Tesla has started delivering the first Model 3 sedans to early reservation holders, and one new owner of the all-electric car has documented his experience on a cross-country jaunt. Unfortunately, he found a number of issues with the car.
The owner, You You Xue, has been documenting his experience on the Tesla Model 3 Road Trip Facebook page. He’s also giving other reservation holders a chance to drive the vehicle, which is a cool move for those who might not get their vehicle until 2019. Early on, he managed to just eke past Tesla’s reported top speed of 140 mph, and clocked in 1 mph higher.
But a number of issues have emerged with the car, which were summarized by one commenter on a Reddit thread about the extensive trip:
Problems reported here in 3 days if i’m not wrong: 1. Air bag light. 2. Tire pressure sensor. 3. Charging lid. 4. Wipers knock. 5. Music system noises. 6. Service response malfunction. 7. Loud pop in back and warning light. 8. 12v plug not working. 9. Low quality wiper blades leaving strikes. 10. Time zone recognition. 11. Mistakes in charging rates calculation. And low quality “upgraded” music system.
In one instance, he said “multiple soft resets” were necessary after experiencing several interface glitches while charging.
Controls for the steering wheel stopped working up at one point.
The back-facing camera gave an incorrect view while driving. “Camera shouldn’t be enabled while at high speeds as this just gives people a headache to watch,” one post reads.
Some of the early deliveries to Tesla employees and those close to the company required fixes, as Jalopnik reported in November, so issues in the first runs to non-employees isn’t entirely a surprise. We reached out to Tesla for comment to see what’s being done for owners who experience these problems. If we hear back, we’ll update the post.
In the meantime, if you’re interested in following along with the road trip and possibly RSVP’ing for a ride, you can find out more here. In response to Jalopnik’s request for a Model 3 to test on Thursday, the FB page for the road trip noted it’s already given 100 rides.
Correction: The original version of this post misspelled the name of the Model 3 owner. We regret this error.