Living with a car from the future: Tesla Model 3

I've ordered a "high endurance" 256 GB microSD to use for the recording. It's pretty clear to me that V10 is not cleaning up files as it's supposed to, so I'll just increase the time between dumping the files.

I met Janel for lunch today. She was driving the Tesla, I was driving the M5. I was looking around the M5 and thinking it might be a decent preview of how the Tesla might look in the future. Back in 2002, this M5 was pretty much the best car that BMW could make. It had a lot of tech in it. Some has aged well, some has not. This is the car that introduced the world to the Sport button, gauges that change (a variable redline on the tach) and angel eye headlights. It had a built-in telephone, GPS navigation and a reasonably high-end audio system. It's built on a high volume platform but there are only 10,000 M5s so some parts are rare. It's very similar in performance and weight to our Tesla and is black on black leather with wood accents. They're a good pair.

The phone in the M5 is completely obsolete. Even if you could still make an analog network phone work, you couldn't legally use it in a lot of states because it's not hands-free. There are ways to update the thing, though - you can plug in a Bluetooth upgrade and a microphone that's fully integrated into the car.  Or at least you could. Availability is getting worse as time goes on and it's about $400 to make that change.  I have added iPod integration so I can use that iPod Classic you saw earlier. Still, the way the phone has aged does illustrate the problems with integrating consumer technology in cars.

The nav system is somewhat out of date. Still works well on long distance point-to-point stuff, but since I haven't updated the maps it's getting less accurate inside cities as time goes on. There are ways to update this at the risk of bricking the unit so I haven't bothered. 

The nav system screen is also used to access a bunch of sub-functions such as the audio DSP, signal source, setting the clock, etc. Roughly the same as the Tesla, but using a jog dial under the screen instead of a touch screen. It's not something you'll want to do while driving generally, as you do need to look at what you're doing.

The car itself is aging. There are certain bushings in the suspension that need regular renewal. The S62 engine is a beauty but it's a bit of a high maintenance princess that scares off a lot of people. Right now, the engine is working nicely (just replaced the MAFs and an O2 sensor again) but there's an exhaust bushing that's collapsed so the exhaust makes contact with the body under load and we all know what that sounds like. I have a special aftermarket E39-specific code reader that lets me diagnose this car with more accuracy than a generic OBD-II.

The interior is holding up well overall. It's German leather so it's cracking a bit. The wood applique on the driver's door is coming away, so I need to glue that back on again. The cupholders are broken but they're always broken on an E39 and I did install a nice aftermarket alternative designed specifically for the E39.

The worst experience so far has been a zorched airbag computer. A dead battery led to a jump which took out the computer. This controller can't just be plugged in, it has to be coded to the car and that has to be done by a specialist or the dealer. In theory, I have the tools I need to do that but I haven't gone to the effort of installing the specialty OS into an old laptop to do it. That was about $1k to fix and since there was nobody in Grand Junction who could do it, I put it off for a long time.

So if we take the experience with this car and extrapolate it to the Tesla, I think it's fair to say that the car will still work in 17 years. Some workarounds may be necessary such as using the RFID cards instead of a Bluetooth handshake to recognize the car, and depending on what happens to cellular networks it's possible the nav and voice command systems may shut down completely. At some point, software updates will stop when the software reaches EOL and it this may also require some changes to how the car is used. It won't stop working as a car, but it may need to be firewalled. The simple interior should hopefully age well but I don't think that PU leather will look as good in 2038 as the BMW leather does now. Mechanically I think it'll be much easier to live with than the BMW because it is a less complex system, although I don't know if there's an EV equivalent to a MAF that will make the car drive poorly and use too much energy until you pop in a new one. Fingers crossed that there isn't :) Like all modern cars, the Tesla is a mobile networked platform so there's always the risk of something similar to my airbag problem, a dead controller that needs special tools to replace. 

Keith, I read through the thread, so forgive me if I missed it in some of your novels. 

What's your take on the build quality/fit and finish of the car? I see that as a common complain, but it seems to be from people who don't actually own one.

I suspect that's been a moving target. It's quite possible that the build quality has changed as the Model 3 line fully came up to speed and that earlier ones weren't as good. My car is a 9/19 build, so it's a good snapshot of what it looks like right now.

The only fit/finish problem I have found is that the plug around the mount for the passenger's side sunvisor wasn't quite snapped into place. I rectified that by snapping it into place :) Panel gaps are good, paint quality is excellent and there are no squeaks or rattles. So I haven't talked about it because it's exactly what I would expect in a new car. In one of those novels I also mentioned that the tactile feel of the steering wheel controls is better than it was on the car we test drove.

Keith Tanner said:

I suspect that's been a moving target. It's quite possible that the build quality has changed as the Model 3 line fully came up to speed and that earlier ones weren't as good. My car is a 9/19 build, so it's a good snapshot of what it looks like right now.

The only fit/finish problem I have found is that the plug around the mount for the passenger's side sunvisor wasn't quite snapped into place. I rectified that by snapping it into place :) Panel gaps are good, paint quality is excellent and there are no squeaks or rattles. So I haven't talked about it because it's exactly what I would expect in a new car. In one of those novels I also mentioned that the tactile feel of the steering wheel controls is better than it was on the car we test drove.

That's good to hear! I suspect it will only continue to get better. 

I'm also curious to see what happens to either their sales, or their sales price, once the Federal Tax Credit is gone. $7k is a nice incentive to buy a car. 

So you basically paid $50k, before tag/title/taxes, do you think you would have paid $57k for the same car? Again, forgive me if that has been asked. 

I paid $43k after the tax incentives, $50k before. Would I pay 16% more? Likely not.

I suspect the loss of the incentives will be a sales problem for Tesla especially as legit competitors are starting to appear. The full federal credit actually fell off at the end of 2018, but Tesla dropped the price of the car in response. 

The federal credits are $7500 until a manufacturer has sold 200,000 cars. Then it drops by half for six months, half again for another six months and it's gone. Tesla is in that final 6 months so the current credit is $1875 until the end of the year. GM will lose their federal credits by April 2020.  The other $5000 comes from Colorado, which is paid for from a bunch of the VW diesel penalties.

I originally started looking at the base $35k car but Janel's concern about winter traction pushed us into the dual motor, which has a nice side benefit of more range.

Gotcha thanks for the clarification on the numbers. 

Just saw that some other car magazine leased (with their own money even!) a Model 3 for a 40k miles test.   Interesting to see their take on the car too.  

Now that I'm back from blitzing across the country in a 30-year-old ICE...

Janel appears to have completely bonded with the car by this time. She was telling me a story today about how she was following one slow car after another on her way home, and then when the last one turned off "I was going 30 and then I was going 65! (laughs) I like this." She's always loved torque and she is very enamored with the EV torque delivery. I knew she'd like that.

She also found that the Sentry Mode activated 8 times while she was parked at her parent's place. I was out of town, but she figured out how to pull out the USB drive and view the video files. It was cats that scared the car. That's how she described it, "scared" the car. I'm impressed that she figured out how to view those files without getting walked through. She also watched her drive home. There's something hypnotic about dash cams.

We did have one weird little thing. You can set your phone up to send you alerts such as "done charging" or "charging interrupted". We got one of the latter in the middle of the day on Saturday, but then the car showed that it was happily plugged in. Janel was home and she thinks she heard the pump for the pool cut out for a second, yet the digital clock on the microwave did not reset. Odd, that. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

We've had power interruptions that reboot the PC and barely flicker the lights, but don't reset the various appliance clocks.  It's possible.  It's also, if I understand correctly, the kind of power flicker that eventually kills A/C/HVAC capacitors and the like.

I'd love to know more about the dynamic stability control in this thing. I pinned it coming out of a corner with four people on board, and you could clearly feel the car driving that outside rear wheel hard. Also, when pulling off a gravel shoulder on to pavement the car doesn't miss a beat. Apparently the car has open differentials at each end and uses the brakes to transfer torque from one side to the other. It's also much more capable at controlling the front/rear torque split than an ICE because the motors are completely separate. I'm actually looking forward to this thing in the snow, I'm starting to get the feeling that it might be spooky good.

Really, I think the end game for EVs is four hub motors. I'm not sure how you can package that with brakes - friction brakes can generate more braking torque than electric motors car - but it seems that it's the way to go. Also a very old idea, Ferry Porsche was doing it 120 years ago. But think of the torque management!

And on the subject of snow - I've been looking at snow tires and also wheel options. While I have the ability to swap tires on wheels every six months, that's a pain in the butt. I'm thinking of sticking with 18" because it'll let me run the new wheels during the summer if I like them better. Turns out you can put some serious rubber on these things if you want, but I'm going to resist. Stock tires are M+S rated, so maybe I'll wait to see how good the traction management is in the slippery stuff.

Some Tesla owners do seem to report fairly short tire life. This may be because the car feels lighter than it really is (back to that torque vectoring and the low CoG) and also because it can lay down some serious punishment on the rubber. It's hard to say how much of the tire life is due to hooliganism and how much is inherent to the car. The tires that came on mine are 500TW, by the way.

Oh, I also used the RFID key card today. I was running a 5k race with my 6 year old nephew and I didn't want to carry my phone with me. But I wanted to bring my phone along. If the phone is in the car, you can unlock the car by grabbing the door handles even if you lock it with the card. So I turned off Bluetooth so the car didn't know the phone was there and used the card to lock/unlock the car. 

You need to get the card close to the B pillar on the driver's side to unlock the car (range is very very short) and then again on the center console to, umm, turn on the "ignition". When you leave, you tap the pillar again to lock. Definitely easier than dealing with a real key or a button on a keyfob, but less convenient than simply walking up to the car, opening the door and shifting into D, and walking away when you're done. Of course, it doesn't get any easier than that unless you have a chauffeur. Replacement cards are $25/pair, which is also a lot nicer than the replacement cost of most modern keys.

The best part about using the card is that the car doesn't know it's you until you put the card against the pillar. So you will trigger a Sentry Mode warning. Which makes for a fun game of "sneak up on the car". I think there's a blind spot in the front quarter, but I haven't managed to get to the pillar without attracting the car's attention yet.

Thinking about what RedGT mentioned regarding surges. I wonder if the car some sort of built in protection for when its plugged in?

Thanks for doing this Keith. I've been curious how an enthusiast of performance and ICE cars would like the Tesla. I've had an eye on them for about five years now. I've test driven quite a few S's but haven't experienced a 3 yet. I'm watching the Ford Mach 1 or E and waiting for it's unveil on 11/17. I'm leery of that considering how Ford has handled the rollout of the 2020 Explorer. Here's to hoping they handle the Mach 1 or E rollout better.

Back to the Tesla..

I agree with you that electric motors at all four corners is the way to go forward. Braking shouldn't be much harder than using regen combined with physical braking hardware. I imagine the physical hardware will be placed between the wheel and the motor. That or Tesla may brake the car with a pad contacting the tire directly ala cheap go-karts from the 80's. (Yeah....naw)

Here's an interesting development I saw this week. A british inventor claims he has a battery that'll power a car for 1500 miles on a charge. It's more a power cell than a battery but just the same, that's stunning if true. These batteries have 8 or 9 times the power density of a Li-ion battery. They use aluminum for power generation, one of the most abundant minerals on earth, and are easily recycled once discharged. 

https://www.autoblog.com/2019/10/22/aluminum-air-electric-car-battery/

Please keep posting Keith. I'm curious about the total reliability of the 3 as well as how it deals with day to day life. The tech is truly amazing. I can't believe it took an automotive outsider, not from the established manufacturers, to bring this type of disruption and innovation to the auto industry. 

That battery is getting a lot of press, but it’s actually a fuel cell that needs the anodes replaced after it has been depleted. It’s not something you plug into the wall, it’s non-rechargeable if I understand the tech. Nothing new other than his claim of a non-toxic solution. So you’d have to come up with battery exchange programs so the depleted batteries can be recycled. 

The problem I can see with hub motors and friction brakes is going to be heat management. At least hub motors have the potential for air cooling - it worked for the 917! - but if you throw a hot rotor in that air then it could get challenging. On a street car, the friction brakes would primarily be for emergency use but a performance car would have to take this into consideration. F1 is working out how to juggle friction and regen braking for consistent decel with a single pedal, at least. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Inboard discs and outboard hub motors?

I will be interested to see your take on winter performance, both in traction/stability and battery life.  I feel like this would be a great option for my wife if I can somehow pry her out of her '17 CX-5.

If you have hub motors, why are there halfshafts to put the brakes on? ;) If you view the friction brakes as "emergency only", that could work. If you have to shed heat off those friction brakes, it's a known problem. BTW, I am one-pedal driving the Tesla almost all the time. Pretty much the only time I go for the brake pedal is to come to a full stop. It actually encourages very smooth driving. You could make an excellent limo out of a drivetrain like this.

The forecast last night was potentially for snow and Janel's out of town, so I was hoping I'd get to drive the car to work in the white stuff. Alas, it didn't hit my end of the valley so no traction control testing. It was in the 20's outside, though. The car was already warm because it lives in the garage and the interior never cooled down as far as I noticed. The car showed 248 mi of projected range when I left the house and 229 when I got to work 18 miles later. I'm going to call that within the margin of error. It'll take a longer/colder test to show anything more interesting.

A chance of more snow on Tuesday night but I may not have access to the car on Wednesday as Janel will be back.

I'm torn on the idea of motor-in-wheel vs. inboard individual motors (say where the brakes are in that Jag sub-frame pic).  Partly because I think I'd want the motors more protected from damage. Also for the unsprung weight. 

The 'unspring weight' is the major reason why automakers are still testing hub-style motors used on electric bikes. Some ebike hubs weigh 20-25 lbs and that's plenty of weight to put onto the ball joints when the wheel moves.

Unsprung weight would certainly be a problem that needs to be solved. I wonder if it would make any sense to integrate the motor into the wheel? Hooo boy, that brings in some potential difficulties. Maybe an extreme "wide 5" setup.

Unsprung weight is best expressed as a percentage of overall vehicle weight, I think. I would not be surprised if EVs end up being a bit heavier overall than ICE cars due to the mass of the batteries. This gives a little more room to play with. Inboard friction brakes would help there.

A concern I'd have with the motor as part of the wheel is giving that wheel to a tire jockey when you need new tires.  Or having to take the car to a dealer if special tire changing equipment is required.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Heat is the other issue. Merge the motor into the wheel like that and you're not only cutting airflow off to the hub motor for cooling- you're also conducting heat from the tires into the motor 'unit' itself as well. Switched reluctance motors (What makes the Model 3 THE Model 3) may be able to withstand the heat better than your typical AC motor but they still have magnets in them.

I agree that they'll likely always be heavier than an equivalent gas car, but with the rapid pace technology is taking off on batteries and other chemistries god knows.

Oh, making the hub motors part of the wheel isn't really all that plausible a concept. But I wasn't discounting the concept of spokes!

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Ah... so sort of like old Dayton wheels on older trucks.  Might be able to work...  and should work with current tire machines. 

Of course, the aftermarket wheel industry would hate the idea.

Oh yeah they would. But making them the whole WHEEL could avoid that problem of heat and still allow for standard brake provisions.

Hmm, I wonder if anyone on Endless Sphere has used that idea for a velomobile. I think someone has.

I don't think I see the advantage of sticking the motor at the wheel/hub so long as we're thinking we need per-wheel motors and per-wheel brakes. The motors are more conducive to something like liquid cooling when mounted inboard with most of the infrastructure, and the brakes are more conducive to me thinking they shouldn't be the part relying on drive shafts and joints.

So while I think per-wheel motors and torque vectoring are nifty, I think the phrase "hub motor" steers us wrong, no pun intended.

This opinion obviously subject to being wrong on all sorts of things about the evolution of motor tech.