The Tesla Model 3 achieves everything Tesla intended with this car: It’s fast, fun to drive, relatively affordable and has great electric range. The only downside is that you’ll have a heck of a time getting one.
– Hey, this is Darrell,
I’m here with TechCrunch, And we’ve got the Tesla Model 3. This is the car that everybody wants. No one can get it. We’ve got it. We’re gonna go take it for a ride. (upbeat music) So driving the Tesla Model 3, It’s got a pretty standard steering wheel, Except it has these controls here. And normally you do have
steering wheel controls On a car, any modern car,
but these are actually Not assigned any specific function, And that’s by design. Tesla wanted them to be
modular, and to be able to fit Whatever purpose the driver
needs at any given moment. So, depending on what you
select over on your dash, Whether it be sort of
steering wheel adjustments, Talk back controls, or
things like temperature And stuff like that,
they’ll switch as needed. And right now by default,
the one on the left Controls your audio playback,
so you can adjust the volume By going up and down and
skip tracks left and right. And then play and pause by pressing down. And it’s not that big of a departure from Most normal cars, but
still, it shows that Tesla’s Thinking differently about vehicle design. Another way they’re doing that is with The dash, as you can see,
it’s pretty much unbroken. It’s just you, the road,
and then this sort of like Featureless dash, where there’s not A traditional instrument cluster. So all of that information
is gonna be right here On your main display,
occupying the left third Of the screen, which is where everything
That is relevant to a driver is there, Available in your peripheral vision. But most of the time you
can kinda forget about that And just concentrate on the road, Which is great because this is a really Fun to drive car, and it really emphasizes Your connection to the
road, because you’ve got That unbroken view. But part of that also
is this dash uniquely Doesn’t have any vents, like for air flow. So it actually has just this
one long continuous seam here. And that’s air foil, so
they’re directing air In a specific direction, and they can, There’s two of them
interacting with each other, And they can place air very
specifically where you want it. And you can control
that on the display too, And just sort of drag
around with your finger And say, ”I want to feel the air here”, Or ”I want to feel it
down here” or whatever, And the force of the air can be adjusted And stuff like that too, But it makes for a really nice
look, a really clean look, And basically, that’s what
this car is all about. Clean design, simplicity of
design, and unbroken lines Wherever possible, which has
always been a big Tesla thing. But yeah, they really
pull it off, like again, Another cabin feature is
the big panorama roof, And it’s slightly opaque,
but it does, you can see The features of the sky
and it lets sunlight in, And it feels natural, and that continues Through the back, and
that’s basically something That Tesla took from the
Tesla Model 3, or the Model X, And adapted to the Model
3, to give you the sense Of a really wide open cockpit.
And it feels that way front and back. It’s a car that has a
tremendous amount of space, Despite the fact that
it’s actually quite small In terms of exterior proportions, Especially relative to
something like the Model S Or the Model X. (upbeat music) One of the key features of Tesla’s Model 3 Is this big display, the
only display in the car. There’s no longer a
traditional instrument panel. And instead you have this split, Where on this third of it, the screen, It’s information that’s
relevant to the driver At any given moment. So you can see we’re parked right now, So we’ve got an overview of the vehicle. It’ll tell you if any doors are open. You can actually tap the open icons there To get the front trunk
or the back trunk open, Or the charging port, and it’ll give you Your estimating remaining range in miles. And also your controls for
your windshield wipers. So this has manual settings, but then also Tesla has a new auto mode
for the windshield wipers, Which actually uses the neural network to Intelligently vary the speed at which The wipers move, depending
on how much rain is on there. So most cars use a very simple rain sensor That basically says,
”Oh water, wet, I better ”turn the blades”, but
this one uses information Taken from the camera that’s
used for the autonomous system. So you can also see your trip meter, Which you would normally
have in your dash. You can see tire pressure
there, to make sure that
You don’t need to top up. And you’ve also got your voice controls, And your backup camera and
various other commands. So you can see the backup camera takes up This other two-thirds of the screen, And that’s basically where anything Contextually relevant to
the driving experience Is gonna happen, based on whether
you want to do navigation, Or infotainment controls,
and music playback. So this is from my phone,
you can see I’ve got The McElroy Brothers,
this is a great podcast, ”My Brother and Me”, please listen, I don’t know why I’m doing a plug. But you’ve also got Tune
In, which is built in, So that’s Tesla’s own service. They’ve partnered with Tune In. And you’ve got streaming radio
and just regular radio too. And we don’t have any of
those right now because We’re in the middle of the forest, And there’s no connectivity. Regular radio will work,
but nothing else will. Yeah, but you’ve got indicators up here, So you can see actually that
we are out of LTE range, And then you can also go
through and change your heating For your seats, adjust the cabin comforts, So adjust your air conditioning and heat, And also access all those
music controls, your phone, Adjust the volume, set to mute,
and control your defrosters, Right here in the bottom
row, and that’s going to be Constant right over here. So, it’s a system that’s
a bit different than what You’d expect from a car,
and it’s different even from Tesla’s own cars, cause
a lot of these controls Or information is
displayed sort of in your
Instrument cluster instead. And it takes a little getting used to, But once you are used to it, it’s actually Pretty natural to use, it’s
just like using an iPhone Or an iPad, it’s actually
a very similar experience To using an iPad because they’ve
upgraded the responsiveness And the touch screen is very smooth, And the scrolling is very smooth. Yeah, it becomes kind of, I
wouldn’t say second nature, But it becomes a lot easier. There are things that it’s taken us awhile To get used to finding, like let’s say The glove box control, which we now know You can find reliably. It doesn’t close, it just opens. And also things like
the mirror adjustments, Which again, they map to
those contextual buttons On the steering wheel. Again, it’s gonna take
some getting used to But I think that’s it’s not
gonna impede anybody’s driving Experience with this car,
and it really does help to Emphasize that the most important
thing you should be doing Is paying attention to
this wheel, those pedals, Keeping your eyes on the road, And actually enjoying
the drive that you do. (upbeat music)
