Driving a Tesla Model 3 in Summer 2023

The Setup: How Did We Wind Up with a Tesla?

How? Why?

None of our motley fleet of older motor vehicles (newest was a 2006 model at the time) were in any condition to get us to, around, and back from Las Vegas for the 2023 edition of Brie’s BBW Bash (link to the current year’s Bash). Indeed, we didn’t even have a ride able to get us around town locally. No one amongst extended family/friends had a viable vehicle to spare. We needed a rental.

The bargain hunter amongst us found a good deal on a “Manager’s Special” rental from Hertz. All we knew was that it was to be an electric vehicle. We figured it would be something fairly generic—maybe a Chevrolet Bolt, or an older Prius?

Surpriiiiissee!

Not until i walked up to the agency and saw the parking lot filled with Teslas did it even seem possible that our rental car would be, uh, unusual. Nearly a year later i still don’t know whether there was (or is?) some arrangement/agreement between Tesla, Hertz, and/or the State of California, at least two of whom would love for all gasoline- or diesel-powered vehicles to vanish from the roadways ASAP. All i know was that something like 60% of the cars i saw in that rental lot that early July 2023 day were Teslas.

Using: User Interface (UI) and Basic Operation

“Driving a Tesla is like driving an iPad”—The Learning Curve

Lost track of the number of people prior, during, and after the rental period who made the claim “Driving a Tesla is like driving an iPad”, or asked it in the form of a question. Well, Yes and No. Some UI elements seem drawn from the computer and related tech world, yet many others are from automotive standards, past and present.

Basic Driver Controls

Operation of a Tesla Model 3 is different enough that a rental agent accompanied me to the car—a dark gray^* 2022 Tesla Model 3—to “show me the ropes”.

Starting and Running

The flat key fob-equivalent needs to be placed in one or two specific locations to start a Model 3. I memorized the location near/in the front center console cup holders. Once running, the car will allegedly keep going if the fob slides out of position. We were not daring enough to test this.

Foot on the brake (standard brake and accelerator pedals—at least by look, feel, and location), shift into an appropriate gear with the column shift, and you’re good to go—if and only if you have your seat belt(s) on. Otherwise, you’ll barely be able to move the car half a meter. I understand the safety implications and the desire to compel people to belt up, but this “feature” is beyond annoying if one needs to roll the car a meter or so in one’s own driveway, or if there is some sort of emergency going on.

At first glance, the gearshift lever looks like most other standard column shift mechanisms. It’s not. Momentary pushes down or up, similar to turn signal lever usage for lane changes on a multilane highway, shift through the gears. Park does not happen unless the button at the end of this lever is pushed.

Steering

Adjusting steering wheel position is where the UI is closest to computer-type tech. There are two tilt scroll wheels, one on each side of the steering wheel. These will likely feel immediately intuitive to anyone who has used a scroll wheel mouse for any length of time, and likely quite foreign to anyone who has not. I found it very easy to adjust the steering wheel tilt and column length (closeness to me or the dash) this way—far easier and more precise than any other mechanism for these same functions on traditional automobiles. As might be expected, these scroll wheels have multiple functions depending what mode the car is in, some of which is determined on the touch screen.

The steering wheel itself and steering feel whilst driving were comfortably similar enough to traditional cars to (thankfully) not be noteworthy.

Mirrors

Side mirrors are typical electrically-controlled. For some reason it pleased/amused me that the rear view mirror adjustment is one of very few functions on this highly-electrified and -automated car which is totally manual. Actually that makes a lot of sense—there’s no need to automate its positioning, and most folks are used to adjusting traditional manual mirrors. Mirror visibility seemed about average for the dozen or so vehicles i’ve driven so far over the course of my life.

Driving

No Coast

For those of us used to conserving fuel via gentle acceleration and lots of coasting when possible, driving the Model 3 is a rude awakening: Tesla is very aggressive about regenerative braking, which in effect mostly leads to a one-pedal driving style. Yes there is a setting which is supposed to simulate coasting in a traditional gasoline-powered vehicle, but it doesn’t. All it does is dial down the aggressiveness of the regenerative braking. I started with that setting, but eventually gave up—if i’m going to be forced to learn a new driving style, might as well go for Tesla’s default with more regenerative braking and maybe eke out slightly more driving range.

Navigation System/Touch Screen

Many if not most of you reading this have more experience with modern and semi-modern navigation systems than we do. I’ve ridden with others in their newer vehicles with variations on this theme, which often leave those owners frustrated in one or more ways.

The Tesla Model 3 navigation system—and indeed most of the functionality of the touch screen overall—worked well for us. For years i’d peeked into parked Teslas, looking at their lack of traditional dashboard and that big screen near the center of the console, thinking it would be difficult and distracting to turn my gaze so far from the center of driving view to keep track of speed and “the gauges”. To my surprise, for me it was neither difficult nor distracting using the Tesla Model 3’s center screen instead of traditional dashboard gauges—at all. Indeed, it felt natural and easy. The layout of information on the screen i found intuitive and easy to follow/view. It almost felt primitive or like going back in time turning in the Model 3 rental and reverting to using our older traditional dashboard design vehicles.

The navigation system was easy enough to use, and the information seemed accurate and useful. “Powered” by Google Maps was a major downside for me (i hate Google/Alphabet, particularly their data sucking and baked-in anti-privacy business models), but it did work well and reliably. Unsurprisingly with this pedigree, like both Google and Apple Maps on handheld devices, the navigation screen had a propensity to zoom back in where it wanted/thought we should be, when we sometimes wanted to stay with a zoomed-out big picture view.

We liked the nav system displaying live traffic signal lights (sometimes, apparently “where available”), and the current speed limit. Unfortunately the latter was not always correct. The “Light turned green” alert chime was too fast and too insistent—like riding with an impatient New Yawwwk City native. I’d hoped to find a timing adjustment for it, but there was only On and Off. Hopefully a more recent firmware revision allows the owner to set the time delay between when the car detects the change to a green light and when the chime sounds if the car does not start moving.

As one would hope, the navigation system made it easy to find Tesla charging stations. Unfortunately due to the well-documented lying about actual range (this Reuters report from late July 2023, for example), there was a strong disconnect between how much range the Model 3 claimed it had (lots), and how soon the nav system wanted to get us to a charging station (often… too often). We eventually figured out we had to do our own math to bridge the over-zealous Charge-A-Lot claims of the nav system and the over-optimistic primary range estimate of the car itself. Maybe once Musk and/or others are fired, one or more software updates will 1) tell the truth on range, and 2) navigate to a charging station a reasonable distance away rather than Every. Single. Charging. Station. Passed. Being charitable, maybe the nav system hadn’t had us behind the wheel for enough miles to properly calculate the actual range until safe charging. As of summer 2023, according to online reporting, this was one major advantage of every other EV over Tesla: the others did not lie about driving range. Tesla did. Driving range is not a parameter where one should be wearing the bright plaid salesslime’s jacket. It’s a place to tell the honest truth, always.

General functionality as a touch screen beyond navigation functionality was good: the screen responded appropriately to touches. The layout and menus were mostly reasonable, though it took me far too long to guess my way to discovering that the owner’s manual (on-screen only—no paper—as one would expect for this sort of vehicle) was buried under the Service heading. Really i think it should be elevated to the main menu, given that a new owner will need to reference it a lot, and that owning and using is not servicing.

EV Sound Effects

Kudos to Tesla for only having “driving” or “engine” sound effects in reverse. Even at low speeds, there is enough tire and road noise for folks with decent hearing to know a car is driving by. Far too many EVs insist upon sound effects in all directions and seemingly all speeds (maybe just low? I don’t know). The other brands’ effects i have heard are not loud enough to make a difference for those with hearing issues, and those of us with “normal” hearing will hear the road noise and don’t need the sound effect. Hopefully other makers will buy a clue and follow Tesla’s lead.

Adaptive Speed Control: Autopilot (Lite?)

As one might hope, this rental vehicle was restricted to conventional adaptive speed control, not any of the more advanced Tesla Autopilot options that might have been available for this model in summer 2023. One might also hope that with all the cameras and sensors, the adaptive speed control would have operated flawlessly. Mostly it did OK, but the one time it didn’t was nearly fatal.

Southbound Interstate 15, sun setting in the west (in front and to the right of us at this moment on that road). Pretty sure it was coming into Barstow, maybe just past Old Highway 58. (Next time we make the trip i’ll try to get a mileage marker and update this article. The trauma of what happened in the Model 3 at this location should make it highly memorable.) Driving through Victorville, just before the Mojave Dr. exit. We were traveling in the #1 lane, speed control locked at the speed limit, cresting a hill. All of a sudden the Tesla “threw on the brakes”: slowed hard and suddenly because it spotted a slow-moving vehicle in lane #2 at the top or just past the top of the hill.

It feels like a miracle that we were not rear-ended. Now, maybe the rear-facing cameras of the Tesla told the computer(s) that there were no vehicles close enough behind to be a problem, but i guarantee that no human driver i know would have braked so suddenly for no reason whatsoever. The slow-moving vehicle in lane #2 was fully in its lane—not wavering/weaving side-to-side. I remained well-centered in our lane (#1). Neither of us had turn signals going. This is an epic fail, and one of the main reasons i wouldn’t consider owning nor regularly driving a Tesla. We don’t feel safe in one—particularly with any flavor of Autopilot engaged—even basic adaptive speed control as we used.

To me, this speaks of the fast-and-loose philosophy of the founder/owner (Elon Musk). For those who aren’t aware, he made some “interesting” (dubious) choices related to moving some Twitter servers in ways that put user data at (what many consider) unnecessary risk. I highly recommend this article, for anyone having anything to do with any company or product connected to Elon Musk. For those of you who may choose not to read it, i quote esteemed author of that article Mike Masnick:

Note the pattern: a willingness to ignore the details of what could go wrong, YOLO it and just test it out, and the assumption that if nothing goes wrong when you do that, it means that everything is fine and nothing else could possibly go wrong.

I might never even ride in a Tesla after this.

I’m not sure i even feel safe on or near the roads with so many Teslas, with fast-and-loose algorithmic designs like this.

Aside: i used to work at Apple, last millennium. It is difficult to put into words the joy i felt when i read they discontinued their automobile program. Given the litany of bugs in their products which cause real harm to users in far less dangerous situations, i was truly concerned about anything going through what remains of Apple’s QA (a department where i used to work) being unleashed on the public. Seems to me Teslas are not as bad, but not much better!

Researching/fact-checking this article, i discovered that this is a known problem which has been termed “Phantom Braking”. The BBC article i found discussing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration looking into hundreds of complaints was dated 18 February 2022. We rented this Model 3 in July 2023. A year and 5 months later, and our rental still did this. This is unacceptably unsafe!

Creature Comforts

Radio

It’s a full-fledged audio system, but we only used the radio, hence my section title choice. Interface is via the touch screen. For the most part it’s straightforward, though it’s different enough from traditional car audio systems to have thrown us off. As a former FM broadcast engineer, i feel some shame admitting that i could not figure out how to turn the radio off. Apparently it only has a Pause, like the Apple Music app on recent iOS versions, not anything like Stop or Off. We didn’t spend a lot of time mastering the audio system, mostly finding one station we liked and leaving it there.

Handheld Device Support/Charging Platform

Again, we deal with such old vehicles that we’re nowhere near up-to-date with what the competition is currently offering. The Tesla Model 3 has a sloped platform at the juncture of the center console and front center of the dashboard—a convenient location and angle, with well more than enough room for our (at the time) iPhone 13 (regular, not Pro etc.) and iPhone 7 Plus. Likely they’d take larger “phones” and possibly smaller “mini” tablets, but not full-sized tablets. Each position has Qi wireless charging, and will happily connect one’s device to the car as much as the device and device owner allow… and likely suck a lot of data therefrom, hence we declined.

If it wasn’t for the unethical massive data suckage that all current auto makers seem to undertake—with Tesla being close to the worst according to the Mozilla ^* Privacy Not Included folks—i’d find the device platform and interfacing to the car to be useful and convenient.

Climate Control (Air Conditioning)

Mostly easy to use, other than some of the vent air flow direction adjustments were non-intuitive. Vague memories of multiple touch screen presses where it seemed that a press and hold or one press ought to work. Seemed about as effective as working air conditioning in vehicles from the last few decades.

Charging

Hurry Up and Wait

Every article i’ve yet read about using/living with an EV discusses how long it takes to charge the vehicle’s (main) battery. No matter which make, it takes awhile—vastly longer than fueling up at a gas station. Any EV driver will want something else to do as the vehicle charges. Meditation, reading, going for a walk… whatever works. This is one reason it helps when charging stations are located where there are restaurants, stores, or other facilities. This is also something to consider when scheduling long road trips and how far one can actually travel on a given day.

Tesla Superchargers

Tesla is no different in terms of these basics. However their Supercharger charging station network seems to have some advantages. They seem to charge about as fast as the current state of the art allows. They’re very easy to use: plug in the connector, push a start button on the connector, and the rest of the charging process is automatic.

As part of the rental agreement, charging fees were automatically charged to my credit card. This auto-payment makes it faster and easier than payments at a gas station. Once the charging starts, it’s OK to lock the car and go do something else, or get back in the car for a nice nap or whatever.

We found a sufficient number of locations along Interstate 15 between metro Los Angeles and Las Vegas to travel that route without concern about running out of power. The rental car included an adapter to connect to non-Tesla charging stations. We did not need to use it.

Home High Power Charger

We did not have access to one of these, so no comment on this option.

Home Low Power (120V 20A circuit) Charger

Our Hertz rental Tesla Model 3 included a small Tesla charger usable on standard North American home power circuits. The power limitation of these circuits limits charging speed: home charging is very slow on a 120V circuit with the basic charger. Do not expect to recharge your typically-drained Tesla from this sort of circuit—unless you’re OK having it sit and charge for several days. We found home charging useful to “top off” a charge: taking it from 96 or 97% up to the full 100%, overnight. It can help offset the power loss of the car keeping itself cool (discussed below).

If you live in an older house with older wiring, your home circuits may be insufficient for the Tesla charger. Specifically, the circuit must be properly grounded. The Tesla charger will test the circuit at startup, and refuse to charge (with a relevant error light) if it finds an issue with the circuit. Our late 1920s home still has mostly original wiring, most of it ungrounded. It took awhile to find a suitable circuit, but thankfully i finally found one near enough the driveway for the Tesla charger to be happy and the generously-long cabling to reach.

Parking

Some Don’t Like It Hot

With only this one sample, i would not know whether the following is true of EVs in general, but for sure Teslas would much, much rather be parked in a garage (preferably climate-controlled) versus out on the street—especially in the sun in a hot climate.

Granted, the weather was hot enough in Las Vegas in July 2023 to melt shoe adhesive. Nevertheless, there were plenty of gasoline-powered cars which lost little if any fuel to evaporation, able to run over the same range whether parked out in the sun for a day or a week.

Not the Model 3. It ran down its charge running its air conditioning. Not for anyone inside, or even in the interior at all, but rather to keep the battery pack (and possibly some electronics) safely cool. This is an important consideration for potential Tesla owners: if you have to park outdoors at home, at work, shopping, and/or other places, and the weather is hot, you’ll lose charge and range, and have to charge more often. We had to make at least one charging trip solely due to the car keeping itself cool in the casino’s parking lot, without having driven anywhere.

Auto-Park and Related: Not Tested

Appropriately, this rental Model 3 did not have any of the fancy automatic parking or “driverlessly drive from the parking space to the owner” nor any other related functionality enabled, if indeed the Model 3 with summer 2023 software and firmware could even do any of these things. Hence no reporting from us on any of these functions.

The Vast Unknowns of Long-Term Ownership

Renting a car for a couple of weeks is very, very different from owning one, and owning one for a few years is very, very different from investing in one for decades or a lifetime. There is no way we could know how ownership—short or long—might differ from briefly renting as we did. As constitutionally very-long-term car owners used to quite old vehicles, even without knowing exactly how things would be, the Tesla experience as we had it and as reported publicly raises some concerns.

Serviceability/Repairability

We’re big Right To Repair people. I’ve been repairing things, most often electronic things, since childhood (1960s). Best of all are things which are so well-made that they don’t break. Next best are those which are easily repairable and the repairs last.

While we’ve not looked into it and i don’t know for a fact, seems like Teslas are meant to be maintained by Tesla, and no one else. I’m concerned about the same sort of issues which come up with Apple products and John Deere equipment: parts pairing, lack of service information, lack of specialized test equipment/jigs, designed to be serviced only by the company, or possibly tightly-controlled designated dealerships or repair shops. These things are lesser issues with older “mainstream” gasoline-powered vehicles, and in general the older the vehicle, the fewer are the repair problems—until it’s so old that once-common parts become no longer available.

I’m concerned about longevity of parts, from major (like the main battery, motors, and drive electronics) all the way to minor (interior trim, for example). Build quality seemed mostly OK, though one of the driver’s multiple window Up/Down buttons/levers had popped off the actual electrical switch prior to our claiming the rental car (i did not notice this in the rental lot). I’ve dealt with many dozens of such things over the course of my life, but this one was not obvious how to reattach correctly. Further, if the parts quality and build quality were truly excellent and designed for the long term, it should not have popped off.

Total Cost of Ownership

We’ve enough experience with traditional gasoline-powered cars and light trucks to have a reasonable idea of long-term costs of owning and operating these vehicles. EVs in general and to my mind Teslas in particular are big question marks. What sort of long-term maintenance is there? How much can be done by skilled tool-using owners? How long will the battery pack last, and how much will it cost to change it? How many miles can the motors go? Can the motors be rebuilt, like a gasoline engine?

Cars and light trucks from sometime maybe in the 1950s or 1960s through the early 1980s were only designed and expected to last 100,000 miles. Conventional gasoline-powered vehicles from more recent decades often go 200,000 or even 300,000 miles before needing restoration-level major overhauls. What about EVs? What about Teslas? What about the Model 3? What are their expected lifespans, in miles driven?

Apart from battery discharge, do EVs, and in particular Teslas, deteriorate when parked and sitting, the way gasoline-powered vehicles tend to do?

For now, there’s not much of a track record to have enough data points to reliably answer many of these questions (seems to me). None of this was relevant to our short rental, but all of it would be for those deciding to own, particularly long-term.

Concluding Thoughts: Would We Want To Own a Tesla Model 3?

No, nor really any other Tesla, and for that matter, most current vehicles, EV or not. Why?:

• The amount of data collected by current vehicles (no matter what their motive technologies) about vehicle occupants, their devices (mostly handheld tech), and the people, other animals, and environment around each vehicle, and how this data is sold far and wide with little if any knowledge or control of the vehicle owner, is far beyond creepy. It is unacceptable—at least to us. Teslas are state-of-the-art panopticon surveillance devices on wheels. The trust level of the company is low amongst us and many others, particularly in terms of data privacy.
• The sudden braking event was terrifying. We can’t trust that we or anyone on the road would be safe with the Model 3’s automated driving decision-making.
• Repairability, repair cost, and longevity are all significant concerns. We’re sick enough of self-repair-hostile designs from our Apple products, thank you very much.

Our economic situation makes owning any new or recent vehicle moot, unless we won one in a contest or someone gave us one. Honestly, with all these issues, if someone gave us a Model 3, i’m not sure we’d accept the gift.

I’m an electrical engineer by training and degree. There is nothing i’d like more than having an EV. The Tesla Model 3 was for the most part fun to drive. Driving gasoline-powered vehicles this millennium seems downright primitive. But i’m not willing to trade away personal privacy to have an electric car, much less get tangled in yet another tech ecosystem with lock-in where the company wins and the customer keeps forking over money (looking at you, Apple. And i seldom buy any Apple product new in recent decades), much less risk our lives in or near a vehicle from a company whose charismatic head is known for his impulsive, often reckless behavior along with tight control of his companies and their products.

No matter how much the Tesla ecosystem feels like Hot Wheels come to life (anyone else remember the Hot Wheels Supercharger accessory?) and how many genuine innovations and improvements the Model 3 has (love the steering wheel position adjustability), unless and until the raft of major concerns are addressed, we’ll pass.