The Tesla Model 3 is an American four-door saloon car with rear- or -four-wheel drive, seating for five people at a pinch, and a touchscreen inside. Sure, it’s all-electric, but it hardly sounds A Verified Big Deal, does it? But the Tesla Model 3 is one of the most important big deals of the 21st Century so far.
This is Tesla’s affordable entry-level car, designed to take on the best-selling likes of the BMW 3 Series, Audi A4, and Mercedes C-Class, not to mention their slow-off-the-mark electric cousins. And thanks to Tesla’s viral, household name status and the ambition of the car’s features, the Model 3 has become a phenomenon.
How affordable are we talking?
It sits below the Model S saloon in the range, and in standard guise is priced from £48,490. That gets you rear-wheel drive, and a claimed 305 miles of range between visits to a public Supercharger, or your home wallbox.
Above that in the ‘3’ pecking order lie two all-wheel drive versions: the Long Range (good for up to 374 miles), and the Performance, which sacrifices a few miles of range but will outrun a Lamborghini Huracán up to the national speed limit. Something for everyone, then…
Has Tesla stuck to its guns on pricing?
These model lines are correct at the time of writing (December 2022) but Tesla has a habit of creating and killing off trim levels willy-nilly – here today, gone tomorrow. And the price has long since crept away from the mid-£30k target once vaunted. Not that it stopped the Model 3 becoming Britain’s best-selling electric car in 2020.
As per all Teslas – and most electric cars – the Model 3 is powered by a slab of lithium-ion battery cells mounted in the car’s floor, where they’re best protected from a crash and helpfully low to keep the centre of gravity in check. That means you get a second boot (frunk or froot, choose your front-biased cargo bay term) in the nose, which is handy for stowing mucky charging cables.
That’s all very practical. What about the fun stuff?
Chances are you’ll have heard fragments of what makes Teslas so interesting floating around the internet. Giant touchscreens, funny Easter egg content like games and built-in Netflix, and something about them being able to drive themselves while you take a nap or watch Tiger King. Let’s get on with saluting Tesla for the truth in that, and dispelling the myths the Californian brand’s cult-like following would have you believe.
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Our choice from the range
Tesla
Long Range AWD 4dr Auto
£57,435
What's the verdict?
“The most impressive electric car this side of a Porsche Taycan. Fresh design, a sense of humour, and backed up by Superchargers”
Posed against po-faced competitors, Teslas are invariably the quick ones, the efficient ones, the fun ones with Fart Mode and the lucky ones least dependent on a haphazard charging ecosystem. Even a basic version with a single rearward motor and only Chill/Sport acceleration settings develops 235bhp and punches to 60mph faster than a £55k Jaguar F-Type.
While the angry frog styling won’t be to all tastes, the interior is a real love/hate arrangement and the driving dynamics aren’t all that memorable once you’ve stopped swallowing your tongue every time you nail the throttle, it’s easy to see why the Model 3 has become a global standard-setter for EVs.
This is the future we were promised – a car with sentience, a sense of humour, and a fresh take on the old norms. After trying this, your old repmobile will feel positively Brunellian.
The Model 3 was Top Gear’s 2019 saloon of the year, beating the old guard and maintaining its lead of the new EV pretenders. It’s been in production since mid-2017, but even heading into middle age, nothing on the market has yet managed to beat the Model 3 on all fronts. While not without flaws, it is quite simply one of the most interesting, compelling cars in the world right now.
Polestar 2
£39,845 – £68,845
Volkswagen ID.3
£29,565 – £40,495
Jaguar I-Pace
Continue reading: Driving
Driving
What is it like to drive?
Yes, you do have to do this bit yourself. All UK-spec Model 3s come with ‘Autopilot’ built in as standard, declares Tesla’s website, and you’ll have visions of setting the nav for Saint-Tropez, bedding down for the night and waking up on the riviera. Not yet, by a long stretch.
Autopilot is merely an umbrella term for adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, lane-following assistant and pedestrian-avoidance steering. All terribly useful and well-integrated, but nothing you can’t find in a BMW 3 Series and co.
Got it. So what’s this Full Self-Driving Package?
To get the full suite of Tesla cleverness, you’ll need to spend £6,800 on the Full Self-Driving Package, which purports to control the car entirely on the motorway (though no longer without your hands on the steering wheel), to automatically find and enter or exit parking spaces, and even summon the car to your location if, say, you want to avoid getting caught in the rain when leaving the shops. Welcome to The Future.
Splendid idea, but in execution, not quite there. The Model 3’s automatic lane-changes on the motorway vary from hesitant to haphazard, causing other drivers to be wary of the Tesla rather drunkenly dawdling nearby. Similarly, the Summon feature is a great party trick but better suited to sprawling American parking lots than your average provincial high street. We’ll bet you end up just taking over and doing it the old-fashioned way, using the supercomputer between your ears.
I’ve heard Teslas are rapid: is the Model 3 fast?
Having saved you a few quid on the tech, next let’s do the same with speed. Trust us, you really don’t need the 450bhp-strong Performance. The £61,490 dual-motor range-topper is supercar fast and that’s one heck of a punchline (0-60mph in a claimed 3.1 seconds), but the acceleration is so vivid it’s verging on uncomfortable for passengers. We’ve got into the habit of turning down the acceleration from ‘Sport’ to ‘Chill’ mode, which sort of defeats the point. Imagine how rapid it feels to make us lot at Top Gear say we’d make do with the slower one. Aspirin, anyone?
Even the entry-level Model 3 (previously called the Standard Range Plus) will go from 0-60mph in 5.8 seconds, silkily speeding away in silence from the Porsche Cayman who’s still changing gear and building up his revs. It’s effortlessly, instantly rapid.
The other reason you might not want quite so much poke is that, despite Tesla’s best efforts, this isn’t a true sports saloon. Sure, the CoG is snake-low and there’s plenty of grip, but the remote, synthetic steering feels like it’s come off an early Xbox rig, and the brakes are mushy.
The Performance can be coaxed into powerslides, but you can sense the sheer mass heaving around in direction changes and the Model 3 feels out of sorts when pushed as hard as the Crème aus Cremes of German performance metal. As a seven-tenths car with effortless pace though, it’s sensational.
What about the range?
Teslas tend to excel here, and the Model 3 keeps up the tradition. In a not-long-ago winter test of the 2021-spec Model 3 Standard Range Plus, we were headed for 210 miles on a charge, with power consumption of 4.7 miles per kWh knocking the VW ID.3 and Nissan Leaf’s 2.7 mi/kWh into a cocked hat.
On paper the entry car delivers 305 miles of range from its 53kWh battery, while the Long Range boosts this to 374 miles from a 78kWh unit. The Performance slips to 340 miles, owing to its ridiculous acceleration and 162mph top speed. Yowzers.
Teslas are pretty range-anxiety proof, due to the proliferation of the Supercharger network (there are almost 1,000 charging points across the UK network as of autumn 2022), its speed of charging, and how efficiently the car uses its battery reserves. A new heat pump from the Model Y has eaten into front boot space in the latest models, but it means even less guilt from cranking up the heater in cold weather. Of course, you can save yourself the bother by pre-conditioning the car via the touchscreen calendar, or your smartphone, which can also act as the car’s key.
The low-speed ride is leagues better than it used to be in, say, an early Model S, and the rolling refinement is predictably serene. But handling and speed – that’s all a bit 20th Century, compared to Tesla’s true forte: the interior tech.
Tesla Model 3 review: £38k Standard Range Plus driven
£42,990
Unplugged Tesla Model 3 review: modified car rivals M3
Tesla Model 3 Performance review: a BMW M3/C63 rival?
Previous: Overview
Continue reading: Interior
Interior
What is it like on the inside?
Staying true to the Model S’s maxi-minimalist interior design, the Model 3 is just as stark. The dash is nothing but a slab of wood, a full-width air vent and a 15.4-inch touchscreen, landscape orientated, rather than the larger portrait screen in earlier versions of the S. From where you sit, on a slightly narrow but otherwise comfortable chair, the screen appears to hover in mid-air.
Scour the cabin and the only physical buttons you’ll find are two unmarked scroll wheels on the steering wheel (left blank so Tesla can change their functions if needs be via software updates), regular for the electric windows, a button for the hazard lights above your head and a button on the grab handle to open each door, although there’s a physical lever below that in case the electrics catch a cold.
Space in the back seats is fine for anyone up to six-foot tall, a bit cramped beyond that, but it’s worth it for the endless view out through the full-length sunroof that wraps right around and behind your head. It’s because of that infinity roof that the 3 isn’t a hatchback, so you have to make do with a notchback boot, although split folding rear seats mean you can fit longer objects in, too. Going away for the weekend? Drop the back seats and a double blow up mattress slots in perfectly – some companies make bespoke ones that pack up neatly in the boot.
Overall, the build quality and materials are a step behind the established premium European players, but by keeping things super-simple, it’s never really an issue. Acres of plastic switchgear and multiple screens and sockets would have only highlighted Tesla’s shortcomings. Multiple test cars we’ve tried have suffered from bugbears like sticking windows and misaligned trim, so check a Model 3 carefully before you accept delivery.
As it is, everything is dominated by that central screen. Seriously – you even have to find a sub-sub menu to adjust the steering column reach and rake.
The general idea is that the quarter closest to the driver is dedicated to information and controls you might need while driving, including a visual representation of your autopilot situation and shortcuts to the trip computer, charge status etc. Oh, and your current speed. The Model 3 would do well to include a head-up display for such vitals.
The rest is dominated by a map or whatever you want to overlay, such as your radio or music streaming, climate control settings and phone status. Alternatively, you can dive into the settings menu (best to do this when stationary) and have fun tweaking your steering weight, how much re-gen braking you want, and if you’d like the turn signal to make a fart sound. Really.
Although the basic driving controls couldn’t be simpler, this isn’t a car you fully understand in the first five minutes. Like a new smartphone, you need to commit some time to learning the shortcuts, locating the settings you might need and engraining them in your brain. That said, the touchscreen operation itself is fabulous. The graphics are industry-leading for sharpness, the reaction times are iPad-like and the menus aren’t complicated stacks of multi-layered mayhem.
Got everything set just so? Good. Now you can have fun exploring some of Tesla’s ‘Easter eggs’ – modes that are there for no reason other than to make you and your passengers laugh. Modes like the Mars button that turns the map into the surface of the Red Planet, or the Santa setting (only available with Autopilot engaged) which turns your car into a sleigh, the road into a rainbow and other road users into reindeer, or the vast array of old arcade games you can play with the steering wheel scroll buttons in gridlock.
You will either find this stuff fun or excruciatingly annoying. Especially when you discover the racing games, which employ the car’s actual steering wheel and pedals, will do your tyres no good whatsoever as they’re dry-steered about while you aim for a new high-score. Still, when was the last time you played in-built Mario Kart in an Audi? Exactly. Welcome to a new way to do interiors, where how you have fun when you’re waiting for a charge is just as important as the boring old business of regular transport.
Previous: Driving
Continue reading: Buying
Buying
What should I be paying?
If you’re happy just to lease it, the cheapest Model 3’s payments dip to around £600 a month, and from around £700 on a PCP. This is the iPhone of cars after all. In 2024 you’ll be due an upgrade. And in the meantime, Tesla is at pains to point out you’ll save tens of pounds per mile in tax, fuel and maintenance versus a conventional petrol-powered rival, though that case has weakened somewhat with the rise in electricity costs lately.
More EV contenders have come on stream too, with the likes of the BMW i4 and Ford Mustang Mach-E barging their way into the frame. The latter is more of a crossover of course, but if you need more space in your Tesla, there’s the higher Model Y.
Whereas Superchargers used to be free with the Model S and Model X, you have to pay as you go with the 3, although in some cases there’s an allowance that’ll give you a few top-ups per year for free. You’ll spot the red and white charging stations at most motorway services now: as of autumn 2022, Tesla is reported to have almost 1,000 individual Supercharger charging points across nearly 100 separate locations, with more on the way. Plug in at one of these and the fastest will offer up to 250kW of power, enough to add 172 miles of range in about 15 minutes.
Plug the car into your three-pin wall socket at home and the juice crawls along, adding about five miles of range for every hour. Get a home wallbox and you could charge at up to 16.5kW depending on your home connection – that’s 51 miles for every hour plugged in. More realistic for most UK homes is around 7kW, or 22 miles per hour of charging.
Beware upgrading to 19-inch rims – they’ll pinch range due to added rolling resistance – and we’d shun the white interior scheme. Even if you’re only keeping your Tesla for a handful of years, the upholstery will be looking tired if you have children, pets, or wear denim.
As standard there’s a plethora of features, from heated electric seats to built-in karaoke internet browsing with Netflix and YouTube apps, a tinted glass roof, electric folding and adjustable door mirrors, and wireless phone charging. Pity that Tesla chose to angle the charging bays directly at the driver, where they’re most distracting – but by the look of that touchscreen, Tesla’s hardly worried about screens being overbearing, is it?
Happily, the waiting list is now down from over a year to a few months. That’s the boon of only offering a handful of colours and only two cabin colour schemes. The Model 3 doesn’t need a wild spec to stand out, y’see.
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