Three Months and Ooh Look... Oh

April 2018

We’ve had the Tesla Model 3 for three months, and it has spent more time in the garage – earning it the title of “Garage Princess” (thanks to Tonmoy for the brilliant name – I love it!) – than out on the road. We ended up keeping our silver Smart Electric Drive for an extra month as the weather was just awful and there was no way I was taking out my lovely, shiny new car in that weather. Its first month was spent mostly in the garage with only the occasional outing when the roads were totally dry. Ones side kick wasn’t awfully impressed but he also wasn’t keen on the nice, shiny car getting all grubby. When we had to return the silver Smart ED, we often found ourselves in a pickle. There were days when we had to be creative with everyone needing to be somewhere and only having the red Smart ED – the “Garage Princess” couldn’t possibly go out in the bad weather…. no matter how many times my side kick tried to tell me it was a car and it was designed to work outside!!

It seemed like winter would never end, I think it finally has! But, as needs must, the car eventually had to come out regardless of the weather – although it still hasn’t seen any snow, just a little rain! And we all know what that means – it’s car washing time!! It’s only been washed six times – now that tells you just how many times it hasn’t left the garage! My trusty side kick has waxed it each time too meaning it now shines and the water just runs off it. It does takes a long time to wash and dry – it’s certainly a lot bigger than the Smart ED and I struggle to reach the middle of the roof, so I need a little help from my side kick there. Note to self – turn off the automatic wipers before washing the car or it’ll keep using them to clear the windscreen! It’s trying to be helpful but I’d prefer it not be in this case.

Now that we’ve finally been out in the car a few times, we are getting a feel for how it drives. First impressions are that it’s definitely a very nice and well put together Electric Car, we’re back to a coupé again and I approve!  It’s quite different from the upright sitting position of the Smart ED and the BMW i3, you feel very low down in comparison. I definitely like it! The car drives really well, it’s very smooth and quiet and has great regenerative braking. The ride is good and it has a firm suspension – no sicky feeling from the suspension, just from ones sidekicks driving!! I’m still getting used to the screen and that everything is controlled from there, except for the indicators and the drive / reverse / park selection. I haven’t tried out the cruise control but ones side kick has and he likes it, although a couple of times it has slowed down promptly then picked up speed again… anyone would think there was a chipmunk in the road – maybe there was and it saw it before we could. I’m not ready for trying the auto pilot yet, I’m still not convinced I would trust it enough and we haven’t even discussed auto-park. I’m undecided on whether having a key card instead of a physical key to lock and unlock the doors is better or worse, I’m still in the ‘getting use’ to phase of using the card and my phone – which it sometimes totally ignores! I’ll have to get back to you on that one.

The car has really good cameras which are great for reversing, and sensors that do a lot of bonging when you reverse into the garage. I feel like I should be saying to the car – which I often do… “It’s okay, don’t worry, there really is plenty of room!”

We definitely purchased the correct colour and the black wheels set the silver off perfectly. The car looks awesome. There’s still a lot to learn about the car and we are looking forward to that, there always seems to be something new to discover. We also have a froot now – but no idea what we will use it for!

After being nagged at by my side kick, we finally took that ‘long drive’. Well, we did a round trip to Cape May, that was just under 300 miles in total – I know such a long way! As the trip was mostly motorway my side kick – yes he was driving, I don’t seem to be able to get in the drivers seat – decided it was a good time to try out the auto pilot feature. I was very wary and was on high alert for the whole journey but apart from a couple of times when the car wasn’t sure about something, it did the right thing and asked that he take over, it performed really well. Very uneventful really. But, I’m still not ready for trying it myself. While on our return journey, even though we didn’t need to, we decided to try out a Supercharger. I know – what an exciting life we lead! We parked next to the Supercharger, which recognised that we were a Tesla and allowed us to plug the car in. It charged up so fast, in a matter of 20 minutes we had put in 79 miles. This is how you do fast charging.

Here’s a bizarre phenomenon – when we are out in the Model 3 we rarely see another Tesla, more often none at all, but when we are out in the Smart ED we see loads – just the other day we saw 5 in a 20 minute drive! Why does that happen? Is it some sort of conspiracy that we are unaware of?

Finally – Ooh look… Oh – Well what did you expect? After one suspension lowering, you just get the bug and have to do it again… did the Model 3 need it? Well maybe/maybe not but it does need to look different to everyone else’s. But why the Oh? Well and this is a huge one for me – it’s been lowered too much. Ones sidekick ordered lowering springs after apparently doing “a lot” of research, but none of that research included asking me, I don’t know what he was thinking! I don’t like it, it’s a 1.5″ drop and it’s too much. There is another option and that is 0.7″ which I think will be just right. Hmm – see he should have asked me first!! But it’s a definite that we need to lower the car just enough to make it look a little better and to close the gap ever so slightly between the wheel and the wheel arch. It’s too gappy otherwise. So, for now, the car is back to its original springs while we await the arrival of the not so low ones. Stay tuned…