Electric car thread

[jackstraw]

So having had our model 3 for about 6 months now I can share some thoughts.

The car itself is pretty darn amazing, fun to drive, really quiet, and fast.

Range and range anxiety:
Quite frankly simply a non-issue for the vast majority of usage. Just plug it in overnight whenever you feel its getting a bit low.
Now that doesn't mean it's not a very real concern - we live in small mountain town so travel to the big city (Denver), to kids sports tournaments and over mountain passes fairly frequently. Many trips here are just not possible yet because the infrastructure doesn't exist off major highways. And if it's possible its somewhere between a logistical challenge and a huge pain in the a$$. Either plan to stop and wait at superchargers or find hotel with a charger and hope it's available when you need it. So far fast chargers have not been where we've needed to be and the range estimator sucks traveling in the mountains so the anxiety is real. Despite being by far the most efficient vehicle we have I'm rapidly realizing its just not practical for longer trips and will likely take the large gas guzzling ICE SUV most of the time.

Charging/costs:
We installed a chargepoint at home instead of the Tesla charger - went that way cos our electric utility gives the charger for free and I could piggy back existing wiring - Tesla charger would charge quicker but would have cost me extra $2k for wiring upgrade and actual charger.

I get about 30mi range in an hour for about $1 in electricity at home and there's a few free chargers around town. I figure a comparable vehicle might get 30mi/gal in mixed driving and gas is about $3.50/gal here .


Vehicle specific issues:
I don't find the seats at all comfortable - yes they're highly adjustable, no it doesn't seem to matter. They're awful compared to recent Audi and Volvo seats we've had and i also prefer seats in our 'merican made vehicles too.

I fricken hate the huge central touchscreen - it's distracting as heck, shit flashes when you pass something (whether that's another vehicle, a tree, a parked car). Something simple like changing a radio station is downright dangerous and requires taking eyes off road for too long and too many screen taps

Muted mentioned the wipers - yeah they work fine most of the time but if you got anything on your windshield like pollen or sap (or likely snow/ice but i haven't had it in winter yet) they go bonkers and there's no manual control.

Visibility is awful - rear view mirror is pretty useless, and the A pillar is really fat which creates a pedestrian and cross traffic blindspot. I guessed that's how they get safety and rigidity with glass roof

Auto cruise control is scary - frequently jams on brakes for vehicles in adjacent lanes. No way I'm trusting autopilot if that's the best they can do. And makes me think full self driving is a long long way off.


TLDR:
Car is (mostly) awesome
Range is fine for daily use but anxiety is real if you travel longer distances
Not going to get rid of my gas burner yet but I would buy again in a heartbeat.

Nice honest review.

My little monitor died and the thing goes thru the reset mode constantly. Was driving me nuts, so I covered it up. When it gets fixed i might just keep it covered up.

Had a Pollock and now this -

[plugboots]

That's not a factory rack, those are aftermarket feet and bars. They do fit the front to rear rails that are already there though.

Duh.

[plugboots]

~350 mile range with the big battery, (3 different batteries available).

[adrenalated]

~350 mile range with the big battery, (3 different batteries available).

Yep - and it's not going to be available in the United States

[reid]

Before I start in; rear wheel drive Model 3 long-range (rated at like 310 or 320 or 330mi, whatever Elon says this week) owner, about 20k miles in 16 months. I live in the bay.

Answer: A metric kilowatt shit ton. My 2 friends that have Teslas in the Bay Area do not take them to Tahoe. Typically another car is in all the stations they want to use, so...

my sisters father in law has a Tesla, he had to wait in no where's ville texas while it recharged on a trip from Houston to Austin and back with my sister and her son waiting with him, Austin is less than 200 miles from Houston.

Meh. Now, understand, I specifically did NOT buy an AWD 3 because I don't want to get back into the world of having 2 sets of tires like I did with my Golf R, worrying about charging in the mountains where we don't have a garage, worrying about ground clearance, worrying about what the cold does to the range. Instead I bought a used diesel X5 for a ski car

I have/had no plans to take the 3 to the mountains, although we've actually driven it up 3 times, and drove up a loaner Model S once. Kirkwood happens to have destination chargers so I just charged, for free, overnight, after arrival. Not totally convenient to have to leave the car 3/4mi away at the lodge; OTOH they were always open and worked and it cost $0, so it was worth the tradeoff vs bringing a different vehicle.

FWIW, the ~190mi net uphill trip from sea level to 8k uses something like 250mi of range. You get it back on the way down, but that doesn't help if you run out of juice 2mi from the summit

I've only supercharged the 3 like... 6 times? Some of those just for shits and giggles?
Once or twice on a (summer) trip to Kirkwood, once on a trip to a dirtbike camp way out east of Fresno, ... once on a r/t to Sacto... my memory is failing me beyond that. But I've seen enough chargers and have enough familiarity with them from various family-owned cars that "typically another car is in all the stations they want to use" is hyperbole unless you're talking about some craptacular chargepoint at some restaurant in BFE that you're desperately hoping works. And this is why I think Tesla currently has a huge edge over the competition. Fast, trustworthy, reliable charging network. I wouldn't want to take anything else on an EV roadtrip *today*.

Tesla: finds the chargers for you, routes to them, tells you when to stop, how many stalls are used, etc. Everyone else: download on app on your phone, good luck, bring a good book.

I absolutely get that some people don't want to stop for 20 minutes along their route to charge, especially if they're doing it all the time. But I managed, my wife manages, my 80 year old dad manages. It's really not hard or time-consuming, assuming you don't have a crappy charging situation (eg, can't charge at home, take frequent long trips that are nowhere near chargers, whatever). If it doesn't suit you, don't buy an EV. For most of us, you take that trip maybe once or twice a year, it's probably worth the tradeoff.

Let me put it this way: I've saved more time not stopping at gas stations than I've burned at superchargers. Every time I've had to stop along my route, I got my lunch/hit a grocery store to buy chips and salsa/found a starbucks+pisser, and I RUSHED back to the car because I realized I already had way more charge than I needed. They're bloody fast. It's not like a gas station. You don't charge 0-100. You arrive with something, because you left home with a lot, and you leave with a bit more than you arrived with.

if they were competitive with gas cars(AND WITHOUT SUBSIDIES); there would already be charging stations all over. Tesla would not be in business if the country wasn't helping to pay for the cars thru subsidies.

Please, tell us more about the subsidies that the oil companies, refineries, and corn producers don't get. Tell us about how we don't spend trillions in foreign countries largely because of oil. Don't get me wrong, I didn't bring my figures, either. I don't know if ethanol refiners or gas stations get subsidies. And I'm sure power companies get some kinds of subsidies, too, even before you leave aside natural gas powered electric plants that of course benefit from similar subsidies as the oil industry. But your "without subsidies" is a low grade partisan talking point. I think it would be difficult to show that, end-to-end, the ICE car+fuel industry gets fewer subsidies than the electric car+electricity industry., end-to-end.

[plugboots]

^^^ Great review/report.

It's really not hard or time-consuming, assuming you don't have a crappy charging situation (eg, take frequent long trips that are nowhere near chargers,

Pretty much me. I drive long trips about 40 times/year, maybe more, never adjust my car requirement for weather and mountains, and I would never stop on a 250 mile drive.

[reid]

(as a separate post)
After 16 months and 20,000 miles, quick rundown on the 3. We bought it back in July of last year; we hadn't planned on pulling the trigger on a 3 as a replacement for my wife's 175k mile Subaru that was doing 45mi r/t each day. But then my job unexpectedly moved to be really close to my wife's so we decided to go EV for the shared+carpool vehicle, which meant selling my Golf R that I really loved, but didn't drive much. That made the old Impreza the ski car again, so I bought an X5 this summer and am selling the Subaru.

Currently we've got 4 cars until I can get rid of the Subaru, but the only way to 'justify' the price of the 3 was as a do-it-all car. At the time, you could get an i3 for $20k brand new after incentives, so in order to justify the $40k Tesla (after incentives), it needs to be a *nice* do-it-all car. A quasi-luxury car. The kind of car you can roadtrip virtually anywhere. It can't just be a commuter appliance. There's nothing wrong with that, but somehow it would feel more painful to spend $20k on a brand new i3 that I could only drive to work and back, and had to remember to charge every day, and so on. That just sounds so much more limited. If I wanted a commute appliance EV, and to save money, I'd buy a used Leaf like everyone else

Model 3 low points, in order:
* The visibility sucks balls. You can't see the headlights of the car behind you, because the trunklid is so high. The rear 3/4 vis sucks, too. I can rely on the mirrors on the passenger side, however the shitty US-spec driver's side mirror means all you see is a grille, and there's a huge blind spot (yes, no matter how you adjust your mirrors). I'm a euro mirror sackrider, I'm desperately trying to source a convex driver's side mirror. The B-pillar somehow manages to hide cars -- I've almost merged into people several times even after a shoulder check. A euro mirror would solve all of this. Agree with another poster that the A-pillars hide pedestrians. Most of these visibility problems are common on newer cars; every year they get worse, and even stepping back to a 2016 or a 2008 model year car I notice how much the sightlines improve, let alone stepping back into the 90s or earlier where you can actually see without blind spot monitoring and rearview cameras and so on. But at least the vis out the front rocks! I love the low hood and low dash, it's like driving a Porsche. The road is RIGHT in front of your feet.

* Wipers, yeah. Actually the auto wipers work really well but they were a bit sketchy at first and a physical control would be nice (you can always press the left stalk 'wipe/wash' button as you scramble to find the touchscreen control). Could use a few more physical controls, in general, but most touch controls are good/great/fine.

* Trunk lid. I hate sedans. I always thought auto-close trunklids were silly, but damn, it would be convenient. It's high up, and really stiff, particularly in those hot summer months.


Model 3 highest point:
* (truly) Keyless entry. You just walk up to it and get in and drive away. No pressing buttons or swiping your hand on the door handle, or holding your phone up to the door handle (WTF, BMW). It remembers who has what phone, unlocks via bluetooth the instant you open the door, .. it moves your seats for the right driver (this is the first car I've shared with my wife). It's truly bloody amazing and perfect. Any time I drive anything else, I either try to open the door without pressing the button on the fob, or forget to lock it, or leave the keys in the ignition, or get confused as to why the motor is still running when I've opened the door. I can't overemphasize this. We share the car, and often go for a run after work (or whatever) and you never have to think/wonder who has the keys, or who will get back to the car first after the run. Do your thing, when you're done, get in the car.

Okay, I realized I'm not going to make a full list of high points. It's my first EV, but it's really a fantastic car. Having a car that's just ready to go whenever you get to it is really hard to get your head around. I postpone washing the windshield and think "I'll just hit it with the squeegee next time I stop for gas" before I realize I never have to stop for gas. You don't have to wait for the engine to warm up for the heating system to blow warm air. Hell, you can pre-heat or pre-cool it from the app. Everything just works in a way that is often much better than a conventional car, but you don't really understand until you live with one, because you take for granted a lot of ICE flaws, where the EV flaws are advertised on car forums everywhere.

I've driven a handful of Teslas, but no other EVs. My in-laws have a 3, my parents have an S, I had an S loaner once, my aunt and uncle have a 3 and an S. Hell just 2 weeks ago I was over in Idaho; drove the S home from the airport and then we roadtripped the 3 from Moscow to Seattle with 4 people and a trunk full of luggage. It actually would have made the 280mi drive without issue, but we brought lunch with us so we stopped at the charger in Cle Elum to top up, stretch our legs, have a quick lunch, and give them enough juice to get back to Cle Elum on the way home. I'm getting old enough that a 20min stop after 3-4 hours driving actually sounds nice. But obviously it's not nice in all circumstances -- not wanting to add even a 10-15min stop on our way up to the mountains after work, when you're arriving at 11pm already, plus the aforementioned not wanting to deal with charging at a house with no garage, was the reason we got the RWD 3 and are not going EV ski car at this point in time.

[adrenalated]

I'd love to drive an EV. But between the # of miles I drive daily, winter weather conditions, and inability to charge at work I really do need 200+mi rated range. Those start at $30k (new).

Even after considering fuel costs both for gasoline and electric, the tax credits available, maintenance costs (I do all my own service so it's really just parts), etc. an EV still can't come even remotely close to the total overall cost of a $16k (new) economy car. And that's not including the expense of rewiring the power distribution to my detached garage to bring enough amperage out there, and the charging hardware.

I'm hoping as the tech improves there will be more (affordable) options but I just can't justify it right now.

OK this post didn't age well....

After this post I started REALLY thinking about whether I could make it work, and how. Did a ton of research on the effects of high speed highway driving, cold weather, and other factors on range. Researched charging infrastructure. Did lots of math. After all that decided to take the plunge and brought home a 2019 Chevy Bolt on Tuesday. So three days of commuting on it so far.

For reference, I drive 100mi every day for my commute. Roughly once a week I'll add an additional 40-60 miles in after work excursions. That commute is roughly 10% city streets, 20% city highway (could be 70mph, could be stop and go), and 70% rural highway at 80mph, so not really "ideal" conditions for an EV. Front Range Colorado, so a pretty wide range of weather conditions. We also have a Subaru Forester with a new engine and an old Tundra with a camper, so road trips/skiing aren't a concern for this car.

My initial impressions of EVs is that you need to think fundamentally different about how you fuel them and it's not fair to directly compare the range of an ICE car and the range of an EV. With an ICE car, you fuel it occasionally, but it fills really fast. So you tend to use more of the overall range because you only fill occasionally. EVs fuel slowly, but you do it frequently - at home, every night. So you're not using nearly as much of your range, meaning you don't need as much. Of course for road trips that changes, but think about your daily driving. How often to you actually go get gas? My old car would go around 350mi on a tank and I generally filled it every 3 days. Now I refill every night, at home.

My last commuter car was a Hyundai Accent, an inexpensive, manual transmission hatchback that I bought new in 2016. I paid like $16k for it and it didn't cost much to run at all. It needed nothing other than routine fluid and filter changes, which I did myself, and it averaged around 34mpg.

Chevy is discounting Bolts pretty aggressively right now as the federal tax credits are phasing out, but once you factor in all the discounts/rebates/tax credits (we have a $5k credit in Colorado right now) this car cost me right around $25k. It's going to wind up being more expensive in the first 100k miles than the Hyundai was but really not THAT much more expensive, and it's definitely a nicer car. Monthly operating costs are going to be about 50% of the Hyundai between electricity being cheaper than gas and reduced maintenance costs. If you pay someone to do your maintenance, the cost differential gets even smaller. The official service schedule on the Bolt is rotate tires, replace wiper blades, change cabin air filter, then replace coolant at 150k miles. That's it.

I think the bottom line is, if you:
1) live in or near a larger metro area/suburbs
2) own your house and can install the appropriate electrical
3) have more than one vehicle
then one of your cars probably can and should be an electric car.

I'll give a more detailed review of the actual car once I've driven it for a few months, but there are definitely some really nice tech/luxury features and the experience of driving an EV, while a little different, is very pleasant.

[LightRanger]

^^^ Nice review.

Spouse really (for whatever reason) doesn't want a third car, so I'm looking at replacing my shitbox Civic commuter with an AWD BEV or PHEV. Daily commute right now is 50mi RT. Solar on the roof. Garage already wired for a charger, so that's done. Last owner just took the actual charging unit with him. Not sure how long I'm going to hold out, but the RAV4 PHEV looks intriguing, depending on details to be announced next month.

[adrenalated]

^^^ Nice review.

Spouse really (for whatever reason) doesn't want a third car, so I'm looking at replacing my shitbox Civic commuter with an AWD BEV or PHEV. Daily commute right now is 50mi RT. Solar on the roof. Garage already wired for a charger, so that's done. Last owner just took the actual charging unit with him. Not sure how long I'm going to hold out, but the RAV4 PHEV looks intriguing, depending on details to be announced next month.

Do you really need AWD? You're replacing a FWD Civic, so can you get by with FWD and snow tires?

I ask because AWD BEV limits you to only a few (expensive) choices and PHEV cars don't give you the benefit of reduced maintenance (but do make range/charging infrastructure a non issue). There's several options for FWD BEVs at a reasonable price now, especially in California where you can actually buy Kona EVs and Niro EVs.

[LightRanger]

Do you really need AWD? You're replacing a FWD Civic, so can you get by with FWD and snow tires?

I ask because AWD BEV limits you to only a few (expensive) choices and PHEV cars don't give you the benefit of reduced maintenance (but do make range/charging infrastructure a non issue). There's several options for FWD BEVs at a reasonable price now, especially in California where you can actually buy Kona EVs and Niro EVs.

Yeah. Right now the FWD Civic is inconvenient because of CA chain control laws. And I go out of my way to avoid chaining up at all costs. And find myself and spouse needing 4WD/AWD at the same time in separate cars often enough that it's annoying. FWD with snows isn't an option for a regular CA snow car.

Yeah. Acutely aware of the maintenance stuff too because I do my own oil changes as well as most other general maintenance.

Like I said, depends kind of on how long I want to hold out. The Toyota/Subie BEV collaboration looks really interesting, but no idea when that stuff comes to market.

Part of me wants to look at used AWD Model 3s too. But *probably* not what I want to spend. No idea what the used M3 market will be like 12-24 months from now, which is when I'm looking at buying when we're back to dual-income.

(Not having a payment is pretty sweet in the meantime though.)

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

[jackstraw]

I just stumbled upon this one. Had no idea the vacuum dude was trying to build a car. I guess it's more difficult than he thought.

https://fortune.com/longform/james-d...ar-appliances/

[54-46]

Before I start in; rear wheel drive Model 3 long-range (rated at like 310 or 320 or 330mi, whatever Elon says this week) owner, about 20k miles in 16 months. I live in the bay.





Meh. Now, understand, I specifically did NOT buy an AWD 3 because I don't want to get back into the world of having 2 sets of tires like I did with my Golf R, worrying about charging in the mountains where we don't have a garage, worrying about ground clearance, worrying about what the cold does to the range. Instead I bought a used diesel X5 for a ski car

I have/had no plans to take the 3 to the mountains, although we've actually driven it up 3 times, and drove up a loaner Model S once. Kirkwood happens to have destination chargers so I just charged, for free, overnight, after arrival. Not totally convenient to have to leave the car 3/4mi away at the lodge; OTOH they were always open and worked and it cost $0, so it was worth the tradeoff vs bringing a different vehicle.

FWIW, the ~190mi net uphill trip from sea level to 8k uses something like 250mi of range. You get it back on the way down, but that doesn't help if you run out of juice 2mi from the summit

I've only supercharged the 3 like... 6 times? Some of those just for shits and giggles?
Once or twice on a (summer) trip to Kirkwood, once on a trip to a dirtbike camp way out east of Fresno, ... once on a r/t to Sacto... my memory is failing me beyond that. But I've seen enough chargers and have enough familiarity with them from various family-owned cars that "typically another car is in all the stations they want to use" is hyperbole unless you're talking about some craptacular chargepoint at some restaurant in BFE that you're desperately hoping works. And this is why I think Tesla currently has a huge edge over the competition. Fast, trustworthy, reliable charging network. I wouldn't want to take anything else on an EV roadtrip *today*.

Tesla: finds the chargers for you, routes to them, tells you when to stop, how many stalls are used, etc. Everyone else: download on app on your phone, good luck, bring a good book.

I absolutely get that some people don't want to stop for 20 minutes along their route to charge, especially if they're doing it all the time. But I managed, my wife manages, my 80 year old dad manages. It's really not hard or time-consuming, assuming you don't have a crappy charging situation (eg, can't charge at home, take frequent long trips that are nowhere near chargers, whatever). If it doesn't suit you, don't buy an EV. For most of us, you take that trip maybe once or twice a year, it's probably worth the tradeoff.

Let me put it this way: I've saved more time not stopping at gas stations than I've burned at superchargers. Every time I've had to stop along my route, I got my lunch/hit a grocery store to buy chips and salsa/found a starbucks+pisser, and I RUSHED back to the car because I realized I already had way more charge than I needed. They're bloody fast. It's not like a gas station. You don't charge 0-100. You arrive with something, because you left home with a lot, and you leave with a bit more than you arrived with.



Please, tell us more about the subsidies that the oil companies, refineries, and corn producers don't get. Tell us about how we don't spend trillions in foreign countries largely because of oil. Don't get me wrong, I didn't bring my figures, either. I don't know if ethanol refiners or gas stations get subsidies. And I'm sure power companies get some kinds of subsidies, too, even before you leave aside natural gas powered electric plants that of course benefit from similar subsidies as the oil industry. But your "without subsidies" is a low grade partisan talking point. I think it would be difficult to show that, end-to-end, the ICE car+fuel industry gets fewer subsidies than the electric car+electricity industry., end-to-end.

Don’t get started on ethanol... https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.the...rticle/602191/

[skaredshtles]

<snip>

(Not having a payment is pretty sweet in the meantime though.)

Keep doing this, man - even when you go back to dual-income. Car-payment-free since 2008.

[plugboots]

Don’t get started on ethanol... https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.the...rticle/602191/

Thanks, good article.

[Long duc dong]

I did not say electric cars suck, in many ways; they are much better than gas powered cars but overall they are inferior.

since your panties are in a bunch here, i'll elaborate. electric cars work well for primarily being a close in commuter car that has recharging facilities at both the owner's home and work. for instance, I had a neighbor that had a tesla and he could only recharge it at work as our parking in our condo complex is dated enough that it does not have charging. so, that guy had to really plan ahead as he could not recharge at the place he was likely to be at the most, his home.

will there eventually be enough charging stations throught the usa that this is not an issue, yes; but for now it is and the limitation on load capacity is a big issue. maybe some do not mind waiting 30 to an hour to refuel, but most do not want to wait.

yes, until those issues are resolved; electric cars are inferior. electric cars have been able to be built for decades, if they were competitive with gas cars(AND WITHOUT SUBSIDIES); there would already be charging stations all over. Tesla would not be in business if the country wasn't helping to pay for the cars thru subsidies.

The problem with your neighbor is a problem with the complex, NOT with electric cars. As these issues get better and better that will be less of an issue. The issue is with charging, not with the quality of the vehicles.

There need to be more subsidies. This should have happened a long time ago. Most Americans are too stupid to act in their own best interests in the long run because they don't understand what they are. That is the role government is supposed to play. If more people had high levels of education this type of thing would be less necessary. I have known many people who majored in econ. I also know lots who have phds in econ. The two groups tend to look at the world in very different ways. California FINALLY went single use plastic bags in 2016. It should have happened a long time ago. I am always amazed when I see a place where the majority of people in a grocery store are so stupid that they don't bring their own bags. I can see OCCASIONALLY not having bags, that happens to just about everyone, but it is really not that complex to bring your own. The fact that it is taking the country so long to adjust is an example of just how stupid most people are.



If you think that the lack of charging stations is a result of electric vehicles being inferior, well that is beyond stupid. People have not purchased the vehicles BECAUSE of the limitations on charging, not because the vehicles are inferior. Rivian is supposed to be making a truck that goes from 0-60 in about 3 seconds. The performance is not the issue, it is the ease of charging. Luckily I live in California, where things are getting better and better. Things are finally going in the right direction, but we should have been where we are now 20 years ago.

[Long duc dong]

For those of you with some extra cash.....

https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-ne.../battista_pf0/

Supposedly 0-60 in under 2 seconds!

A bargain at 2m euros!

[jackstraw]

The problem with your neighbor is a problem with the complex, NOT with electric cars. As these issues get better and better that will be less of an issue. The issue is with charging, not with the quality of the vehicles.

There need to be more subsidies. This should have happened a long time ago. Most Americans are too stupid to act in their own best interests in the long run because they don't understand what they are. That is the role government is supposed to play. If more people had high levels of education this type of thing would be less necessary. I have known many people who majored in econ. I also know lots who have phds in econ. The two groups tend to look at the world in very different ways. California FINALLY went single use plastic bags in 2016. It should have happened a long time ago. I am always amazed when I see a place where the majority of people in a grocery store are so stupid that they don't bring their own bags. I can see OCCASIONALLY not having bags, that happens to just about everyone, but it is really not that complex to bring your own. The fact that it is taking the country so long to adjust is an example of just how stupid most people are.



If you think that the lack of charging stations is a result of electric vehicles being inferior, well that is beyond stupid. People have not purchased the vehicles BECAUSE of the limitations on charging, not because the vehicles are inferior. Rivian is supposed to be making a truck that goes from 0-60 in about 3 seconds. The performance is not the issue, it is the ease of charging. Luckily I live in California, where things are getting better and better. Things are finally going in the right direction, but we should have been where we are now 20 years ago.

The narrow-minded looking for short term returns. The problem is greed. They're so blinded that they do not see the long term gains. That's my problem with most republicans. They're educated, but they're fucking dumb.

[dcpnz]

I’m going to update my previous thoughts on model 3 having now had a few weeks of colder winter weather.....

With good tires (in our case michelin x-ice 3) the winter traction is good. I think the weight probably both helps and hurts (heavy but down low) but the AWD system seems pretty darn good.

Range estimates are all over the place in winter - not unusual to lose 50+mi of estimated range overnight if temp drops. Not clear yet if it “recovers” much of it as battery warms again.

Recent road trips have reinforced issue of logistics - depending on route you do have to think pretty hard about how much charge you have and where you’re going to charge next. E.g if you’re heading west up I70/Eisenhower and planning to supercharge in silverthorne you better have a shit load more estimated range than miles to cover.

I still hate the touchscreen - loads of information available but simple operations are not intuitive and require taking attention off the road ahead. At least i finally figured out how to manually turn wipers off (multiple taps of screen) but changing the wiper speed while driving on the highway at night in a snowstorm is no easy task. I guess I’m just old and grouchy but buttons and knobs for common functions are far more ergonomic.

Clearance is minimal - no different than summer clearance except I encounter more snow drifts and plow berms in winter.

Snow, ice, dirt, rain or damn near any environmental factor produces warnings about cameras and blindspot sensors being impaired. We are a long long long way from any form of reliable autonomous driving based on cameras alone.

Now the ones that really bother me:
The windows freeze shut. Yep just like many other cars. However the difference here is the fu#@king windows have to go down a half inch to open and close the f#@king doors. Damn near impossible getting in or out of the bloody car if the windows can’t go down. Requires some serious force.

And when the battery is cold you get a warning that battery regen braking is limited. Ok, no problem just brake like a regular ice car right. Wrong. The brake regen is entirely unpredictable. Let off the accelerator one time and there’ll be no brake effect at all. Next time it’ll brake alarmingly aggressively and brake check everyone behind.

Lastly a minor annoyance - kind of common practice in snow country to lift your wiper blades before a storm. Makes scraping windshield easier and blades dont freeze to it. Tesla makes that simple task damn near impossible too. You have go thru menus on the touchscreen to put the bloody wipers in “service mode” to do it.

Bottom line - still a good vehicle but the list of annoyances is longer than anything else I’ve ever owned and takes away from what could be a great vehicle.

[plugboots]

I was wondering about the doors freezing, because my old 1992 and ‘98 Audis would do that and you couldn’t grab the door handles to really yank the door open. We used to climb in through the trunk and push from the inside. This ended when we got a BMW because you can really grab the door handles and pull a lot harder. The design is so you can put a metal bar in there and rip it off in an accident.
I thought about this again yesterday because I saw a woman at the grocery store trying to open the back door, and no matter how many times she touched it, it wouldn’t pop out. She had to put all the groceries on the ground, touch the door handle, (apparently in the secret way), and it popped out.

[adrenalated]

FWIW - other than losing range in cold weather, none of the issues that dcpnz mentioned exist on my Chevy Bolt. I'll update more later.

[muted]

I’m going to update my previous thoughts on model 3 having now had a few weeks of colder winter weather.....

With good tires (in our case michelin x-ice 3) the winter traction is good. I think the weight probably both helps and hurts (heavy but down low) but the AWD system seems pretty darn good.

Range estimates are all over the place in winter - not unusual to lose 50+mi of estimated range overnight if temp drops. Not clear yet if it “recovers” much of it as battery warms again.

Recent road trips have reinforced issue of logistics - depending on route you do have to think pretty hard about how much charge you have and where you’re going to charge next. E.g if you’re heading west up I70/Eisenhower and planning to supercharge in silverthorne you better have a shit load more estimated range than miles to cover.

I still hate the touchscreen - loads of information available but simple operations are not intuitive and require taking attention off the road ahead. At least i finally figured out how to manually turn wipers off (multiple taps of screen) but changing the wiper speed while driving on the highway at night in a snowstorm is no easy task. I guess I’m just old and grouchy but buttons and knobs for common functions are far more ergonomic.

Clearance is minimal - no different than summer clearance except I encounter more snow drifts and plow berms in winter.

Snow, ice, dirt, rain or damn near any environmental factor produces warnings about cameras and blindspot sensors being impaired. We are a long long long way from any form of reliable autonomous driving based on cameras alone.

Now the ones that really bother me:
The windows freeze shut. Yep just like many other cars. However the difference here is the fu#@king windows have to go down a half inch to open and close the f#@king doors. Damn near impossible getting in or out of the bloody car if the windows can’t go down. Requires some serious force.

And when the battery is cold you get a warning that battery regen braking is limited. Ok, no problem just brake like a regular ice car right. Wrong. The brake regen is entirely unpredictable. Let off the accelerator one time and there’ll be no brake effect at all. Next time it’ll brake alarmingly aggressively and brake check everyone behind.

Lastly a minor annoyance - kind of common practice in snow country to lift your wiper blades before a storm. Makes scraping windshield easier and blades dont freeze to it. Tesla makes that simple task damn near impossible too. You have go thru menus on the touchscreen to put the bloody wipers in “service mode” to do it.

Bottom line - still a good vehicle but the list of annoyances is longer than anything else I’ve ever owned and takes away from what could be a great vehicle.

I didn't know about the service mode for wipers, thanks. Do you know you can press the button on the left wand and on-screen the on/off wiper button appears? It's a recent update. The 'regen limited' in cold weather wasn't in existence last winter for me, AKAIK, so it's a new thing that they hopefully will adjust in the next update. But that change in braking you have I haven't noticed. And have you looked into the 1.5" riser kits? I'm debating one. As for the windows needing to go down, that was an update last winter to prevent frozen doors that people in Quebec were having, the windows go down and break up the ice seal or something like that, but guess it doesn't work for you?

You spend more time in high elevation cold weather than me I think, I had my car all last winter in Utah doing short trips up in the mountains and never had frozen windows, worry about running out of juice, etc.

[plugboots]

I had my car all last winter in Utah doing short trips up in the mountains and never had frozen windows.

It’s from driving in below freezing wet/humid weather, then transferring to below freezing, you drive up and all that moisture is still on the windows and then it freezes.
It happensed almost every night at our place in Tahoe because the skiing was so close to the freezing temperature.

[dcpnz]

Did not know about the left button press to bring up wiper controls - will have to try that. Less screen taps required is good.

I’m at 8,000’ in CO. I suspect the door/window issue is a function of consistent melt freeze cycles. Warm solar radiation during day melting snow on the car and then well below freezing temps overnight throughout season . Happens on my ford suv all the time too but unlike the tesla m3 the windows don’t need to operate on that to get in and out of it.

[SumJongGuy]

There were a lot of eTravelers late for Thanksgiving dinner this year..

Kettleman City, CA I-5