This beautiful white Tesla Model 3 is the secret “off-menu” base Model 3, and it’s the most affordable Tesla ever made. My wife and I visited beautiful sunny California thanks to Canossa Events and Travel Paso who helped put on a 5-day Electric Vehicle grand tour in Paso Robles, California. For this trip I rented this Tesla Model 3 on Turo, not knowing that it was the $35,000 Standard Range base Model 3. It doesn’t have Autopilot. It doesn’t have traffic-aware cruise control. It’s very bare-bones and it’s something I’ve been wanting to try for a long time to see if it’s actually worth the money. The reason this is the secret Tesla is because it’s not available to order online at Tesla.com like all the other Tesla vehicles. You have to actually make a special request for this Model 3. In this video I’m going to give you my thoughts on what it’s been like to travel 1,000 miles in the cheapest Tesla that you can buy right now.
Full Screen Media Streaming
Some video streaming apps like YouTube and Netflix are already built into the Tesla touch screen, but if you want to stream a wider variety of video streaming apps like ESPN, Disney+, and your own Plex server go ahead and bookmark this site: ABetterTheater.com. This will let you stream from these sites in full screen mode. Of course you need to be in Park for this to work.
Tesla Waze App
Another site you should bookmark is TeslaWaze.azurewebsites.net. This is a cool site that replicates the best features of the Waze navigation app that Tesla’s built in navigation system lacks such as alerts, road closures, police, and other hazards. It also has a setting that shows you weather and radar in case you are on a trip and want to be as prepared as possible to avoid range anxiety and getting a speeding ticket.
Secret Autopark
If you have Enhanced Autopilot or Full Self Driving option, you can do a secret Autopark by pressing the Park button twice (located on the right stalk) to enter Autopark. Now you can choose the car to go forward or reverse and you can exit the vehicle while the car will automatically back up or move forward slowly to park into a tight space while you’re not in the car.
Blind Spot Camera
Since Tesla lacks the typical blind spot lights on the side mirrors, if I’m about to change lanes or merge I like to tap the camera icon to reveal the backup camera since Tesla recently allows you to swipe up to reveal both blind spot cameras as well. This helps me see if anyone is in my blind spot. I’m hoping Tesla releases a future software update that automatically brings up the blind spot camera when the turn signal is initiated.
Secure Your Tesla
If you want to maximize the security on your Tesla and really lock it down, you can do two main things: First enable multi factor authentication by choosing Account in your online Tesla account then use a free 2 factor authentication app to scan the barcode. Now each time you log into your Tesla account it will ask for a one time code that gets sent to your phone. You can also add a layer of security to your Tesla by enabling the PIN to drive feature which will ask for a PIN that you set anytime someone wants to drive it.
Keyless Driving
Let’s say you are away on vacation and your Tesla is back at home and you need a neighbor to move your Tesla into the garage because a storm is coming, well you can go onto your Tesla app and choose Start under the Controls section and it will unlock your Tesla and allow anyone to start driving it within a 2 minute countdown which can be very useful in certain situations.
Joe Mode
If you don’t like how loud the chimes and alerts are when driving you can enable Joe Mode and it will make the audible alerts a little quieter in case you have a sleeping baby or frightened kitty cat in the car.
Save DashCam Clip
Enable honk to save dash cam clips so that if or when something bad happens while you’re driving you can quickly honk and it will save the footage to your DashCam drive in case you need it for insurance or legal purposes.
Cancel Turn Signal
To cancel your turn signal instead of pushing it the opposite direction, just tap it once in the same direction. This helps you avoid the annoying situation of signing left, then trying to cancel by signaling right, but really that causes you to signal right, and you flip it left, and now you’re in a never ending cycle of doom. Just tap it in the once in the same direction to cancel.
Navigation Zoom In/Out
After you’ve entered a destination into the navigation, you can tap on the navigation title to quickly zoom in or out to see the entire route or go back into the condensed view.
Voice Commands
Voice commands got a lot better last year so now you can do more with voice commands so if you want do something, first try to see if there’s a voice command for it by pressing the right scroll wheel button and saying the command. It works on things you may have not thought worked. You can do things like turn on seat heaters, set the temperature, open glove box, and open the web browser.
Disengage Autopilot
To engage Autopilot we all know to double tap down on the right stalk, but not everyone knows there are multiple ways to disengage autopilot. You can either press the brake, turn the steering wheel with enough force, or my personal favorite simply tap up on the right stalk to disengage autopilot.
Upgrade DashCam
If you didn’t know by now, you can insert a USB drive into the console area and your Tesla will record clips from its external cameras acting like a security surveillance system for your Tesla. But if you want to do it the best way, get the Jeda USB hub that allows your flash drive to be hidden behind a magnetic lid so that nobody can easily unplug your flash drive.
Share Destination
If you like to use Google Maps to look up a destination on your phone before getting into your Tesla, you can actually share the destination to your Tesla by pressing the “Share” button on your phone, then select the Tesla App icon and it’ll send the destination to your Tesla navigation system.
Parking Brake
If you’re parking on a steep hill, press and hold the Park button on the right stalk for 2 seconds to enable the emergency parking brake. A parking brake indicator will appear on your display and the brake will be set.
Model Y Hatch
If you have a low ceiling in your garage you can adjust the height of the Model Y hatch to avoid it hitting the ceiling. First open the hatch, then manually raise or lower the hatch to the desired height, then press and hold the hatch button until you hear a chime. Now it will always open to that height.
Reboot Screen: For fixing issues with your touch screen or other weird glitches like no cellular connectivity, you can try to reboot the touchscreen by pressing & holding both scroll buttons at the same time for about 5 seconds. It’ll take about a minute or so to come back up, but you can continue to drive the car while the touchscreen is rebooting.
Swipe Gestures: There are a few ways to use swipe gestures on the touch screen which is sometimes more convenient than tapping. For example, you can swipe down or right on the Navigate button to quickly navigate to whatever address you have saved for work and home. So if you’re at home and you swipe it will navigate to work and vice versa. Also to remove previous destinations just swipe right on the address to delete it from the list. If you swipe up on App Switcher it will bring up the last app that was opened. Swiping also works on the music icon so you can swipe it to quickly move it up or down. You can also press and hold on the fan icon and move your finger left or right to easily adjust the temperature and the same with volume to increase or decrease the volume level. Another useful way to minimize the music app is to tap the album art to quickly move the music player up or down instead of tapping the music icon or swiping.
Quick Climate Control: When you enable climate control and you want to turn it off you have to press the fan then press the power button. A better way is to just hold down on the fan icon for a few seconds to turn off the climate control which is much easier than tapping if you’re driving. Also if you enable the defroster or defogger while climate control is off, once you’re done with it if you press the button again it leaves the climate control on which is annoying. So instead you can just hold down on the fan icon when you’re done defrosting or defogging to turn off everything to save you from tapping multiple times and to help you maximize your range efficiency if you don’t need the climate control to stay on.
Accurate Projected Range: Your battery’s rated range is always displayed by the battery icon, but for a more accurate estimation of your projected range, bring up the energy app and tap on Average Range and select 30 miles to see your average range based on your last 30 miles. This helps you make sure you have enough range to get where you’re going especially in the winter.
Quick Speed Limit: Autopilot automatically detects the speed limit zone you’re in, and by default if you enable Autopilot it will set your speed to the speed limit, but you can go into your settings and set it to relative +5 which means Autopilot will automatically set the speed to 5 mph over the speed limit. Also when have Autopilot engaged, you can tap on the Speed Limit icon on the touch screen to set Autopilot to that speed plus your offset. You can also simply pull and hold the autopilot stalk to quickly revert to the new speed limit.
Quick Set Speed: The scroll wheels can adjust your set speed (1 notch for 1 mph or a quick scroll for 5 mph). However, when you’re on cruise control or Autopilot and you manually accelerate up to a certain speed you can do a quick scroll up on the right scroll wheel and instead of increasing by 5 mph it will actually set your cruise speed to whatever speed you’re at when you do the quick scroll.
Autopilot Alert Dismiss: If Autopilot doesn’t detect a hand on the wheel it will eventually alert you to nudge the wheel to make sure you’re still paying attention, but instead of nudging the wheel you can also toggle or press either of the scroll wheel buttons to quickly dismiss the Autopilot alert.
Safe Park
As a safety measure if you open the driver door while the car is in Drive the car will automatically put itself in Park to prevent accidental acceleration or rollaway.
Open Charge Port
It may seem obvious to some of you, but not everyone knows that you can open your charge port by pressing the button on the mobile connector cable. This also works using Supercharging cables.
Quick Gear Shift: To shift into reverse when you’re in drive (or vice versa) you don’t have to press the brake as long as you’re going 5 mph or under. So you can easily shift between Drive and Reverse which comes in handy when you’re doing a 3 point turn or pulling in and out of parking spots.
Windshield Wipers: It’s a little scary to try to enable the wipers from the touch screen when a downpour hits. An easier way is to press windshield wiper button on the left stalk to bring up the wiper icon on the touch screen then tapping the windshield wiper button on the touch screen. What I would love to see in a future software update is the ability to double-press the wiper button on the left stalk to enable the wipers at slow speed or triple-press the wiper button to enable wipers at high speed. This would save us from ever having to worry about looking down at the touch screen during a downpour of rain.
Autopilot Tip: To avoid being alerted by Autopilot about grabbing the wheel, try to set your steering wheel and seat position in such a way that you can comfortably rest each of your elbows on either side and rest your hand on the bottom left or right part of the steering wheel to satisfy Autopilot while also being the most comfortable. Once you’ve found the best position save your driver profile settings.
Priority Device
If you have two driver profiles tied to two different phones such as me and my wife – we both drive my Model 3. Well, if we’re together I’m usually driving but sometimes the Tesla defaults to her phone which causes the seat and steering wheel to change to her positions instead of mine. To fix this you can set a priority device so that if the Tesla recognizes both phones it will prioritize one over the other.
One of the cool things about Tesla is that they don’t have “model years”. They’re constantly updating their cars, mostly through software updates, but sometimes they’ll do “refreshes” to a car’s interior or physical design elements. The Tesla Model 3 is getting its very first refresh coming soon in 2020 or 2021 with 8 big changes that you should know about.
Center Console 2.0
The original Model 3 center console has a glossy piano black surface and is divided into three separate sections with “flip up” lid designs. The newly redesigned center console almost looks like two pieces with the top section where you dock your smartphone at the top looking completely different. Tesla replaced the piano black glossy finish with a matte black finish. Instead of being a lid that flips open, it’s now a sliding door like in the Model S and Model X. It’s separated with the chrome trim now wrapping around the second section. The cup holders don’t have a chrome trim and they are located higher on the section closer to the section with an opening. The phone charger section looks like a solid piece that doesn’t flip up. It’s wrapped with fake leather and the center has what looks like a suede-like material.
Glove Box DashCam
Tesla owners can connect a flash drive to one of the USB ports in the center console to enable Sentry Mode and TeslaCam, the automaker’s dashcam feature, which will capture footage from the exterior cameras. In the new 2021 Model 3 refresh Tesla has updated the glovebox to now get a USB port on the top left corner of it. The new port is going to connect to Tesla’s MCU and enable Tesla owners to connect a USB drive in order to record Sentry Mode and TeslaCam events. Recently, Tesla pushed a software update with a new feature called ‘Glovebox PIN’. In Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, there is no physical button to open the glovebox and drivers have to open it through a command on the center touchscreen. With the new feature, anyone is required to enter a PIN code to open the glovebox. Combining the updated 2021 Model 3 design with this new features results in Tesla owners now being able to secure their Sentry Mode/TeslaCam storage device in a locked glovebox.
Heat Pump & Octovalve
Tesla Model Y features a brand new heat pump and octovalve that may be coming to the newly refreshed Model 3. The heat pump and octovalve work together to maximize the efficiency of the vehicle’s thermal systems, thus improving range especially in cold temperatures.
Automatic Trunk
The Model 3’s trunk will supposedly get converted from a manual trunk to a powered automatic lift gate trunk. It’s similar to what Model Y has except the trunk in the Model 3 will not be a hatchback style – it will stay a trunk style opening but will have the ability to open and close automatically.
New 19” Sport Wheels
Tesla looks to have updated the design of the 19’’ Sport Wheels for Model 3. While the spokes are similar, the new design feature a larger rim that meets the spoke flat. The new design leaves a lot less open space in the wheel and hopefully will be a lot more aerodynamic, which improves range and efficiency.
Black Trim
Model 3 used to come with chrome trim, but in the new refresh it will come with black trim instead of chrome. Model Y comes with black trim with no chrome option so I’m assuming Model 3 will follow suit.
Interior & Windows
There’s also rumored to be a slightly darker material for the new upholstery in the Model 3. Tesla also changed the windows with a new double-paned glass, which should help with noise and weather isolation.
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