Top 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Buying A Tesla Model 3

I've had a Tesla Model 3 for almost 18 months and I've learned a lot, so if you're new to Tesla Model 3 ownership or afraid to take the plunge, don't be. In this video, I'll go over the top

things

I

wish

I

knew

before purchasing the Model 3 and share what I've learned, including what I think is my biggest mistake and the one I would definitely make differently if I did it all. Again, EV ownership in the UK remains quite a niche and although EVs on the road are increasing, there are still a lot of people who don't really understand them or are afraid to take the plunge in the face of the With 38 million cars registered on UK roads at the end of 2020, just 164,000 of them were purely electric plug-ins.

Now, 2021 is an exciting year because there are many new

model

s coming onto the market for people to choose from and with Tesla leading the way in design and innovation and many other manufacturers quickly catching up, meaning that ownership of An electric vehicle is becoming more viable for many people. Now owning an electric vehicle requires a bit of adjusting to your lifestyle and as an early adopter I made a few mistakes along the way so in this video I'm going to share some of the

things

I

wish

I

knew

before

buying

my Model 3 so you don't make the same mistakes and if you already have a Model 3 don't forget to make some comments about what you are doing.

Experiences are because you always give good advice so I've always been used to the fact that if you drive a combustion car and you have the air conditioning on it wreaks havoc on the mpg, now with an electric vehicle you just have to be patient . Keep in mind that it's actually the heater that drains your battery and ruins its efficiency, not the air conditioning; Air conditioning actually has a minimal effect on your range, so when you calculate your running costs and winter charging costs, you need to take that into account. which will not actually reach the advertised range of its Model 3.

The American Automobile Association did a study with five electric vehicles to minus six and found that the range with the heating on could be reduced by forty to fifty percent with the air conditioning . Overall, it reduced the range by ten to twenty percent to cool the cabin, which adds to the fact that EVs are generally worth using in winter due to battery chemistry and that could seriously ruin your Calculations now, the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y. have a heat pump installed so the range reduction with the heatron is not as severe, but it will still be much less than you expect.

It's still a lot cheaper than running a combustion car, don't get me wrong. But if you're particularly sensitive to running costs, almost doubling your calculations might confuse you a little, so there's something that isn't talked about much that I don't often think about in electric cars and that's called phantom drain. Now, this strange thing happens when I leave my Ford Fiesta at the airport for two weeks with three quarters of a tank of fuel, when I come back it still has three quarters of a tank of fuel, not like that with electric cars and that's because of this thing that now called ghost drain. because electric vehicles are always connected and we can control them through apps and they need a lot of computers to monitor the battery capacity and things like that, you always have the electronics running in the background, so when you leave your

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3 at the airport for two weeks whatever charge you left on it won't be the same when you return and that applies even after a couple of days in the garage.

Now this is completely normal for all electric vehicles and Tesla says in the manual for it that you can expect to lose one percent. per day through this phantom drain and cold weather and environmental conditions can make things worse. If you leave your car in sentry mode, you could expect to lose maybe one percent every two hours, just as effectively if you were driving to the airport and trying to get there. there with a 20 percent charge leave your car for two weeks while you are on the sunny costa del sol come back you will probably only have a six percent charge left now the airport parking companies are realizing this and offering a service to make sure Make sure your battery is fully charged when you return, but you'll still have to account for phantom drain because they won't leave it charged for the two weeks and will usually plug it in the day before you return. get there, so if you got there with 14, they won't charge it right away and your ghost drain will run out during those two weeks, so the ghost drain leads nicely to the next one and that's the fact that you have to keep your model. 3 charge all the time when I first bought an electric car I had the mentality of a combustion car owner in that I would let my battery run down for say 20 30 before charging it a bit like I'd let my tank of fuel would run out before I filled it with gas because, let's be honest, I wouldn't have filled my gas tank all the time.

Little by little I learned that it is actually much better to keep your Model 3 plugged in all the time and even Tesla recommends it, so it won't do any damage to the battery because you are not charging to 100 and even if you only need a recharge from five percent, it's worth it and that's because sometimes I'd come home with let's say a 60 to 70 charge, I wouldn't plug it in because I didn't need it, then I'd leave it for a couple of days, the phantom drain would kick in and then maybe when he used it, he could do something unexpected. travel along with my usual routine which would then put me in that 20 to 30 battery range and that's when the anxieties start to kick in a bit, it's a bit like when you get the range warning on your petrol cars and it says 60 kilometers remaining you know very well that you will reach a gas station without problems but you simply become aware of it and that is the same when I think you reach that 20 30 in your model 3.

I discovered it when leaving home every time at 80 I don't preheat didn't matter, I left sentry mode on for 12 hours, I used the heater for whatever I wanted to stay comfortable and I didn't really care if my driving style was economical or not, it was just I wish I had taken that approach earlier because in the first few days I think when I heard that 20 to 30 mark it gave me a little anxiety that I really didn't have to worry about. I've been looking at electric cars googling information on economic range watt hours per mile all that for years I even thought about

buying

a renault zoe one of those first came out but my friends wouldn't let me hey it was that or a nissan leaf of all Anyway where I'm going with this is the fact that I'm in the minority, so when it comes to companies, individuals, and electric cars, everything is still pretty new, like for example, when I went to get my model 3 insured, only a handful of companies offered me insurance and most of them were very expensive, similarly when it comes to electricity rates there are a lot of really good EV rates but some of them can take months to set up e.g. when I chose the Octopus referral link in the description if you want to earn money. 50 quid um, to start I had to switch to their standard EV rate, which is common on most EV rates, install a smart meter and then I was able to switch to the cheaper EV rate, but the Smart meters can take a couple of months to install.

So instead of waiting for your Model 3 to be delivered and then start researching all of this, which I would say with anything that would normally take you a couple of days or a week to set up, look way ahead, even just do Inquiries and Ask about installation times. I expect a similar problem when it comes to mots and repairs. Tesla offers all of these, but I'm guessing they won't be the cheapest, so if you want a good deal, keep that in mind. Keep in mind that it will take a little more time to compare prices and get the cheapest deal.

This will probably also apply to your chargers because with the increase in EV usage I imagine stocks of chargers are going to run out and you may be looking at a couple of months before some are available, now a new one and very important for electric car owners is that range is not range so the advertised range is actually if you take your model 3 from 100 to zero except good practice is to keep your battery between 20 and 80 and definitely never lower it to zero because that causes long-term damage. Now, if you lease the Model 3, you probably won't worry about this as much, but if you buy it, then you should consider so what does that actually mean?

Well, if you're trying to keep your Model 3 between that 20 and 80 range, you'll only use 60 of the capacity. Currently, the Tesla Model 3 is advertised at 278 miles, which if you multiply that by 60 gives you an actual range of 166 miles, so if you were buying the

tesla

model 3 with standard range plus, say a 200 mile round trip in theory you have 78 miles to spare, but in reality you're only briefly in it to keep it in that sweet spot, Factor in that and the effect winter has on that, and that will shave off those 166 miles even more, so you could struggle a little without damaging your battery or causing long-term damage, the good news.

However, for most Model 3 owners, the average UK journey in 2019 was at least 8.4 miles, so the range will be ample for most people, but what I would say is that if you are very close to the advertised autonomy on a daily basis, then you may want to think about opting for the model three with greater autonomy. The good news for longer trips though is that you look at this new map of Tesla Superchargers they produced, there will be Superchargers popping up all over the country in 2021 and while I don't expect Tesla to stick to these timescales, at least They have a lot more planned in more remote places too and there's no way I'm going 166 miles without needing a lazy stop anyway, so what's the most important thing I want?

I knew it now after having my model 3 for 18 months, don't hate me for this and I think electric car owners will support me on this too so please do it, but if I knew then what I know now, the simple answer en: I would have done it before. I poll the fence I earned, add the cost of the range, all that and after taking the plunge and purchasing a model 3, I just wish I had done it sooner and that's not even a lie, that's purely me. My biggest regret and biggest mistake, I think, is not simply taking that leap of faith and trying before.

I prefer the driving experience of an electric car. It's just much easier. It's probably made me a bit of a lazy driver. I'm not going. Lying because it is literally just starting and stopping. To be honest, you don't even need to stop because the regenerative braking kicks in. Charging is not a problem. I'm lucky because I have off-road parking and I just got home. Open the load. plug it in and then close the garage and because of that kind of new charging regime that I've adopted, range is never an issue because I have my model three, it's always charged when I come in and I just drive.

Whenever I want, even longer trips are not a problem and my battery has much less capacity than the newer Model 3s out there, apart from the obstacles I have mentioned it has been an absolutely brilliant experience and I can do it. I can't recommend it enough now, I know not everyone can afford a Tesla, but if you're looking for a new car I would seriously consider switching to electric. 2021 will have many new models that will hopefully fit people's budgets and there are also a lot of savings to be made by owning an electric car, but in my personal experience I think Tesla is worth the extra cost for the value you get and the little extra benefits of their supercharger network, the over-the-air updates and all the developments they make like Well, don't forget that if you have an electric car, you can leave some comments below about your experiences and if you have colleagues who are undecided about using electric vehicles, do not hesitate to send them this video.

Six percent of new cars registered in 2020 were electric vehicles generating around a hundred thousand, so I think we should increase that number and have over 300,000 electric vehicles on the road by the end of 2021. That's all for this week . Thanks for watching, don't forget to like, comment, share and subscribe. I'll see you soon