Got to ride in a Tesla as an Uber passenger this weekend and I was quite impressed.
I understand not everyone has a positive opinion of Elon Musk, this thread isn’t about him.
If you’ve driven, or even better owned, a Tesla automobile, tell me what you liked (and didn’t.)
Don’t need answer fast, definitely not in the market for a car right now. But, I can say my opinion of Tesla is quite positive now.
We own a Tesla Model X
Things I like
It’s an EV, and therefore drives fun, fast, and smooth. No maintenance to speak of. Seamless updates
It’s really pretty roomy inside,surprisingly bigger than it appears, lots of room for cargo.
Best navigation system I’ve ever used. By far.
Good range (350 miles or so)
Good app for iPhone
Free supercharing for life (no longer offered)
Pet Mode (keeps dog cool and/or warm when left in car) We use this a lot!
comfortable seating, good viability.
Things I don’t love
No “off” button for the car. You just take your “key” and walk away.
No “off” button for the radio. You just mute it (same for my old Volt) I want an off button.
No AM radio (too much electrical interference, they say)
The radio controls are not easy to use. Not a huge deal, but occasionally frustrating.
A buddy rented one in Denver and drove to the east coast. He, his wife and three dogs. Don’t know the model but a 4 door.
He said it had plenty of room as all the seats fold down and stow well.
Even though they are AWD, there is a concern with ground clearance and the amount of snow we get in our very long winters. He’s thinking of buying one though, but he’ll keep his SUV’s.
2021 Model Y LR owner. In no particular order…
What I don’t like:
Pork_Rind, good comments. Subscribed.
You’re driving a great big phone. If you like technology, then this is great. If you hate technology, then this is bad. I’ll try to mention some things that other people haven’t said yet, because so far I think agree with everything.
Here are some things I don’t like:
Any of my complaints which are software related could be fixed at anytime. They could also potentially be made worse, but so far only the UI update from 10 to 11 has caused a noticeable decrease in functionality, and much of that has been addressed in subsequent updates. Other software updates have improved things.
2018 Model 3. Very little to add to the above, though “no off button” is a pro for me.
The fit and finish is not great on mine. It’s not terrible, but there is definite room for improvement. I have a very early model, though, and I’m sure later ones are better. I’ve also heard that the new factories are better (maybe due to the worker quality in Fremont, maybe because it is essentially a prototype factory for Tesla). Panel gaps, trim misalignment, some recurring squeaks, that kind of thing.
The steering feel is not as good as my old BMW–but then, not much is. The turning radius is also probably a little worse than average.
I didn’t experience this myself, but the rear-seat ventilation controls are not great. A friend sat back there on a long trip and she wanted it warmer, but the vents didn’t allow any adjustment. I could do it through the touchscreen, though.
Yeah, the turning radius surprises me now and again. It’s not terrible, but it’s probably the largest radius of any car I’ve had that I can recall. Of course those were all RWD, which simplifies things quite a bit.
Fit and finish on my '21 MYLR is… surprisingly good. I had the delivery checklist from one of the forums, and try as I might, I really couldn’t find anything to complain about.
I test drove a Model 3 a few weeks ago. The acceleration is surprisingly muscular for an otherwise middling sedan. I always hear this about EVs. The smart features are pretty cool. It didn’t have Autopilot installed but if I was stopped at a red light, it chimed when it turned green. It showed animations of my environment and warnings on the screen, like when a pedestrian was in the crosswalk, and when I was getting close to a concrete barrier along a construction site. The GPS got confused about where I was, and was unaware that the road I was on was a dead end. It took a while for it to catch up once I turned around.
Interior space is tighter than it needs to be. The center console is overly wide taking away seating space from the front occupants. I didn’t sit in the back to check that out.
The “dashboard” on this model is a screen in the middle of the cockpit, really bad placement for the driver. You have to turn your head to the right just to see your current speed. Other models place screens directly in front of the driver.
It’s basically a computer on four wheels.
All in all a nice car but honestly I think the only reason you would pay the $60K+ price for it is that you want a Tesla.
That said I have a couple of friends with Teslas and they love them.
This is news to me. Can you talk more about the need to pre-heat the battery and how this happens? It uses battery power to…heat the battery?
I have come to accept this with computer apps but if the dashboard on my car was suddenly rearranged I think I’d freak out. This is one case where stability is more important than tinkering.
It happens automatically when you navigate to a Supercharger station. It does use the battery to heat the battery, but the decrease in charging time when you arrive at the Supercharger makes it worth it (batteries charge faster when warm). I don’t think it’ll do it if you’re really cutting it close, charge-wise.
Did someone put superglue in your eyes 
? The only need to look to the side is for speed and charge level, and I don’t have to turn my head for that. Well, navigation too, but many cars put nav in the center screen, and Tesla’s screens are bigger than average.
It’s not really looking any farther away from the road than looking down to see your speed. It’s just a different spot.
It’s a big change after 59 years of needing just a slight glance down to see speed. The speed is about 35° off-axis, enough that I have to turn my head for my eyes to seek it. I suppose if I got used to it I could just glance over and hit it every time, but think about why pilots have heads-up displays. Those small delays can matter in some situations.
Come to think of it, with the other innovations, I wonder why Tesla doesn’t have HUDs.
That’s what Mrs Cad ordered although it might be a 2022 by the time we get it…
The two things I didn’t like was the angle of the seat. Apparently it is the same as the 3 but installed at a different angle and you have to get it just right in the Y for it to work. The other is the braking when I lift off the gas. Mrs Cad loves that but it bothers me when driving.
You can set the preference for how braking is handled per each driver profile. So you need never compromise on settings.
We have a 2019 Model 3.
I agree with most of the pros already listed. It’s a good car. The finish on ours is pretty good. Power and handling are very good. Range is very good, charging is effortless and reliable.
Cons:
), and it makes the system less reliable. It will just brake on the highway, randomly, beeping like mad. In our case, it typically happens near an on-ramp. They’re not even acknowledging that it’s a problem on the 2019.I drive a 2021 Model 3 Performance
PROS:
CONS
Biggest CON
The UI… I am a UI guy, so this one really grinds my gears, but the Tesla UI is not designed to be used while driving. They could and should do so much better. Having said that, I haven’t seen any car’s touchscreen interface that is near as good, they all are atrocious and dangerous to use while driving.
It wasn’t a big change in the overall look, but lots of details were different. Stuff like the car used to give “bars” of signal strength, then they took that away “for a cleaner look.” A little icon up at the top of the screen to the far right wasn’t exactly cluttering things up, but now it’s gone.
The biggest issue was they changed the activity icons along the bottom of the screen. “Now they can be customized” which meant that you can pick which of several icons can go on the bottom. Many of those icons can’t be used while driving (games and shows), so making them easy access is pointless.
In exchange for easy access to the few icons of your choosing they eliminated the quick icons for front/rear defog/defrost, and for the heated seats. Before, windshield starts fogging up, one quick tap and you’re good. Two taps and it switched to max heat for full defrost. Gone. Fortunately in the next update defrost was added back as one of the icons you can choose for quick access.
There is an optimal temperature the battery should be at for fastest charging. It’s 120F or something. If you’re next destination is a SuperCharger, when you are about 20 minutes away the car will start running some of the high voltage electric stuff inefficiently, so waste heat is generated. That waste heat is then dumped into the battery to bring it up to temperature, so that when you get to the SuperCharger you’re ready for the fastest possible charging.
I do not know what the exact tradeoff is between extra charging cost and saved time. Pre-heating can be disabled.
That was probably my biggest skepticism about getting it, but then it turned out to be a great big nothing burger. My eyes learned where to go to get the speed, and I don’t even think about it anymore.
Most of the controls I interact with while driving are still hard buttons, which lots of people overlook. The right side stalk and button is for drive, reverse, neutral, park, cruise control (on/off), and autopilot (on/off). The right wheel on the steering wheel is for cruise control speed and follow distance. The left wheel is for audio volume, and forward/back. The button on the turn signal stalk is wipe/wash.
Tapping the wipe/wash button brings up the wiper control on the screen. So, if the automatic wipers aren’t doing it for you, tap the stalk button, then tap the screen button for the wiper mode you want. Not quite as easy as traditional cars, but also not too hard. The idea is that the autowipers are so good you never have to touch it, but they aren’t that good.
Similar with the lights. The auto headlights work great, but if for some reason you want to turn them on or turn on the fog lights. Push the turn signal stalk forward to put on the auto high beams, that will bring up the lights menu, so you can turn on the fog lights.
You should be able to turn off the fog lights by tapping the fog light icon on the screen, but nope, got to play the same game of getting the lights menu up.
All of that sounds pretty bad, but mostly it isn’t. Turning the fog lights on and off is much, much rarer than adjusting the volume, which is an easy thumb wheel.
It’s bad in English, too.
It was never that great with the radar, either. Phantom braking has always been a problem, and it is probably better now than it was in the past. I hope the NTSB investigation convinces Tesla to devote some time to get it working right. I just read that they fired 200 people from their autopilot program, so I don’t have high hopes.
Probably just a fraction of their labeling team (which is >1000, IIRC). Very unlikely they fired 200 engineers. Labeling is getting to be less necessary with new training techniques.