- hwy mileage was useful
- interior was not plain
- sound system was great
- autopilot was fully on
I would probably pull the plug and buy it... I dont like my A7 too much.
Just need another reason to justify it.
So who else drove it, what did you think?
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