Living with a car from the future: Tesla Model 3

Keith Tanner said:

Steve, you apparently have some baggage. You work at a dealership and you're tired of being told you're screwing people over, or you paid MSRP for something and were told you were an idiot? 

Not either of these, I just think it's odd that people defend paying retail on these while calling others crooks for trying to get retail prices.  If I said FM were liars and crooks because the prices they charge were too high, would you be ok with that? Look at your quote above, "screwing people over" is how you describe a dealer, yet Tesla charging retail plus $1200 is not screwing people over, that is what I just don't get.

In reply to Steve_Jones :

Steve, I really like you. I agree with you on many of your posts, but this one I just cant. 

To be fair, Tesla is also willing to sell you a $180 soft shell jacket with a little "T" logo on it as well. 

The funniest Tesla accessory is a keyfob. It's shaped like the car. You double-click the hood to open the frunk, double-click the rear to open the trunk, press and hold to open the charge port, single press to lock and double press to unlock. It's $150, and for another $18 you get a little silicone strap that goes around it and has a keyring. The only benefit I can see is that it's more obviously a keyfob than an RFID card if you need that sort of comfort. 

Those RFID cars are $25/pair, by the way. Hopefully we'll see more of those in the future on other cars instead of $300 keyfobs with batteries and a bunch of buttons.

How the keys work: you've got two basic ways to run the car (ignoring the baby car keyfob).

Phone: if you identify your phone as friendly, the car will unlock as soon as you go to open the door and will be ready to drive by the time your butt has hit the seat. It will set to your preferences at the same time. When you walk away, the car will lock (assuming you have this turned on). Basically, it's like the car knows you as long as you have your phone in your pocket.

RFID card: To unlock, you wave the card near the driver's side B pillar. To drive, pass the card over the center console near the cupholders and shift into 'gear' within 3 minutes or so. To lock, wave over the B pillar again. The card is exactly the same size as a credit card so it fits well in a wallet. Not as convenient as the phone but it'll never run out of battery.

App: You can lock/unlock the car remotely as well as turn it on. This is a high-effort way to do the job.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

BMW has the card as well. I really like it. I am sure other brands have it as well. 

Steve_Jones said:

Keith Tanner said:

Steve, you apparently have some baggage. You work at a dealership and you're tired of being told you're screwing people over, or you paid MSRP for something and were told you were an idiot? 

Not either of these, I just think it's odd that people defend paying retail on these while calling others crooks for trying to get retail prices.  If I said FM were liars and crooks because the prices they charge were too high, would you be ok with that? Look at your quote above, "screwing people over" is how you describe a dealer, yet Tesla charging retail plus $1200 is not screwing people over, that is what I just don't get.

People call FM crooks for charging too much all the time. The only acceptable selling price for car parts is the price of the raw materials.

The disconnect comes from the definition of "retail". With most cars, MSRP is a fictional number that is designed to be bargained down and nobody really expects anyone to pay it. As I've mentioned, F150s are $10,000 off MSRP basically permanently, so MSRP has no meaning. Then there's invoice, which is also a bit of a fake. The dealer takes these number and starts making deals. They will make the most aggressive deal the customer will sign, and play games to get there. It's all about the bargaining and who's best at playing the game.

Tesla sets the MSRP differently. It's the actual selling price. It's not artificially high to give a bargaining starting point. There's no secondary invoice number, or wholesale, or Plan S, or whatever. It is the first, last and only offer on the table.

I think you're viewing "retail" as some sort of universal measure of value, but the two groups (Tesla/Saturn and everyone else) are defining it very differently.

The RFID card implementation on the Tesla isn't quite as convenient as the Mazda implementation of the keyfob, but there's no reason the RFID range couldn't be a little longer to recognize someone standing at the door. Unless there are security concerns.

I forgot to mention that you can identify a card as a certain driver, so it loads your preferences when you use it. I THINK you can also identify it as a valet card, which locks the car down.

I also forgot to mention that Janel noticed the high rear bustle as well, that takes a little getting used to. I don't really notice it anymore but it took a while. She was adjusting her mirrors constantly trying to compensate. The windshield mirror is a throwback, it's thin with almost no bezel like the one in my 1966 Cadillac. I've become used to modern mirrors growing buttons and cameras - the one in the 2019 Miata is almost becoming a visibility hazard in the small windshield.

Another M5 comparison: the dual motor long range Model 3 (my car) is 4072 lbs. The E39 M5 is 3957 lbs - I'm assuming with a full tank of fuel. The Tesla is apparently able to do the 0-60 sprint in 4.4 seconds, the M5 is 4.8. Both are closer than I would have expected.

OK, back to the car, I promise I will leave the dealer debate alone.

Without getting too personal, did you buy it or lease it? It seems like everyone says to lease them (EV vehicles in general), and does the tax credit change if you lease them?

What happens if you get to the point of no battery left and don't make it to a charger?

In reply to Steve_Jones :

The rub is that at a traditional dealership two different people can buy identical cars at the same dealership on the same day, from the same salesperson and pay two different prices. Tesla's model (and Saturn's old model) flips that so its fair to the consumer. 

Keith keep up with the updates. I need more Tesla buying ammo for the wife.

How is the heating and airco set up ?

Heated seats and steering wheel ?  but what else ?

or does the battery discharge heat  get used to heat the cabin ?

And how much power does it take to cool it on a 110 degree day down to 75 degrees ?

To me that was always the problems on EVs in the past , people wanted a real car , not a golf cart ,

and real cars have heating , airco , power windows etc that all take battery power , 

Thanks for your reports

So it's like Carmax, but with a new car from the automaker.

Here's the price. Either you pay it or go somewhere else.

Much preferred, tbh. Tell me how much you're actually selling the car for, not inflate the price and spend the next 3 hours playing four square and going back n forth to the manager to knock a dollar off, but throw in a free oil change.

Love the Teslas in general, and everything I've heard about the Model 3 is that it's a great car.  I've driven a Model S once and it's performance was absolutely top notch.

I've seen a couple of 3's at my local autocrosses and they often do pretty well.  Funny car in that there's not a lot of noise and not as much body roll as you expect in a tall sedan.

Enjoy and I look forward to reading more about your experiences!

We bought ours. This is intended as a long-term purchase and I couldn't get clear numbers on leasing. I don't know what the tax credits look like on a lease. It may vary by state. The federal tax credits for Tesla expire at the end of this year because they've hit the maximum production numbers.

Kinda like a diesel truck, they don't like running out of juice. I haven't tested this, but I expect an escalating level of panic from the car as you get low. It'll start calculating distances to charging points - specifically, Tesla charging points (Superchargers and "destination charging" like hotels with Tesla chargers) and public charge points you've used before. The Chargepoint network will offer other options if you get desperate. I'm assuming that it'll shut down before actually damaging the battery, then you're on a tow truck. Luckily, it does appear that range estimates for intercity travel seem pretty accurate given our experience last weekend.

HVAC is set and forget. It has heated seats, as it's much efficient to heat people than air. I don't know how it generates heat specifically, nor how much power is consumed doing that. You can pre-cool or pre-heat the cabin while it's plugged in so you don't run your battery - which has a nice side effect of your car being the right temp when you get in.

FuzzWuzzy said:

So it's like Carmax, but with a new car from the automaker.

Here's the price. Either you pay it or go somewhere else.

Much preferred, tbh. Tell me how much you're actually selling the car for, not inflate the price and spend the next 3 hours playing four square and going back n forth to the manager to knock a dollar off, but throw in a free oil change.

I definitely prefer that model. I have purchased 3 cars in my life new. I negotiated on none of them. Either that was the price I was ok with or not. I hate negotiating. I find it causes people to be underhanded and dishonest on both sides of the table and I am not going to be that guy.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

In general, heating things is quite easy with a bit of resistive wire. Most heated seats are just a resistive wire laid out under the trim cover of the seat, I don't see any reason that heated steering wheels would be any different. Not sure on HVAC in EV's, but heat could once again be accomplished by passing air over a resistive wire. No different than a conventional heater core, except that the heat source is electric rather than a hot fluid. I imagine it'd actually be faster at heating a cabin because you can get a wire to heat up much faster than an entire engine. I think old cummins engines in dodge trucks did something like this to heat intake air on cold startups? 

Now cooling things, on the other hand, is a much more difficult proposition. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

You are REALLY making me want one of these more than I already did. 

In reply to Steve_Jones :

Not that this will get through to you but The $1200 is for delivery and is in line with most other manufacturers. Tesla’s paperwork fees are very competitive as in very low. Yes Tesla sells the cars at retail. If dealers were involved the prices would be higher.

AC is an electric compressor. You can see them on eBay, actually. Unfortunately, they run at high voltage so they’re not suitable for retrofits on other cars. Not that I’ve looked...

Following along. Thanks for the time to do this Keith. Its interesting coming from a "car guy"

Keith Tanner said:

If you identify your phone as friendly, the car will unlock as soon as you go to open the door and will be ready to drive by the time your butt has hit the seat. It will set to your preferences at the same time. When you walk away, the car will lock (assuming you have this turned on). Basically, it's like the car knows you as long as you have your phone in your pocket.

There are at least six family members with our phones linked to my mother-in-law's Model 3. We each have our own seating/mirrors/driving settings configured, so whenever we approach the car in a group we have to make sure to stop and let the designated driver walk up to it first so that the right settings are preset as we get in. It's weird, man!

Notes:

I was about to leave work and checked the app too see how warm it is in the cockpit. 102F! Turn on the AC and wait for a couple of minutes, now it's at 73. It dropped so fast that I suspect the sensor may be fairly close to the HVAC outlets. But I am looking forward to walking outside into a pre-cooled car.

Took some coworkers to lunch. The first time I floored it at about 40 mph, Mike lost the ability to breathe for a moment. It really is brutal acceleration - not so much the quantity, but the delivery. It's like getting punched in the chest. Also, Mike complained that his knee was freezing from the AC in the back seat. We'll have to read the manual to figure out how to adjust rear HVAC.

Teslas are pretty rare in this town, and they have a real premium image. Everyone assumes it's a $100k+ Model S. Umm, no. But it does look pretty high-rent in black parked beside a bunch of multi-colored Miatas and a VW van that is the color of dirt. It's all about picking your location.

I like to listen to audiobooks when I drive, and I use a click wheel iPod Classic to do so. With a 1/8" headphone jack, it works with every car I drive...except the Tesla. Sigh. No aux input. So I've ordered an $18 Blutetooth transmitter that will plug into the iPod and let the 20th century talk to the 21st century.

Janel hasn't come out to her coworkers about her new car yet. Not even her family. I think she's got a bit of electric shame. Also, she will take a certain amount of crap from her big diesel truck driving construction coworkers. Then again, they used to give her crap about driving a car with a tape player, so it's always something...

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Yeah, but when she gives it the beans and they see what AWD and all the torque ever at 0 RPM is like....

She probably won't let most of them in the car :) but I can think of a couple that will get the treatment. I haven't done a standing start test yet, I hear they're pretty spectacular.

More notes from the drive home:

- setting the regen level to light makes the cruise control chill out nicely. Very smooth. That's the correct setting, I think. Low regen if using cruise on the highway, high regen under all other conditions.

- Autosteer works much better on the highway than on the two-lane back road, but it's still feeling like a nervous 16 year old. And who feels comfortable with a nervous 16 year old behind the wheel? It also cancels every time you change lanes. I'm going to call that an interesting technology demonstration and turn it off again. Also, I'd hate to get used to it and then forget when I was supposed to be in charge.

- I've found that if I put my fingers on the edge of the bezel that runs around the touchscreen, the row of fixed icons along the bottom are easier to use. Basically, they're buttons at that point and you can tap them with confidence. You don't have your arm extended out and waving around, it's braced. Makes it feel more natural. 

- took the car through a touchless carwash so Janel would have a clean car tomorrow. No leaks. Score one for the guys who screwed this together.

- there's obviously some fairly good torque vectoring going on with this thing. You can feel it pull around a corner. I haven't tested to see what happens if you come in too fast yet, but I suspect those stock Michelins will overload pretty easily without electronic help.

- the seats are warm, like they have memory foam in them. They retain heat. The bottom cushion is short but supportive enough that I'm comfortable.

- according to the charging estimate when I got home, it'll take 2.5 hours to recharge after my drive to/from work and the run to lunch. Call it 60 miles. That's $1.82 at our rates. We didn't buy this thing to be super-cheap on fuel, but I have to say that's kinda nice. The M5 would have sucked down about $10.33 of high test. The CRX would have been about $5.50. Turbo Miata, $7.25. 

- Brandon the FM engineer was very excited about the flat bottom and the active louvers he was looking at in the parking lot as the car cooled down after a drive. We need to get this thing on to a lift just because.

Keith Tanner said:

- Brandon the FM engineer was very excited about the flat bottom and the active louvers he was looking at in the parking lot as the car cooled down after a drive. We need to get this thing on to a lift just because.