The Tesla Model 3 - What people don't get

The Tesla Model three is one of the hottest topics right now in tech and cars .

After going through some of the comments in my own Tesla Model three videos , a dangerous activity in its own right ?

There are some general trends in the comments that I feel like I need to address in regards to the Tesla Model three , I feel like there are just some things about the Tesla Model three that people just don't get and there are other things that people have , have concerns about that I think are valid .

So here we go .

Bring on the comments .

This is what people don't get about the Tesla Model three .

Suck on my electrons , diesel , you crash your car .

Oh One of the biggest areas that I think people obsess and focus too much on is the time it takes to charge a Tesla Model three on a road trip .

I'm not sure people are looking at the entire picture when comparing charging a Tesla on a road trip to the amount of time per year you spend filling up a gas car at a gas station .

Now some would argue that that's not the point because it often takes long when you use a Tesla on a road trip than when you use a regular gas car .

But my argument would be that if you consider your time a finite resource that you do not want to waste going through the exercise to figure out how much time per year you're going to spend charging your Tesla on a road trip versus how much time you spend per year filling up at a gas station is a worthy exercise .

So for my case , while charging can sometimes be inconvenient on road trips .

Given the time it takes to charge on the few road trips I take per year .

It's actually less time wasted than filling up at a gas station .

Now , everyone's situation is going to be a little bit different .

You may be taking longer road trips than I do or more frequent road trips .

Your mileage here is going to vary pun intended .

Another area with my three that I don't think a lot of people quite understand is the center screen and how it's the only instrument cluster in the car .

Tesla has not only moved all of the information from two screens to one but has simplified the information shown to you as a driver of the model three overall , I find this approach fine and less distracting , which may seem counterintuitive given that we're talking about a touch screen here , I am a bit baffled .

I have to say when people see the model three screen and automatically think whoa , that's gonna be way more distracting than the 40 buttons I have on my car console and I have to look over and figure out which one to hit with the model three .

Most of the functions that are represented by buttons and most cars are put away in the car's menu system because you really only need to set them once and not need to go back to them .

Very frequently controls like climate navigation media are very easy to get to from the screen and you only need to glance down for a second to adjust them or you can use your voice for media and navigation , which is what I do for other controls , like cruise control , autopilot and media controls , like play , pause and skipping tracks .

Instead of using the screen , you can control these functions from those handy scroll wheels on the steering wheel .

Overall , I haven't found that I've been making more adjustments while driving through the model three screen than I would using a more traditional cars console with buttons and dials that some of you out there have rightly pointed out that you think Tesla could do more to avoid drivers having to glance over at the screen for certain pieces of information .

And I think you're right , I think Tesla could implement a heads up display later on down the road in the model three's design .

This would solve this issue .

People have and I think Tesla could do a really neat job with a heads up display in the model three .

All right .

So moving on , let's turn next to panel gaps , which I , I just , I don't get it .

I'll just be honest , I , I don't get the obsession with panel gaps and paint blemishes that you need a macro lens to find .

Now , I'm not trying to excuse Tesla's perceived subpar build quality in these areas .

I do think Tesla needs to be competitive in these areas compared to the competition out there .

However , I feel like there is such an overblown obsession with panel gaps and paint blemishes when it comes to the three that I just don't see from any other car manufacturer .

I guess when it's a weak spot for a car as popular as the model three , there is an expectation that people are going to hone in on that weak spot and obsess over it , which is probably why people are doing that .

But I don't know for me , uh when you're driving a car , people are gonna judge it based on like three main things in my book , one , the make and model of the car to what color the car is and three is the car dirty or clean .

That's why I just don't notice and don't care about panel gaps .

I'm much more likely to notice and judge someone based off the car they're driving or if they're driving a white car that looks gray because it's dirty then .

Oh my God , their panel gaps are uneven and they look a mess like I , I just uh moving on , driving an electric car in cold weather will have an impact on range .

But I think this is an area that is overblown by people with the model three as well .

Now , one thing people seem to forget about with Tesla's is with colder weather , you can actually precondition your car and with preconditioning , you're basically turning on the car's climate control from the Tesla app .

And what that does is that will allow the car to heat the cabin as well as heat the battery while the car is still plugged into power .

Now , cold weather limits the Tesla's range in two ways .

The first being that when you have cold weather , that means the battery is cold and when the battery is cold , that means the amount of regenerative breaking you get with your Tesla is less .

So when you need to break , you're actually putting less energy back into the battery than you normally would at more warm temperatures .

And this significantly can affect your range and drain the battery faster .

Now , the second way that cold weather has an impact on your Tesla is because it's cold outside , you're going to want to use the cabin heater more and by using the cabin heater that is going to zap more range out of the battery .

However , if you precondition your car while it's still plugged into power , say like an hour or so before you need to go out into the cold weather , that's going to warm up the battery , which will give you more regenerative , breaking into the battery as well as warm the cabin .

So you're less likely to use the cabin heater when you start driving .

And if you rely mostly on the seat heaters that can be found throughout the cabin of the model three , because seat heaters are more energy efficient than the cabin heater which heats the air .

You're going to see significantly less depleted range than you would if you didn't precondition the car and didn't rely more on seat heaters than the cabin heater .

Now , another area I think people don't quite understand when it comes to Tesla and the model three is the car software updates .

For some reason , I feel like people just generally when they're looking at the cars , they just gloss over that detail about the Tesla Model three and all Tesla's for that matter .

It's been almost a year and I've received quite a few feature updates for the Tesla Model three in the time I've owned one including century mode cabin overheat protection , leave climate on Tesla dashcam mode and better autopilot software to name a few .

Now , unlike other vehicles from other manufacturers where to get improvements for your vehicle , you either need to buy new software or heck even buy just a brand new vehicle with Teslas .

And because of their software updates , the cars will genuinely just improve over time and you'll get significant software features available to you for free , which change is the equation and how we think about our vehicles over the long term .

Now , the last point I'm gonna make here about what I think people miss about the Tesla Model three is in regards to its screen and screen real estate .

I've gone through some of the comments on my Tesla videos and this is something that people keep commenting on and it keeps coming back up .

People keep commenting , saying your phone does the exact same thing as the screen .

I know that like I I know that you have Google Maps on your phone like that , that's not the point I've been trying to make in my videos .

My point is the screen real estate of a 15 inch screen .

The experience on that is just so much better than the experience on a phone screen that is five inches or maybe 5.5 or hell , maybe even six inches at best .

It is just a completely different experience seeing live traffic data on a 15 inch screen and seeing live traffic data on Google Maps on your phone .

Now , after going on about all the things I think people get wrong with the Model three and some of the things I think people get right about it .

There is one area where people do have concerns and those concerns are valid and that is with Tesla Service , I do think it remains to be seen whether or not Tesla has effectively scaled its service operator patients to be able to meet the demands of the growth in their customer base .

With the release of the model three .

I know from hearing from other Tesla owners that the queues on the phone line with Tesla service , those have been getting a lot longer , the wait times are a lot longer .

And I know just here in my own area that the Tesla service center here has just been slammed full of model threes for the past couple of months .

However , with all of that said , I do want to point out that at least in my experience , I've never had a bad experience with Tesla Service even when things haven't gone the way they should , they have always made the effort to make me feel taken care of as a customer and make everything right .

Well , that wraps it up for the things I think people miss with the Tesla Model three .

If you disagree with anything I said in this video , which is likely or you think I missed anything .

Definitely drop a comment below .

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Well , until next time , I'm Josh Tedder for six months later .

Thanks for watching .