This has turned into a bit of a tome - bear with me, but in summary I'm a happy customer (with few caveats) and hopefully some might find this useful.
Background:
Being a Leaf owner for 6 years, and running a Passat GTE estate alongside it as a company car for the last couple of years, I did the sums and took the leap to go for a Model 3 LR at the end of the Passat lease, via our company car scheme. I love the Passat, it's been very reliable, returns better-than-diesel average economy over our ownership, can fit in loads of stuff, and apart from the odd complaint from the middle seat rear passenger when 5-up it's the most comfortable car I've had since Chrysler Voyager many years ago (we do 20k-ish miles per year without Covid19).
Why Tesla Model 3?
The £100 per month saving (excluding fuel!) in getting Model 3 LR (including tow bar) over a new Passat GTE or Skoda Superb PHEV made the potential saloon vs estate compromise worthwhile as our main car, and tow bar means I can use the trailer for bigger and messier jobs. Model Y would be even better, but unknown costs, unknown future changes to government grant approach, and unknown timelines means that Model 3 is good for now to maximise cost advantage for BIK this year. I considered all longer-range BEV options; Hyundai Kona too small, Kia e-Niro just not available when I came to order, and although it's a more practical hatch the Tesla supercharging swayed it for our semi-regular long trips to Scotland, Yorkshire and France. Some good prices on Audi e-Tron 50; lovely inside and huge boot, but wouldn't make it 200 miles without charging (my minimum requirement). Jaguar I-Pace and Merc EQC dropped out of government grant so too expensive.
Ordering and collection:
I reserved a new inventory car online and our lease company took over the order without issues and I got my £100 deposit refunded from Tesla quickly without me prompting anyone. I picked it up 3 weeks later, contactless handover at Bristol was really easy.
What's the condition on delivery? Did I waste the hours spent researching possible quality issues on collection? Really it's fine and better than expected from some of the tales of woe I've read; one tiny chip on inside corner of boot lid, a <1mm white dot in the paintwork that seems to be under the top lacquer coat, and an occasional rattle from the rear seat somewhere on terrible roads (it's literally had a shake-down test over the past two weeks); all booked in to be resolved in August. Shut lines and panel gaps are all great (as good as the Passat), no wind noise or misaligned glass, all accessories included that should be, wheels (19") in perfect condition, so overall very good.
Ownership thoughts - what do I like?
I never test drove one due to lockdown, but had a good poke and prod in Tesla stores before lockdown. As hoped it's a fantastic driving experience, I could not justify a Performance model, it is so effortless, smooth and fast that I simply can't wait to get in and drive somewhere. Driving in 'Hold' mode with one pedal is my favourite, ride is good, efficiency is great (OK, it's the summer, it should be), tech is great (on the whole), space in rear gets the thumbs-up from the grown-up kids, even 5-up.
As a 24kWh Leaf driver with 85k miles and much rapid charging experience, the range is absolutely unbelievable. Of course I expected it to be a game-changing experience, but in reality this is a whole new world. I can't imagine I will miss a PHEV. Cabin refinement inc. wind and tyre noise is up there with Passat, overall rather quieter I'd say. Premium stereo is very good, matching the Bose system from an older Audi I had.
The kids love our new expensive games console sitting on the drive; I bought a couple of Logitech F710 wireless controllers and leave them to it.
Overall enjoying the tech experience and app (with a few caveats below).
What don't I like?
Not much, and partly it is a case if getting used to it, and frankly minor gripes overall. The main difference for me is seat comfort compared to Passat; I've spent two weeks and hundreds of miles playing with the driver's seat adjustment. It's OK, but maybe I was spoiled with the Passat which is much more cosseting; in the Passat you sit 'in' the seat which envelopes you and is really super comfortable, even with manual adjustment only. With the Model 3 you sit perched on the seat in comparison, the space around the hips feels tighter but not in a nice, supportive sports seat way (I'm average size btw), the seat squab is much shorter, and it has taken me a while to get a good combination of seat position and lumbar support. As I said it's fine, but not excellent, and maybe I need to spend more miles moulding me to the seat or the seat to me. I could be fussy, but I'm just surprised that more reviews (and I must have read and watched them all during lockdown) haven't mentioned this relative weakness IMHO.
As far as tech goes, overall it's great but moving away from Apple CarPlay is still a wrench for me. I wish the nav would give me a choice of routes like Google Maps and I wish voice recognition worked reliably for nav destinations and replying to messages (Google and Siri very good in this sense). I could move my podcasts to Spotify but I don't want to, so while using Bluetooth for audio and Siri on my iPhone does work for this, it feels a disjointed experience. I've tested Spotify in the car and sounds great, but a bit frustrated that it doesn't buffer the next song when in poor signal areas, also that the maps display doesn't cache much in advance of your route either. And how do I control map zoom level to my preference? Perhaps some setting I've not found yet. Also being unable to change charge schedule from the app seems like a very obvious omission in functionality that I took for granted in the Passat.
One other thing I find odd is how the car behaves when you step away from it briefly. For example, I want to post a letter, it's a bit dark and raining, you pull up at the side of the road next to post box, leave indicator flashing left and lights are on (Auto), put it in Park, nip out and close the door to put letter in, and rear lights and indicator have turned off in a dark street. I wish it would let me decide when to turn off completely, or at least have a time delay. I could manually turn side-lights etc. on, but what a faff for a few seconds (OK, so this is definitely a 21st century problem...).
Summary:
If you've got this far well done. Despite the caveats I love the car and have zero regrets, I think it's definitely the right choice right now for my needs, and it puts a smile on my face very time I get in. I haven't fully tested the boot space practicalities in real life compared to the Passat, but I've got a luggage/bike rack platform for the tow bar that seems to work well enough as an insurance policy, even with the relatively lowly 55kg nose weight limit on M3.
Bring on some longer journeys!
Background:
Being a Leaf owner for 6 years, and running a Passat GTE estate alongside it as a company car for the last couple of years, I did the sums and took the leap to go for a Model 3 LR at the end of the Passat lease, via our company car scheme. I love the Passat, it's been very reliable, returns better-than-diesel average economy over our ownership, can fit in loads of stuff, and apart from the odd complaint from the middle seat rear passenger when 5-up it's the most comfortable car I've had since Chrysler Voyager many years ago (we do 20k-ish miles per year without Covid19).
Why Tesla Model 3?
The £100 per month saving (excluding fuel!) in getting Model 3 LR (including tow bar) over a new Passat GTE or Skoda Superb PHEV made the potential saloon vs estate compromise worthwhile as our main car, and tow bar means I can use the trailer for bigger and messier jobs. Model Y would be even better, but unknown costs, unknown future changes to government grant approach, and unknown timelines means that Model 3 is good for now to maximise cost advantage for BIK this year. I considered all longer-range BEV options; Hyundai Kona too small, Kia e-Niro just not available when I came to order, and although it's a more practical hatch the Tesla supercharging swayed it for our semi-regular long trips to Scotland, Yorkshire and France. Some good prices on Audi e-Tron 50; lovely inside and huge boot, but wouldn't make it 200 miles without charging (my minimum requirement). Jaguar I-Pace and Merc EQC dropped out of government grant so too expensive.
Ordering and collection:
I reserved a new inventory car online and our lease company took over the order without issues and I got my £100 deposit refunded from Tesla quickly without me prompting anyone. I picked it up 3 weeks later, contactless handover at Bristol was really easy.
What's the condition on delivery? Did I waste the hours spent researching possible quality issues on collection? Really it's fine and better than expected from some of the tales of woe I've read; one tiny chip on inside corner of boot lid, a <1mm white dot in the paintwork that seems to be under the top lacquer coat, and an occasional rattle from the rear seat somewhere on terrible roads (it's literally had a shake-down test over the past two weeks); all booked in to be resolved in August. Shut lines and panel gaps are all great (as good as the Passat), no wind noise or misaligned glass, all accessories included that should be, wheels (19") in perfect condition, so overall very good.
Ownership thoughts - what do I like?
I never test drove one due to lockdown, but had a good poke and prod in Tesla stores before lockdown. As hoped it's a fantastic driving experience, I could not justify a Performance model, it is so effortless, smooth and fast that I simply can't wait to get in and drive somewhere. Driving in 'Hold' mode with one pedal is my favourite, ride is good, efficiency is great (OK, it's the summer, it should be), tech is great (on the whole), space in rear gets the thumbs-up from the grown-up kids, even 5-up.
As a 24kWh Leaf driver with 85k miles and much rapid charging experience, the range is absolutely unbelievable. Of course I expected it to be a game-changing experience, but in reality this is a whole new world. I can't imagine I will miss a PHEV. Cabin refinement inc. wind and tyre noise is up there with Passat, overall rather quieter I'd say. Premium stereo is very good, matching the Bose system from an older Audi I had.
The kids love our new expensive games console sitting on the drive; I bought a couple of Logitech F710 wireless controllers and leave them to it.
Overall enjoying the tech experience and app (with a few caveats below).
What don't I like?
Not much, and partly it is a case if getting used to it, and frankly minor gripes overall. The main difference for me is seat comfort compared to Passat; I've spent two weeks and hundreds of miles playing with the driver's seat adjustment. It's OK, but maybe I was spoiled with the Passat which is much more cosseting; in the Passat you sit 'in' the seat which envelopes you and is really super comfortable, even with manual adjustment only. With the Model 3 you sit perched on the seat in comparison, the space around the hips feels tighter but not in a nice, supportive sports seat way (I'm average size btw), the seat squab is much shorter, and it has taken me a while to get a good combination of seat position and lumbar support. As I said it's fine, but not excellent, and maybe I need to spend more miles moulding me to the seat or the seat to me. I could be fussy, but I'm just surprised that more reviews (and I must have read and watched them all during lockdown) haven't mentioned this relative weakness IMHO.
As far as tech goes, overall it's great but moving away from Apple CarPlay is still a wrench for me. I wish the nav would give me a choice of routes like Google Maps and I wish voice recognition worked reliably for nav destinations and replying to messages (Google and Siri very good in this sense). I could move my podcasts to Spotify but I don't want to, so while using Bluetooth for audio and Siri on my iPhone does work for this, it feels a disjointed experience. I've tested Spotify in the car and sounds great, but a bit frustrated that it doesn't buffer the next song when in poor signal areas, also that the maps display doesn't cache much in advance of your route either. And how do I control map zoom level to my preference? Perhaps some setting I've not found yet. Also being unable to change charge schedule from the app seems like a very obvious omission in functionality that I took for granted in the Passat.
One other thing I find odd is how the car behaves when you step away from it briefly. For example, I want to post a letter, it's a bit dark and raining, you pull up at the side of the road next to post box, leave indicator flashing left and lights are on (Auto), put it in Park, nip out and close the door to put letter in, and rear lights and indicator have turned off in a dark street. I wish it would let me decide when to turn off completely, or at least have a time delay. I could manually turn side-lights etc. on, but what a faff for a few seconds (OK, so this is definitely a 21st century problem...).
Summary:
If you've got this far well done. Despite the caveats I love the car and have zero regrets, I think it's definitely the right choice right now for my needs, and it puts a smile on my face very time I get in. I haven't fully tested the boot space practicalities in real life compared to the Passat, but I've got a luggage/bike rack platform for the tow bar that seems to work well enough as an insurance policy, even with the relatively lowly 55kg nose weight limit on M3.
Bring on some longer journeys!
