Tesla - the 18-month catch-up

It was - and is - far more car than I ever imagined owning but after 18 months, I've settled into driving a Tesla Model 3 SR+. Having started a regular blog about acquiring and owning it, I'll endeavour to keep up with the writing.

The SR+ is, at the time of writing, the cheapest Tesla that can be bought new. The price has risen slightly since I got mine and it has crossed the £40k mark. It is still an expensive vehicle in the eyes of most folk. It was a stretch for me. This should be about to change.

The Model 2?

The conventional way to build a car is to stamp a large number of panels out of steel or aluminium and then fasten them together with lines of robotic welding robots. Both the stamping machines and the robots take up much space in a factory floor and a large amount of capital. They add considerably to the expense of a car.

But look at how a toy car is made, the type we used to get as kids from Dinky or Corgi. Squirt some molten aluminium into a mould and out comes a little die-cast car, instantly! Okay, it's a bit small for our needs but why can't that process be brought to the manufacture of full-size cars? Technology and manufacturing consultant Sandy Munro spent years suggesting it to the car companies who failed to pick up the idea. Until Tesla came along.

Tesla's biggest selling car is the Model 3 and its close sibling, the Model Y. The Y is now produced with a large single-piece casting that forms the whole back-end of the car, replacing around 70 stamped pieces that no longer need to be welded together. This represents a huge cost saving in manufacturing which will be important for the next car to come under the Tesla brand.

Within two years, Tesla will introduce a low-cost, true mass market compact electric car, often called the Model 2 by Tesla watchers. It will consist of three main parts; die-cast front and rear sections connected by a structural battery pack. It will be very simple to build. The expected cost of this car is to be around $25k which, based on past experience, will translate to about £25k, putting it right in the middle of the most competitive part of the car market.

I think this small Tesla will be the car to define the industry in the second quarter of the century. Cheap to produce, to run and maintain. And if Tesla's push towards autonomous driving and a robotaxi network continues at the pace I'm seeing just now, it will be this little car that many of us will use to get around in, whether or not we actually own it.

Efficiency

Back to my vehicle, which I affectionately named The Falcon, after the Apollo 15 lunar module that landed in a spectacular bay on the Moon half a century ago. I got the car on 22 August 2019 and my plan is to use the trip counters to aggregate the car's electricity consumption across six-month periods to encompass the winter and summer seasons. I've now got data for two winters and a summer.

The six-monthly figures are on the right and the drop in mileage caused by the Covid pandemic is clear. I have two ways of expressing efficiency. The first, watt-hours per mile, gives the amount of stored energy it took to travel a mile. A small number is good. The second, miles per kilowatt-hour, tells me how far the car travelled on one unit (kWh) of power. A bigger number is better. Based on my experience with the Nissan Leaf, 4 miles/kWh is a good figure and I'm glad to see that, over a summer, the Model 3 can beat that.

The car's greater average efficiency in the warmer summer weather is clear but I'm pleased that the its second winter was actually more efficient than its first. This might be due to the lack of long drives through the Scottish Highlands to Skye. Or maybe its because of Covid. When I first got the car, folk were keen for current-sapping demonstration drives where I would show how quickly and responsively the car accelerates. During those first six months, colleagues and friends were eager to see the car put through its paces. The pandemic has put a stop to that. And the Model 3 is becoming a common sight on the Scottish roads as sales soar. They are no longer a rarity. 

Wear and tear

I wrote previously about how the car's first winter on the Scottish roads proved to be hard on its soft Californian paintwork. In particular, the flared areas just forward of the rear wheels got thoroughly sandblasted. During the summer, I dealt with the issue by having mudguards fitted at the front and applying black glossy vinyl over the damaged areas. This has proven to be a successful fix, at least for now.

In general, day to day, the car just works. It is very firmly at the bottom of the bathtub curve of reliability (a very good place to be). It has had its rash of small initial issues but now it gets on with the job of taking us where we want to go. As happens with nearly all Teslas, the car's software is updated remotely but there have been no eye-popping changes like I had in the first few months of ownership. The balance of the screen layout was altered, making the map slightly smaller and the driving visualisation area slightly larger. Folk on the internet forums who instinctively hate change moaned and groaned. To be honest, it hasn't bothered me.

There is one little issue that I'm thinking of bringing to Tesla's attention and that is an occasional groaning noise that I hear from the steering column during manoeuvres to get in and out of my driveway. The plan would be to go onto the app on my phone and create a service appointment.

Powering the car.

The car is reputed to have a battery capacity of 50kWh and I find this is easily adequate for my needs. If I drive long distance, the Tesla Supercharger network has me covered. Typically, when my daily driving brings my battery down to around 40 per cent, I'll plug in overnight and leave it to charge to 90 per cent.

My current supplier is Octopus Energy and when I first started with them, I used their 'Go' tariff. This worked with my smart meter to let me charge at a cheap rate of only 5 pence/kWh between 00:30 and 04:30. I was typically still awake at half past midnight so an alarm on my phone would remind me to start charging then. I'm learning that the car can be programmed to start the charge using a timer. At about 4 miles per kWh, Octopus Go was giving a cost-per-mile in the order of 1.3 pence; about one tenth of what a frugal driver pays for petrol or diesel. 

More recently, I've moved over to Octopus's 'Agile' tariff. This changes the cost on a half-hourly basis so that it follows more closely the actual wholesale price of electricity. 

This graph is typical in that it shows that at night, the cost is lower, there is a morning rise and an early evening peak which is capped at 35p per kWh. This graph changes every day but it always shows the 4pm to 7pm peak and I try to run high consumption items like washers, dryers and irons outside those hours. If circumstances line up, there are occasions where the price goes negative – Octopus pay me to consume energy. I've only seen this happen once.

I don't think that overall, Agile is working out cheaper than Go but I'm aware that this winter, which has been notable for low-wind conditions, maybe hasn't suited the tariff. I'm keen to let it run into the summer to see how it fares.

To coat or not to coat

When I first took delivery of Falcon, I intended to have it ceramic coated. It didn't happen. The point of ceramic coating is that it has the effect of a wax polish but it lasts for much longer. The car's surface becomes hydrophobic and water does not want to stay put. This helps keep dirt off too and keeps the car looking good for longer. It has no protective effect against stone chips and sandblasting.

However, the timing of the car's delivery, my son's Munro challenge and the Covid pandemic got in the way. I found it difficult to get small businesses to engage with the job of coating the car. A local guy was going to do it then stopped responding. Another broke a limb. Yet another took my number but never got back. As a result, I've decided to take matters into my own hands and do it myself.

AutoExpress magazine did a review of DIY ceramic coatings and the winner was one from the US, distributed by a Glasgow company, Clansman Scotland. A bottle of Shelby Ceramic Coating is £50, a small fraction of the £300 to £500 I was being quoted.

What I save on money, I'll lose in time and effort. However, I figure that at least the job will get done. Once the warmer weather arrives, I'll give it a go. I've bought their care bundle that includes shampoo, spray and cloths as well as the coating, all for £70.

Fanboy?

I am very, very happy with the car. For me, with my driving background of slow, small frugal Toyotas, it is a beast of a machine. It feels well planted on the road, is very responsive and still induces a grin when circumstances allow me to floor the accelerator (e.g. motorway slip roads). I love the subtle controllability it allows via my right foot - and at any speed. And now that Tesla have installed a Supercharger in Fort William, the car's range is a non issue. 

I think the car looks fantastic. I love the clean, unfussy interior. I adore the wee things it allows – like watching YouTube when waiting for someone. For long journeys, Autopilot is astonishing. It takes so much brain load off the driver that the longest journeys don't leave me tired. 

Although my experience has been enormously positive, there have been occasional minuses. The saloon format with the fixed parcel shelf limits the utility of the car more than I would have liked. The lack of a heated steering wheel has become more of an issue than I would have imagined. This is because I have become more susceptible to Raynaud's syndrome. When I get slightly cold, my blood decides that my fingers are not a place it wishes to bother visiting, My digits then turn greenish-white and go numb. This is often triggered by trying to steer a car via a cold steering wheel.

Both of these rather minor issues could be addressed by trading up to a Model Y. Would I do that? The Model Y also offers a powered rear hatch, a larger battery and it has the large die-cast chassis parts mentioned earlier in this essay. Its thermal control is centred around heat pump technology which helps to maintain it overall efficiency. As a higher, larger car than my Model 3, it is also easier for old folk to get in and out of. If I wait for the Model Y cars that are to be produced at Tesla's new German factory, the paint quality is likely to be superior. It's a thought.

In the meantime, I thoroughly enjoy the car and, Covid notwithstanding, am happy to offer sample rides to folk any time. Hopefully soon the pandemic will be history and a fun, electric future will be with us.