Tesla Model 3

While here in California, I finally have had a chance to drive a Tesla. Though I originally had booked a Model Y, I ended up with the Model 3 which is slightly less expensive (it still costs an eye-watering 42,990 USD).

When first picking up the car at SFO, I was in a bit of a rush, so I did not really have time to look into all the controls, but I immediately noticed the fast acceleration and the advanced electronics with the big touchscreen replacing almost all other buttons and physical inputs. Though equipped with an autopilot function, it felt a bit too exciting to test that one when driving north on the 101 with lots of cars around and, to tell the truth, I did not have the courage to test it later either.

My only real issue with the car has been how to charge it. Downloading the Tesla app on my phone, I figured that it is not possible to add a car that is not one’s own and the Supercharger station did not have any buttons that I could press. However, to my great surprise, once I plugged in the car, it simply started charging, informing that my credit card was on file and that I would be billed accordingly, wow! As for charging, the Tesla Supercharger had an insane effect of 85 kW, meaning that the car can be fully charged in under one hour. Let’s just hope that all that juice comes from Diablo Canyon and not any gas-fired power plants (of which there are many in California). In total, I drove 317 km over these two days and, overall, I would say that the Model 3 exceeded my expectations (that were high to begin with).