Tesla Model 3 | Test Drive | Auto Class Magazine

Tesla Model 3 | Test Drive

27 April 2020 Redazione News, Stories, Tested

Words by Alessandro Marrone / Photos by Jay Tomei

It is not even five in the morning, the city is still shrouded in complete darkness and silence of the last bits of a random midweek night. After all, if you want to have the roads clear and avoid that traffic makes you waste precious time, you need to wake up before the cockcrow. With a Tesla we would also have managed not to arouse any suspicion once we reached the meeting point with Jay (the photographer), but after spending a few weeks since the last time we met, well, that gentleman who rightly appeared on the balcony was thinking it was time for us to leave. Once the equipment was loaded into the huge rear trunk of the Model 3 we were ready to point our navigator towards the mountains. Sounds nice, right?

We will not be reviewing the usual lesson on electric cars, on how they work, on the advantages and disadvantages, let alone waste precious time in telling who Elon Musk is or what he achieved in his brilliant career. We are in 2020 and if you browse this magazine you know well that Tesla is not just the only big brand exclusively producing electric cars, but the ultimate representation of innovation in the field of mobility and beyond. Even a simple sneeze from the histrionic CEO is able to create a media storm and this only feeds the phenomenon. On the other hand, there is also a lot of substance and we discovered it in the past years when, getting behind the wheel of the Model S sedan and the Model X SUV, we found that an electric vehicle of this type is perfectly usable in the real world. The Model 3 wants to go further, first by lowering the price and making it more attractive for a larger slice of the market and secondly because between less weight and a smaller size it is presented as a car that should also be fun to drive. This is what we have to find out.

There is nothing better than loading all the luggage in the trunks – like every Tesla there are two – setting the navigator and pointing the nose towards the mountains, crossing one of our favorite roads and heading into the heart of an asphalt casing immersed in the most unspoiled nature. With 560 km of estimated range we finally set ourselves a distance that allows us to reach the nearest supercharger – this for pure laziness reasons, since you can still recharge the battery pack from any household power outlet – all of this with a residual that should be around 5/10 kilometers. Whether it’s a sort of Russian roulette with an electric bullet, or just the will to discover the voice of the emergency service with a completely discharged battery, we leave the city still asleep behind us and begin the climb to our first checkpoint. As houses become increasingly scarce, the almost whitish vegetation due to the harsh temperatures outside reminds us to deal with an aspect that does not intend to facilitate the life of an EV. Cold not only reduces the battery life with the car stationary (for example at night, parked in the driveway), but implies the use of air conditioning, heated seats and defroster for the windows. Logically everything you activate will draw from the energy reserve at your disposal, that’s why the first rule to learn with a full-electric is to approach how we usually take things for granted.

Another way to consume more energy than necessary is to sink the throttle as maniacs. Unfortunately for the success of our journalistic adventure, the Model 3 available is a Dual Motor, i.e. it has two electric motors, a 75 kWh battery pack and all-wheel drive so this means that it has the equivalent of 422 horsepower. I say unfortunately because when the road becomes curvy it is inevitable to let the little devil on our shoulder take over and thus begin to push hard, noting how the reduced size and weight compared to the Model S have turned this into a completely different animal. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that it is a reduced-scale version of the Model S sedan, because although the external design can share more than a few similarities between them (the front glass and the lower inclination of the uprights penalize it in aesthetic terms), on a dynamic level the Model 3 is a small sedan that loves to be thrown from one curve to another and that shows a certain resemblance to a duck. Weighing 1,847 kg (about 300 kg less than the Model S) and with an instant torque of about 639 Nm, the all-wheel drive literally bites the asphalt and makes you splash against the seat like Neil Armstrong taking off.

Hanging on the wheel, I slip into the heart of a forest apparently far from any sign of civilization, it is not time to play with the huge 15” display, a sort of tablet – this time arranged horizontally – from which every single option of the car is just a finger away and I mean the lights, wipers, on-board settings, but also the excellent sat-nav that changes the route according to the range left and the charging points, radio with integrated Spotify and a series of useful gadgets to spend time with when parked, like a dozen of 80s/90s video games and the Easter Eggs, which will make you the undisputed king of the pub, for example with its fart mode. Yes, you read that correctly. And then there is that incredible silence that seems to envelop you and merge with a kind of hiss that enters your head and tries to define a completely new concept of speed you cannot get used to. The cornering skills of the Model 3 are surprising, although it is not a car designed to attack a twisty road, it enters and exits through corners with the speed of a wild cat chasing its meal.

It is inevitable that in the passenger compartment silence will fall soon, a bit as if everyone was waiting for something to happen, but where in reality you remain halfway between dazed and confused by the instantaneous and lightning-fast delivery available from an accelerator that precisely acts as an On/Off switch. You have to get used to the release phase however, because in fact once the foot is released from the accelerator (and this response can also be modified by the system for better energy recovery) the car does not simply decelerate, but hints at an input of braking. After a few kilometers of practice, you enter in tune and start driving with one pedal, turning to the brake mainly in urban areas or when approaching a turn with too much exuberance. We silently sneak through these roads surrounded by trees and the most pristine nature, aware that we are not polluting in any way, having also forgotten to take a look at the range left, which continues to reassure us how much the Model 3 has the advantage of a lower weight than the other models currently in the Tesla range.

Today we are the wind, especially when we slip through the trees and manage to set lines that almost make us believe we are behind the wheel of a traditional sports car. Where pure speed performance gives excitement and adrenaline, we must always keep in mind that it is not a Civic Type-R and that therefore the chassis is not designed to rape a mountain pass, but unlike any sports car, once back in the real world, the Model 3 will be the one you won’t regret going home with during rush hour. In part thanks to the infinite devilries available for the five occupants, or for the autonomous driving system already available as standard and which recognizes road signs, traffic around and even the route set on the navigation system, passing through the excellent figures regarding active and passive safety, or for that constant awareness of being on board something special and different from usual, which despite the constant progress made by the competition, still represents the real benchmark.

Driving like a maniac, it is inevitable that residual charge will go down more quickly – exactly as it happens with our beloved petrol – time to take some more photos in memory of a day that has reserved nice surprises and lots of fun. We stop our white duck and we enjoy the landscape that begins to turn red with the sun ready to set behind the horizon. The Model 3 has proven to be a silent instrument capable of playing a silent melody that is equally capable of touching the strings of us passionate drivers and thrill hunters. With a price starting at around 50 thousand euros it will be able to power an even larger slice of the market, demonstrating once again that in the simplicity of a bare of buttons cockpit and with a shape exclusively dedicated to functionality, lay most of the answers we are looking for in a car today.

The dim late afternoon light has now become a dense shadow pierced only by our headlights. It is not possible to distinguish anything beyond the sides of the road and the fact that no vehicles come from the opposite direction begins to make me doubt ‘bout the effectiveness of our expedition. Electricity is now running out, all the enthusiasm that has kept us company so far has turned into a sense of apprehension that bounces between the death of our mobiles signal and the green charge bar at which we have abused too much long. Finding a road closed due to a landslide only makes things worse. Reordering ideas in these moments is never easy, but thank God the sat-nav immediately finds an alternative way that can lead us to our destination. However, at least a dozen kilometers would be missing. There is nothing left to do but try it anyway, also because spending the night in the woods is not a scenario we want to contemplate. Fortunately, there is a downhill stretch that allows us to recover that pinch of hope that seemed to have abandoned us a couple of minutes ago. The road gets wider, you can see some houses and then a straight road – I sink on the throttle in a mixture of hope and the amazement of my travel mates who think I have definitely drunk my brain, but then I enter the hotel parking lot, placing the Model 3 close to the charging column. We made it. In conclusion, even this Tesla is able to do everything the good 85% of the population needs and if you are looking for emotions, just find some good old mates of yours, pick a suitable road (just like you would with a grand tourer) and try to harness more energy than what’s available. The electric thrill is guaranteed.