We’ve had our 2019 Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus (SR+) since August 2019. It feels like half that long, and I hope the car can go at least twice this long. I completely forgot about doing a 6-year review of the car until Fritz Hasler published his. Thanks, Fritz. This may be a less interesting and eventful review then his, since he has racked up more than 160,000 miles on his Model 3 and I’ve logged only 61,913. But it’s another long-term review to consider. Also, frankly, almost nothing has changed since my 5-year review of the car.
Here are the core points that stand out to me, or that I think may interest people:
- As far as I can tell, the car drives like new. I don’t drive it the same any more, but I can’t tell any difference in drive quality. Regarding my change in drive style, I used to love to step on the pedal hard when leaving a red light, or just at various times for an acceleration boost, whereas now I love to just go nice and slow. Initially, I decided after burning through my first set of tires rather fast to stop using the instant torque so much. After a while, though, I just lost interest in doing so. Now I’d just rather take it chill.
- The vegan white leather seats have held up very well. We’re starting to see some signs of cracking or creasing in parts, but not to a significant degree at all. You basically have to look for them to notice. The white color has held up wonderfully even though I hardly ever clean them. On the other hand, there are a few little cloth fabric areas of the seats on the sides that look dirtier now. Newer versions of the Model 3 don’t have that fabric, probably for this reason. Though, it seems the new cheap, decontented versions of the Model 3 and Model Y bring it back again. The discoloring compared to the white vegan leather is actually one of the things that annoys me the most, because not much else has changed or looks old, but it’s again a pretty minimal thing you have to look for. Also, I can’t tell the difference between how the seats looked a year ago and now.
- There are some minor creaks and rattles at times, but those have always been part of the ownership experience. As far as I can tell, nothing has changed in that regard.
- As far as range, honestly, I don’t really pay attention to how much that has changed, so I think it’s disingenuous to do the math and write about it. It just doesn’t matter, and too many people think they need more range than they do. And far too many people are concerned about battery degradation than need to be. My patterns of driving and charging have been the same for years. I have mostly Supercharged (around 80–90%), since we’ve got a lot of free Supercharging miles from referrals (until they expire this month…). It’s much more convenient to just charge at home, but once a week I take my daughters to ice skating, and there’s a Supercharger right next to that; and I can otherwise Supercharge about once a week while doing some grocery shopping at the other nearby Supercharging station.
I’m including photos of the white vegan leather seats below, but I have to say, they make the seats look dirtier or less white than they are. Something about the shading just doesn’t seem to work well — and I tried multiple spots with different lighting. But I’m including them nonetheless.
Whether to get the white seats for a little extra money was one of the toughest decisions we made, but it was probably our best and I definitely would not change to black seats. The white seats stay much cooler and nicer in hot and sunny Florida.
As far as maintenance and repair costs, I don’t have any new ones since the 5-year review last year except that I got a nail in a tire that couldn’t simply be patched or plugged, so I had to get a new tire. So, not counting that, costs remain at $3,199.59. Across 6 years and three months, that’s $42.66 per month.
So, that’s basically my 6-year review of the car. You can read more details in my 5-year review, or other long-term review articles, but that’s the core of the story. I still love driving the car and love the minimalism of the car’s interior. I don’t love the image of the brand any longer, due to Elon Musk’s divergence into extreme right-wing politics that have harmed millions of people, but at least I bought the car long before COVID-19 before all of that stuff happened.