Model 3 SR Plus Impressions

Model 3 SR+ (240 mile EV range rated)
-impressions after coming from a 2012 Plug-in Prius)


Performance
Wow is this thing fast, rated 5.3s at 0-60mph. It feels faster than this, as at street legal speeds (generally 0-45 mph), it performs even better – essentially faster than any ICE sports cars in ranges that don’t involve speeding tickets.

With normal pedal pressure, the accelerator response pushes the car around at normal unassuming speeds. But when asked for more, it readily complies with what could be described as “launch mode”.

The Model 3 provides more acceleration than this guy probably needs, but nice to know it's there for short on-ramps and uphill merging.

With the low center of gravity, the Model 3 is very solid and hugs corners with hardly any roll.


Regenerative braking
Compared to the Prius, regeneration is substantially more aggressive.

The “standard” setting allows one pedal driving and slows the car fairly quickly when taking the foot off the pedal. I prefer the “low” setting - still more aggressive than but slows the car more like the Prius. I prefer to hold the pedal in a position to glide when I don’t need to accelerate or brake and find the standard setting too aggressive to work with.

Under normal and even somewhat aggressive driving, the Model 3 appears to capture all kinetic energy (not accounting for loses) before engaging the friction brakes. The friction brakes still have to always engage below ~5-7 mph. This is nice for coming down hills and having to brake more than gently, or even holding the speed limit on a fast, steep downgrade.


Exterior
The 18” wheels are nice. Our bare bones SR+ comes with aero-covers. Although nothing special, they are not bad looking. We will probably leave them on at least to avoid a mpg hit.

Wanted to see what the kids would say when they saw it for the first time getting home from school. My youngest (about to turn 10) had the same thought I did – said it looks like a modern bat mobile with the black color and black wheels.

The doors take a bit more pressure to close and don’t have the same crisp closing feel of other modern vehicles. Suspect Tesla will improve this over then next few years (perhaps in the Model Y).

All of the gaps are fine around the car except a small flaw, apparently not yet fixed on the manufacturing line. The right headlamp does not sit completely flush. My friend, who has a late 2018 Model 3 LR, pointed this out to me - he wanted to see if Tesla fixed this yet...not yet.


Access
Pairing the vehicle and phone with Bluetooth for key access is nice. My iPhone is always in my pocket, so no manual key or key fob needed. The vehicle comes with two access cards, so I keep one in my wallet in case the car needs to be serviced and I can then hand this off.

The iPhone app is pretty cool to check vehicle status, location, charging status, make climate control changes, etc.


Interior
The vegan leather looks quite nice. This was one of the upgrades in the SR+ from the standard SR (which is reported to have cloth seats). Will have to see how it stands up to kids on road trips and the hot summers. My last two vehicles and our other vehicle had cloth seating that performed well, so we would have been fine to keep that.

No ceiling clearance problem sitting in the front at 6’2”. I used to drive a ’95 Civic, so am used to sitting at this lower height that may catch someone coming from an SUV/Truck off guard.

The SR+ added 12-way power adjustable heated front seats, which is an upgrade over the manual seat and manual steering adjustment of the basic Model 3.

Audio is nice. With the SR+, apparently the sound system is not as limited as the SR basic or as good as the higher end trims. Still, the sound quality is better than my Plug-in Prius or any other vehicles we have owned, so a welcome step up. Not sure how many speakers and woofers it has compared to the highest end trim Model 3s.

There is no CarPlay or Android Auto, which would have been nice. Music and media work over Bluetooth. Since the system is put together much better than Entune, it’s quite workable.

The vehicle does not come with floor mats. It’s rainy season here, so right away I ordered the All Weather Interior Mats - only $145. They fit precisely, have Velcro nonslip pads for the front driver and front passenger sections, and have a small to medium lip around the edges for rainy/snowy/muddy situations.


Visibility
Visibility is great out the front, able to see more of the road right in front of the car.

Rear view visibility and side blind spots are not so great, but the backup camera with large screen and sensors largely make up for this.

When backing up, on default, the side-view mirrors angle down to give you a look at the ground around the car - a nice touch.

When parking, the side view mirrors fold back. As with all Model 3 trim levels, the side view mirrors are heated.


Display
The 15” display shows all data on the car. The screen resolution is nice and camera video appears sharper than other vehicles I have been in to this point. For the most part the layout is clean and well organized.

I have yet to go through all of the menus and ways to access things. It’s useful to spend a few minutes learning the essentials on the screen before going on a first ride.

I can’t seem to find how to re-order station presets once set, apparently this is a known issue.

One is able to turn on the rear-view camera to watch traffic behind when driving (although a bit vertigo inducing). I also do this to make sure there is enough space behind me when I roll forward into a parking space.

Not everything is controlled by the display. The steering wheel has two scroll wheels that can also be pushed. Depending on display choices made, they control things like audio volume, station, side view mirrors, steering wheel height, etc. A stalk on the left and right perform many of the functions that one would expect on a vehicle.


Charging
The charging port is hidden under the left rear tail/signal light and has a motorized lift and close.

The vehicle comes with a charging cable/adapter bag in the trunk with Velcro so it doesn’t slide around. This kit includes both NEMA 14-50 and standard 110v adapters on the input end and a J-1772 adapter for the output end.

The J-1772 adapter is nice to have on hand for the numerous L2 public stations when needed. Since we have two L2 charging stations at home, we will leave the charging cable/adapters in the car. I bought an extra J-1772 adapter to leave permanently on one of the home L2 charging stations.

The J-1772 adapter is rugged, well built, and fits snug; it looks like will last for many years.

The Tesla smart phone app, among several useful things, allows one to set the max charging stop point at different levels. Mine is set around 80% to keep the vehicle from sitting fully charged for a prolonged period of time.

Coming from a Plug-in Prius, and still having our Leaf for at least a couple more weeks, we appreciate the active battery thermal management system to minimize battery degradation. One cost to this otherwise superior system is that the vehicle seems to lose about 1-2 miles a day parked.

We have not tested the supercharging network yet. In ~3 months we plan to drive down to Los Angeles and San Diego and will try the network then.


Other
At the recommendation of another Model 3 friend, we have the Jeda wireless charging mat on order for my iPhone. It’s custom made, just for the Model 3, so will be nice to simply throw the phone on it when getting in the vehicle to juice it up, sans having to plug it in.

 

Thanks. Will do this.

On the low auto regeneration setting, about the same as the Plug-in Prius. Not too hard, but requires some attention - have to apply the right amount of pressure and dynamically change this with driving conditions. No taptic or other feedback which would be nice.

Of course, even on the low auto regeneration setting, if you simply press on the brake pedal, the same potential regeneration is available.

AFAIK there is no user selectable blended control or on/off control. Someone else here may know for certain.

It appears regeneration with braking is always used first up to its limit. Outside of very hard or emergency braking (have not experienced either yet), the display screen indicates that I have remaining braking regeneration capacity.

Per other reports I have read, friction braking automatic kicks in below 5-7 mph, but I see nothing on the screen to show when friction brakes are being used.

I have not charged the vehicle to 100%, at which time I have been told there is no regenerative braking reserve until sufficient safe battery capacity remains. Reportedly as only friction braking is available at this time, the braking feels “different”.

 

You might be right. I thought I was increasing regeneration with braking, but not so sure now. I’ll have to keep a look at the indicator more closely. I just checked on some threads and they suggest that applying the brakes only uses friction braking.

Can anyone else here comment with a Model 3?

 

As others have confirmed here, I was mistaken about getting any regeneration from applying the brake pedal.

I incorrectly assumed this was happening when seeing the green regeneration bar concurrently active when applying the brake pedal. As it turns out, this was not related to the brake pedal; the vehicle just does this when one withdraws from the accelerator.

Even so, it appears that when applying the brake, this does not interfere with regeneration that occurs from lifting off the accelerator.

Now that I understand this correctly, I have changed from the low regeneration mode to the standard regeneration mode. It’ll take a little while to learn how to finesse the aggressive slow down when lifting off the accelerator, but seems that others are able to handle this with ease.

 

Someone may take you up on the offer.

But I already picked up and installed a set from Tesla for $145, and want to keep the aero wheel covers for fuel efficiency.

 

Think so now. Was surprising at first, but in retrospect was probably that when noticing the green regeneration meter fill more to the left, I just happened to be braking at that time.

After Trollbait's comment, I searched other forums for this and users noted there was no regeneration control with the brake pedal.

In our neighborhood, one hill segment is particularly steep, maybe 10% grade. Came down on this a few times approaching a stop sign at different rates of braking deceleration from 30->0 mph. The green regeneration indicator did not seem to be influenced by how aggressively the brake pedal was used.

Try one pedal driving vs. one pedal driving + braking on repeating segments near you and see what happens.

On a positive note, after changing to "regular" regeneration mode, have gotten comfortable with it quickly.

 

Now that I've had the car for almost 2 months, wanted to check in with an update.

It's an amazing machine and it continues to be a pleasure to drive. As with all things, nothing is perfect. That there are thus far only a few things I have run across needing improvement is perhaps a testament to Tesla getting so many things right in the Model 3.

So here is my list of a discoveries that could use improvement:

1) Vampire drain
This is my biggest gripe. It's not specific or unusual to my vehicle, but was surprised I did not come across this until ownership. My experiences have been as the manual claims "the battery may discharge at a rate of approximately 1% per day"; indeed I lose about 2.5 miles a day with the car parked. For someone with a 7 mile round trip commute, that's a substantial loss of efficiency. Probably would be nearly a rounding error for those with long commutes. Still, as the energy miser I am, that >900 kWh a year hurts.

2) Left wiper streak
A small problem and perhaps just a bad blade on my vehicle. With any moisture on the front windshield, raining or not, the tip of the left wiper leaves a water streak behind. Still there after cleaning.

3) Water run off back window into trunk
Opening the trunk during a light rain or after water saturation of the rear window but no longer raining, opening the trunk allows some water to spill into the trunk from the rear window.

4) Doors harder to close than other vehicles
As noted earlier in this thread. This is something that just takes one to get used to. It's more of a problem when someone new to the vehicle goes for a ride and you have to ask them to close the door harder.

5) Spots on front windshield
Fixed with some cautiously applied acetone, but the interior windows had 4 x ~1.5" wide square opaque spots when the sun hit the windshield just right. Suspect this came from some machine pad residue from window install.

6) Poor window control
Compared to other vehicles owned, the window controls are not as good. The ability to start and stop window up/down to get to a precise point is a bit challenging, such as wanting the windows "cracked" open slightly. Over or undershooting the target is common.

 

It’s not entirely clear. Cabin Overheat Protection probably explains up to half of the vampire drain. Some have reported that even if there aren’t high temps in the cabin, it still is a big drain. With summer coming on here and my black paint, there will be limited times I’ll be able to have it off in the next 5 months.

Third party apps that poll the car can be a problem, but I don’t think that applies to my situation. Also sentry mode can use a lot more energy, like 10 kWh/day if triggered a lot, but I rarely have that on, and only for short periods of time.

Also, constantly waking the car by checking its status with the a smartphone app also worsens things.