My Tesla Model 3 Regrets | The TRUTH After 15,000 Miles

What's up you guys? It's Graham here. So, I guess you could say time flies when you're having fun because it's officially been over a year since I purchased my Tesla Model 3, and 15,000 miles later, quite a lot has happened.

Now, even though I've had way more positive experiences with this car than negative ones, I could confidently say now that I've owned this car long enough to figure out all of its faults, figure out everything that it's good at, and uncover all of the weird things that just come with owning a Tesla. And don't worry, I'm not going to try to sensationalize anything for YouTube clicks or try to make anything better or worse than it actually is. Instead, I'll tell you exactly what you need to know: the mistakes and pitfalls to watch out for, what I wish was done differently with this car, and of course, whether or not the price of the car is too high in my opinion.

So, with that said, if you wouldn't mind destroying the like button so that one day Elon Musk can colonize Mars, it would be greatly appreciated for our entire civilization. And of course, with the like button destroyed, let's begin the video.

To start, let's talk about one of the most important aspects of this car that everyone has to take into consideration before buying one, especially if you're watching a personal finance channel like this, and that would be the car's price. After all, if this thing costs five hundred thousand dollars, then guaranteed no one would buy it unless they have access to an unlimited money printer, Jerome Powell. And for me, it was really the price that attracted me to this car to begin with. So, I bought mine as soon as they released the $35,000 base-level Tesla Model 3.

When I crunched the numbers, it just made too much financial sense not to buy. It was cheaper to own than pretty much any other car on the market. See, I calculated I would be able to finance 100% of the car at a 3.75% interest rate, meaning that at the end of the day, it was going to be costing me $4,434 for taxes and registration out of pocket. But after paying that, I would get back $2,500 as an electric vehicle tax credit from the state of California. I would then receive a $3,750 federal tax credit off my federal income taxes, and I would be able to depreciate the cost of the car for business use, write off the interest payments made on the loan, and any other expenses associated with the car.

I calculated when all was said and done, this car was only going to be costing me $78.39 per month to own within the first year, not including the cost of gas savings and equity when I paid down the loan on the car. Meaning that for the first year, the car was pretty much free from a business perspective.

It's really interesting to see how Tesla prices their cars, and unlike most car manufacturers, with Tesla, you don't get a lot of options. So, you get to choose between four models—wait, no, wait, wait, no, not those models, these models. And within each of those models, you only get two to three options in terms of power and performance. From there, you only get five paint colors, four of which cost more money, two to four options for wheels, two to three options for interior, whether or not you want the full self-driving upgrade, and that's it.

This is done on purpose to try to streamline the production process as much as possible for Tesla. It keeps overhead low and builds in as much profit as possible while they're growing, and I think this is a really good strategy. But before we go into the pitfalls of this and discuss some of the super sneaky strategies that Tesla has been doing lately by secretly raising the price of their almost non-existent autopilot feature, let's get back to the actual car itself, and I'll give you my thoughts now that I've officially owned it for longer than a year.

First, I absolutely love how well this car integrates with your phone. See, in order to drive the car, you have two options: one is to use this really cool credit card-looking key fob feature, or two, you could sync the car to your phone and then all of a sudden, your phone becomes the new car key. As long as you have your phone on you, the car will automatically unlock as you get close to it, or you could just use the app to manually unlock your car wirelessly anywhere in the world.

Now, this is really amazing because I never have to carry a car key around with me ever, and as long as I have my phone, this is really all I need. And the best part about this is that you never have to worry about locking your car because as soon as you walk away, the car can sense that, and then it's automatically going to lock. Let's see when that happens. Hold on, come on, please, please lock. Please... there we go, see it locked.

Next, we should talk about the exterior of the car. Now, obviously, right now, I have a satin black wrap on it, but underneath this is just the standard black paint job that was the only free option from Tesla. Now in terms of paint quality, I'll be honest with you—it's really just okay. And even though it's probably good enough, there are definitely some areas on the car that should be addressed.

See, when I first picked up the car, the first thing I did is take it to a friend's place to detail it, and once we put it under a light, we noticed several marks on the car that were obviously buffed out prior to taking delivery, and then they just left them buffed out without polishing them down. Now, I have a feeling this is not Tesla's fault from the factory per se, but they should definitely have better quality control in the first place to prevent something like that from slipping through.

They've also had some issues with underspray between some of the body panels that were just missed. Now, in Tesla's defense, none of these are really noticeable unless you go and look for them, but once you see them, it's really hard to unsee them. The first is between the door jambs, as you can see right here—there's definitely a large portion of paint that's missed. And again, even though no one is going out of their way to point this out, you still have to live with the fact that it's there, same as well with the front trunk lid.

From the front angle, it seems perfectly fine, but then you look at it from the side, and all of a sudden, you notice all the missing paint. Probably, I would say the most severe is underneath this trunk lid. In normal daylight, you would never notice this, but at night when you're detailing the car from underneath, you notice an underspray of paint right above the license plate.

Now, even though it is a bit disappointing, you would never really notice it until you go out of your way to find it. And maybe I'm just weird and don't find it like that big of a deal, but I have a feeling for most people, they're never going to notice this and it's never going to bother them.

Now, in terms of functionality, this car pretty much does it all. Storage is absolutely incredible. Like, you have this front trunk here that I've never actually used, but it's cool to know, hey, you know I can use it if I need to, like for filming YouTube videos. You also have a huge trunk with seats that fold down anytime you haul stuff from Home Depot, and you also have this hidden compartment underneath if you want to hide your valuables that aren't valuable enough for you not to want to leave them in the car for an extended period of time.

But my biggest functionality complaint would be this little thing right here. Part of me wishes they just made this a hatchback because if you're transporting anything that's taller than 22 inches, it's just not gonna fit. But besides the rare time, this is actually an issue—99% of the time, it fits everything you would need perfectly fine.

Speaking of storing valuables in your car, it would be a shame if some of those valuables were stolen, right? Well, Tesla has a bit of a solution to that known as Sentry Mode. That's right! You might notice a whole bunch of small cameras around the entire exterior of the car, but those cameras are not just used for autopilot; they're used for detecting motion around the car and then putting that footage on a memory card for you to see later. Think of it almost like your security.

Anytime you leave your car unattended, if you come back and see something was broken into or something happened, just check the cameras, and it's all right there for you to see. Now, I wish, however, there was the option to live stream the Sentry Mode directly from your phone so you can monitor what's going on around your car. That way, your car can almost act like a live security camera anywhere you go and park.

I also really wish one day they would allow you to record audio, so if something is going around your car, you can go and listen in on people as well to see what they're saying. Maybe that one has some legal implications of recording someone's audio without their knowledge or consent, but assuming that would be okay, then Tesla, I think that would be a really cool option.

Although I do have to say, unfortunately, all good things come at a cost, and in this case, from my experience using Sentry Mode tends to drain the battery a lot more than you would expect. Some of the articles that I read online say that Sentry Mode uses about one mile per hour of battery, but from my experience, it's maybe closer to two miles per hour of battery. So, if you expect to be parked for a while, just keep that in mind.

And while we're on the topic of draining battery life, let's talk about charging. At first, I was a little bit worried about what it would be like not to be able to go and fill up at a gas station that's pretty much on every single block or being stranded somewhere without any place to charge, but so far that's never happened, and now I can't envision that ever happening. Not to mention charging at home is incredibly easy; at my last place, I had a dedicated 240-volt charger that charged the car at about 30 miles an hour, but at my new place, I found out that I never really used it that often, and because I do most of my work from home, it worked just as well to be able to plug my car into a normal outlet.

It currently charges the car at about five miles an hour, but that just means if I leave it plugged in for 12 hours overnight, it gives me an extra 60 miles of range, which is more than enough for what I need. Now, the downside of this is that pretty much with everything in Tesla, there are a few glitches, and one of the glitches is once you've left the car charging for a while, you can't just go and take the charger out without either opening one of the car doors, and then you could remove the charger, or you have to open up your phone, wait for the Tesla app to load, and then once it connects, the charger comes out.

I wish it were easier, but this minor annoyance happens all the time, and it seems like it's an issue with your phone connecting to the car when it's been left sitting for a while. The Superchargers are pretty neat as well. You can see all of them on the touchscreen map, and when you click on them, it shows you how many stalls are available. Now, when you arrive, your car is generally going to charge at a rate of 150 to maybe 500 miles per hour depending on how busy it is, but my experience is to be able to charge the car from almost nothing to completely full, it takes about 45 minutes or so.

This could be pretty annoying if you're in a rush to get to your destination, but instead, you have to make a detour and then sit there and charge the car for an extra 30 to 45 minutes. Next, let's talk about the interior of the car, and honestly, there's really not too much to complain about, but a few weird things; one, unless you order the long-range or the performance model, you're not going to get any floor mats, and you're going to have to buy those aftermarket.

I have no idea why they don't supply you with floor mats when you're buying a $36,000 car, but you know what, so be it. Honestly, these all-weather 3D floor mats were about $130 for the entire car, and they work like a charm. The rest of the interior is rather minimalistic, and even though it tends to take you a day or so to get used to it, after that, you realize how genius of a design it really is, and it becomes hard to ever go back to a car that has buttons.

The giant touchscreen in front has anything you could ever possibly want. It's like a giant iPad that becomes extremely intuitive to use once you figure out exactly where everything is, and I love it. The screen is incredibly responsive. The giant map makes navigating around really easy; you could zoom in and out and see all the available Superchargers nearby. Also, when you're parked, the entire screen turns into an entertainment console where you can watch YouTube videos, go on the internet, check on Netflix, or play one of their dozens of games.

Now, unfortunately, to have access to anything that requires the internet, you're gonna have to pay extra for their streaming services, which is gonna cost you $9.99 a month. Now, personally, I wish I had the option just to be able to tether my phone data with the car and let that be that. After all, if I could do that with my laptop, I should be able to do that with the car, but nope! Tesla wants you to pay more for that.

Now do I think it's worth the extra cost? And the answer is: well, if you spend a lot of time parked in your car just sitting there waiting at Superchargers, then yes, it's probably worth it. Otherwise, I have a feeling it's probably way cheaper and just as good to watch whatever you want from your phone or from your iPad instead. I also really wish one day they would be able to split the screen so that your passenger could stream something on the right of the screen and then you would have the left for navigation and whatever you want to do with the car.

Ideally, at some point in the future, I would love to see the touchscreen customizable, similar to the iPhone, where you could go and rearrange the icons as you want, but until then, we're going to be stuck with some features that take a bit too long to get to, like opening the glove box. To be able to do that, you have to go and press this button, and then you could open the glove box.

But if I had it my way, I would probably just put that button on the lower right-hand side of the screen, and that's it. Besides that, though, the interior of the car is great. The audio quality is superb, the seats are incredibly comfortable, the heated seat option turns on nearly instantaneously, there's plenty of storage throughout the entire center console, and it just feels like rather high-quality materials.

The panoramic sunroof is also really cool to see, but unfortunately, you don't really notice it when you're driving, and it's mostly the benefit for the backseat passengers, of which I don't really have any backseat passengers, but I'm sure it would be pretty fun if you ever wanted to take this camping and you could go and stargaze from the roof.

As far as actually driving the car is concerned, I absolutely love it. The steering is incredibly responsive, it's got a lot of power to it, and even though this is not the highest-end model, it's a lower-end one, the power is pretty instantaneous. You barely hear any road noise, everything is fairly well insulated, and if you're used to a gasoline-powered car, it takes some time to get used to, but after a while, it's just peaceful and relaxing.

The autopilot feature is also invaluable. I use this religiously on long highway trips, and it completely gets rid of that driver's fatigue you normally feel after a few hours of driving with this. The car stays in its lane, you can set your max speed, and that's it. It's incredibly easy to use, and after a few months, I probably trust it more than most people's driving. Let's be real, but the autopilot does have a bit of a dark side, and for that, I'm gonna go to my office to explain.

As it is right now, the full self-driving autopilot feature costs $7,000, up from $5,000 when I originally purchased the car, and Tesla has made it very clear that they intend to continually raise the price of this feature the longer you wait to buy it, which is just a heads up for all of you Tesla owners out there—it's soon going to be costing you $8,000 beginning July 1st, so just be warned.

Anyway, this full autopilot feature should eventually allow you to fully experience autonomous driving, meaning you could just get in the car, type in a destination, and then the car magically drives itself to your destination without you having to do a single thing. That seems really cool, right? Well, my issue with this is that there's no guaranteed time frame as to when any of this is actually going to be available.

As it is right now, you pay $7,000 for this feature, and then in return, your car gets the added benefits of being able to navigate highways slowly, find you in a parking lot, and then park itself. For most people, I'm not sure that's worth $7,000, but the hope is that one day the car is going to be able to drive itself without you needing to do a single thing. And when that's the case, $7,000 is going to be a bargain.

The problem with this, though, like I just said, is that no one knows when it's going to be available. It was originally promised that full city street driving would be available by the end of 2019, but obviously that didn't happen, and we could very well be years away from this becoming a fully functioning feature, which means you're basically lending Tesla $7,000 for a feature that you have no idea when you're actually going to be able to use for the promise that one day it's going to be functional.

And my fear is that maybe Elon Musk is not so accurate with these time frames. Remember how we talked about the Tesla Roadster becoming available in 2020? Well, it's not going to be happening now for another few years. Or remember how we said there's going to be a monthly raffle to give away a brand new Tesla Model Y or Tesla Roadster when you referred people who also bought a Tesla? Well, I haven't heard a single word about that or a mention of anyone winning in over a year.

So, as much as I love Tesla and Elon Musk, there seems to be a whole bunch of empty promises here with a very fluid timeline of things that may or may not happen that's constantly changing. For me, I just don't see the point in plunking down so much money for something that's not fully available yet, like a $50,000 deposit for a Tesla Roadster or $7,000 for an autopilot feature.

But you can't deny that his pricing structure is genius. For Tesla, it's pretty much free money, and since he controls the price of the autopilot feature, he could essentially keep Tesla cars from depreciating in value by raising the price of the autopilot feature, thereby keeping up resale values of Teslas, so people will continually just go and buy a new car. After all, why would you go and spend $30,000 on a used Tesla Model 3 when you could just go and buy a brand new one for not that much more and get state rebates back on top of it?

It's so smart. This is partially why he could lower the MSRP of the Tesla Model 3 by $2,000, and lower the price of the Model S and X by $5,000, and then simultaneously raise the price of the autopilot feature to compensate for that. You gotta hand it to them; it's genius. This is really good for people who own a Tesla because this means their cars are gonna retain a little bit more value, and it's good for him because he could upcharge on features and get everyone in at a lower price, and I think this is why Tesla is selling so well.

This is also the only car that just gets better the longer you own it. As weird as it is to say, Tesla constantly releases updates every month or so that improve the features of the car, that increase its mileage, that maximize its speed, and they're constantly optimizing. However, if I were to do it all over again, I probably should have opted for the long-range model instead.

See, every now and then I make the occasional road trip of a few hundred miles in each direction, and when that happens, I have to spend an extra maybe hour to two hours per trip just stopping and charging, so having that little bit of extra range would have definitely saved me a lot of time on trips like that. I also really wish I had opted for the white interior instead. I think initially I was worried about the white seats becoming dirty, and when it came down to it, I didn't want to spend $1,500 extra, so I just went with the standard black option instead.

But looking back, the white interior is just so cool and it's so symbolic of Tesla, and I should have done it. As far as everything else, I think I've just had really good luck in terms of this car and with Tesla. For example, I invested in Tesla stock when it was $260 a share because when I took delivery of the car, I just became such a huge fan of the company that I figured an investment in the company would be a good idea.

Never did I expect that to actually reach almost $1,000 per share, and that led me to selling off half my position at just above $900. So that, in a sense, helped pay for the car. The first YouTube video I made on this car breaking down the cost also happened to make over $55,000 in ad revenue, which also means it happened to pay for the car in its entirety, which is crazy! And I think that turned this Tesla into my single best purchase ever.

None of that was intentional, but wow, Tesla has been fantastic to me, and I am now forever loyal to the brand. But as with anything, there are certainly aspects with this that can be improved, and I'm sure with time things will get better. And of course, like buttons will be smashed for the YouTube algorithm.

So with that said, you guys, thank you so much for watching. I really appreciate it. As always, if you have not already subscribed, make sure to destroy the subscribe button and the notification bell. Also, feel free to add me on my second channel, The Graham Stephan Show. I post there every single day I'm not posting here. So if you want to see a brand new video from me every single day, make sure to add yourself to that.

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