I thought it might be interesting to write up my thoughts and answer any questions having driven a Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus as my only car for the last 16 months. I'll write what I can think of below, and happy to answer any questions.
The car is a 2019 Model 3 SR+ which I have leased for 4 years. It replaced a 2016 BMW F31 320d M Sport Touring. Before that I had a BMW 116d (yuck!), before that a BMW E90 330i, and before that a Mazda MX5 (various other boring cars before that). I'm 40 and have been driving for 23 years. I'm extremely interested in cars and tech, and I work in the tech industry. I’m interested in the environmental impact of the things I do, but not obsessively so!
I’ll try to focus on EV in general rather than being Tesla-specific (except where unavoidable)
Range - I normally drive fairly locally, and so charge the car to about 75-80% every 2 or 3 nights. This means I don't pay attention to range that much. I have done several long trips (300 miles) where I have found that the actual 100%-0% range is about 200 miles in summer and about 160 miles in winter with the heating on / heated seats on etc..
For reference the WLTP range of the car is 254 miles (current model year is a little higher). As we know this is not representative of real-world ‘fuel economy’ as is the case for all other vehicle types.
Home Charging - I have a PodPoint tethered 7kW charger (so has a cable permanently attached), and I park/charge on my driveway. I’m very glad I went for the tethered cable as it means plugging in takes a few seconds (don’t need to get cables out of the boot).
In summer last year I switched to Octopus Go. This means I can charge between 00:30-04:30 for 5p / kWh. This results in running costs of roughly 2p per mile (bit less in summer, bit more in winter).
I’ve also charged whilst away from home at my parents house. They don’t have a charger but do have off road parking, so I was charging using the granny charger. This worked quite well, meaning I was able to keep topped up to 80% whilst staying and left with 100% battery for the journey home.
Public Charging - I have only used Superchargers on long trips. I had some big range anxiety the first time I did a long trip. Will the chargers work? Will all the chargers be busy? Will I make it to the charger the sat-nav says I will? A few long trips completely put me at ease. I've only encountered one supercharger which didn't work, so I just used the one next to it. I charged in a car-park once because they had about 20 free 7kW PodPoint chargers so thought I'd give it a try, and it worked fine.
Supercharging is fast but it could do with being even faster. For example if you arrive at a charger with 10% battery remaining, it will charge extremely quickly at first (approx “800 miles per hour”), but then the speed drops off as the battery fills (about “250 miles per hour”). This means it’s better to do 2 charges from 10-50% than one charge from, say 20-90% if on a trip. This does however mean you are totally reliant on the chargers working if you’re down to 10% range. I went with the 20-90% option as it suited me to stop just the once. I hope that future battery developments will enable more sustained rapid charge speeds.
On those 300 mile trips I spent a total of about 30-35 minutes charging and about 5 - 5.5hours driving. The charging stops a good time to have lunch before carrying on, though due to Covid it was a packed lunch so I was ready to go after 15 mins but had to wait the additional 15 mins. I think this would be less noticeable if I could have gone inside for something to eat / coffee.
A key point on public charging - I think this is where Tesla comes into its own with their dedicated ultra-fast charging. We have all seen stories about the mess that public charging is right now, with a wealth of apps needed and general issues with reliability. Companies like Instavolt seem to be nailing this now with simple reliable chargers and contactless credit/debit card payment.
Recently it has been announced that there is to be huge investment in ultra-fast charging at motorway services and key A-road locations. I hope this will provide a Tesla Supercharger-like experience for all EV drivers. This would be the one key thing that would enable me to consider a different EV brand for my next car.
Non-driving battery usage - I've noticed that because I do a lot of short trips, I use quite a bit of energy pre-heating the car (and pre-cooling in summer). If I couldn't charge at home, this would be quite impactful as it uses up “range” without going anywhere.
If I was commuting to work daily (which I haven't been doing lately and will probably never do again) - a total 100 mile round trip, I'd be needing to charge every day from say 20-80%. If I didn't have a charger either at home or work this would be a massive pain. With a charger at home/work this is much easier (takes 5 seconds to plug in / unplug)
Summary - Overall I have really enjoyed having the car - much more any any previous cars. I really love the driving experience (the performance, smoothness and the instant torque etc). I also really like the technology (e.g. being able to preheat / de-ice the car from the app etc..). Not visiting a petrol station since 2019 has also been welcome.
There are times when some additional range would be useful - but in my usage not enough to justify additional cost for a larger battery. More available charging would be a preferred option in my use case, for the 6-8 times per year (without pandemic!) when I make a journey where I can’t do the round trip on a single charge from home.
I think if I could not charge at home I would be telling a different story at this point in time. I would be able to charge at the 50kW charger in my village, but that would be a bit of a pain, and more expensive. It is still early days and I think once fast public charging is absolutely everywhere this would be less of an issue. For example, 40 mins on a 50kw charger whilst shopping or at the gym would be fine.
Tesla-specific experience - Overall I really love the Model 3. I love the big screen, Google Maps, built in Spotify support, Autopilot, games for my daughter (e.g. when we’re waiting in the car). On the negative side I have a rattle that I’ve not got fixed yet, and in the last few days seem to have developed a minor water leak in the boot (I think I may have damaged the boot seal when removing a bike from the boot). The build quality is ok - about on a par with my old F31 3-series. I think if you were coming from a current 3 series / A4 / C-class it’s not quite as good. For me, the experience and the technology makes up for it but that is a personal opinion.
Happy to answer any questions and I promise to answer honestly!
The car is a 2019 Model 3 SR+ which I have leased for 4 years. It replaced a 2016 BMW F31 320d M Sport Touring. Before that I had a BMW 116d (yuck!), before that a BMW E90 330i, and before that a Mazda MX5 (various other boring cars before that). I'm 40 and have been driving for 23 years. I'm extremely interested in cars and tech, and I work in the tech industry. I’m interested in the environmental impact of the things I do, but not obsessively so!
I’ll try to focus on EV in general rather than being Tesla-specific (except where unavoidable)
Range - I normally drive fairly locally, and so charge the car to about 75-80% every 2 or 3 nights. This means I don't pay attention to range that much. I have done several long trips (300 miles) where I have found that the actual 100%-0% range is about 200 miles in summer and about 160 miles in winter with the heating on / heated seats on etc..
For reference the WLTP range of the car is 254 miles (current model year is a little higher). As we know this is not representative of real-world ‘fuel economy’ as is the case for all other vehicle types.
Home Charging - I have a PodPoint tethered 7kW charger (so has a cable permanently attached), and I park/charge on my driveway. I’m very glad I went for the tethered cable as it means plugging in takes a few seconds (don’t need to get cables out of the boot).
In summer last year I switched to Octopus Go. This means I can charge between 00:30-04:30 for 5p / kWh. This results in running costs of roughly 2p per mile (bit less in summer, bit more in winter).
I’ve also charged whilst away from home at my parents house. They don’t have a charger but do have off road parking, so I was charging using the granny charger. This worked quite well, meaning I was able to keep topped up to 80% whilst staying and left with 100% battery for the journey home.
Public Charging - I have only used Superchargers on long trips. I had some big range anxiety the first time I did a long trip. Will the chargers work? Will all the chargers be busy? Will I make it to the charger the sat-nav says I will? A few long trips completely put me at ease. I've only encountered one supercharger which didn't work, so I just used the one next to it. I charged in a car-park once because they had about 20 free 7kW PodPoint chargers so thought I'd give it a try, and it worked fine.
Supercharging is fast but it could do with being even faster. For example if you arrive at a charger with 10% battery remaining, it will charge extremely quickly at first (approx “800 miles per hour”), but then the speed drops off as the battery fills (about “250 miles per hour”). This means it’s better to do 2 charges from 10-50% than one charge from, say 20-90% if on a trip. This does however mean you are totally reliant on the chargers working if you’re down to 10% range. I went with the 20-90% option as it suited me to stop just the once. I hope that future battery developments will enable more sustained rapid charge speeds.
On those 300 mile trips I spent a total of about 30-35 minutes charging and about 5 - 5.5hours driving. The charging stops a good time to have lunch before carrying on, though due to Covid it was a packed lunch so I was ready to go after 15 mins but had to wait the additional 15 mins. I think this would be less noticeable if I could have gone inside for something to eat / coffee.
A key point on public charging - I think this is where Tesla comes into its own with their dedicated ultra-fast charging. We have all seen stories about the mess that public charging is right now, with a wealth of apps needed and general issues with reliability. Companies like Instavolt seem to be nailing this now with simple reliable chargers and contactless credit/debit card payment.
Recently it has been announced that there is to be huge investment in ultra-fast charging at motorway services and key A-road locations. I hope this will provide a Tesla Supercharger-like experience for all EV drivers. This would be the one key thing that would enable me to consider a different EV brand for my next car.
Non-driving battery usage - I've noticed that because I do a lot of short trips, I use quite a bit of energy pre-heating the car (and pre-cooling in summer). If I couldn't charge at home, this would be quite impactful as it uses up “range” without going anywhere.
If I was commuting to work daily (which I haven't been doing lately and will probably never do again) - a total 100 mile round trip, I'd be needing to charge every day from say 20-80%. If I didn't have a charger either at home or work this would be a massive pain. With a charger at home/work this is much easier (takes 5 seconds to plug in / unplug)
Summary - Overall I have really enjoyed having the car - much more any any previous cars. I really love the driving experience (the performance, smoothness and the instant torque etc). I also really like the technology (e.g. being able to preheat / de-ice the car from the app etc..). Not visiting a petrol station since 2019 has also been welcome.
There are times when some additional range would be useful - but in my usage not enough to justify additional cost for a larger battery. More available charging would be a preferred option in my use case, for the 6-8 times per year (without pandemic!) when I make a journey where I can’t do the round trip on a single charge from home.
I think if I could not charge at home I would be telling a different story at this point in time. I would be able to charge at the 50kW charger in my village, but that would be a bit of a pain, and more expensive. It is still early days and I think once fast public charging is absolutely everywhere this would be less of an issue. For example, 40 mins on a 50kw charger whilst shopping or at the gym would be fine.
Tesla-specific experience - Overall I really love the Model 3. I love the big screen, Google Maps, built in Spotify support, Autopilot, games for my daughter (e.g. when we’re waiting in the car). On the negative side I have a rattle that I’ve not got fixed yet, and in the last few days seem to have developed a minor water leak in the boot (I think I may have damaged the boot seal when removing a bike from the boot). The build quality is ok - about on a par with my old F31 3-series. I think if you were coming from a current 3 series / A4 / C-class it’s not quite as good. For me, the experience and the technology makes up for it but that is a personal opinion.
Happy to answer any questions and I promise to answer honestly!
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