The TRUTH About Tesla Model 3 After 1 Year... (w/ @LudicrousFeed)

Hey guys, welcome back to the channel! In this video, we are talking about the Tesla Model 3 because recently my good friend Tom from Ludacris Feed was down in Canberra, and he reached out to me. He said, “Hey Brandon, you want to go for a drive?” You guys know there is no way on earth I am turning down an opportunity to hop in one of those cars. So, uh, yeah, long story short, I met up with him, we went for a drive.

Interestingly, he has just ticked over one year of ownership of his Model 3, so I thought it was a great time to sit down in the car, of course, while we’re going for a drive, and grill him and kind of get his perspective on what it’s been like over the past 12 months—a kind of one-year-later review of the car.

So, with that said, let’s get stuck into it. Of course, uh, check out Tom’s YouTube channel; I’ve left it linked down in the description below. And funnily enough, you can now link uh, YouTube channels in the title of YouTube videos! Who would have thunk it? So, if all has gone correctly, his channel is also linked in the title. But make sure you leave a like on this one, guys; I had a ton of fun recording this one with Tom, so I hope you guys enjoy it. And let’s cut to the chase. This is my chat with Tesla Tom from Ludicrous Feed.

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So one year later, Tom! One year! Congratulations on one year of ownership!

Thank you very much! I mean, it’s technically my wife’s car, so...

Oh, because you have your Model...

Yes, I normally say it’s our car, but yeah, it’s technically her car. Yeah, I do love it though.

So, I want to ask you a couple of questions about your experience after one year. Specifically, I want to start with the battery and the range because we know that obviously, Tesla’s fully electric, they've got batteries. At the moment, batteries degrade over time. Have you noticed after one year that the battery has dropped off, falling in range? Do you get a lower estimated range now?

Yeah, you know, I guess, uh, because I’ve owned a Model S as well for almost more than four years now. Sorry, almost four years. I guess I’ve got the range confidence now; I know how much how long a battery will last, and I don’t really worry about it day to day anymore, especially in the Model 3. The battery’s so good, like it holds its charge really well, particularly overnight.

Yeah, there’s very little phantom drain overnight. So, um, like day to day, you know, my wife Joy and I, we commute at the most 100 kilometers a day, right, for school run, shopping, all that. So, yeah, sometimes we don’t even charge the car overnight. That’s how good it is.

Wow, okay. And we know that it’s gonna definitely do 100ks in Sydney, no issues, even with all the stop-start driving.

Yeah, um, even on our recent road trip to Canberra, like we knew it was going to handle it pretty well; I wasn’t concerned at all. I haven’t actually done a formal test to see how much range it’s dropped or, you know, whether it’s changed at all; I haven’t pushed it.

No, I don’t know; I just...

Well, you probably haven’t needed to at all.

So, yeah, probably. Yeah, I mean, you know, I guess with COVID I haven’t driven that much; I haven’t done that many road trips recently. But I mean, I know some owners have said, “Well, you know, my range has dropped.” But I think what happens is that the car actually takes into account how your driving style is, right? It works out your efficiency.

So every year it knows that, “Okay, I'm x number of what hours per kilometer,” and hence the car now knows the battery can do this number of kilometers and estimates that better for my driving style anyway, right? So it might be more of a software thing that people are experiencing over a hardware degradation.

Because I believe I read somewhere that it was either over three years or five years; I think the Teslas were holding about 85% of their battery capacity, um, and then it kind of just plateaus and doesn’t really drop below that.

So, yeah, I think so. I think I testify to that because my Model S, which has got the 18650 cells, which is an older battery, compared to the 2170 here, my car, the Model S, I did a test recently; it’s dropped maybe three percent in four years.

Right, that’s incredible!

That’s yeah, that’s nothing; that’s unheard of really. And I think that’s due to the fact that I don’t charge to 200% every night, yeah, so it doesn’t stress the battery at the top end.

Yeah, because you can take care of your battery a little bit.

Exactly, yeah. And I think the old iPhones and things, people used to charge to 200% all the time, and that stresses the battery at the top end; that degrades over time. So I think even Apple’s learned not to do that with their recent software as well.

And I don’t DC charge or supercharge that often either; I think that helps as well.

Uh, okay. So we talked a little bit about battery degradation, but it doesn’t really happen too much. Do you find that there’s any over time, even with your Model S or this car, is there any difference to the performance, like the acceleration, the speed, anything like that? Or do you just feel like it’s as it was kind of day one?

Um, again, I haven’t, like, um, technically or specifically clocked it just to see if there’s been any difference. Um, just, yeah, it’s the same feel; just from fuel fills, the same. Even my Model S, four-year-old model, feels the same.

Yeah, definitely, it feels the same.

Yeah, just as quick as it once was.

Yeah, and uh, what about software? Because that's one thing that does change a lot, so I wonder if you could describe maybe some of the differences in the software, the center console, you know, autopilot, whatever, one year ago versus today?

Yeah, so, um, I mean, your viewers may know that we get over-the-air updates.

Yeah, so every week or two weeks, there’s a new update, like an iPhone.

Wow, that frequently?

It’s been that frequently, uh, recently.

Wow, okay!

So, yeah, when we first got the car, the full self-driving features didn’t have navigate on autopilot, which it does now.

So you can...

Is that what we use it? Well, we could use, right now we could...

Yeah, actually no, we can’t, not on city roads; only on freeways, basically. It’s the idea of using the navigation system within the car plus autopilot to help get you where you’re going.

Yeah, correct left.

Yeah, so lane changes for you; it makes a decision for you like that, and you can adjust how, um, how aggressive that is. It takes freeway exits for you, technically.

Yeah, although that’s still iffy sometimes.

Right, okay.

Yeah, so basically that aims to try and get you to your destination as fast as I can, or yeah, the less efficient, yeah, most efficient way.

Um, other things? Um, you know, autopilot I think is better now.

Oh, okay!

So now it recognizes traffic lights, um, and it will, if you’re on autopilot, it’ll stop at a red light for you now.

Yeah, and that’s been a relatively new feature, right?

And even with green lights, if you’re the second car, it’ll go on green as well, right?

And it’ll pick that up and show it here on the screen.

Yeah, it will. I mean, if it does pick it up.

Yeah, it’s amazing that it’s picking up all these cones as well.

Exactly, it’s remarkable, yeah.

And there’s... look, it’s found every single one of those lights.

Yep, it’s not perfect, but it’s a work in progress for sure.

Wow! So, yeah, that’s even since I was in this car last night.

Oh, yeah, it’s a different car to when you were sitting at it in January.

Yeah, that wasn’t even that long ago.

Yep, absolutely, there you go.

So overall, what I wonder, if there are any, now that you’ve owned it for a little while, you’ve got some more experience with the Model 3 in particular, um, are there any things that you have found that maybe you want fixed or that you don’t like or things that you would recommend that they change or alter? As minor as they might be.

I think, um, the cameras... um, like if I’ll show you this, look, if you go, you can see the site, the rear cameras now on the screen, which I think back in January that wasn’t available. So they’ve used the autopilot cameras to help you see on the side, side mirrors as well as the back mirror, right? So now, you know, one day there could be we could lose these side mirrors because we’ve got these cameras now.

Right, okay, yeah, that makes sense.

You just put, yeah, replace them.

Yeah, unfortunately, that’s not high def enough, I think, in my opinion.

Yeah, it’s not wide enough either, so it’s pretty good; it’s not bad. The reverse camera is quite good; yeah, reverse is probably the best of the three.

What do they call these ones?

Repeated cameras.

Yeah, so I think if we want to get rid of these side mirrors, these have to be pretty much 4k and, you know, high def, all that kind of thing.

Apart from that, I think it’s been pretty good. I’m sure I’ll think of something, but yeah, I think overall, every update I see, like, “Wow, that’s pretty good!” Something different, something better.

So, on the flip side, so there are a couple of things that maybe you might recommend to improve it, but what are the from a year of ownership? What are the best features, things that now that you’ve been a Tesla or a Model 3 owner for a year, you’re like, “Oh yeah, I really like this”?

Um, I always just go back to the fact that it’s petrol free.

Yeah, I don’t have to pump petrol every night or so... every night, every week, yeah, you just plug it in; it takes five seconds.

Um, the drive quality! Like, I don’t think I’ve ever driven a car as smooth as a Tesla still after all these years.

Um, and I know that, you know, this car could potentially run on renewable energy.

Yeah! Like that, no other car, well, no other non—no petrol car could do that, basically.

No, you know, it’s never going to get cleaner over time, whereas this car, you know, that even if the grid is still charged from the grid, as the grid cleans itself with more renewable energy, yep, slowly but surely, yeah, yeah, it just gets more and more renewables... you’re running on green fuel.

Yeah, exactly! And we’re here in Canberra, and uh, Canberra is, I think, the first city in Australia to have a 100% renewable energy grid.

There you go! So congratulations!

Yeah, go Canberra!

Um, but yeah, you’re right; I guess as time goes on, as the grid kind of gets more and more renewable, then this does really become an emissions-free vehicle.

Correct! I mean, do you have solar on your roof?

We do! Yeah, I’ve got a solar and a battery as well.

Right! So a lot of your charging would just be completely renewable.

Yeah, I mean, even if we use the grid, it’s still offset during the day from the solar as well, so...

Yeah, perfect!

And last thing I wanted to ask you is, after a year of ownership, what are the costs like? Because a lot of people love to compare costs of, you know, running a, you know, I don’t know, a Prius or something versus, uh, something like a Model 3. So can you kind of run us through the costs and maybe if you had some unexpected costs that you weren’t expecting or where you’ve saved money versus a petrol-powered car?

Yeah, I mean, you know, in terms of comparing, um, I like to compare apples with apples.

So, okay, yeah, let’s compare this with say a car that’s about eighty thousand dollars because that’s how much the starting price of this car is.

Yeah, what’s that like a high-end Mercedes or a BMW?

Yeah, something like that, taking premium unleaded petrol, um, which is what, a dollar fifty, a dollar sixty now in Sydney, um versus 22 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity in Sydney, right?

Uh, yeah, 20... yeah, depends what—depends on what rate you get, but essentially, I worked out it’s about two to three times cheaper to charge your car with electricity versus pumping with petrol for the same number of kilometers that you’ve driven, right?

So... wow, that’s a big difference!

Yeah, that is a big difference.

Um, and so that’s petrol alone. Um, and then you look at maintenance. Like this, we have not serviced this car in the traditional sense since we’ve got the car.

Yeah, we’ve had the service check out a couple of times for minor issues, but not a full service—whatever that is now in a nice electric car.

Yeah, yeah! So no maintenance?! Are you saving that’s already a thousand bucks potentially per year in servicing costs?

Um, had to change the tires; that’s, you know, the standard.

Yeah, actually, I can change the tires for this one.

Um, no... yeah, I will have to eventually; you know, that’s the standard for any car.

Um, what else? What else would a normal car endure?

Um, so servicing, I think we’ve covered the main ones: servicing and fuel, kind of, I think what would be the main cost is the big two.

So if you add those up over a lifetime of ownership, you know, you’re saving, I reckon, close to 10 grand, if not more over five years plus.

So it’s definite, although they are more expensive to buy at the current time, electric vehicles eventually, like the longer you own it, the better the cost equation becomes.

That’s right! Yep, correct!

Oh, very good! Well, thanks for, you know, inviting me into your Tesla again.

My pleasure!

Thanks for, yeah, thanks for road-tripping down and having a holiday in Canberra.

Anytime! Anytime to see you, Brandon, of course!

Of course, of course! And all the best with your channel too.

Thank you very much! And congratulations, Brandon, on reaching a hundred thousand subscribers! That’s awesome. I can only dream of numbers like that, so that’s fantastic!

It’s only a matter of time!

Thanks! Only on...

Yeah, that’s right! No worries! Thanks very much!

Pleasure!

Three, two, one, go!

Oh yeah, I love it!

Oh man!

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Um,

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