2024 Tesla Model 3 Performance review: Global launch first drive of a sickeningly good electric sports sedan

I’ve long wondered why Tesla goes to the trouble of making its cars so damn fast, and powerful, when in most cases they are bought by people who are early adopters, greenies or tech heads, rather than driving enthusiasts.

After meeting all of the top executives at Tesla not named Elon at the recent launch of the even faster and more wildly powerful Model 3 Performance, I think I finally get it.

These people, hand-picked by Musk himself, are all serious car nuts, the kind of people “who look forward to getting up early on a weekend, just to go for a drive on your favourite roads”. Indeed they chose some of those roads, twisting up and down the canyons around Malibu, just north of Los Angeles, to launch the new Performance model, a car they describe as “a canyon carver”.

READ MORE: 2024 Tesla Model 3 Long Range review: 331 reasons the dual motor is worth the extra spend
READ MORE: Supreme power! Tesla Model 3 Performance set for huge boost as reveal looms
READ MORE: Updated Tesla Model 3 electric car now on sale in Australia, bringing Project Highland updates to reality with more features, tech and EV range

When they talk about cars and what they want from them, these guys reference old BMW M3s and Porsche 911s. These are the kinds of driver’s cars they wanted to emulate with their newest, and arguably purest and most focused, sports car, the Model 3 Performance.

Their goal with this speed freak of an EV was to “break out from linear performance and straight-line speed” and to create a car “that’s seriously fun to drive, not just a one-trick pony”.

They say this is the Performance version of the Model 3 they always wanted to build, one that is properly differentiated from the base model, both visually and in an engineering sense.

“Customers appreciated the incremental performance they got from the last version, but they told use they wanted more, so we felt the time was right to come back to this Performance car, because we’re enthusiasts, too, we love driving, and we were itching to unlock the potential that was in the platform all along,” as one senior Tesla engineer put it.

So that meant more torque, an entirely new power unit on the rear axle, new, sportier seats and the fitting of Active Suspension on a Model 3 for the first time. Oh, and a highly adjustable Track mode, because they really want you to take it to circuits and set your pants, and tyres, on fire.

It was with some excitement, then, and just a little trepidation, that I set out to fire the Model 3 Performance up and down and over a canyon or two.

2024 Tesla Model 3 price and equipment

It took quite some time for Tesla to decide on the price of the new Model 3 Performance, and no doubt it might change again in the next week or so, because that’s what they do, but while I was waiting for a number I did speculate that it would surely be more than $100k.

It was with genuine shock, then, that I learned this mega-powerful monster will be available in Australia “from” just $80,900 before on-road costs.

That’s less than half what a Porsche Taycan starts at, and well below another obvious competitor in the shape of Hyundai’s $111,000 Ioniq 5 N.

In terms of features, of course, you’re getting what you get in a Model 3 already, but with rocket boosters, some carbon bits and a Track mode that you’ll need a degree in F1 engineering to operate properly.

2024 Tesla Model 3 Performance: What we think

Say what you like about Tesla – and personally I like to say quite a lot – but when this company throws itself at an idea, it really goes flat out, kitchen sink and all (try not to think about Elon walking into Twitter with a sink in his hands to make a stupid joke, yes, that really did happen).

Apparently last time the engineers tried to make a Performance version of Model 3, there were some “discussions with a guy called Elon” who wanted to focus on other things, like ramping up production and increasingly quality, so “adding complexity was a hard conversation”. 

In short, last time he wouldn’t let his speed-crazed lunatics go all out with the Performance, but now that they see themselves as on top of the other issues, he’s let them run wild.

That means a vehicle with a new Performance 4DU – an all-new drive unit – unlocking 22 per cent more continuous power, 32 per cent more peak power and 16 per cent higher peak torque delivery. If you’ve ever driven the previous Model 3 Performance and had your face stoved in by its acceleration, try to imagine adding 33 per cent more power and a solid smack more torque to the experience.

I don’t have to imagine it, because I tried to drive it, and not only did it get me a speeding fine the very first time I touched the throttle (“I swear, Mr California Highway Patrol Man, I was doing 50mph half a second ago, and then you saw me doing 68mph – don’t ask me how, ask the car”) but its acceleration regularly made me feel quite ill. 

I thought it was just me, but the videographer in the passenger seat admitted to feeling equally bilious and, as much fun as it was making the scenery go blurry by fully engaging Insane mode, it did get a bit wearing on my innards, not to mention my eyeballs and my spine.

Truly, this thing is fast, with a 0 to 100km/h time of around three seconds flat, and a surge of mid-range torque that rolls our seamlessly from low-range to high-range speeds and throttle applications. Tesla claims 380kW of power and 740Nm, but it feels like more.

You really do find yourself arriving at the next sharp, canyon corner so fast that you start to wonder if you’re having a seizure, and also to question whether the brakes are going to be up to stopping your furious progress (fortunately Tesla has upgraded its brakes to “track-ready” standard, with high-performance brake pads, and snazzy red calipers).

Being fast in a straight line is fairly standard Tesla fare, of course, and this is simply an even sillier version of that, but it’s also something more, thanks to the effort they’ve put into making it fun around corners, and potentially a hoot around race tracks.

The developers went to the trouble of staggering the car’s forged aluminium 20-inch wheels – the rear tyres are wider than the fronts – to provide shaper turn-in, and made significant changes to the chassis hardware to cope with the increased performance, with a stiffer structure, updated springs and stabiliser bars.

Aerodynamic changes are clear from the revised exterior (Tesla claims they reduced drag by five per cent, delivered a 36 per cent lift reduction, and a 55 per cent improvement in front-to-rear lift balance), while they also came up with entirely new bespoke to Tesla seats, offering far more support than the previous Performance model.

The big step up, of course, is the addition of adaptive damping, which Tesla has offered on other vehicles but never before on Model 3. This version works with the car’s Vehicle Dynamics Controller and its Track Mode to “immediately respond to driver inputs”. 

A lot more of the power is now going to the rear wheels, giving it more of an old, rear-drive BMW handling balance – or at least that’s the goal.

We were also encouraged to try Track mode (“you’re not supposed to use it on public roads, but we’d like some feedback”) which loosens up the traction software to make the Performance feel even more playful at the rear.

One clearly chuffed engineer put it to me that his goal was to make the new Model 3 Performance a more predicable car to drive, with better balance, and one that’s easier to get closer to the limit than before. He also admitted the old one was “a bit twitchy”. Not the sort of thing that people at other car companies ever own up to.

There’s no doubt that this is the best and most lively feeling Tesla I’ve driven, that it handles well, the active dampers allowing it to switch between freeway cruising and corner carving elegantly. For me, the whole experience still feels a tiny bit digital, there’s something not quite right, and certainly not quite BMW or Porsche, about the steering feel, but there’s no doubt it’s better than previous Model 3s.

The whole experience, however, is almost overwhelmed by just how absurdly, super-car powerful this machine is. If you want the ultimate in electric performance, and outright speed, the Model 3 Performance makes a powerful argument for being lined up against a Porsche Taycan, particularly when you consider the price difference, but, like all Teslas, its spartan aesthetic means it doesn’t feel Euro-spec special inside. 

2024 Tesla Model 3 Performance: Verdict

A big leap ahead from the previous Tesla Model 3 Performance, in handling and power terms, although it could certainly be argued that the previous one was already more than fast enough. Tesla enthusiasts are going to love it madly.

SCORE: 4/5.

2024 Tesla Model 3 Performance specifications:

Price: $80,900 plus on-road costs

Basics: EV, 5 seats, 4 doors, mid-sized sedan,AWD.

Range: 528km (WLTP)

Battery capacity: 82kWh

Battery warranty: 8 years/192,000km*

Energy consumption: 16.7kWh/100km

Motors: 1 front-mounted and 1 rear-mounted, 380kW/740Nm

AC Charging: 11kW, Type 2 plug*

DC charging: 250kW, CCS combo plug*

0-100km/h: 3.0 sec (est)

*Sourced from Tesla Model 3 Long Range because Tesla would not answer questions about these subjects for Model 3 Performance.