Tesla 3 test drive

[bertvorgon]

I would buy one of these in a heartbeat!

My son in law bought a Tesla 3, he decided that with this insane traffic he was done with both wasting fuel, and, just sitting in traffic. His commute is from South Surrey to the down town core. With the Tesla he can use the HOV lane.

I was disappointed that he did NOT get the dual motor 3, he has just the base model with a few extras.

What an amazing vehicle. For a guy that grew up in the 60’s with a 6 transistor radio and lived the battle between 4 Track and 8 Track, I’m blown away but what this car can do and the beyond sophistication on the electronics.

Sliding into the seat was almost like my G35, good seating position and adjustment. So weird NOT to turn a key or anything like that…and….QUIET!!!! Nothing on the dash but the big navigation screen in the middle where most of the cars instructions are given. The speed readout is here which took a bit of getting used to.

There are a zillion cameras located around the car.

I gently pushed the throttle to back out of the parking stall, then, back into drive.

As I had done some reading about the car and its power train, I was aware that it has an open differential. I really did wonder what it would be like on a toss into a corner and jumping on the power.

As I rolled down the hill on 168th to 16th,I lifted off the throttle to slow down for the light. The regenerative braking kicks in right away and takes some getting used to but once you figure it out you hardly have to touch the brakes.

Now for the good part as I sat at the light to make the left turn to head down the ramp to enter Hwy 99. I put a bit of steering lock in and as soon as the light changed I just jumped on it and…….. Holy Mother of God….the car just launched, no fuss, no tire squeal……just dead quiet, brutal acceleration!!!!

I could feel just for a micro second the rear end maybe wanting to slide out, but, the electronics took over and the rear just planted like any posi would. I was half scaring the hell out of my brother in law as I just kept it planted and in dead quiet speed I hit almost 190KMh on the ramp as I fed onto #99!!!!!!! And it would have kept going. The instant torque is hard to imagine till you experience it. The lack of any pause for a transmission to shift is amazing, that is what I really noticed, truly the big boys slot car.

The CG is obviously very low too and considering the tires were cold, the car handled my tossing about with no problem at all.

We did the G-circle at 8th Avenue and I just buried the throttle again, feeding back onto #99…Zip..we were at 180+ again.

In looking at numbers for comparison, this car is rated at 283 HP and weighs some 3,500 Lbs with the single motor. It is rated to do the 0 – 100 KMH in 5.6 seconds with a ¼ mile in 13.5 secs.

I would believe that as a comparison to my 510. I have done a mid 12 in the ¼ on race slicks. The power to weight is 12.6 lbs/Hp for the Tesla to my 8 lbs/Hp approx. I would be very hard pressed to stay with the Tesla from a dead stop as it launches so hard.

At the point I had to use the actual brakes they are strong and lineal with a great pedal feel.

The dual motor Tesla 3 makes 473 Hp which would sure get your attention and I let my son-in-law know that I was disappointed that he did not order that one. If you get the higher HP Model there are NO rebates and it was impossible for him to turn down $10,000.00 in total rebates for the lower Hp car.

All in all I was impressed with at least it’s performance, but, not too enamored with the BIG touch screen in the middle of the dash, talk about distracting. Putting an 8 Track music cartridge in was a simple operation.

There are a ton of insane videos online with Tesla’s kicking the crap out of high HP cars but the one I found most fascinating was the dismantling of the motor and control module, what an incredible engineering feat IMHO. I was surprised that there is some cooling fluid in there to keep the electronics happy and that there is oil in the differential case, guess I never really thought about it.

In looking under the car, it is DEAD FLAT, only in the rear is there a hair of control arm out in the slip stream, the rest is full on race car aerodynamics.

I can see this is the way of the future, specially for most commuters, I would in a heartbeat now if I was having to deal with the ZERO MPG mode of our nutso traffic.

Here is the tear down video if you are interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvLmBfwmA04

[RONSLYCHUK]

I totally agree with you Keith. Having driven my good buddy’s Tesla model S a few times,the acceleration is insane! He had a loaner once that had the Ludicrous mode,now that is mind blowing.Totally the way of the future for sure.

[66DUCE]

Here is what BCIT has been working on for the last 6-8 months for training techs in the aftermarket industry.
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-new ... c-vehicles

[bertvorgon]

In our short test drive I really used up some battery, as I had it planted whenever I could. It was like when boost is up on my 510, just too much fun.

While Elon Musk programmed fart sounds into the cars stereo.....I think a nice, high revving GT-1 V8 sound would be good.