Over the decades, I tended to buy small cars, particularly the Toyota Yaris. This was not due to any style reasons but because I figured they offered enough car while being relatively efficient and highly reliable. To keep an eye on this efficiency (and this is something I always did since owning my first car in 1983), I kept note of the amount of petrol put in and the number of miles gained. The tank would be filled to the second click of the pump and the car used until the tank was nearly empty. From this, I would calculate a true miles per (UK) gallon. These graphs show the consumption that I achieved for all five Yaris that I owned.
Of note is the fact that the cars got steadily more efficient over the years. All cars had 1-litre, three-cylinder engines except the hybrid, which was a 1.5-litre, four-cylinder engine. I enjoyed the hybrid at first but soon got frustrated that I could barely move or accelerate without the car choosing to start the engine. It wasn't really electric driving. It felt more like a sticking plaster over the very worst parts of an engine's operating regime.
My move to a Nissan Leaf in 2015 was relative nirvana. At last, here was a pure electric vehicle and it felt like the future. Acceleration was nippy, instantaneous and strong - at least in comparison to my Toyotas. Moreover, I wasn't pumping out poisonous gases next to the people walking by. In fact, having arranged all of my electricity to come from renewable sources, my driving wasn't even putting any more carbon into the environment. On every level but one, having an electric car was a win and I loved it. I knew that I would never be buying another internal combustion engine.
The one problem I had with the Leaf was the range, that old chestnut that gets brought up by everyone who wishes to knock the electric vehicle. To put it in perspective, for the vast majority of my needs, the car's 70-80-mile range was more than adequate. Trips that were longer than a safe return distance did need a bit more planning but for me, the benefits far, far outweighed what I saw as minor inconvenience. And anyway, for an engineering type like me, planning was part of the pleasure.
I had two Leafs in succession. The first was new and was acquired on a 2-year PCP deal. It was a very, very good deal but the balloon payment at the end of the term was high so I handed the car back and walked away.
I was lucky enough to find another almost identical Leaf for £2,000 less than the balloon payment and bought that instead. All in, I drove Leafs for 4 years and was very happy with them. Where they fell down was when I got a multi-week job on Skye each autumn, almost 200 miles away. In the warmer weather, I could manage with the Leaf but as the cold weather took hold, I was forced to swap cars with my son. He was pleased with the deal as he also loved the Leaf's power.
The Model 3 is announced
Eight months after I got my first Leaf, I watched the announcement by Tesla of their upcoming Model 3. The next day I put down my reservation, and waited... and waited. Almost three years later, after the US market had been sated, orders opened for the car in the UK. I had been unsure whether I would be able to afford even the base version of the car but the length of the wait allowed me to save up the purchase price.On 2 May 2019, I placed an order for what they called the Standard Range Plus version of the Tesla Model 3 - and again I waited. I was due back up in Skye that September and desperately hoped that my car would arrived before then. It did - with only a week to go.
Driving the Falcon
When you get your Model 3, you are asked to name it. I chose Falcon after the Apollo 15 Lunar Module and the reusable rockets that SpaceX launch.The Model 3 is a serious looking car. When many other marques, not least Nissan, produced electric vehicles (EVs), the results quite frankly looked odd. The Model 3 came out as a classically beautiful car. It's styling may be timeless. It has a low, prowling look that says it is meant for speed and efficiency. It is uncharacteristically responsive, even to this practiced EV driver. In many ways, and more than any other car I've had, it becomes part of one's nervous system.
My weekend journeys home from Skye became a pleasure, not a chore. After all, the car was doing most of the driving for me! It's Autopilot function took the work out of steering and speed control along most of the long, boring sections past Loch Lomond and over Rannoch Moor. I reckon that, depending on my mood, the car would do the driving for 50 to 75 per cent of the distance for me. Another indicator of my pleasure was that although the ferry to Skye shortened the journey by 50 miles, I eschewed taking it and its time limitations, choosing instead to go the extra distance and therefore travel when it suited me.
In the September days, the car could do the 190-mile journey on a single charge. As winter drew in, a stop was necessary along the way to give that extra bit of range. Not a particularly long stop. Just enough. But I always stopped to pick up supplies anyway so it was no cost to me.
Speaking of costs, the efficiencies of the Leaf and the Model 3 are similar; I expect 4 miles per kilowatt-hour (or 250 Wh per mile) when the weather is decent. If I'm charging from home, and ignoring the fact that with solar panels, a fraction of my power is free, I pay 13.5 pence per kWh. The graphs above show that from my small, carefully-driven Yaris, 50 to 55 mpg was typical and my most recent records for the hybrid indicate a petrol cost per mile of about 10 pence. If a kWh is getting me 4 miles - let's say 3.5 miles to include winter effects, then my electricity cost is 3.86 pence per mile. That's pretty much a third of the cost, without the pollution and damage to people's lungs.
Moreover, in Scotland, many of the public chargers are free. As I zipped up and down to Glasgow, the vast majority of the power was free with only a handful of chargers having associated costs. I don't mind those costs but the tendency is to avoid them if possible. One day, all the public chargers will have a cost and I expect that to represent about half the cost of petrol.
However, Tesla ownership has more to it. There are no service intervals. With no oil to change, no timing belt issues and only a handful of moving parts instead of many hundreds, maintenance is vastly reduced. Further, the way the car works, the conventional brakes are hardly ever used and ought to last a very long time. The main maintenance issue is the wear on tyres and washer fluid.
Inside the Falcon
Then there is the interior experience. Tesla are not really a motor company. They are a tech company and have re-imagined the interior of the car. No more buttons all over the place - a button for this and another for that. Instead, nearly every function of the car is brought into a large landscape-mounted touchscreen. It is a minimalist design that works very well.
Where perhaps they have taken this too far is the wiper control. A button on the end of the left stalk gives a single wipe, while a harder press brings the washer fluid to bear. All other wiper control is via the touchscreen. As a driver in Scotland where the rain is a feature of our climate, this is too fiddly. There is an Auto setting but Tesla chose to use the output from the cameras to gauge when to operate them rather than have a dedicated rain sensor. It frankly didn't work well.
This brings me to one of the most interesting features of Tesla cars. Their internal software can be updated over the air - and very often is. Since acquiring my car 4 months ago, I have have half a dozen updates and some of these are quite profound. I can now watch Netflix and YouTube in the car, it has built-in 'Caraoke', very popular with families. The Autopilot function has improved, games have been added, and recently, the power of the car was increased by five per cent. Just like that! No cost to me. There was also an update to the wiper algorithm. Suddenly, my auto wipers work a whole lot better than they did before and on a very showery 5-hour drive, I forgot about them, so well did they work.
Problems with the Falcon
Apart from the dodgy wipers, what problems have I had? One day, I was driving in Skye in the dark and wet, when the loudest, most awful, high-pitched screeching started coming from the right front wheel. Startled, I stopped and looked with my phone light. Moved again, it's still there. Looked again and can't see what the problem is. Moved again, and heard a slight 'ping'. It stopped. I guess a small stone got trapped between a brake disk and the disk guard.One afternoon on Skye, the Sun was shining to my right so I brought the sun visor to bear over the door window. As I pulled the visor over, the little catch that holds it in place snapped off and went flying into the back of the car. I used the app on my phone to inform Tesla of the breakage and we came to an arrangement that it would be repaired after my Skye gig finished. Then instead of me driving 40 miles to their service centre, they sent a mobile service technician to the house to do the job. Great service.
Another day, just as I was about to head home from Skye, the car refused to be charged. The problem turned out to be my incompetence, and a poorly-written software feature for scheduled charging that I hadn't operated properly.
More recently, an incompatibility between the car and certain old rapid chargers between home and Skye has caused me some concern. Hugely to their credit, Tesla have installed a network of 'Superchargers' to aid long distance travel. These are very fast and they always make sure to install multiple outlets to minimise the chances of having to wait. Though there are a few in Scotland, they are up the centre of the country or towards the east coast. One has been promised in Fort William for a long time now. This is the halfway point in my journey to Skye and would be perfect for me.
Instead, I have to use a network of so-called 'rapid chargers' of which there are a handful on my route. They are always single so may be occupied when reached. More worryingly, their CCS outlets have proved to be increasingly unreliable as the weather has got colder. I don't know if the two are related. It made my last journey home a lot slower than otherwise. A solution seems to be to support the cable while the electronic handshaking takes place. Hopefully by next year's stint in Skye, the Tesla Supercharger in Fort William will be open.
Remote Falcon
Both the Leaf and the Model 3 have phone apps that allow a degree of insight and control of the car. This is where Tesla's tech background really shows. The Nissan app was slow, clunky and unreliable. Tesla's version is smooth, quick, stylish, and far more capable.
Interest in the Falcon
When I first got the Leaf, there was a bit of interest from folks wanting rides in the car or just ask questions. I thought that was all past 4 years ago. Not so. Interest in Model 3 is sky high. At my work as well as at home, I must have given dozens of demonstrations of the car, and I still have some outstanding. I can see why Tesla don't bother with advertising. People are amazed at the car; its speed and handling, its design, its sense of fun and entertainment with Easter eggs throughout the software along with farts, Santa's sleigh, rainbow road, Mars mapping. The Autopilot function astonishes everyone.This car redefines what a car can be. While I applaud the EV efforts of the legacy companies, Tesla have left them at the starting line. Tesla's cars are not just replacements for an out-of-date technology. They are experiences in themselves. As we are beginning to see happen, the legacy companies will do well to follow - and quickly.
