Half a year after I bought the domestically produced Tesla Model 3, I summarized my experience using the car in 6 points. I have mixed feelings and regret that I chose Tesla instead of Xpeng or BYD. Although Tesla's three advantages are obvious, its three major shortcomings are the pain points, and each of them is painful. I hope those friends who want to buy a pure electric car will think twice. When buying a car, you must understand its advantages and disadvantages and your actual car conditions, otherwise you will regret it!
In the current pure electric vehicle market, if you want to spend about 300,000 yuan to buy a pure electric vehicle, you can’t avoid Tesla Model 3, BYD Han EV and Xpeng P7. . These three models are comparable in terms of appearance, battery life, performance, etc., and the prices of some of their models are almost the same.
I first went to test drive the Xpeng P7 and BYD Han EV, and finally the Tesla Model 3, and finally decided to buy the Tesla Model 3. There are three main reasons why BYD Han EV and Xpeng P7 were not chosen:
1. In terms of brand influence, Tesla is more influential than Xpeng and BYD. It is undeniable that Chinese people pay more attention to the "face" factor when buying cars, and I am no exception. Tesla is like the BBA among traditional fuel car companies. It will always be more respectable to drive out.
2. In terms of assisted driving, Tesla beats BYD. BYD Han EV's assisted driving has no problem using full-speed adaptive cruise on relatively straight roads, but when encountering relatively large curves and undulating roads, it cannot recognize it and requires manual intervention. BYD Han EV's autonomous driving is driven by ICC intelligent navigation, coupled with ACC lane keeping, which combines to form L2 level autonomous driving. To be honest, it can actually only be regarded as L1.5 level. On the other hand, Tesla's Autopilot and Xpeng P7's X-Pilot 3.0 autonomous driving technology can achieve cornering and maintain distance between cars, whether in urban traffic jams or following cars at high speeds, such as when commuting to and from work. When encountering traffic jams during peak hours, turn on the assisted driving function, adjust the driving distance, and then free up your hands to check your phone.
3. I live in Nanjing. The temperature in Nanjing is still relatively low in winter, basically below zero, and the coldest time reaches about minus 10. Considering that BYD Han EV is equipped with a lithium iron phosphate blade battery, The decline in battery life in cold environments in winter is exaggerated, but the Tesla Model 3 is equipped with a ternary lithium battery, which is less affected by low-temperature environments and is more suitable for cold environments in winter.
In fact, these are all minor problems. The main reason is that Tesla’s 4S store sales business capabilities are too strong, and Tesla’s three-electric system and Autopilot automatic driving system are too impressive. As for my original budget of only 250,000 yuan, I finally paid off a loan of tens of thousands yuan and spent an additional 64,000 yuan to install the Autopilot fully autonomous driving function. It was a momentary impulse that I later regretted.
After driving the new car for more than a month, it became more and more refreshing. During the process of using the car, various problems slowly emerged. Only then did I realize that the advantages I thought before were actually not of much use. Became "tasteless". For example, in terms of power performance, compared to BYD Han EV and Xpeng P7, which are both in single-motor mode, Tesla Model 3 has the strongest performance.
Tesla Model 3: Maximum power 202kW, maximum torque 404N·m, acceleration from 0 to 100 mph in 5.3 seconds.
BYD Han EV: maximum power 163kW, maximum torque 330N·m, acceleration from 0 to 100 mph in 7.9 seconds.
Xpeng P7: Maximum power 196kW, maximum torque 390N·m, acceleration from 0 to 100 mph in 6.7 seconds.
In terms of power performance, Tesla can be said to be unparalleled, but to be honest, this kind of power performance is not useful at all for daily urban transportation. So what if it accelerates from 0 to 100 mph in 3 seconds? Isn't it still stuck on the road? This kind of dynamic performance can only be exerted under special working conditions such as race tracks and high speeds.
But we know that it is a nightmare for electric cars to run on high speeds. Driving back to your hometown during the Chinese New Year, a long-distance trip on the high speeds clearly shows the shortcomings of pure electric cars. It can be said that high speeds, air conditioning and low temperature environments are all There are problems that pure electric vehicles cannot solve so far.
I have actually planned the route before traveling. In fact, I only need to charge it once on the way to get home smoothly. But things went against his expectations. He encountered a traffic jam shortly after getting on the highway. It was okay at first, but later he found that the battery power dropped a bit quickly. In order to save power, he had to turn off the air conditioner.
On a cold winter night, I finally drove to the first charging station, only to find that I had to queue for four hours to get in. After waiting in line for four hours, when it was finally my turn to charge, I found that the charging pile was faulty and could not be charged. I had to queue up again for another good charging pile, which took me back and forth for 6-7 hours. It really confirmed the saying - "It takes an hour to charge and wait in line for half a day."
Later I learned that the battery capacity of many other brands of pure electric vehicles can reach almost 70% to 80% after charging for half an hour, while the Tesla Model 3 can even reach 50% after charging for half an hour. I couldn't get there. I waited in line for 4 hours and could only charge a small amount of electricity. I was too embarrassed to take up too much time. However, there were no Tesla Supercharging Stations on the expressway. It was really difficult to charge my car at the official charging station. Not powerful.
Because of this incident, I have never driven a pure electric car on the highway since then. Especially on holidays, there will be more congestion. I choose to drive a traditional fuel car or take the high-speed rail. travel. This means that even if pure electric vehicles have excellent power performance, they are rarely used. In fact, a pure electric vehicle with a power of 150kW is enough. More power is of little use. It is nothing more than a gimmick by car companies to increase sales.
Take my Tesla Model 3 as an example. Its sound insulation and noise reduction are really unflattering. I originally thought that pure electric vehicles would definitely be better in terms of noise than fuel vehicles of the same level. Because it has no air intake grille, the wind resistance coefficient of the entire vehicle is much lower than that of fuel vehicles of the same level, and because there is no engine, there is no engine vibration and noise. Theoretically speaking, the NVH performance of pure electric vehicles is far superior to that of fuel vehicles of the same level, but in fact this is not the case. It feels fine when driving at low speeds, but once the vehicle speed exceeds 60km/h, the noise will be doubled. Maybe it's because the environment inside the car is too quiet, so the tire noise and wind noise outside the car are particularly harsh, making me irritated.
There is also Tesla's chassis tuning, which is really not flattering. The chassis suspension is very hard, especially when driving over potholes, you can feel obvious bumps and slow down. The belt will make you jump. I really can’t understand that a car with a price of about 300,000 yuan has such poor chassis tuning. It is not as comfortable as a fuel car with a price of more than 200,000 yuan, such as the Magotan, Accord, etc., which are even better than Tesla.
Perhaps Tesla has spent money on the research of Autopilot autonomous driving technology, or perhaps Tesla is positioning itself as an electric coupe and does not put comfort first.
Among the three models: Tesla Model 3, BYD Han EV and Xpeng P7, Tesla Model 3 has the smallest size and space. We can take a look at their actual data:
BYD Han EV: length, width and height are 4980*1910*1495mm, wheelbase is 2920mm;
Xpeng P7: length, width and height are 4880*1896*1450mm, wheelbase is 2998mm;
Tesla Model 3: length, width and height are 4694*1850*1443mm, wheelbase is 2875mm.
BYD Han EV gives people the first impression of being big, and it is indeed the same. It is 4980mm long, almost 5 meters tall, more than 1.9 meters wide, and the wheelbase is more than 2.9 meters. If you follow the fuel vehicle In terms of performance, it can be considered a C-class car. It is definitely larger than the Model 3 and can compete with the Xpeng P7.
Of course, due to the structure and battery volume of electric vehicles, the space is not necessarily large due to the large vehicle. The actual space used in the vehicle is relatively average.
This space gap is quite obvious. Especially since I am over 1.8 meters tall, I dare to brake suddenly. If I am not careful, my head will hit the front windshield. If the seat is adjusted backwards A little, then the knees of the passengers in the back row will probably touch the back of the front seat, and the riding comfort will indeed be a little worse.
The temperature in most northern areas of our country is basically below -10°C, which will greatly reduce the endurance of lithium-ion batteries. I have personally verified before that in the winter when the temperature is below -10°C, the Tesla Model 3 can only run about 350 kilometers on a full charge, and that is without turning on the heating. If the heating is turned on, it cannot even run 300 kilometers.
In winter, it actually does not consume much fuel to turn on the air conditioner in a traditional fuel vehicle, because its heat comes from the engine water tank. The heat from the water tank is blown into the cab through the blower in the car. This can also It's said to be energy reuse. Electric cars are different. They have no engine and no source of heat. They can only generate heat through external heat pump equipment powered by batteries. This is a bit like our household hair dryers. This power consumption is actually very large and will It will affect your judgment of mileage data, and in serious cases it may even break down on the road.
I also did a test specifically. In a low temperature environment, about -10, the battery life of Tesla Model 3 will be reduced by about 30 kilometers overnight.
According to my actual car use, the daily power consumption for 100 kilometers in the city is about 13 kWh, while the power consumption for 100 kilometers of high-speed driving exceeds 16 kWh. In other words, from my personal car use, I found that , high-speed driving consumes nearly 3 kilowatt hours more electricity than driving in the city for 100 kilometers. This does not include the additional consumption of air conditioning. If the heating is turned on in winter, the power consumption will increase sharply. I roughly calculated that it is close to 3 kilowatt hours of electricity per hour.
So as far as current battery technology is concerned, although the cruising range has been increased a lot, there are still problems with battery attenuation and motor power consumption characteristics. Daily urban transportation is still very comfortable. If you want to travel long distances on the highway, or the city is in the cold north, then when buying a pure electric car, you still have to think twice about the actual use needs.
Let’s take a look at Tesla’s proud selling point of Autopilot autonomous driving technology. Due to limited conditions during the test drive, we did not fully experience all its functions. Later, during actual use, I found that it was unable to make correct judgments in many situations, such as:
1. Once when I was at the entrance of a highway ramp, a car cut into my lane from in front of me, and the car under Autopilot control did not Slow down, and for safety reasons, I immediately took over the car;
2. On urban roads, I turned on the turn signal, but the car did not change lanes. In order to avoid affecting the driving of the cars behind me, I selected
3. Once on the highway, I turned on the car-following mode. After the car in front changed lanes, there was no car in the lane in front of me, and then the car started to accelerate under the control of Autopilot. , at this time, a car suddenly cut in from the right lane, and my car did not slow down immediately. For safety reasons, I took over the car.
It can be seen from the above three times that a car cutting into my lane ahead and unsuccessful lane change were the main reasons for me to take over. The complexity of the situation is likely to be that the rear of the vehicle in front does not fully enter the sensor's sight, so the vehicle cannot be recognized in time. Autopilot's response is not very rapid when dealing with the situation of the vehicle ahead cutting in, but it does not rule out the possibility of braking at close range.
In addition to functional implementation, I also have a few questions about driving comfort:
1. Lane changing is not smooth enough. The steering wheel's rotation range is stiff when changing lanes, and the ride experience is more obvious with shaking, which is not as comfortable as cutting at a small angle.
2. Decision-making is not straightforward enough. During a lane change, the left lane change function was successfully activated, but after hesitating and pausing at the left lane line, it gave up and returned to the center of the lane again.
I speculate that the reason is that a Jinbei on the left rear showed no signs of slowing down and entered the sensor detection range.
After using Tesla’s assisted driving several times, I no longer dare to use it in slightly more complicated road conditions. I can only say that the more than 60,000 yuan spent is really a waste. For your own safety, you should not rely too much on assisted driving, otherwise it will not only be a matter of repairing the car, but also "repairing people".
1. Passive security configuration.
In terms of passive safety configuration, BYD Han EV can be said to crush Tesla Model 3. Han EV not only has rear side airbags and knee airbags, but also has passive pedestrian holographic features as standard. Protection system. When a vehicle collides with a pedestrian, this system can use active and passive technologies to promptly decelerate and stop, move the hood up, and install energy-absorbing materials to minimize the damage caused to pedestrians by the collision.
The standard model of Model 3 only has 6 airbags. It can be said that in terms of safety configuration, Han EV ensures the life safety of drivers, passengers and pedestrians outside the vehicle to the greatest extent.
2. Assisted driving configuration.
In terms of assisted driving configuration, Han EV has more functions than Model 3 such as lane keeping assist, 360-degree panoramic imaging, road traffic sign recognition, automatic parking, and reversing side warning.
In daily life, functions such as road traffic sign recognition are of little use and are considered useless products. However, when there are many cars, narrow roads or narrow parking spaces, 360-degree panoramic images and reversing side warnings This function can help drivers observe the surrounding conditions in real time and effectively avoid scratches. Even if it is sandwiched between two cars, the automatic parking function is very convenient for parking in and out of narrow spaces. On the other hand, the entry-level Model 3 is only equipped with a reversing camera, which is a bit shabby for a model priced at more than 200,000 yuan.
3. Comfort configuration.
In terms of comfort configuration, the advantages of BYD Han EV are even more obvious. The panoramic sunroof of the Model 3 cannot be opened, but the openable panoramic sunroof equipped with the Han EV will obviously bring better ventilation. Han EV also has some unique configurations, such as: 220V power supply, passenger seat ventilation function, multi-layer soundproof glass in the front row, etc.
Not only that, Han EV also takes good care of rear passengers, such as: ventilation function, rear seat heating, rear boss button, rear seat electric adjustment and other configurations to provide rear seats Passengers are provided with a comfortable riding environment and will not feel too tired even if they ride for a long time. If you have a lot of money, you can also choose rear massage seats.
In addition to better ride comfort, the Han EV is also equipped with a rear multimedia control system for rear passengers. Rear passengers can adjust the temperature, multimedia tracks, and volume through the touch screen on the center armrest without driver operation, which improves travel safety to a certain extent. Although it is a family car, the Han EV can bring an executive-level riding experience to rear passengers, and this series of features are not available in the Model 3.
4. In terms of vehicle warranty.
BYD Han EV’s warranty policy is: The first individual owner (non-operator) of Sandian has a lifetime warranty, while the warranty policy for the entire vehicle is that the entire vehicle warranty period is 6 years or 150,000 kilometers. For the three-electricity system, BYD has provided Han with a lifetime warranty, which is very rare among all new energy vehicle companies. It also shows that BYD is very confident in its three-electricity products.
Looking back at the warranty policy of the domestic Tesla Model 3: its warranty policy is different from the different versions of the car. The low-end version is 8 years or 160,000 kilometers, and the high-end version is 8 years or 160,000 kilometers. It’s 192,000 kilometers.
Just imagine, if the service life of the car exceeds 8 years or 160,000 kilometers, then if the battery pack fails or the cruising range drops to affect the normal car experience, then you may need to replace the battery. . Replacing a power battery is not cheap.
For a new energy pure electric vehicle, the cost of the power battery accounts for about 40% of the entire vehicle. The manufacturing cost of the power battery is approximately 1,100 to 1,300 yuan/kWh. The actual price sold to users is Around 1,500 to 1,700 yuan/kWh, the price difference in the middle is the manufacturer’s profit. Take the domestically produced Tesla standard range rear-drive upgraded version as an example. Its battery capacity is 55/kWh, so replacing a complete power battery will cost at least 82,500 yuan.
When you see the price of this battery, you are probably not willing to replace it at all, right? After all, the value retention rate of new energy vehicles is extremely low. Not to mention whether any second-hand car dealers are willing to accept an 8-year-old pure electric vehicle, even if they accept it, it is probably not worth the price of a brand new power battery.
At this point, looking at some domestic new energy car companies, they have done better. As long as they are the first car owners, they basically have a lifetime warranty on the three electric vehicles.
Tesla has certain advantages in terms of power performance, assisted driving technology, brand influence, and driving quality, but in other aspects, it lags behind domestic independent brands. Especially after its localization, in order to further reduce costs, all aspects of the car were reduced. The interior was so crude that it was impossible to look directly at it, and the quality control was not as good as before. Even Musk himself publicly admitted that Tesla There are quality control issues.
In terms of appearance, interior, functional configuration, charging efficiency, vehicle system, cost performance and other aspects, it seems a bit lacking in sincerity. These more intuitive car experiences are far inferior to those of domestic independent brands.
In short, if you have plenty of money and pay more attention to "face" when buying a car, then there is no problem in choosing Tesla. If you consider more comfort, cost-effectiveness and follow-up maintenance In terms of economy, it would be better to choose domestic independent brands such as BYD, Xpeng, and NIO.