Thoughts on a Tesla Model 3

[Fat Focus]

I drove my 81 year old mother's TM3 the other day. It's certainly 2 or 3 times the car my Focus Electric is. Being 6-2, 250 it is not the easiest getting in an out, but it's comfy while driving.

[jmueller065]

So after having a Model 3 for a couple months I thought I'd post a little update. Probably the biggest difference between the way the TM3 and FFE drives is the regenerative braking. The FFE complicates things trying to blend regen with physical braking. With a Tesla things are a little more simple. You "throttle" the amount of regen by how much you lift on the accelerator. Full regen = no foot on accelerator. The brake pedal is simply just the physical brakes. Under typical driving with the TM3 you are going single digit speeds when you use the physical brakes to come to a complete stop. Almost 1 pedal driving. I absolutely love that creep can be disabled and the Hold function which allows you to take your foot off the brake pedal and not worry about rolling away. I still would like an easier way to freewheel as sometimes I like to just coast down to a stop and it's very difficult to find the spot where you aren't using any regen and aren't supplying any power to the wheels. Putting the car in neutral while a little awkward seems to work for this. There is a bar graphic right under the speedo that gives a quick visual cue as to the amount of regen or power being expended that makes controlling throttle and regen much more elegant.

And sadly while vampire drain is real with a Tesla, the 3rd party apps such as screen grabs I posted above seem to be wildly inaccurate and can actually cause greater vampire drain. I've stopped using all 3rd party apps and my car has done several OTA updates since then. So not sure what really happened but vampire drain is minimal for the brief times I don't drive it. I'll revisit this in the winter when I'm driving it less. I may end up installing a 12V disconnect as mentioned above for instances of long term storage or simply unhooking the 12V battery.

The Bolt is setup in a similar fashion: put it in "L" and its in one pedal mode: no creep and taking your foot off the accelerator generates 0.2G of deceleration/regeneration. You can double this to 0.4G by grabbing the regen paddle on the back of the steering wheel (the brake pedal always engages the friction brakes on the Bolt). There also is that sweet spot in the accelerator where you're just coasting but, like you describe, its a bit tricky to find it.

Once stopped, however, you're advised to keep your foot on the brake as the brake lights go off and, if on an incline, it won't hold the stop very well in the Bolt.

[triangles]

That makes me like the bolt more. I have no idea how many g's the TM3 regen is. Maybe someday I'll find an app for that. I forgot to mention that the "Hold" function keeps the brake lights illuminated so no one knows you took your foot off the brake. Thank goodness for the TM3 so I don't have to go thru the agony of contemplating buying a GM product. I honestly don't think I could bring myself to do it. Long story for hating GM but suffice it to say I'm not bitter and I don't hold grudges... If I didn't have friends that work there I'd be happy if they went bankrupt again and weren't bailed out.

I can't wait to see Ford's next EV. Hopefully they abandon the kludgy mixed regen/friction brakes. Except for the regen cutting out when hitting a bump I don't dislike the way the ford brake works other than not knowing for sure where the transition is which makes it hard to maximize regen.

I also forgot to mention that I tried supercharging. After driving from Toledo to the far side of Columbus and back I was down to 7% battery. The TM3 is advertised as being able to add 170 miles in 30 minutes. Well I added 40 miles in about 5 minutes! If my math is right that's 240mi/30min or 480 mi/hr and the first minute or so the power was slowly ramping up to 118 kW. I can't wait to go on a long distance road trip.

[Vibrursan]

Wow! I love to see so many fellow Tesla owners! I'm also waiting for mine to be shipped out, and I hope I made the right decision by trusting this company with my new baby. I heard it's called the best car shipping company, so I hope that those who said that are not wrong. It'd be horrible for it to get damaged on the way. I'm still worried about all the cons I read about it online, some of them even being the ones you listed here. I'm still looking forward to owning and driving it soon (not only because I'd look so cool just staying in the driver's seat while the car drives itself, haha).