Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus 2020 Owner Review

Simon Hudson drives a Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus 52.5kWh 2020.

This is Simon’s first electric car, he’s owned his Tesla 5-6 years and drives 10,000-15,000 miles annually. The current mileage of the car is between 50,000-60,000 miles and he achieves 180 miles range from an 80% charge.

Simon chose the blue paint and the tow bar option. He also had fun fitting an aftermarket powered drink kit.

Why did you choose the Tesla Model 3?

It was the best EV available five years ago, and gave us the performance, comfort and toys we wanted. It was also one of the smallest EVs at that time as we don’t like unnecessarily large cars, especially SUVs.

Positives

After five years I’m still delighted by the driving experience. It’s super comfortable, quiet and smooth. Autopilot makes long journeys a doddle; I arrive more relaxed and unstressed after a five hour motorway journey than I did after just 2 hours in our previous cars. The performance is great, of course, but especially the ease with which it delivers when you need a quick manoeuvre. And it’s marvellous around twisty, hilly roads. It’s also amazingly cheap to own, costing us 2p/mile in winter and zero in summer from our solar panels.

Negatives

There are only a few niggles. I get stupidly annoyed about it giving distances in feet, I want metres. I am almost as frustrated that there is no £ on the touchscreen keyboard. The auto wipers are laughable still. The looks are mostly insipid (like most modern cars). Not many negatives, really.

Compared to when you first bought the car, does your battery still charge at the same rate & do you still get the same range?

I think the charge rate is unchanged. Range has declined a little but within expectations.

Have you experienced any faults with the car? If so, what have they been?

The only fault has been needing the ‘Superbottle ‘replacing after I ran it down to 0 miles coming back from Germany.

N.B. The Superbottle handles the entire cooling system of the whole vehicle – battery pack, cabin, and electronics.

What are the standout technological features of the car?

Autopilot – it goes so far beyond the notional lane centring on other cars! One finger driving!!
One pedal driving is equally brilliant and I won’t buy any EV that doesn’t have this. It’s that combination that makes it such a pleasure to drive in all circumstances.
I’m also a fan of all the little touches; keyless driving, all the app features, auto lock, keep unlocked at home and more
It’s not perfect, but it packs a lot of convenience and lifestyle features into a reasonably priced package; far more than the equivalent BMW.

Tell us something people wouldn’t readily know about your Tesla Model 3

It’s never needed a service. Yes, we have changed the tyres (after a bit more than 40,000 miles) and windscreen wipers, but annual serving is a thing of the past, saving us time, money and the inconvenience that used to entail.

What’s the biggest or funniest myth you’ve heard about EVs?

That it doesn’t sound as good as a V8. I have a V8, which truly does sound glorious, but I like silence just as much.

What electric car(s) are you interested in next and why?

Renault 5 – it’s small, cute and enormous fun to drive. Once they sort out the lack of one pedal driving and get bidirectional wall chargers available, we will have one.

Home charging unit

We actually have two. Our myenergi is our daily use device. It’s in our garage exactly where it needs to be for the five second plug in when we get home. It’s sophisticated, can route electricity from our solar into the EV and gives us the control and monitoring we want. We also have a much simpler charger on our drive for visitors. That will be replaced by a bidirectional unit when they are available.

Electricity supplier & tariff

Octopus Intelligent Go – we almost never buy peak rate electricity, thanks to our battery setup. They pay us for our export. Consequently, our energy bill works out at £25 🙂

What public charging networks would you recommend to others and why?

Tesla Supercharger network – we rarely need to use anything else.

Insurance

Churchill – good cover at a reasonable £530.

Please itemise where you’re saving money (or not) owning & running a Tesla Model 3

We estimate we have been saving around £1,500 per year. This is mostly from fuel savings (£1,200 less than the 65 mpg diesel Volvo it replaced), plus zero road tax until this year, no servicing and some free parking and zero emission zone cost avoidance. Our insurance is about £100 more, but the car is a much higher value and has a higher performance level than the one it replaced.