Tesla Model 3
Tomorrow, I begin another new chapter in “My life with cars” journey when I take delivery of a Tesla Model 3.
The time had come to decide whether to keep the Audi A6 Avant, which apart from a few niggles, had been a great car, or to go with something else and if so what. Do I stay with and ICE car or do I follow in the footsteps of my wife who moved to a Volkswagen ID3 EV two years ago?
I have to say I’ve been very impressed with the ID3, and the IONIQ 5 that I had the good fortune to travel in over a decent length of journey. So the hunt began, I knew what the VW had to offer already and a few hours on the internet allowed me to get an idea of what else was out there. I don’t do many miles and I wanted something modest and functional (at least that’s what I thought at the time).
The first port of call was my local Hyundai garage one Sunday to check out the IONIQ 5. Unfortunately, it was a disappointing experience as the salesman informed me they didn’t have one available as the that the manager takes the showroom car home on a weekend. Really! … I can’t help but wonder how much income the manager costs the dealership in terms of lost business by only having a showroom car available during the week.
Next up was the Tesla garage to look at the Model 3. In stark contrast to Hyundai, they had plenty of cars to look at and the salesmen, who weren’t salesmen in the normal sense of the word, were excellent. A test drive followed shortly afterwards, and they gave me the M3 Performance to try. What can I say about the test drive? I’ve been in a lot of fast cars, but I’ve never been in one quite like this: 0-60MPH in 3.1s and enough torque to pull the tarmac off the road and get you into a lot of trouble … wow!
In addition, the overall quality of the car was very good, and the array of gadgets struck a chord with the geek within me, so the decision was made, well almost, I just needed to figure out what spec to go for.
The very first question everyone asks about electric vehicles is “what’s the range?” and I did the same. However, and whilst I appreciate range is a concern for longer journeys, I’ve discovered a slightly different mindset is needed for long journeys in EV’s, and in many ways is the wrong question to ask. Why? because when you do the research, you discover that the average journey distance of all cars in the UK is around 8 miles, and the average number of journeys per year is around 300. For most owners therefore range is a perceived rather than a real issue.
One of the benefits of having an EV is that, circumstances permitting, you can conveniently charge it at home. One day we’ll think of charging a car like charging a phone or a watch and we’ll just plug it in when we go to bed. In hindsight, and I expect I wasn’t alone, it’s amazing how much energy I wasted by driving around a car carrying the weight of a full tank of fuel when I only needed to drive into Newcastle and back.
The other question I hear asked is about depreciation and residual values of EV’s. The biggest comments I read are around battery life and what will the car be worth when the battery is no longer serviceable. Along with most other EV manufacturers, Tesla provide warranty for the battery and drive train for 100,000 miles or 8 years, and the battery can be replaced albeit an expensive option.
Recently there has been a boom in the used car market driven by supply of new cars not being able to keep up with demand, which has pushed residual values up to insane levels. For example, the Audi that I just let go is being advertised for the same price I paid for it brand new 3 years ago. It’s inevitable that this bubble will burst once supply catches up with demand, and it’s very likely that we’ll see new cars (EV or otherwise) depreciating by 40-50% over the first three years as was the norm just a few years ago. The worst experience I ever had was with my Jaguar XF which depreciated by £16k (almost half its value) in only 16 months, I still haven’t gotten over the pain!
Anyway, looking forward to picking up the Tesla and I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes.
Thanks for reading
Stuart Lynn - Masters Athlete 