Trading a Ram truck for a Tesla Model 3
Getting a charge out of driving the quiet, high-tech ‘car of the future’ for two days
I am not the type of person who drives an electric car.
Want proof? Take a look at this: My Dodge Ram 1500 V- 8, 5.7- liter hemi quad cab truck is nicknamed “The Beast.” It’s a glorious gas guzzler, whose engine turns over. It seats me up above almost any other vehicle on the road and it has never let me down.
But, as well as it runs, The Beast is 10 years old. So, when I was given the chance to drive the “car of the future,” I took it.
That’s how, for 48 hours, I ended up trading The Beast for the Tesla Model 3, a car that ismore technical than the entire semester of driver’s education I took back in high school.
The good folks at Tesla even brought the Model 3 to my home in Oakland, where I was given a black Tesla key card that I could use to lock and unlock the car. However, I was told
that it would be even better if I used the Tesla app to unlock the car, so I popped into the Apple App Store and downloaded it on my iPhone.
As I am used to The Beast roaring to life like the Who during the old Day on the Green concerts, one of the most shocking aspects of the Model 3 was how quiet it is.
In fact, when I started the Model 3, it was so quiet that I thought I had broken the car and was in to Tesla CEO Elon Musk for its $57,500 price tag. That’s right. The Model 3, which Tesla sees as its first non- luxury- category car, still carries a pretty hefty sticker price. The version I drove had its base price listed at $35,000. But, when you add in all the bells and whistles, like a long-range, 310-mile battery ($9,000), the Enhanced Autopilot feature ($5,000) and a few other amenities, you get a $57,500 car.
You also get a 15-inch screen that replaces your car’s old-school dashboard knobs, gauges and dials and is basically a command center for all Model 3 operations. I covered that screen withmy fingerprints while tapping among the navigation option, the controls to adjust the air conditioner, and the media center. Once I figured out the media center, it let me use Bluetooth to wirelessly connect and stream music from my iPhone.
I also put my daughters in the car. Riding in a Tesla Model 3 didn’t impress them — but the included touchscreen drawing pad sure did. Once they discovered that, it was “game on.” And before I knew it, they were scrambling over each other for screen time.
I managed to get them buckled into their seats, and we hit the road for a brief drive around our Oakland neighborhood. And make no mistake about it: When you have driven a big truck with a V- 8 engine, switching to a Tesla Model 3 is weird. You think you’re going to break everything you touch in the cabin. You feel like everyone is looking at you as you head down the road. And you can’t help but punch the accelerator as if you were at the starting line of the Indy 500.
After tooling around a bit, we brought the Model 3 home and picked up my wife. She was more apprehensive about what the Model 3 could do.
“Can this thing drive itself?” she asked before getting in. “How do you get in? I don’t want you taking your hands off the wheel!”
Now, Tesla’s Autopilot feature doesn’t turn the Model 3 into a self- driving car. What it can do is hold the Model 3 steady in your driving lane, and change lanes. When we got onto Interstate 580 and sped up a bit, I double-tapped down on the shifter to engage Autopilot. I could feel the steering wheel take a little control away from my hands as the Model 3 reached my preset speed of 70 mph. A set of blue lane markers appeared on the screen to show my car was in Autopilot mode and holding steady in the lane.
However, to get a true feeling of Autopilot in the Model 3, I had to break Tesla’s rule — I took my hands off the steering wheel. I kept them hovering above the wheel during this experiment. And it didn’t take long for the Model 3 to tell me to put my hands back in place through a series of escalating notifications: words on the screen, then a pulsing blue light on the screen meant to catch my eye about the hands- on alert, then the pulsing blue light and one loud “beep,” and, finally, after a brief pause, several beeps to go along with the blue light.
And then, Autopilot turned itself off. And since my hands had been off the wheel for so long, the car toldme Autopilot would remain off for the remainder of our drive.
By the time we got home, the battery had about 151 miles left on its charge. I plugged it into a regular wall outlet in my garage. The Tesla app told me I would get 3 miles an hour charging it this way, and 10 hours later the battery was up to 181 miles in range.
So, in order to get the full Model 3 charging experience, I needed to find a Tesla Supercharger station.
Tesla makes a big deal about its Superchargers, and it has a network of more than 500 Supercharger stations and more than 4,500 individual chargers across the United States to help prevent the car’s battery from running low. I found the nearest Su- percharger station in Concord, put my daughters in the Model 3, andwe headed out to fill ’er up.
Pulling them away from the drawing pad, I asked them to compare our new ride to the truck. Their answers are what you might expect from young kids:
Madeline (age 9): “It’s fine. It smells newer.”
Lily (age 7): “It’s OK … Oh, daddy! Can I draw on the screen?”
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the future hosts of “Car Talk.”
I got to the Veranda shopping center in Concord and had to drive around the parking lot for a while until I found a sandwich board that read “Tesla Charging,” with an arrow that directed me to a row of 19 Tesla charging ports.
After plugging in the Model 3, my daughters started bothering each other to the point of yelling and crying. Luckily, the charging station was also across from a Krispy Kreme shop. After downing some glazed treats for about 30 minutes, we went back to the car to find that 110 miles of charge had been added to our “tank,” and we headed home.
The next day, I readily handed over my key card to another Tesla official, who came to pick up the car. Without a doubt, the Model 3 was an amazing drive, but Iwas happy to get back to the V-8 glory of The Beast. My first choice probably will always be a truck.
But, at least now I can say I have seen — and driven — the future. And when that future arrives, the next incarnation of the Model 3 will probably be driving itself.