Driving a Tesla Model 3: your questions answered!

Glad you asked. This was on the agenda of course, but limited raccoon availability thwarted our plans. Hang on a minute, is that you Elon, using a fake username to infiltrate the Top Gear comments section with your unique brand of zanyness? Oh that’s so Elon…

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If you’d asked me that before driving it I’d have answered this a different way, but there’s a depth of quality to the way it moves that I wasn’t expecting. As we’re all learning, speed is easy in an EV, but it’s the Model 3’s handling that’s suprisingly tidy – not as engaging as the 3 Series, perhaps, but it’s fun in other ways. Where it trails the Germans you mention is in interior quality – the minimalist aesthetic is a brave statement, but Tesla’s idea of leather seems to come from an entirely different animal to something you find in an Audi.

Where it leads its rivals is in connectivity and interface. Ultimately all premium manufacturers now have some form of mild autonomy, on-board internet and associated apps, but like Apple pulled off with the iPhone, Tesla presents it all in the simplest possible way, with a sense of fun thrown in. You don’t get ‘Santa Mode’ in a 3 Series. Truth is, having all the information on a single screen down and to your right can be extremely distracting, but it’s bold and in touch with a generation who are used to observing life through a screen. That’s where it needs to maintain its advantage when a wave of competitors arrive.

Read Top Gear's full review of the Tesla Model 3

You know, I think it might. There’s a fact I heard about electric cars: of those who buy one an extraordinarily small number go back to buying a combustion engine car. If Tesla, and other manufacturers, can get customers to have a go, then I’m confident their conversion rates will be strong. Problem is, there are still so many barriers to EV ownership – cost, range, charging infrastructure, lack of choice – that most people won’t even consider it yet. Shame.

Read Top Gear's full review of the Tesla Model 3

The car we drove was a top-spec press demonstrator. It would be a pretty major screw up if they let us drive one with panel gaps you could drive a bus through – I’m sure this one was hand checked several hundred times before we got the key. So no, there weren’t any glaring quality issues, no rattles or squeaks either, but that doesn’t tally with customer feedback that suggests Tesla is rushing them out the door. Overall, the car feels somewhere between a premium European product – Audi, BMW etc -  and a mainstream car – Peugeot, VW etc. The leather, plastics and wood don’t feel top notch, but the tech, big screen and full-length glass roof elevate the experience to something more high-end.

Read Top Gear's full review of the Tesla Model 3

Initially the appeal is purely as a gadget. I want one like I irrationally want the new iPhone the moment it’s launched. There’s a certain amount of learning you need to do to get the most out of it – the contents of the screen menus, the apps, the button shortcuts etc – but when you do there’s a satisfaction in knowing how to operate this thing, not just through the pedals and steering wheel, but digitally. Much like Apple, Telsa appears to be on a mission to demystify the electric car, to simplify it, make it accessible, and most importantly make it fun rather than some hideous life sacrifice.

And Tesla could have left it there, designed a car where the numbers stacked up, the tech dazzled, and not spent a penny on the way it drives. But it didn’t, which is what impressed me. It took the time to make sure it drives properly too. It’s a shame mass-producing them has become such a monumental ball ache, because the fundamental engineering of this car is sound.

Read Top Gear's full review of the Tesla Model 3

Elon Musk started Tesla not just to make himself more money, he’s got plenty of that. His mission was to turn the world on to electric cars - to make them sexy and fast and practical. If it was all to come crashing around his ears now, I’d say it’s mission accomplished. From the very outset the business plan was to grab people’s attention with the performance of the Roadster, prove the concept with the Model S and Model X and then bring the electric car to the masses with the Model 3. This car is the defining moment of his grand vision, which is why he’s putting so much pressure on himself to make it stick. So, to answer your question, its purpose it be affordable and push EV sales to previously unseen heights, to 500,000 cars a year. Turns out, that’s trickier than it sounds.

Read Top Gear's full review of the Tesla Model 3

The ‘Easter Eggs’, certainly, are there to try once, show your mates once, then discard for eternity. However, these daft software cheats that, among other things, turn the map into the surface of Mars, are a large part of Tesla's non-conformist appeal. Beyond that, it’s all there for a reason. The only major ’gimmick’ is having no buttons in the interior, except for scroll wheels on the steering wheel and windows switches on the door, and everything controlled through the central screen – a move that’s only partially successful. The interesting thing though is that Tesla can listen to customer feedback and act in real time, sending over-the-air software updates to the car to change the arrangement of the menus and the way information is displayed – something you can’t do with hard buttons.

Read Top Gear's full review of the Tesla Model 3

Watch this space...

Read Top Gear's full review of the Tesla Model 3

I did, but there are better solutions. A head-up display for example would keep the interior buttonless but put the information in your field of vision. What I found fiddly was adjusting the maximum permitted speed when Autopilot is engaged. It’s a ridiculously tiny number in the top left of the screen, with equally miniscule + and – signs either side. Not easy to stab at those when you’re doing 70mph, drawing on the sketch pad, singing along to Santa and waving back at every other driver as they pap you with their phones.

Read Top Gear's full review of the Tesla Model 3