The Model 3 versus… the Model 3

I drive a Model 3 Long Range. I say I drive it, as I don’t own it, I lease it (from UK premium leasing provider, EZOO). Courtesy of the good people at Tesla, I test drove the new Model 3 Performance.

According to Tesla’s performance data, the latest generation performance drive unit delivers more than 460 system horsepower, and rockets from 0 to 60 mph in as little as 2.9 seconds, with a top speed of 163 mph. Having a wife who is the most cautious passenger to ever sit in an EV means that my opportunities for propelling it from potential energy to its full kinetic energy possibility threshold is limited. This week, I didn’t get the chance to take it out to Upper Heyford airfield base, like I did the left-hand drive Model S a few months ago, so I only had a limited option to find a spot to both put it through its paces and to do so in a way which didn’t put me on the wrong side of the law. Naturally, this meant I wasn’t able to try out the updated track mode feature, which allows the Model 3 Peformance to be set up for the fastest track time possible.

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The Long Range is a respectable, sedate experience. What I love about it is the range reassurance of seeing 340 miles on the odometer readings. In previous EVs, I used to bother myself with charging at home on my domestic charger. Now I can’t be bothered, in the sense that I am so relaxed about range it just doesn’t bother my worried little mind anymore. So much so, I’d almost given up thinking about charging, with most of my journeys being around town, ferrying the kids. Then, when last week, I did need to do a longer distance drive, I had a first moment in a long time when I did have to fret about not having enough miles on the battery.

The Model 3 Performance is not at all sedate. It’s visceral. It responds, immediately, and emotively, to your senses. Whilst at a first glance it’s simply a four door family saloon, it’s still a competitor for the best electric sports cars.

Let’s talk stalks – indicator stalks; perhaps the biggest first world problem talking point of this updated EV. I’ve now driven the Model S Plaid and the new Model 3, both with haptic indicators and minus indicator stalks. I’ll reference Apple, here, and I’m a big fan of Apple’s approach to the deleting of most technologies that we now consider superfluous, and that were a big talking point at first. Now, they seem ridiculous: can you imagine using a disc drive on a computer in an age of cloud storage and wifi.

To me, stalks now feel like the tech of a time gone by. If you’re thinking about going EV, or already drive an EV, surely, in some sense, you’ve chosen the future, rather than the past, and stalks, it seems to me, are the low-fi switch tech of the past.

And with this being the Model 3 Performance, the haptic buttons absolutely feel like the tech of a sports car: part of its inherent design. In my older Model 3 Long Range, they feel like the sedate driving experience of a long range vehicle.

Sure, indicating on a roundabout, with no stationary stalk, is a little discombobulating at first, but, equally, being able to indicate at the super convenient push of a haptic button is just great. It gives you a sense of the car being a continuation of your central nervous system. Overall, the ease of use of a haptic tap far outweighs the slightly tricksy contortion when the wheel is past a 90 degree turn.

The Long Range and the Performance, to the untrained eye look like the same car. They are both Model 3s. However, they feel very, very different. Aside from the Insane Model 3 Performance speed, what makes it so different? Is it the colour? Is it the haptic indicator controls? Is it the rather viscerally delicious Ultra Red colouration? Is it the staggered, forged aluminium 20” wheels, with new 20” summer performance tyres? Or is it a combination of all of the above?

The answer is, of course, all of the above. Fundamentally, you feel what the tech is telling you. This is a sports car, with a supercar-beating 0-60 time of 2.9 seconds, commanding a £10,000 premium over the Long Range variant. The Long Range is a family car, and as its name suggests, offers 390 miles on a charge, compared to the Performance’s 330 miles. The Performance and the Long Range: two very different 3s, but both just as practical as ever.

The differences

Tesla Model 3 Long RangeTesla Model 3 Performance
Price£49,990£59,990
Top Speed125mph163mph
0-60 mph4.2 seconds2.9 seconds
Range390 miles328 miles

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