Model 3 Y long-range

Disappointing and sometimes dangerous

I have exclusively driven EVs for over 6 years so have plenty of experience as to what I should expect. The Tesla was provided as a low carbon company car. It is undoubtedly fast, has a great range, is low carbon and has some slick features. But... there is so much wrong with this car that cannot be forgiven.
1. Setting charging time and level to use off peak power prices. The process to do this is inexplicably and pointlessly difficult. If you have an EV tariff for cheap power from midnight till 4am you want to be able to set the car to charge then, simple? Er no. For whatever reason, with the Tesla you can set when charging starts, but not when it ends! Instead you have to use a poorly responsive slider to *guess* how much charge can be delivered in 4 hrs. You also have to charge the vehicle as a minimum up to about 40%, you cannot set the slider less than this. Why! As I have PV and batteries, that also charge in this 4hr window, this means that every time my Tesla demand to be charged beyond the 4hr window, it drains my house batteries. Other EVs don't do this, it's simple to fix, so just WHY?
2. Dangerous wipers and American only voice control. Stripping out almost all buttons and dials and putting them all on a computer screen. Hmm, what can go wrong? For one, fiddling with the screen for more than a brief glance while driving is illegal. The driver also has to account for weather and driving conditions in deciding what is acceptable distraction from the road. This means that as a lone driver, you may not actually be allowed to adjust the radio, wipers, temperature or other settings from the screen. In theory you can use the voice controls, however, to do so you have to put on a fake American accent, and if you have a cold, a speech impediment, or a strong UK accent, these controls just don't work. For the wipers, you can get one or 2 swipes by pushing the left hand stick button. Auto wipers should work, however the auto setting is not very responsive to actual visibility through the screen, it is slow to activate, and slow to change speed. I have actually had to resort to pulling over dangerously in the rain, and setting the wipers to run continuously at the speed I think they will need for my whole journey. The American accent issue affects all other voice controls, in car phone calls for example.
3. Constant bloomin updates. Every couple of weeks I seem to need to download gigabytes of updates. I have never experienced this with another EV. For whatever reason, my car, parked on the drive, near to the house, will not pick up my home WiFi. At the same distance, all other devices, and my last EV had no problem. This means that every update has to be downloaded using mobile data from my phone and a hotspot to the car. Each one can take 20-30minutes and burns though my monthly mobile data allowance. Then, while the car is updating it is again unusable for 30+minutes.
4. Door opening, the recessed handles can take 2 hands to open. You need to push one side and the pull the handle that protrudes. Not great if your passengers are carrying anything or for some reason have the use of only one hand. Also, sometimes the doors seem to remain locked unless the driver opens the drivers side door. When the drivers side door opens into traffic, and people want to get into the passenger side, this can be annoying. There may be a setting to override this, but I haven been able to find it yet.
5. Headlight brightness, I don't know if there is something up with the headlight settings, but I seem to be constantly flashed at night by drivers coming the other way. As if they think I have my beamers on.
6. Indicator clunky. Most cars have an intuitive indicator, up for right and the one swipe down to switch to left. This works on round abouts when you need to change quickly from right to left indicator when exiting. The Tesla has a wierd 2 stage indicator, in 2 separate movements you need to cancel the first indicator, release, then initiate the second indicator. Neither change seems very responsive, the action is spongy, without the confirmation of a click to assure you it has activated or deactivated. This has led to several occasions where I have been honked at by other drivers, and left pedestrians confused as the indicator fails to activate on leaving a roundabout. In addition to the issues on roundabouts the indicator often seems difficult to cancel quickly after use while driving.

Overall, while this is undoubtedly a low carbon company car, with the sort of range needed for regular distance driving, if you were to consider buying it yourself, the Tesla is expensive bling for people with more money than sense. There are plenty of other excellent EVs out there that have a good range, are safer to drive and far less expensive than this oversold status car. While the Tesla's range, economy and cost to run are fine, IMHO these are vastly out weighed by the negatives. I will be ditching this car and shifting to another EV as soon as possible!

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