Tesla’s popular Model 3 gets a major mid-life update, but it remains a polarising choice, especially with a significant change inside

2023 Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD

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Launched: October 2023 – Price S$119,953 without COE (December 2023)
Four-door, medium sedan, five seats
490hp, dual motor electric drive, 14.9kWh/100km, 629km range

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PROS
Excellent ride and handling balance
Massive step up in quality

CONS
Minimalist interior not to everyone’s liking

SINGAPORE

Let’s get the good news out of the way first: the updated Tesla Model 3 is great to drive. Well, great in the enthusiast sense anyway, with remarkable balance and poise in its handling, allied with pin-sharp steering, excellent stability, and a reasonably cosseting ride. Add in the fact that the Long Range All Wheel Drive (AWD) version here has nearly 500 horsepower and a generous 590Nm of torque, and you can almost consider the Model 3 a sports car even.

But, and there is always a but with Tesla, if you’re talking about driving in the regular, mundane sense, then there are some things that you ought to note. For sure, driving a Tesla is always going to be a unique experience, given that the company prides itself on its disruptive nature, and insists on doing things differently from most carmakers.

In the updated Model 3, the most striking thing now is the absence of any interior stalks whatsoever. The indicators are now buttons on the steering wheel, and the wipers, well, you’ll have to activate them from the touchscreen. As are pretty much all the other functions really, such as adjusting the mirrors, steering wheel position, and even putting the car in gear.

It sounds a bit ridiculous, and in some ways it is, but the touchscreen-intensive user experience isn’t really a new thing for Tesla, given that they’ve been in place since the pre-facelift Model 3. It’s just that in this iteration, Tesla appears to have taken that to the extreme, exterminating any form of physical controls in the car as much as possible.

There are a handful of fail safes, such as the backup drive selector located up on the roof(!) where the cabin lights are, and the windows and doors remain operable by switches. But for everything else, you are at the mercy of the touchscreen, leaving you with the hope against hope that they remain reliable and not decide to one day go kaput, resulting in a very expensive brick.

For some, that’s a reasonable price to pay for what is otherwise a pretty well-sorted car. As mentioned in the opening paragraph, the Model 3 is actually quite fun to drive, even if we didn’t get to fully exploit the car’s full performance during our very short test drive of a couple of hours, and especially since the press car was speed limited to 100km/h. But just based on brief impressions alone, the Model 3 certainly ranks highly in the driving enjoyment stakes, which is not something you can say for many electric vehicles (EVs) these days.

Cosmetically, the updated Model 3 looks mostly the same, with the obvious visible difference being the slimmer headlights up front, and the redesigned rear with new taillights and the name ‘Tesla’ spelt out across the boot lid, instead of the stylised ’T’ logo from before. It does give the car a slightly sleeker, sportier look, but it’s the kind of changes that you’ll be hard-pressed to tell at first glance unless you’re really observant.

Probably the most significant difference though, aside from the deletion of physical controls, is the massive step up in build quality. Compared to the previous car, and the Model Y SUV, the new Model 3 feels like a huge upgrade, both in terms of material quality and fit and finish. It’s not quite luxury car level as yet, but at least it doesn’t feel like it’s been put together with parts purchased from Taobao.

We’ve driven the Model 3’s (slightly) larger SUV sibling too, the Model Y

It does augur well for Tesla, and certainly there are many good things going for the Model 3. But its approach to minimalism may not be quite to everyone’s tastes. Still, considering the strong demand for the car, it appears that the touchscreen-everything approach does have its appeal. Some people will get used to it, some people won’t. But that’s always been the ethos of Tesla anyway: not everybody will like it, but you gotta respect its technological prowess and sheer gumption of it all.

Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD

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