COMMUTER SCIENCE
Britain’s commuters went from 62 to zero when the pandemic struck, but that doesn’t mean staying in the house
Back in more innocent times (2019), a survey reported that the average UK commute had reached 62 minutes a day, with 15 per cent of workers spending more than 102 minutes on the move to and from the office. All moot in the end, considering within months most of us would be sat at home trying to work the office VPN and waiting for our sourdough loaves to rise.
Ah, but weren’t we glad to get that hour back, for all of the creative home schooling, crochet and self-improvement. Maybe even a Zoom quiz or two with the family. By week two it just meant longer in bed. I must admit that I used to enjoy reading a nice book on my commute, but it’s harder to get into a novel on the walk back upstairs after I’ve brushed my teeth and fed the cat. Whether you were humming away in traffic or trying to keep your face out of a stranger’s foetid armpit on the train, that was precious me time. A chance to gather your thoughts and refocus the mind. I reflected on all of this sitting on the drive in a Tesla Model 3, commuting precisely nowhere and frankly enjoying the hell out of it.
It’s a weird car, though, the Model 3 – not simply for the fact that it’s the decade-long fruit of a tortured billionaire’s fever dream, but also because Elon has made such a fuss out of the car’s ability to navigate complex roads by itself. However, let us ignore for a moment that it appears not to be quite so good at this as the proud parent would have us believe... though I might feel like falling asleep after an early start, I certainly wouldn’t do it on the move. No way. Likewise, there’s been such an emphasis put on the 3’s interior as party central, that actually driving it has almost become a secondary function. A distraction, even. You can do karaoke in a Model 3. Use the central touchscreen as a sketch pad. Or a log fire. You can change the horn sound so the car lets rip a humungous fart that echos and rolls down the street. What madness is this. People worked on that. Like, for their actual job.
You could spend 62 minutes fussing through the settings and getting everything how you like it. The admirably minimalist aesthetic (although I wouldn’t mind some dials behind the wheel) has been achieved by ramming basically everything into the 15-inch central screen. When I picked up the car I spent what felt like as long trying to get the wing mirrors to point somewhere behind me – you have to use the left ball on the steering wheel, but one vaguely false move and it changes mirrors. Or swaps to another function entirely, like launching
space rockets. Maybe I’d just grow to enjoy the view of the passenger side roofline.
This pristine white vegan leather would last about 62 minutes before becoming irrevocably trashed in the mitts of an average UK family, but it’s a comfortable interior. Even cosier when I put the log fire screen on, which plays a crackling fire on the richly detailed screen. This is better quality than the creaking telly I have at home. This novelty function also runs the heating, as I realise a few minutes later, sweating in my cheap, ill-fitting suit like a henchman at a sentence hearing.
I use the internet browser to have a relaxing read of the latest insightful items on the TG website, but for some reason the 3 thinks we’re in the Netherlands. In your face, car, because I spent a year at university learning Dutch. Maar ik was niet so good. Netflix, then. Wait, that thinks I’m in the sweeping lowlands of northwestern Europe too. Turns out they don’t have anything good to watch over there. I spend a quarter of my commute looking for a good film, scrolling through endless categories of weirdly enticing word salads. Human Connections, Award-Winning Feel-Good and Relentless Crime Thrillers. Who comes up with these? Probably the same creative agency Tesla consulted on fart names.
Perhaps the Model 3’s biggest draw, outside of the neck-weakening acceleration or telling people you have a Tesla, is the variety of games to play. Nothing to do with I Spy or yellow cars or did anyone see what that sign said back there. Actual computer games. Blowing things up in space, racing a cartoonish gaggle of Teslas round lavishly animated tracks, backgammon. I win a few rounds of BeachBuggy Racing 2, using the actual steering wheel to wrestle a tiny Model 3 about booby-trapped circuits. I saw away like Ollie Marriage on a Lambo shoot until I can no longer bear the fact the wheels are dry steering the whole time. Surely someone could have disconnected the steering between coming up with the Short Shorts Ripper and Boring Fart. It boggles the mind that the trump campaign sucked up all the spare capacity.
And with that my time is up. Never feels quite so quick when you’re stuck in traffic or trying to elbow people out the way on Clapham Junction’s raised scrummage, but that’s Tesla for you. Rethinking everything whether you like it or not, including the passage of time. At least when it comes to buying a Model 3 you can rely on full self-entertainment that comes as standard.