Tesla Model 3 Performance 2019 first drive

There's no instrument panel or head-up display, with the car’s instruments instead being displayed on the nearer third of the central touchscreen. We’d certainly rather have a speedometer, a speed limit display, a gear selector instrument and some indication of battery energy consumption displayed closer to the natural line of sight, but you do get used to finding the information you need after a while.

That said, some secondary controls are needed so often that they really do merit their own button, knob or bit of dashboard real estate: electric mirror adjusters, steering column adjusters, volume control, climate control and the like.

In some cases, Tesla makes dual use of fittings to give you the one-touch control you imagine you’ve been denied; the gear selector stalk doubles as the adaptive cruise control, for example. But even so, you’d say an interior like this, undoubtedly of better perceived quality than Tesla owners might expect but slightly bare and featureless, feels a bit empty and bereft. And when that fact hurts usability, why tolerate it?

Perhaps because you’re in love with the way the Model 3 drives? You might well be. Compared with wider Model 3 specification, the Performance gets lowered steel-coil suspension, 20in wheels, upgraded brakes and specially developed Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres. That’s on top of a powertrain with four driven wheels, 444bhp and 471lb ft of torque from the word go.

Even in a car weighing more than 1.8 tonnes, it’s enough to make for a lasting crick in the neck when you dive deep into the accelerator pedal’s travel at low speeds. Yet it’s not that ability that leaves the most lasting impression about the Performance. In fact, you barely need to tip into the accelerator to feel what it does best.

Even if you’re used to the instantaneous way a good modern electric car responds to throttle inputs and the uncanny feeling of linearity of control they give you over the rate of forward progress, the Performance will be a step up. It has two driving modes: Sport and Chill (the second no doubt christened for the approval of the Instagram generation). And in Sport, it has the kind of throttle response that would come as a surprise even to the owner of a Porsche 918 Spyder.

From low speeds, it’s almost too responsive: you have to use your big toe gingerly to avoid inadvertently activating the stability control away from T-junctions or finding yourself executing improvised overtaking manoeuvres when all you had planned was a nip into a lull on the dual carriageway.

At urban speeds, the Performance stands ready for gaps and opportunities you probably won’t even perceive, never mind contemplate taking. Compared to a modern combustion-engined car when reacting to a green light – wasting time, turn after turn, as its engine restarts, its crankshaft spins up, its transmission locks up, its turbos spool up and then it finally delivers the thrust you asked for three or four seconds ago – it’s off like a startled greyhound barely an instant after you’ve realised that your right foot has begun to move.

Up to about 50mph, it feels quite brutal at full power: supercar-fast without question but different in its synapse-quick responsiveness and uncanny seamlessness. But from there on, as the directly driven motors drop away from peak torque, its outright potency gets easier to deploy and process. Up to everyday motorway speeds, it still feels really muscular and properly sporting under your foot. Above that, the car apparently can go on all the way to 162mph, but we're not sure there are Superchargers close enough even on German autobahn to encourage us to witness the car’s ability to drain its battery at that sort of lick.

While we’re on the subject, the Model 3's range doesn’t seem to be quite what the WLTP tests suggest, but it’s still pretty good. The best energy efficiency we saw over a couple of days of testing was the equivalent of 3.9 miles per kWh. So, driving like a saint with an aversion to more than 45mph, you might just get 300 miles out of a charge. Driving more typically, in mixed urban and out-of-town use and enjoying a biggish lug of power every now and again, you’ll get more like 2.8 miles per kWh, giving you 210 miles between charges.

From the longer-range derivatives, you might do 10-20% better. Even so, that’s similar to what you get from the Jaguar I-Pace and slightly less than from the Hyundai Kona Electric and Kia e-Niro. Not quite market-leading stuff, then, and certainly not paradigm-shifting in the way the Model S once was.

It’s also perhaps not the sort of electric autonomy that would have you disappearing in search of great driving roads at the weekend or taking the long way home. But if you did, you would find the Model 3 Performance handles well. It rides comfortably and handles keenly, in both cases better than either Model S or Model X manage, even if it feels rather like a heavy car doing an impression of a light one.

It doesn’t roll too much, but you sit higher in it than you’d like to, at greater altitude above the roll axis, and are therefore more aware of every degree of lateral lean. The car tries to cover for its weight with quick steering (two turns between locks) and by limiting torque at an axle that’s running short of grip, thereby helping to rotate itself in corners. It works well enough up to a point, and the car feels grippy, accurate and well-contained on a smooth surface.

The dynamic picture deteriorates a bit when the suspension has to deal with bumps as well as bends, though, when outright body control becomes poorer. It’s also a shame the steering isn’t more naturally weighted and doesn’t better connect you with the front contact patches. As it is, it feels anodyne and lifeless. 

These are the reasons the Performance eventually comes up short as a driver’s car – those, at least, combined with an electric powertrain that excites at first like an intravenous drug but might be less absorbing than a great combustion engine in a more lasting and meaningful sense. Assuming that comparison is an any way relevant, of course, and it may very well not be to someone who wants an electric car for what they consider to be altruistic reasons.

On this evidence, the Model 3 will be well placed in the mix. It has the powertrain and the performance to stand out, technology that really distinguishes it, an interesting and fairly practical interior, access to charging infrastructure that should be the envy of most electric car drivers and a good enough range to compete - although we'll have to wait a while to be sure on that last front.

It also drives well, much as Musk might prefer Tesla owners not to be imposed upon to actually drive their cars at all, as he strives forward with development of the company’s autonomous driving technology with the kind of disruptive commitment that suggests he’ll be ahead of the curve of industry technology progress again before very long.

Until then, and with this car in particular, he’ll have to settle for a place somewhere near the front of the pack rather than being the leader of it. Luckily for the Teslarati, of course, he's not really one for settling.

Tesla Model 3 Performance specification

Where Amsterdam, Netherlands Price £62,000 (est) On sale Q2 2019 Engine Two AC electric motors Power 444bhp Torque 471lb ft Gearbox Direct drive Kerb weight 1847kg Top speed 162mph 0-62mph 3.4sec Range 330 miles (WLTP) CO2, tax band 0g/km, 16% Rivals Jaguar I-Pace, Audi E-tron