Autoline TV tests a Model 3

A couple of things with regards to Autoline.

He was not a friend of Tesla prior to actually spending some time with the car and actually driving it. As a result of spending a week with the car, he has come a long way in appreciating what the car is in reality. BUT........

At the start of the video, the car was likely already unlocked since the side mirrors were already fully deployed. You cannot just download the Tesla app and drive any Tesla. That would be a huge security breech. He could not drive the car with his phone unless the phone had already been downloaded into the U.I. system.

The rear seat in the model 3 is exactly the same as in my Prius plug-in in terms of depth, pitch, height off floor, and thigh support. Why does he make such a big deal about Tesla's rear seat? The rear seat is pretty typical for a car in this size class.

He was not driving the car as directed in the Owner's Manual. He needs to RTFM. He shows very poor preparation in doing a report on the driving characteristics of the car.

He says the car is a Dec. '18 build, just like mine. That means he has EAP, not AP. EAP provides a choice of satellite view or route view. AP only has route view. I use route view about 90% of the time but I find satellite view very helpful and more suitable about 10% of the time.

He says when turning on the turn signal to change lanes, it cancels autosteer. That is simply not true with EAP. He was trying to steer the car into the next lane and that cancelled autosteer. Later in the video, the car was making lane changes successfully with autosteer as he learned to provide LESS user input.

He is oversteering the car which will kick it out of EAP. He needs to trust the car, let it steer itself. I have done cloverleafs countless times and autosteer has worked flawlessly. He was oversteering the car in the cloverleaf and blamed the response on the car, when in fact it was his driver error. He indicated the car was going to drive off the road, but I can clearly see on the U.I. screen he did not have EAP and autosteer engaged. He is a novice with EAP and made a lot of rookie mistakes. He needs more time behind the wheel to learn how to drive in EAP and then he will realize that EAP does not need constant attention.

Although, I have heard reports of problems with the U.I. screen by some owners, I have never experienced this, as well as something like 90% of other owners. I have never had to reboot the system for any reason.

The video was interesting for several reasons, but it should not be taken literally.

 

Did you try pressing the "orientation icon" (heads up, north up, turn by turn) in the upper right corner of the U.I. screen? If you go searching for something on the screen by scrolling the screen, the car "red arrow" will not be centered or not appear on the screen at all, depending on the scope of search. A simple press on the icon will result in finding the location of the car and re-centering it. FWIW, I generally prefer the "heads up" orientation with the car at the bottom of the screen so i can anticipate traffic ahead of me on the freeways (I don't care what the traffic is like behind me when the car is centered). But the computer does give you options for whatever orientation works best for the driver.

Regarding his criticism of the rear view mirror, the mirror does show less than what the mirror on the Prius shows. But we frequently enable the rear view camera on the U.I. screen while driving, especially in heavy traffic (which we can't do on our Prius). This capability gives a much better view than any mirror can. McEnroy apparently didn't know about this feature since he didn't RTFM. He should drive the car for a few weeks before he can make a comprehensive review.