Robert Llewellyn drove his car all the way across his garden to film this episode of the Fully Charged Show. He talks about the positives & negatives of his Model 3 after having driven 10,000 miles since taking delivery last summer.
“This is going to be a slightly unusual episode of Fully Charged simply because I can’t go anywhere. I can’t drive anywhere, just like everybody else in the country. So what I’ve done is I’ve taken the Tesla Model 3 all-wheel drive long range not performance model that I drive for a long spin almost 25 meters into my garden”
Robert starts with the negatives:
“…a lot of people have talked about the body panels and the fit and finish of the Tesla Model 3, I am the worst person to ask about that because the gaps between the doors and on the bodywork could upset some people. It has zero emotional effect on me of any sort, it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care as long as water doesn’t leak in and it goes all soggy and horrible inside, I’m not bothered. But some people get upset about that so that is a possible negative from my point of view.
“It’s still quite a big car, I would much prefer a smaller car. You know I don’t need a car this big when I’m driving on my own. I always feel embarrassed driving a big car even though it’s electric and even though there is no question now that an electric car is cleaner over its life including the manufacturer and the disposal of it than any petrol or diesel car.”
“The only other negative thing that happened …probably four months ago. I heard a crack when I was driving along a very smooth road. I didn’t know what it was and didn’t take any notice of it because the car seemed to absolutely fine. Then a couple of days later I was looking in the rear view mirror and I saw this line going across the window …so then I did stop and there was a crack across the whole of the back window. I took it into Tesla and they fixed it without any discussion at all, and apparently there was a batch of Model 3’s that had that happen.”
“When there’s a lot of rain on the boot and you open it sometimes a few drips can fall into the boot, its not a big wave so I didn’t really care as it wasn’t that bad.”
“The autopilot does work on this one but we have named this car Timmy D because he’s a little bit timid I think he’s a boy but he’s a timid boy… so sometimes you’ll be you’ll be going along on a perfectly clear road with no hazards in the way and then there’s a big truck coming other way, the Model 3 pulls over and slows down and that’s kind of annoying when you know there’s really no danger on a big wide a road. That is kind of annoying, so I don’t use that very much I just use the cruise control which is so much better to use”
so in the middle of winter we’ve had a very mild winter but it’s been very wet really really wet this year if you’re driving along a really rain-soaked road that reduces your range so I’m getting I’m doing about I would say three and a half and if I’m really careful three and three-quarter miles to the kilowatt-hour in winter and over five in summer and it’s now made me realize when I Drive other electric cars how incredibly good that is the you know that is an incredible it’s an incredible energy efficiency to get a car this size and this weight to do five miles on a kilowatt hour of energy when you’ve got to remember you can pay even if you’re buying electricity I mean you know this car is charging with solar at the moment so I don’t need to pay for anything but if you think that a night time if you’re charging at nighttime and off-peak tariffs you know from from five to ten pence per kWh you’re talking a car this size doing a penny a mile really one and a half pence a mile the cheapest smallest most super efficient tiny little diesel or petrol car is 10 to 15 pence a mile most cars 25 pence range rover sport I just want to say it’s 55 pence a mile to drive that wretched thing
what it does have which works brilliantly is cruise control it so that is like you driver a motorway you’re steering but the cast speeds up and slows down according to what’s in front of it and that works faultless they have never had any problem without either and the Model S that I had before this or the Model 3 both those cars this works really really well it is an excellent system
The sat-nav is amazing. It’s so easy to use, but what really really sets this car apart is the supercharger network. So what I’ve done here is just put in a supercharger one that I could get to at the moment at Stoke-on-Trent, it’s 105 miles from where I am now it will take me two hours and eight minutes to get there and tells me the time I will arrive.
The navigation also shows you how much energy you’ve used in the journey to now, which is useful because I can see I’ve now got 59% in the batteries at the moment if I drive 105 miles to Stoke-on-Trent I’ll have 18% so it’s just getting into the yellowy bit where it starts to warn you.
If you turn on the energy you can see how much energy you’ve used until now and see the average range you’re getting from your car, you can also look at the trip section and see your estimated battery charge by the time you arrive at your next destination. This is a clever screen, there’s a rise at the start of the journey that is because we live at the top of quite a big hill so I can do that first 10 miles on so little electricity regenerating a lot going down the hill and then it’s a very slight slope for a long way so in fact I’d end up at the bottom of the hill with probably 62% of the battery so that gives me a little bit of extra charge, the navigation knows the topography that we’re travelling on, that is unbelievable.”
You can also see how many chargers are available at each supercharging station:
“…Oxford services there’s sixteen stalls, and it tells you how many are available now so there’s 13 available. This also tells you what the charging fees are 24p per kWh if you idle if you sit there without charging you get charged 70p a minute which is right, get your car out of the way and let other people use it that’s the whole point.”
“is it is just an amazing and remarkable car”
