The Tesla Model 3 was the UK’s the most popular electric vehicle to lease in May, according to the latest Leasing.com League Tables.
It came out ahead of other popular new electric models such as the Audi e-tron and Jaguar I-Pace, generating more personal lease enquiries within seven days than its premium rivals managed to achieve during the entire month.
Tesla Model 3 (Image: Tesla.com)
Interest in the Model 3, I-Pace and e-tron has seen EV enquiries increase 30% year on year during the first five months of 2019.
Paul Harrison, Head of Strategic Partnerships at Leasing.com, said: “The Model 3’s popularity is down to several factors, with cost being one of them.
Monthly prices for the Model 3 start at around £400 per month, which is almost half the cost of Tesla’s larger models. It also undercuts comparable EVs such as the Audi e-tron and Jaguar I-Pace.
The electric car will be available in the UK soon. We look at costs and how it compares with rivals
Launched with the intention of being Tesla’s first mass-market electric car, the new Model 3 is smaller and simpler than the other vehicles in the Californian carmaker’s stable. And according to Tesla, the new saloon is the “more affordable” of the range – though with a starting price at just under £39,000, many would query that claim.
The order book for the Model 3 officially opened at the start of May – though reservations had begun prior to that – with three versions of the car on sale, the most expensive coming in at £56,000. But change the colour from the standard black and you will have to shell out more.
Tesla Model 3 (Image: Tesla.com)
Compared with the Model S, Tesla’s flagship car, the Model 3 has slower acceleration from 0 to 60mph, a shorter range and less than 100 customisable configurations compared with more than 1,500 in the bigger car.
Interest in going electric is growing fast: research from Close Brothers Motor Finance suggests 15% more motorists are looking to buy an electric car with their next purchase compared with two years ago. And while Tesla is clearly confident about the future of the new car, expecting to ship between 360,000 and 400,000 vehicles worldwide this year, is it really an affordable option for Britons?
Tesla’s entry-level saloon starts at a whisker under £40,000
UK order books are open for the Tesla Model 3, and we finally have a price: £38,900 for the rear-wheel drive Standard Range Plus (SRP) model, inclusive of the government’s £3,500 plug-in car grant. Deliveries start in June.
Maybe not as cheap as we were initially led to believe (Tesla promised prices would start at $35,000, which in today’s money is £26,600), but not bad. For a bit of context, £38,900 is around £3,000 more than a top-spec Nissan Leaf, and about the same as a 2.0-litre petrol BMW 330i.
Tesla Model3 (Image: Wikimedia/Carlquinn)
The SRP Model 3 manages 0-60mph in 5.3 seconds, will hit 140mph and claims 258 miles of range. Next up is the Long Range model, which gets dual motors for all-wheel drive. It takes 4.5 seconds to hit 60mph, has a top speed of 145mph and costs £47,900. Finally there’s the Performance. Also dual-motor, it does 0-60mph in 3.2 seconds and tops out at 162mph. It will cost from £56,900, and has a claimed range of 329 miles.
The Tesla Model 3 is the first affordable, mass-produced model in the American manufacturer’s all-electric range, offering customers something very different from conventional rivals such as the BMW 3 Series, Audi A4, Jaguar XE and Alfa Romeo Giulia.
The Model 3 has no direct electric rivals for now; it’s more expensive than EVs like the Nissan Leaf and Hyundai Kona Electric but smaller and cheaper than the Jaguar I-Pace. It’s closer to the Jaguar in nature, however, thanks to its minimalist but luxurious high-tech interior, massive desirability and incredible performance.
The newest Tesla is a clear evolution from the design of the Model S but with extra emphasis on the amount of interior space that can be gained owing to the absence of a conventional combustion engine. This has resulted in a bonnet that is much shorter and a rear window that stretches almost to the tail, maximising room for passengers and their luggage. There are myriad clever features, from the key that’s actually your smartphone to a single-slot air-vent that can somehow adjust airflow and direction as if by magic.
Tesla Model 3 (Image: Tesla.com)
Three versions are available initially, starting with the rear-wheel drive Standard Range Plus that’s capable of 258 miles from a full charge and 0-60mph in 5.3 seconds. Long Range AWD and Performance versions gain an extra motor and four-wheel drive, giving the Performance almost supernatural acceleration – 0-60mph takes 3.2 seconds. These more expensive versions have 348 and 329 miles of range respectively.
The Model 3 Long Range AWD feels addictively fast and relaxing, thanks to near-silence from its electric motors. The car’s handling belies its weight, with excellent grip and good resistance to body roll, and the suspension is comfortable enough to allay our fears the Model 3 would feel too stiff on British roads.
Tesla’s Model 3 stormed to the top of the Western Europe battery electric car sales charts in the first quarter of 2019, outselling the second best Renault Zoe with almost twice as many sales.
This is all the more remarkable because the Model 3 was only available for sale from February, and the price of the Tesla is probably more than twice and maybe occasionally even 3 times that of the little Zoe city car.
According to data compiled by Berlin-base automotive industry analyst Matthias Schmidt www.schmidtmatthias.de, Tesla sold 19,482 Model 3s in the first quarter compared with the second placed Zoe’s 11,049 and the Nissan Leaf with 10,315.
Tesla Model3 (Image: Wikimedia/Carlquinn)
Direct competitors to the Model 3 were way off the pace, with the Jaguar I-Pace in 7th place at 3,012 and the Audi E-Tron 11th with 2,526, according to Schmidt’s data.
Schmidt said the European competition may in fact be holding back its sales because next year, European Union (EU) carbon dioxide (CO2) regulations tighten sharply. Manufacturers may want to have the biggest number of electric cars in their fleets in 2021, to bring down the average emissions, and mitigate or avoid big fines. Meanwhile, the Tesla Model 3 has the chance to rack up big sales because its all electric fleet won’t suffer fines.
Top Gear magazine has track tested the Tesla Model 3 Performance head to head against fossil fans’ favorite sports saloon, the BMW M3.
The track times were conducted on the 2 mile Thunderhill Raceway Park West circuit, with the Tesla coming in a significant 2 seconds ahead of the (more expensive) BMW. Fossils must now accept all-round inferiority in the performance realm.
Top Gear Magazine’s head-to-head also found — unsurprisingly — that the Tesla beat the BMW on pure acceleration, as well as on their 0–100–0 mph acceleration-and-braking tests. It’s worth noting also that the price of the Tesla came in at more than a thousand dollars below that of the BMW M3.
Tesla Model3 (Image: Wikimedia/Carlquinn)
A lead of almost 2 seconds on a 2 mile track (with lap times around 85 seconds in total) is significant. Both vehicles were stock without modifications, and were lapped by the same driver.
On the feel of the two vehicles around the track, the testers found that for the BMW, compared to the Tesla:
“when you floor it, the throttle response is glacial by comparison, and the accompanying racket isn’t quite as glorious as you remember — more of a distraction from listening to what the tyres are doing and getting on with the business of going fast.”
They also noted the superiority of the Tesla’s ride for normal daily driving, away from the track:
“Where the BMW’s comfort and refinement is conceded quite a bit to unlock its track potential, the Tesla is utterly uncompromised…”
A few weeks after its arrival on the old continent, the Tesla Model 3 is already becoming the best-selling electric car in several European markets.
It has now been a month since Tesla officially started Model 3 deliveries in Europe and the automaker has already delivery thousands of units in Several markets.
In Norway, Tesla delivered hundreds of Model 3 vehicles last month, but March is proving to be the month during which the Model 3 is taking over the automotive market in the country.
In the first week of March, over a thousand new Model 3 vehicles were registered in Norway — three times more than any other car.
Tesla Model3 (Image: Wikimedia/Carlquinn)
Considering that there’s another shipment of over one thousand Model 3’s expected in Norway any day now, the new electric vehicle is going to become the best-selling car in the country by a wide margin.
In Germany, which is a market where Tesla had difficulties in the past, the automaker delivered almost 1,000 Model 3 cars last month — increasing its sales by over 500% in the market.
The Netherlands has also been an important market for Tesla and with 472 Model 3’s delivered last month, it was enough for the vehicle to become the best-selling EV in the country – beating other newcomers like the Kona EV and Niro EV as well as longtime bestsellers, like the Nissan Leaf.
It was 6 weeks ago, early December 2018, that European reservation holders were asked to configure their Tesla Model 3’s.
The expectation was deliveries would begin somewhere in second half of the first quarter of 2019, but many were also doubtful of that timeline.
Last week, reservation holders received an invitation to experience the Model 3 at a local showroom. I was one of those reservation holders, and after years of reading and writing about the Model 3, after just sitting in it at the Paris Motor Show, we could not wait for the change to drive it.
Tesla Model3 (Image: Wikimedia/Carlquinn)
A small number of Model 3 Performance cars for test driving were sent ahead of the first shipload of customer Model 3’s that will arrive in early February in Zeebrugge, Belgium. Those cars arriving soon are for those who did not wait and ordered their cars untested, as will be the case for the next 2 or 3 shiploads of cars. (And as many a Wall Street analyst can explain, selling thousands of the highest trim levels sight unseen is clear proof that there is no demand for the Model 3 in Europe, but that is for another article. </sarcasm mode>)
Let us state that it is not fair to have the Long Range Performance with the Premium Upgrade Package for a test drive when your budget would really like a Standard Range basic version. Now, there are serious questions. For example: Is the Standard Range with rear-wheel drive just as sticky to the road as the all-wheel drive? Is the cornering just as effortless as in this Performance model? Is the Performance chill mode comparable to the Standard Range normal mode?
The Jaguar I-PACE was the best selling vehicle (of any type) in December, while the Tesla Model S was the #1 plug-in vehicle for all of 2018.
December had 6,232 plug-in vehicle registrations in the Netherlands, a four-fold increase compared to the same month last year and the market’s best month since December ’16. The sales total translates into a stratospheric 31% plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) share in December, pulling the 2018 PEV share to 6%, a great result, especially when we realise that BEVs represented 89% of PEV registrations in 2018 and 98% in December alone.
Of course, the higher taxation of expensive BEVs in 2019 is the major reason for this surge, but something tells me (ahem, Tesla Model 3 …) that this exponential growth is set to continue through 2019.
Jaguar I-PACE Electric Car (Image: T. Larkum)
This good market performance was the result of three exceptional individual results, starting with the Best Seller of the Month, the Jaguar I-PACE, which delivered 2,621 units, not only a new all-time record for a BEV, but also the first time that a 100% electric vehicle became the best selling model in the mainstream market.
The Model 3 might still be pricey but there are alternatives.
It’s easy to look at a luxury automaker like Jaguar and declare 2018 the year the automotive industry caught up with Tesla. But like the Model X and Model S, the I-Pace is out of reach for most folks. It’s great that people with large bank accounts can get behind the wheel of a vehicle that runs on electrons instead of dead dinosaurs. What’s better is that 2018 showed that the rest of us can do the same thing.
Elon Musk promised a $35,000 electric vehicle with a range of more than 200 miles. The Model 3 is supposed to be the result of that pledge. But the company has yet to deliver a base-model version of the car. Building cars is hard; building inexpensive cars for the masses is near impossible. But that oath, and the fact that Tesla made electric cars “sexy,” inspired (or forced) other automakers to realize there is a market for electric-powered transportation.
Hyundai Kona Electric (Image: Hyundai)
The result: On the horizon, there’s a wave of electric vehicles truly built for everyone — and that’s where real change comes from. The spark of revolution might begin with a few rich people here and there, but the fire needs to spread beyond the loading zones of private schools and the valet parking of fusion restaurants. The real transformation is parked in front of Denny’s and charging outside Target while the driver is taking care of back-to-school shopping.
It was possible to get behind the wheel of an EV without dropping a huge chunk of cash before now, but it was a hard sell. If you only have the money to buy one vehicle, something with a range of 100 miles seems like a bad investment. Sure you want to save the planet, but you also want the peace of mind of being able to run errands before and after work without worrying about running out of juice.
We started 2018 with a car that was ready to tackle range anxiety while delivering on outstanding value: the Chevy Bolt. It’s on sale right now and is a perfect entry into the EV world. Even if you hadn’t planned on buying an electric car, get behind the wheel and drive it. At that point, you’ll understand just how great an electric car, SUV or even truck can be.
