2024 Tesla Model 3: Is this new electric vehicle too fast, too sparse and altogether too Musk?

Now look, you’ll think I did this on purpose, but honestly, it was a coincidence. As I picked up the new Tesla Model 3 to test it this week I just happened to be halfway through listening to a deeply alarming, at times hilarious and hugely revealing recent interview with Elon Musk.

Personally, I find it difficult to separate the man and the brand at the best of times (as he proudly proclaims, Tesla’s success has come without spending a dollar on advertising, but that’s because HE is a one-man advertisement) but listening to his voice coming out of the speakers of his non Apple CarPlay-equipped, minimalist-designed vehicle was somewhat surreal.

So perhaps let’s start with what I noticed before I hooked up my phone, which is that this new Model 3, thanks to a few tweaks to its lights that make them look a bit more BMW/Mazda/Euro-cool, looks better than any before it. I would even say I found it desirable/

Inside, however, I was once again moved to scream loudly by the insistence of forcing drivers to do absolutely everything through its giant screen, which you now have to use to put the Model 3 into gear, or to shift from Drive to Reverse, or into Park. This feels very stupid indeed, and someone must have realised this at the last minute as they stuck actual physical buttons up on the roof for those who hate doing it, a rare case of duplication.

The lack of any stalks on the steering wheel is yet another sacrifice at the temple of minimalism, and someone had told me that you even needed to use the screen every time you indicated, but that person was an idiot, because there are actually buttons for this on the steering wheel, and you actually get used to them quite quickly. But they’re still less practical than a simple stalk.

There’s still no head-up display, of course, so you still have to take your eyes off the road to check your speed, which is… unforgivably bad design. 

Just one thing, quickly, about driving this Model 3… does anyone else remember the mad panic about Subaru’s WRX, or long before that the GTHO Ford Falcon of yesteryear, and how fast they were? The fear campaign about how young drivers would get in them and kill everyone to death? So how is there not a panic about how staggeringly quick this Tesla is, its outrageous mid-range punch and super-car like light-switch acceleration?

Won’t someone think of the children?

But anyway, back to Elon, and his interview at the DealBook summit, in which he had the most Musk moment ever, with interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin:

Elon: “The only reason I am here, Jonathan, is because you are a friend. Like, what was my speaking fee?”

Andre Ross Sorkin: “First of all, I’m Andrew.”

Yep, that’s allegedly the brightest man in the world, and inarguably the richest, at his very sharpest. Musk went on to suggest that advertisers who were boycotting Twitter/X over his anti-semitic posts should “go f*ck themselves” and that “Earth” would blame those advertisers, not him, for sending his social-media town-square platform broke, which he predicted would happen.

What was most grating, as I sat in what could arguably described as one of his more middling achievements – sure, the world’s most profitable EV company is cool, but not as cool as carrying 80 per cent of the world’s satellites on his Space X rockets, or putting internet in the sky with Starlink, or seriously freaking out some monkeys with his Neuralink inventions (which he cheerily claims will make all of our iPhones physical extensions of our bodies/minds in the future) – was how wildly in love with himself he is.

With no hint of irony or humility, he described Teslas as “the best cars in the world” (sorry, I know it’s expensive, but the Rolls-Royce Spectre is clearly a better EV) and went on to say that, thanks to his work with EVs, he has done more for the environment “than any single human on Earth”.

All this leads me to ask the many, many people I know who love their Teslas, the classic question: “would you buy a used-car from this man?” Let alone a new one.

Tesla says 50 per cent of this updated Model 3 is new, but I say I don’t buy anything they say, because Elon Musk. It certainly doesn’t feel that new, although the screen in the rear on which your kids can watch Netflix while you drive is a winner, but the extra range, thanks to the slipperier, sexier shape, is a bonus.

I remain, as ever, staggered at how many people are willing to pay $61,900 for the Rear-Wheel Drive, or $71,900 for the Long Range AWD versions of this thing, which still has a steering wheel that feels plasticky and cheap, even if it is made unique by not having useful stalks on it. I would, honestly, say it feels like a $40k car, maybe $50k tops, but then I don’t sniff the magic dust of the brand the way many people do.

But the fact is the new(er) Model 3 is a very good car to drive. I wouldn’t say great, but definitely very good, impressive, and even exciting at times. I think the ride quality also seems slightly better than in the past, which is a good thing.

In conclusion, I would say that I admire what Tesla has achieved with the Model 3, its ability to give established car giants a kicking out on the road, where it matters, is quite something. But then, much as I find him annoying and insufferable, I can’t help admiring what Elon Musk has achieved as well. There’s no arguing that he has, for one human being, done some staggering things, and perhaps only an annoying amount of self-belief can allow someone to do that much.

And yet I simply can’t align his personal brand with mine, which is what I think you’re doing when you sign up to be a Tesla nut. Frankly, I’d rather walk.