[Music]
so it's been two years since i picked up
my tesla model 3. and today i wanted to
give you my long-term review covering
the issues that i've had running costs
pros cons and what it's really like to
live with an electric car
plus what i will be replacing it with i
have shared a few different videos of it
over the last couple of years including
the collection day back in 2019 and even
a 1 000 mile road trip that i did in the
summer but today is all about my
experience of owning and driving the
model 3.
but first let's talk about the
performance on the overall driving
experience of this car now i went for
the long range version which has a 0 to
60 acceleration of just 4.4 seconds now
that's pretty quick and it's quicker
than any previous car that i've owned
which was around 5.2 seconds but it's
not just about the power it's the
instant pull it's the no lag when you
put your foot down that feeling never
gets old and it's pretty addictive but
back in my one year review i did say
that i would never get bored of the
power but only a few months later i did
actually buy that acceleration boost for
1500 pounds that reduced the 0 to 60
from 4.4 seconds to 3.7 but that half a
second or so has made it feel like a
whole new car and definitely scratch
that itch for more power
but 1500 pounds is a lot to spend on
half a second but it would have cost far
more than that in a petrol car to get
the same results every person i've taken
out in this car is generally blown away
by just how fast it feels and again
because there's no lag there's no gears
it's an instant torque
now the ride comfort and handling to me
is actually pretty decent it feels firm
and planted and never feels like it's
going to roll in fact it feels like it's
on rails when you're really pushing on
the regen braking is incredible it's
very rare that i use the actual brake
pedal as the car will break for me when
i let off the accelerator over time you
learn to feather the accelerator pedal
as you want to brake and it works
perfectly every time a lot asks me
whether i miss the noise of an exhaust
or an engine well i kind of do and don't
i used to love the sound of my exhaust
or a v6 engine but there's something
awesome about being able to drive around
in stealth mode no matter how fast i'm
going or accelerating nobody can hear me
i do still turn my head at any car that
sounds nice but i don't miss not having
a sound on this car
[Music]
so the appearance of a car is obviously
subjective we don't all drive the same
maker model so while some will love the
look of this car others will hate the
model 3. personally i think it looks
really nice it's clean it's minimal
looking it's not too busy or in your
face it looks sporty without being
aggressively styled i've made a handful
of changes to mine nothing drastic like
adding a spoiler to the rear removing
the aerial wheel covers and using vinyl
plates instead of plastic i've also
added some interior accessories like the
metal foot pedals instead of rubber the
center column i've covered this with a
matte black cover then i've added some
products from jeddah including a coin
tray and some other accessories
including a wireless charger most of
these accessories are now included with
the newer models but at the time they
were worth adding for me
in general i still get a lot of comments
about this car even though these are
everywhere people still ask me what it
is or what it's like to drive it
definitely stands out but not in a kind
of a super car way it just looks clean
and it just looks nice
[Music]
day-to-day use is an absolute breeze and
if you've ever wondered what it's like
having to charge an electric car there's
nothing to worry about i charge mine to
80 and will get around 230 to 240 miles
it could last me an entire week before
needing to charge it again but typically
i plug it in once the battery gets to
about 30 to 40 percent
charging at home is massively underrated
being able to pull up on the drive each
night open the port and plug in a cable
in which takes me about 10 seconds and
that's it then the next morning is
charged up and it's ready to go 99 of my
charging is done at home and a full
charge from 0 to 100 will take roughly
eight to ten hours but typically i only
need around three to four hours at most
the convenience of charging at home is
huge for me and visiting a petrol
station seems like a distant memory the
thing is i have spent 15 years fueling a
car i've stood at a pump for four to
five minutes and handed over 70 pounds
for the pleasure but i much prefer this
waking up to a charged car and even
after two years is not a hassle and i've
never forgotten to charge it
range anxiety has never really been a
problem for me and there's nothing
really to think about will i be driving
less than 250 miles tomorrow is the car
plugged in and that's it it's only an
issue if you know you need to do more
than 300 miles in a day and that's when
you really need to think ahead
now when i pick the car up a 100 charge
would show around 330 miles and an 80
charge would show about 270. today it's
showing me 285 miles at 100
and 231 miles at 80 percent now the
range does take into account your recent
driving style and i've been doing a lot
of shorter trips lately on my longer
trips though i've not seen any
noticeable difference in what i'm able
to get also winter plays a huge part in
range so i would expect to see a 20 to
30 loss if i've not pre-heated the car
but i can easily get 230 to 250 miles
out of a single charge which is more
than enough for me for a daily use
when it comes to longer road trips it's
not a problem i've done two 1 000 mile
road trips now and it's pretty easy i
did actually document one of these in a
dedicated video back in the summer i
also regularly drive to bristol which is
a 450 mile round trip i stop once or
maybe twice and while i'm charging i'm
using the services on the odd occasion
where i do need to charge the car while
traveling i would stop the car after
three or four hours use the toilet and
grab something to eat while i'm doing
that the car is charging and it's ready
to go within 20 to 25 minutes plus as
i've got two small children three to
four hours is long enough before
stopping
now using autopilot is awesome i did not
opt for the full self drive package i've
only got the free autopilot early on i
didn't see the advantage to it and i
really didn't use it but once you get on
a long boring road like the motorway
it's great it's been very reliable for
me steering accelerating and braking on
his own now the extra cost of full self
drive isn't worth it for me and my use
it's not something i would benefit from
but if they brought out a monthly
subscription i could test out and use
for a few months i would definitely give
it a go but it's not worth me investing
thousands of pounds for a feature that i
probably won't use
right so let me talk to you about the
running cost of a model 3. so over the
last two years i have covered 17 000
miles or about 700 miles a month that's
a lot less than i would usually do but
that's down to the restrictions in 2020
and the fact that i work from home as i
mentioned before i charge my car 99 at
home which means i can see exactly how
much i'm spending on electric i'm with
octopus and as i'm on that go tariff i
pay just five pence per kilowatt hour i
do have to charge the car between 12 30
a.m and 4 30 a.m to get that low rate
but it means it only cost me around
three pounds 75 for a full 100 charge
which is around 250 to 300 miles i've
estimated that over the last two years
it's cost me about 270 pounds to charge
at home or around 11 pounds 25 pence per
month it could actually have been less
but for the first few months i was on a
more expensive tariff now there is also
some public charging i need to include
in those 17 000 miles but i can say that
i've never paid to charge the car while
away from home there are two reasons for
this one is that i make the effort to
only choose free charges whether that's
at supermarkets like tesco all the
shopping centers then the second reason
is thanks to more than 450 people using
my referral code i've got hundreds of
thousands of free supercharger miles
with tesla but to be fully transparent
with you the free supercharger miles i
have used over the last couple of years
would have cost me 200 pounds if i had
to pay in total if it wasn't for those
three miles it would have still only
cost me 470 pounds for two years of
electric which is still far less than a
petrol car would have cost to fuel it
well my last car was a bmw 335i and it
struggled to get 30 miles per gallon
like for like over 17 000 miles that
would have cost me 3 400 pounds so in
fuel alone i've saved 3 000 pounds i'd
guess 300 miles in the tesla would cost
me three pounds 75 while in my old bmw
it'll cost me 62 pounds obviously if you
have a car that does 40 or 50 miles per
gallon the cost will be a lot less next
up is insurance i'm with churchill and
my first year premium was 450 pounds
then last year's was 378 that's a total
of 828 pounds i've just renewed again
for next year and that's coming at 430
pounds so a little bit more expensive
but still pretty decent and that's also
taken into account the acceleration
boost that i've added other running
costs you'd normally expect to incur
over the first two years of ownership
like servicing and oil changes don't
really exist other than the odd brake
fluid change which the car will prompt
you if it's needed there aren't really
any other costs early this month i did
change two of my rear tyres as they were
getting close to the legal limit and
those tires cost me 372 pounds for the
pair the front are fine and they have
around four mil left on them then as
it's an electric car there's no road tax
to pay either this means over the last
two years it's cost me a total of one
thousand four hundred and seventy pounds
to keep the car on the road that is a
massive saving over previous cars my
last car used to cost me more than four
hundred pounds per year just in row tax
that's more than two years of electric
in this car
one of the best features of a tesla
model 3 is the fact that it's always
improving it's always getting better
they are constantly pushing updates out
with new features for either the phone
app or the car itself you get a prompt
when there's a new update and you just
install it and within 20 minutes it's
good to go
when i got the car you couldn't even
watch sentry events back on the screen
you had to remove the usb stick from the
car plug it into a laptop and check what
happened so if something had gone wrong
with the car while you're away from it
you wouldn't know until you got home now
i'm so used to being able to watch
sentry events on the screen it just
seems mad to think this is a new feature
another one when in reverse it would
only show you the one camera and
something i really wanted to see was if
they could merge all three cameras
together and now when we put the car in
reverse we can see all three cameras
schedule charging is another one so this
could only be done within the car on the
screen but now this exists in the app
there have been loads of other features
added that i can't really think about
but it just makes the car better each
time you get a new update and don't
forget there's no cost for this even the
ui and the overall dash has had a change
given a new fresher look so everything
is controlled via the screen in the
model 3. there are no other buttons or
controls in the car other than a couple
of scroll wheels on the steering wheel
using the screen is easy intuitive and
it does everything that you need another
question i get frequently is is it
strange having the speedo not in front
of you and to the side well i can safely
say especially after two years is not an
issue at all instead of glancing down at
the steering wheel you just glance
slightly to the left to see it but being
able to access everything via the screen
is both convenient and a pain the large
screen is awesome for maps music movies
or other entertainment and it's great to
see all the settings in one place but
when you're driving you need to turn
your heated seat on or change the heater
controls it can be a little bit
difficult of course you can use voice
commands by pressing the steering wheel
button but trying to watch the road
while tapping the screen isn't easy
other than that though the screen is
great the maps and navigation is really
good and something that i use a lot i
like that it tells you the estimated
battery that you'll arrive with and if
you're not going to make it it will
redirect you to charges along the way
this really takes the planning out of
the trip as the car will factor in those
charging stops for you and being able to
use it for movies netflix and games is
great my children love this especially
when we're charging all out shopping and
we're waiting
[Music]
let me talk to you about the issues and
the faults that i've had within the
first two weeks of picking it up the
wipers stopped working completely during
a weekend of heavy rain this meant the
car was unsafe and literally undrivable
they tried to diagnose it remotely and
it turned out the plug that connects to
the motor had come loose i couldn't
drive it to them so it had to be
collected on a flatbed and returned a
few days later the second issue was down
to the door alignment so when you looked
at the car from the side you could see
the doors didn't line up properly this
is more of a quality control issue than
a fault but it still wasn't very
pleasing the final issue was a clicking
or knocking sound i was getting from the
wheels when turning fortunately i
recorded this and i sent it to my local
service center they diagnosed it and
booked me in it was actually fixed the
same day and it was due to a lack of
lubrication on the drive shaft that was
over a year ago now and it's not come
back so the build quality is one of the
biggest things discussed online about
tesla for me once i've got those few
issues sorted out the rest of the car
has been fine no paint issues or
mechanical problems and nothing that a
quick service visit couldn't sort but
the fact that any tesla arrives with a
fault whether that's a panel cap or an
overspray just should not exist my
advice would be if you are buying a
tesla is give the car a full lookover
before signing for it make sure you are
100 happy with it but if you've got a
good service center like i do at tesla
leads they are great at sorting things
out
[Music]
so what improvements would i like to see
added to the model 3 well during my
ownership over the last couple of years
we've already seen a new facelift
version that kind of answered most of my
wishes things like the new powered boot
that opens and closes automatically the
thicker glass on the doors which will
help with noise reduction even the d
chrome style on the outside which i
could do myself but it's a nice upgrade
but none of these changes actually
tempted me to swap in my car and haven't
used it for the last two years i really
don't think i would change anything
everything just works as i would expect
it to maybe just some better efficiency
it'll be great to see more miles from
one charge
now if you've seen any of my previous
tesla videos you'll know that i've
always plugged my referral code as each
referral that i would get would get you
and me 1 000 free supercharger miles but
a few months ago tesla actually dropped
the referral program it was a shame to
see it go but as the 1 000 miles is only
worth about 60 pounds it's not really a
deal breaker when buying one now the
remaining miles i've got will expire in
around two years but i don't think i'll
ever get through them
so you might be wondering what i'm going
to replace the model 3 with next it's
probably no surprise is going to be
electric again i'm fully converted now
and i love the convenience of charging
at home and the overall running costs i
would love to get a model s or a model x
but for me in my current situation i
just can't justify the cost 100 000
pounds is a lot of money for a car but
what i have ordered is a tesla model y
i've enjoyed the model 3 so much i think
the model y will be the perfect upgrade
it's very similar but it's bigger plus
as it's a hatchback it means it would be
a little bit more practical for me and
my family now the model y doesn't launch
in the uk until 2022 and i'd expect to
see mine by summer 2022 which means it
could be a new road trip video on the
channel
[Music]
so the last two years i've been with the
model 3 has been awesome i'm really
really pleased i went for it it was one
of those decisions where i was on the
fence for months and i couldn't really
decide if i really wanted one but it was
definitely the right decision for me and
if you've got any questions about this
car or ownership of an electric car
please let me know in the comments and
for those that are still here thank you
for watching if you're here because you
used to watch my tesla content i just
wanted to apologize for not making
enough in the first year or so of having
it i had so much i wanted to share and
so many videos i wanted to publish but
since then i've had nothing else to add
i'd only be repeating what i've done
already and it will probably bore most
of you you've seen my road trips my
service visits my charging and accessory
videos hopefully next year i'll be able
to share more content when the model y
arrives and with that in mind i will
probably share that on my second channel
so please make sure you go and sub to my
second channel where i will definitely
upload more tesla content too well
you've just made it to the end of
today's video so thank you for watching
let me know in the comments if you have
or would have a tesla or would you go
full electric and if not what would
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until next time