2026 Tesla Model 3 FSD Test Drive POV | You Have to See This

Uh, I'm on my way to test drive a new Tesla Model 3, and so when I get to the service center here in Connecticut, I will resume, um, sharing with you that process of doing a test drive of a 2026 Tesla Model 3 with the latest and greatest Full Self-Driving software. So given that I have a 2022 Model 3 with, uh, 12.6.4 Full Self-Driving, it's going to be interesting to see what this new 2026 Model 3 has to offer that's maybe revolutionary. So I'll be walking into the showroom here This is the expanded showroom area. I guess they've got Model X and Model Y. It looks like a Model 3 over there, activated. So this is in Milford, Connecticut. Kind of see there, you can see the, the waiting room. This is the, the service area. That looks like a real sporty looking Model 3 there. This is the outside. Looks like there's my car there, the test drive. All right, all right, we here.

A little bit of salt on it.

Oh, that's all right. Yeah, I had to I take my car through the car wash to get all the salt off of mine. Yeah, because I know it's not really good for the undercarriage of any vehicle to have that salt on there.

Correct.

Yeah. All right, so this is a blue one. Okay. All right, terrific.

Feel free to have a seat.

All right, thanks. Looks, looks kind of familiar.

Okay, yeah, you'll notice right away there's no stock.

Yeah, right, yeah, it's all controlled here on the screen, right?

Exactly, yeah. All right, so make yourself comfortable. You know where the seat positioning is?

Yep.

Uh, how does the steering wheel feel? We can raise that, lower it, push and pull.

No, it looks good to me. It's all right, I'm flexible on that.

Blinkers are where blinkers normally are.

Okay.

Lights are right here. You can push to flash them. They're set to automatic.

Yeah.

Underneath are wipers.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, right. Yeah, I shouldn't have to be concerned about the wipers.

Yeah, it's not gonna rain today. Beautiful blue sky.

Right.

Push and hold for the wiper fluids. There is a button that isn't on your car, but this camera button—

yeah—

will pull up the front camera. You're side cameras.

Oh, okay.

And when you swipe down, your rear camera. It's really great for pulling into parking spots.

Yeah.

If you're not using Full Self-Driving to do that already.

Yep.

Voice commands are now here.

Okay.

Short press for voice commands, a long press for Grok.

Got it.

Grok's really fun to play with.

Oh, I know, I've been playing around with it. Yeah, having conversations in the car while I'm driving, so it's awesome.

Yeah, all right. So put your foot on the brake for me, please.

Okay.

When your foot's on the brake, this car will appear. As you know, take this car, swipe it up.

Okay.

Puts you into drive. D is highlighted, arrow's pointing up.

Yep.

Take this car, swipe it down. Puts you in reverse.

Puts you in reverse, yeah.

Arrow's pointing down, your R is highlighted. And to park, you tap in the middle.

Okay.

Also, uh, in addition, we also have manual controls for it up top here.

So, oh, oh, they're up there now.

You can switch controls, uh, should the screen not work for some reason.

So this, just touching this will activate that, that mode. I know in my— yep, yeah, I know in my Model 3 it's hard sometimes to get it into neutral.

Yes, so neutral's up top.

Okay.

And also neutral will be—

where is it at? Oh yeah, right there, right there. Okay.

So a couple ways to get it into neutral. I know a lot of people had complaints with going through car washes.

Yeah, exactly, that's the same thing that I had too. It's like, I mean, I activated the car wash feature and it's like I can't seem to get it into neutral. So I kept trying over and over again and the the rail that's pulling me through the car wash keeps going under my tires over and over again. Yeah, so that's good though.

Spotify is logged on for music if you wanted to test the sound system.

Okay.

I don't need to explain Full Self-Driving, you already use it.

Yeah.

Some differences, or what version do you use?

It's the 12.6.4.

Okay, yeah, so some differences.

Yeah, oh I'm sure.

You can still activate it by pushing in on this right steering wheel.

Right.

Right. I believe on your car you pull down on the stock twice.

Yeah, or just once.

Or once.

Yeah.

In this car, you can push in on the right scroll wheel.

Okay.

That will activate it. Okay. Or you can push this blue button once it's highlighted. In order to activate it, you have to be buckled up, have a destination, and then it will give you that option.

Yeah.

We have a bunch of different speed profiles now, so instead of setting, um, at a set speed, You have different driving styles. Excuse me for reaching.

No, that's fine. Yeah, I have those too. I just don't have, uh, Mad Max.

Ah, it's pretty fun. Yeah, they toned it down a little bit, but it's still, it's still a very, very great driving through.

The Hurry mode is pretty good too. Yeah, so Sloth, I haven't tried that. I don't know about that one.

Yeah, I think you just stay in the right lane and then Yeah, maybe. I don't think it even— because chill, you barely change lanes in chill, right? Unless the car's going absurdly slow in front of you.

But right, yeah, yeah, maybe I'll try out Sloth when I have some time.

Yeah, well, see what it's like.

Just if you have lots of time to get somewhere, right? Yeah, I also saw that has the, the self-driving miles and total miles. Yep, so you can track that. And it says brake confirm to release, to start FSD.

So you can tap the blue button. And then to confirm it, you tap the brake. And then it will start driving. So it's kind of like an intermediate step in between.

OK, but it's not necessary. Is that what you're saying? Yeah.

So as soon as you hit that blue button, it will start driving once you're buckled in.

So I have this capability in my car too. It's this expanded full self-driving visualization. What exactly is it doing when you activate that? Because it's— because it's never really been clear. It says widens Autopilot's visualization area when Full Self-Driving is active. Why wouldn't that just be done by default?

It's a good question. I would not have the answer. Oh yeah, well, but I can do some research.

I mean, it might be an interesting question to ask why that option is in here.

I haven't thought about it.

Yeah, it's like, wouldn't you want to have wider?

Yeah, right.

Yeah, so anyway, okay. All right, so is there a window of time that I have with the car, or?

Okay, full hour with the car. Okay, you can take it wherever you want. Okay, just get it back here.

Yeah, of course.

You did come a little late, so yeah, I did bring it back by about 2:25-ish. Yeah, or so.

Yeah.

Um, okay, and make sure you use Full Self-Driving.

Oh, I will see what it's like. I definitely will do that. That's one of the reasons I'm here doing this. So yeah, actually, the last time that I came for a demo was down in Stanford, and I had one of those all day.

Ah, the Cybertruck.

Yeah, so I was able to drive around in that all day. That's an amazing car, truck, whatever it is. I'm not quite sure. It's a pickup truck. It is.

Despite how it looks, it gets the job done.

But I would say it drives like a car though, so it's really fun to drive. What's the real difference at the end of the day? It's just got a bed in the back. Right. Yeah, yeah, but it's awesome. Well, anyway, I'll get going and, Robert, give it a, give it a run. Thank you so much, I appreciate it.

Have fun.

Okay, thanks. All right, well, that was, that was a cool introduction, and, and thank you for being here along with me for this. Uh, I think it'll be interesting, and let me, uh, I'm going to mount a little mounting here of— so you can follow with me while I'm driving the car. I don't have to hold the camera the whole time. So let me mount that and I'll be right back with you. Recording. You're back with me. And so I'm about to activate Full Self-Driving. This is a, I believe, a 2026 Model 3 standard version. I don't really know 100% for sure. Which one this is, but it's got the latest Full Self-Driving stack. I believe it's the 14-point-something. Let me look that up and see if I can find that, find out exactly what the— this is version 14.2.2.4 version of the Full Self-Driving stack with a hardware 4 computer in it. I guess the, the other software is the 2025.45.9. So let me go ahead and activate the full self-driving and let's proceed. So let me set a Destination. Let's see, end trip. Let's go somewhere. I don't know where, but let's go like I'm— now your destination is on the right— I'm heading home, but I don't think that it knows where my home is. So let me end that and see if I can, let's say, go to— if there's a Costco. Let's just target going to a Costco. Costco, it's about 2 miles away, and it'll take us there. So I think we're, we're all set to go, and so all I have to do is push this button, and I think we're off to the races. In 500 feet, turn right onto Boston Post Road. Now turn right onto Boston Post Road. So like I said, I appreciate you being here with me, and this is Behind the EV Wheel. And I've done a few of these test drive videos before, but none with this updated version of the Full Self-Driving stack, and just wanted to get a and give you a feel for, you know, what that experience is in the car. If you're considering buying a Tesla with Full Self-Driving, either a Model Y or a Model 3 or a Cybertruck, these are amazing cars and they're very low maintenance. If I think about my own Model 3, I have a 2022 Model 3 and they're just extremely low maintenance. You don't have to really replace anything other than— I think the last thing that I replaced in my Model 3 was washer fluid. And, and rotate the tires. And when your tires wear out, you obviously have to buy new tires, but those can be a little on the expensive side. But have had zero since 2020, since mid-2022, any kind of significant maintenance on on this car, on my Model 3. I've got about 30,000+ miles on it right now. I did have to replace the windshield because I got hit by a rock. That was a little expensive to, to do, but, but the car— let me take you back to just what's going on in the vehicle right now. The car is driving very confidently, as you might imagine. And smoothly, but it's not dramatically different than my experience in my current Model 3 with the, the FSD 12.6.4. So my experience with kind of the, the 14.0 version is that it's, it's not— I would consider dramatically better because all FSD is actually a pretty terrific experience. Now there is gonna be minor, well, maybe more significant improvements in its ability to manage, uh, different and unusual situations because it has just more processing power. It's got a hardware 4 processor in it versus mine was a hardware 3, which is a lesser, lesser capacity, lesser, less powerful AI chip. So, so this car has the ability to process information at a higher resolution and also manage parking situations better than, than mine. I typically have to take over in most parking lot scenarios, but as far as driving from point to point, it usually does a very good job of of managing traffic and changing lanes and going to different locations and trying to figure out how to get there. And I have a very noisy car right next to me. So somebody that needs a muffler. But anyway, so anyway, it seems to be— I mean, it's not like I'm pushing the car out on the freeway or something like that. And I do like the direction that Tesla's going. You know, Elon is really, really pushing the envelope on this AI side. And I think it's interesting that all the discussion that's going on right now about how in a couple years it's very likely that most people won't even think of— okay, you can see that the software is very courteous. As well to other people that need to change lanes in the face of other people not being as courteous. So it's an interesting capability that the car has learned is to drive with a little bit more, I guess, less aggressive. Now I'm not sure what the setting on the car is, if this is set to, to drive let's see if it's set to drive Mad Max. Yeah, it's set to drive Mad Max, and I'll expand the full self-driving visualization, which I was asking the fellow from Tesla about that, and he wasn't really sure, but he'll tell us when we get back from our test drive here. And Mad Max doesn't seem to be too crazy. But it does have other settings in here too, but I thought that that was interesting because the latest FSD in this car has like sloth setting. I think I mentioned that earlier, as well as Mad Max, but I'm not really sure how that really creates a much different experience. So it looks like we're turning into Costco. And it seems to be— I haven't had to touch the steering wheel or do anything, but I haven't actually been looking away either, so, because it will definitely remind you if you're not paying attention. I've, over the last couple years that I've had this car, I'm not quite sure why it hesitated. Oh, oh, It's because we hit a stoplight. That's why. The status of the light changed while I was waiting for traffic, and it changed its mind. So that was the right choice that the car made. I just couldn't see it because the light was beyond my area of vision. That's another example of why this car has visualization that is beyond the scope of a human, which will ultimately make this car much safer to drive. It's got 8, 9 cameras. Let's see what it does in the parking lot here. I go to Costco quite often, and will it manage to find a parking spot and park? Or I'm just going to let it drive and find a place to park. And if it succeeds managing a Costco parking lot, that'll be great. If it doesn't, then I'll have to interject and get involved. But, but it's kind of get back to what I was talking about, Elon. It's interesting to see the movement of the company. Okay. It made a different choice here. Around really becoming an intelligence platform and a platform that will— its focus now is to learn the universe, which is interesting, which is far beyond what the scope of a car company is, I would say. But these cars are learning machines as well. Okay, so it's trying to figure out how to manage this and it's realizing that there probably isn't a path forward for it here. So it's going to navigate the parking lot to see if it can find something and also manage the, the relationships with pedestrians. I don't know that this is a two-way pathway, but The car has decided that it is. Let's see if it, uh, it's trying to— if it succeeds in finding a place to park. Okay, there's a car pulling out in front of me, and it looks like maybe, just maybe, it will wait and see if an opening opens up here. It looks like it is. That grocery cart on the screen was symbolized on the screen as a motorcycle. Okay, looks like he pulled back in again, which I don't quite understand why he did that, which told the Full Self-Driving that there wasn't a place to park because he pulled back in again. Looks like another one is— looks like this guy is going to back up and try and take that parking spot. Okay, let's see. I think there's an open spot here. Ah, there we go. Looks like, uh, Full Self-Driving missed it. So let me see if I can get in here. That was a pretty complex type of a parking situation. I had to intervene, lots of different cars, lots of different situations here. So let's go ahead and find a new destination that wasn't quite as successful as I hoped it would have been. Um, but let's, uh, let's see if we, we can find another destination. Let's see, maybe, um, is there a Whole Foods? Whole Foods Milford. I guess there is. It's close by here. So let me hit calculating on this, and okay, looks like it's got a new destination to make it over to Whole Foods. So let's go ahead and activate Full Self-Driving. It's another complex situation with lots of cars. And I'm trying to activate Full Self-Driving, and it kind of— okay, it says press brake. Oh, okay, I think I have to put it into reverse. Is that what I have to do? Press to reverse. I'm quite sure. Press to drive. Okay, let's see what it will do. Okay, it's going to back up when there's an opening. There was a car next to me, and there's another vehicle parked. You can kind of see off to the left here, there's another vehicle, so it's going to wait till that vehicle moves, and then it's going to back up. I think it needed to start turning a little bit sooner, but let's see, let's see if it is able to navigate this complex situation. Okay, looks like it's trying to go left, which is the, the correct move. I really like the, the video cameras on this car. They're definitely an improvement over, over my 2022 Model 3's cameras, which I believe are quite a bit lower resolution cameras. But then I also noticed on the screen, after I set it to wider visualization, that the images got a little bit distorted. In their view, but it looked like that it had a wider view radius on the camera, which if the algorithm that analyzes the video is capable of scanning that, I don't know why they would just set— why they wouldn't set that to be the default setting, why you have to select it in the settings. I would think you would want as wide a range of view for all the cameras as technically possible at the higher resolution as well, that's going to create a much safer kind of data source for the Full Self-Driving to actually help you drive better. So anyway, I turned that on, so hopefully that makes, makes a difference in the confidence of the car It was unfortunate that I had to intervene. I was hoping to create a very smooth driving experience with full self-driving, but I guess there are still very complex situations that you can get into, especially in Costco parking lots that may require you to intervene because It still isn't quite intelligent enough to navigate every possible situation. Maybe that there's a future update to the software that will get us there, but it's going to require some pretty high intelligence to be able to, especially in that particular situation that we were in back there, to be able to manage that. And to be able to, to be able to see what was going on beyond a vehicle that was blocking the view. And it didn't react quick enough once I got beyond that vehicle to be able to navigate getting into the parking spot, which I knew as a human with my visualization and my comprehension of the situation that there would be a parking spot right there, but for some reason the FSD AI chip did not see it, so I think that's interesting. It looks like I thought we went to Whole Foods, but maybe I didn't fully activate that. Okay. In 500 feet, turn left onto Orange Center Road. Okay, let's see how it manages this. I think it was just driving on its own there. It really didn't have a destination. Said I thought it did, but let's see how it navigates. I believe it's gonna try and turn around. Yeah, this is a good exercise for full self-driving to see how it manages making a change of course, kind of an adjustment like this. So So I've been doing, uh, behind-the-wheel type of episodes on this channel at Rob Greenlee, um, for about 18 years now. I started out doing a behind-the-wheel series with my 20— or 2006 or 2007 Toyota Hybrid Camry, which was one of the, or was one of the first, or was the first model year for Toyota on their larger kind of EV hybrid cars back in the early years of this. And then I eventually in 2011 purchased a Nissan Leaf., and so I have some, some videos in my channel that cover, you know, both of those. In my early path, I didn't do a lot of follow-up videos for YouTube because I kind of lost focus on YouTube after I had acquired my Nissan Leaf, so I didn't do any follow-up emails around my— or not emails, but videos about my experience with the Nissan LEAF. But I had a 2011 and had it for many years, and then life changes happen and I don't have it anymore. And then eventually in 2022 purchased the Tesla Model 3. Long Range, and it has been an amazing experience. So it's, it's trying to get me back to Whole Foods, which I, I believe I drove past. So this is a great exercise and seeing how, how the car navigates all this stuff, right? And I hope you're enjoying this and and it's not too boring. I'll do some editing on it, but I'll try and keep it as raw as I can, as I've heard that people are enjoying these real-life experiences. In 500 feet, turn left onto Peck Lane. Less edited, less contrived, more authentic type of experiences. And this is being done in a 4K camera, so you're going to be able to see it in really, really high quality. And let's see how it gets us back there. Looks like we're almost there. In 500 feet. Turn right onto Boston Post Road. Now turn right onto Boston Post Road. So it's going to be interesting to see how Tesla evolves into being more of an energy, AI, space company. Because, and well, and you can't forget the Optimus Robotics company. I think What we have to start thinking about more and more, and I've been thinking about this for a couple years now, but the, the vehicle side of Tesla is really just an extension of the robotics segment of Tesla because this technology around automation and autonomy is really what is behind this, and that flows into Tesla in alignment with the robotics side, with the Optimus version 3 that's going to be worked on. So I'm starting to see kind of this technology that is being developed by Tesla is going to be integrated into more and more mobile, in real life types of moving devices. So I'm not quite sure where it goes from here. I know that the semi is being rolled out too, and eventually that will be a platform that will have autonomy as well. And, and then there's probably going to be vans and there's going to be other trucks that Tesla makes. So it will remain being an automotive company at some level, In 500 feet, turn right. But I do believe autonomy will mean fewer and fewer cars will be sold. So it's a declining market. Now turn right. So it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out over the next probably 5 to 10 years is my guess. And Tesla, you know, taking that autonomy and putting it into robots also helps the space exploration too, because I do believe it's safer to send autonomous humanoid robots to Mars and the Moon than it is to send humans. Having a presence on these other planets is important for humanity as autonomy is a way for us to to do things outside of the Earth. Now your destination is on the left. So let's see if it navigates the Whole Foods parking lot here. It does a much better job with that. Okay, it's a very less complicated situation. So it has managed it very well. There was plenty of parking spaces. It didn't have to fight with people for for a parking spot. So, all right, so it accomplished it. So terrific. Well, let's, let me, trying to think, maybe I should just go back to the dealership. I think I've had a terrific drive with the car, and I think it's been a terrific drive for for you as well. I don't know what else that I can really share in here. I know that there's all sorts of energy issues, screens in here, all sorts of apps that come with the car. I don't see anything that's really dramatically different than the, the software or the main operating system of the software that I have in my model 3, 2022. So it looks like it's all the, all the same stuff. So maybe you'll just head back a little bit early, back to Tesla Milford, which is right there. It's about— looks like, uh, very close, only about 1.7 miles away. Or 1.9 miles away, and let's just head back, and then we can go in back into the dealer, and we can talk to the, the representative at the Tesla service center. So let's head back home, or back to the dealership, not home, but okay, set it to Drive. Okay, there we are, we're off. So it popped up on the screen that says speed limited to 85 miles an hour, so I guess being in Mad Max mode raises that question. So it looks like we're going to make it back at 2 PM, which is terrific. And let's— that'll be good. And I think I've had a really good drive in the car. The seats seem to be very comfortable. I like that they're a little bit more snug on my body than my Model 3 has. But overall, I'd say that there's Not a huge difference between the 2022 FSD and this in its ability. I think the biggest thing that we've noticed, I think, while we've been driving is how it's been able to better manage a parking lot, maybe going more end-to-end. So, so, but I do think that the future of Tesla is bright and especially if it's possible that Tesla could be combined with SpaceX and XAI. And not exactly sure what the connection is with the Neuralink and with the Boring Company. Those are things that we'll see over time. There may be more connection there than we realize. Maybe the long term is to bore tunnels on the moon. So I was thinking about that the other day, as it sounds like Tesla has really adjusted its desire to build quite an installation or station on the moon and to actually even maybe manufacture AI chips there. And then launch those AI chips with solar, manufacture solar panels on the moon as well, and be able to have a mass driver that actually throws those satellites up into orbit off of the moon. And the moon may become the launching pad for Starship is kind of what I'm starting to think is most likely. So, is launching, you know, I think if we can launch Starship to the moon and there's lots of Starships on the moon, it's gonna be much easier to launch vehicles. If you can create fuel to supply the Starships on the moon, you're gonna be able to launch even less expensive, and then also return to base a lot easier. So your real issue is getting astronauts and things initially from the Earth. But I think longer term, we may really see the full deployment of a moon base of sorts being kind of a new habitat for, uh, robots, autonomous robots, as well as a certain crew of humans, um, that will help us figure out how to create a similar type of a base operation on Mars. I think it'll be a really good training environment, uh, If we can successfully build a civilization on the moon, it'll be a lot easier for us to build a civilization on Mars. Because there are aspects of building a civilization on the moon that will be very helpful. So anyway, we're not too far away from Making it back to the Tesla Service Center here in Connecticut. Some dirt on the windshield. I don't know how to— okay, so there we go. If I hold this, okay, it looks like the windshield wiper fluid comes out of the— and just drips on there. It doesn't spray. My Model 3, the the wiper fluid sprays. This one, it just drips out of it. So there's been some changes to the hardware. I swear I was driving next to that car when I was leaving. Couldn't be any noisier. All right, uh, it looks like we're almost back. So hang tight here, we'll be back in there with the Tesla Service Center personnel as we talk about options that are maybe available to purchase one of these or lease. Let's see how it finds a place to park. Right, let's see if it finds a place to park. Let's see. Ah, here we go. I don't believe this is a parking spot. Um, let me, uh, so I have to shift again. Didn't find a regular parking spot. Let's see, let's see if I can park it over here. Actually parked in a parking spot that was kind of right in front of a service door. Well, that was an amazing ride in the Model 3, and thanks for joining me in this. I'm about to get out and go in and see the service center person that I was working with. But here's the new Model 3. I'll just give you a quick view of it before I hop out. There's the back seat, and so there it is. So let's go in and meet up again with the the service center staff. There's, uh, there's my Model 3. All right, let's head in. Hey, thanks. How was it? Good, it was terrific. It was perfect.

Yeah, so what differences did you notice between this car and your car?

Well, I think the biggest thing is, I mean, there's some hardware differences, right? Software differences are probably the, probably the biggest thing. I, I don't see a huge— I'll be honest with you, I don't see a huge difference in the full self-driving between my 12.6.4, which might be surprising to people out there, but I'd say how it handles parking lots is probably, probably the biggest difference. Though I tried to park and let it park in Costco parking lot and it had a hard time with that. So, because Costco parking lots are tough, you know.

Because it's like one is one way and then it's that. Yeah. We can have our team look at that because that's good feedback.

Well, it could, I mean, I think it was in a, you know, there's all these different scenarios that can come up that, you know, it's hard for the team probably to capture all those.

But like the feedback from you guys, that helps us improve it.

Oh yeah, yeah. Well, certainly. And I'm sure the car probably learned a little bit because it's recording everything anyway.

So if you think of it, you get— you have how many Teslas on the road, all self-driving, and it's computers are just training themselves.

Right, exactly. Makes our job easy. Yeah, because you tried to find— I mean, it did a valiant job of trying to find a parking spot, but you know how busy Costco can be, right? And it came up to a situation where a car was starting to back out from a parking spot, and then it drove back in again, and then the car started to move forward, and then it started to back out after me, right? So he'd missed that opportunity, which just totally makes sense. There was another car off to the left, and then a car behind it backed out and, and left. And so when the car proceeded forward, it's like it didn't know that there was an open spot there. But I knew that there was an open spot on the other side of the car that was blocking its view. So it couldn't see the open spot. But I knew it was there because I saw the car leave. Very fast. So it didn't actually, I guess, comprehend that scenario when it saw it happen, because it saw it happen too. And so when I drove— when the car drove up, it kind of drove past it. It didn't notice it in time to be able to turn in.

I think personally, if I was in that situation, yeah, I think I'd physically take over Oh, that's exactly what I did.

And then I parked myself. Yeah. And then I had it back out and leave and stuff. And they did a great job of that, which my car cannot back up and leave anything. So I also wanted to try it. I'm sure this car would probably be able to maybe pull into my garage, maybe. I don't know. I don't know about that part of it yet. So as we move into this autonomous side of stuff, it's going to have to do that, right? And it's going to have to be able to charge itself too, somehow. So yeah.

How will we address— yeah, how are we going to address that?

I'm fascinated. Well, I think if you have like a wireless charging pad, which I've seen Tesla has that, right? So you just drive over it and it charges through wireless charging, kind of like what we do with our mobile phones. You could do it that way, but it could also have like a robotic arm that comes from the side of the garage and plugs in, right?

Yeah, I'll be first in line for that.

Yeah, well, that's, that's what I'm hoping will probably happen, but I won't, you know, that won't be possible with my 2022 Model 3. So you're thinking of— well, I have been thinking about it for a long time, but I've also wanted there to be a little bit more distance between between what I have and the new stuff, right? Yeah. So I don't get caught in that situation again of being in an AI-3 vehicle, which could happen to the AI-4 vehicles too. So that's the catch-22. It's like buying a laptop or something, right? Or an iPad or something like that. You buy the latest one, but you know it's going to be obsolete in a couple years, right? And that's what happened on my purchase too. So as long as you kind of go into the purchase with that understanding. But just wanting a little bit more distance, you know, the cars are not inexpensive, so you have to, you know, weigh that with— I mean, I only have like 30,000 miles on the one I have right now. So, and it does a good job for what I'm doing. So I I'm really waiting. I was ideally waiting for the AI-5 to come out because then I know that— but then again, the same parallels apply, right? There's always going to be AI-6 and there's going to be AI-7 and AI-8. But by then, I think it— by AI-5, I think it will be able— well, you can't really say that. I mean, I've been in technology for— I used to work for Microsoft. And so, you know, it's always going to be able to do better in the next version, right? So anyway, that's what my experience is. I don't know if you wanted to share a little bit about what the current model prices are and what you guys are doing on that side. That'd be great.

In the state of Connecticut, we're actually not in—

I know, I know you're not.

Yeah, technically Technically, I could go over the leasing options with you, but cash and finance, we would have, uh, team members reach out to you from either Mount Kisco, New York, or Higgenson.

That's where I got mine, was out in Mount Kisco.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Um, so that process would be I get a little bit of information about you, what you're looking for, if you qualify for any of our discounts we have going on right now. I give that information to that team, that team reaches out, hey, I have some cars in inventory that match your specs. Yeah, these are the rough numbers.

Okay, well, that's fair enough, you know. The whole—

if you wanted to go over leasing, I'd be more than happy to help.

Yeah, no, I'd be happy to see that as well, just see what the options are. I know that there's a lot of talk about, you know, a car like this, maybe you shouldn't purchase it outright, you know, maybe a lease is a better option.

It It depends. It really depends on the person, the lifestyle, what you're looking for.

Well, and also if you think about if these cars are going to wind up being autonomous robo-taxis potentially, you know, leases typically have mileage limitations, right? And so if you're wanting to rent your vehicle out as part of the Tesla robo-taxi network at some point, you're going to probably burn through that mileage fairly quickly.

Yeah, uh, it really depends on who you ask. I'm financing my car.

I— well, what's— that's what I'm doing right now. I've got a— it's a 7-year loan.

So I just— I would have leased, but I drive too many miles. Yeah, I'm not even at a year yet and I'm already at 15,000. That's the max we have on a lease is 15,000 annual miles, right? Exactly. And then my coworker, he leases because he's like, oh, I'm getting into the new technology. Once, once my lease ends, I'm just getting into a new one.

So depending on how you look on it, yeah, exactly. Well, and, and the fact that I've had mine since 2022, uh, and it only has like 31,000 miles on it, you know, it's— I haven't been using a lot of miles on that car. It's been, what, 4 years now, so if you divide $30,000 by 4, it's not a huge amount of use every year. Yeah, so it's definitely less than the $15,000.

Would you be interested in premium or rear-wheel or all-wheel drive? Or we also have our rear-wheel drive Model 3.

So what's the difference between the premium rear-wheel drive and and just the regular?

Yeah, so the one you drove was a Premium Rear-Wheel Drive. Okay. We have a Rear-Wheel Drive Model 3 in the back that we can take a look at. Right, right. Differences are it's going to be a little less expensive, and that's because it doesn't have as many of the features as the Premium. The Rear-Wheel Drive is a great option for people looking to get a Tesla kind of save a little bit of that money on stuff they don't use just to get that full self-driving experience, right? This is the car for them. It's gonna have a little less miles and a little slower acceleration compared to the Premium.

Yeah, but if you're using full self-driving, it really doesn't matter anyway. I mean, you gain miles when you use full self-driving depending on what mode you're in. Well, that— yeah, that— I mean, even in the Mad Max mode, I That's what the car was driving in right now, and I didn't really notice that it was Mad Max.

So you take it on the highway?

It's not like it's squealing around the corners or something like that. No, it's not doing that. No, I didn't actually go on the highway. I just drove down to Costco and then went to Whole Foods and came back.

I think Mad Max really shines on the highway.

Probably does, right? Right. It's a great way to get a ticket, maybe. Maybe not, but yeah.

But just some key feature differences. Yeah. The premium will have cooled seats.

Yeah.

So the front seats are cooled, back seats are heated. Yeah. Front seats are also heated. In the rear-wheel drive, only the back seats are, only the front seats are heated. Yeah.

They're not cooled.

That's fine. And the back seats aren't heated. This doesn't have a screen in the back. So I don't know if you got a chance to look at the back seats, but there's actually a little screen.

I don't really need that. I don't really have passengers really in the back ever, really. So probably, I mean, so these are lease rates, right? Yeah. Right.

If you wanted cash or financing, you can find them on our websites right here.

Right, right, right.

But again, for legal reasons, I can't go over that here.

Yeah. No, no, I get it. That makes sense. And then, so the Full Self-Driving subscription is just still $99 for now?

I haven't gotten any information on what the new plan is. I just know that right now it's $99. The transfer period ends March 31st, and then the lifetime option ends February 14th.

Okay. Is there any kind of special offers for existing Tesla owners or anything like that? Is there anything?

We have a little loyalty benefit depending on which model you get. S and Xs get $1,000 towards the car or down payment, and then the Reason Y is $500 for returning buyers. Also, if If you know someone who drives a Tesla, on your current car, do you have Full Self-Driving for Lifetime?

No, I have just the monthly, just the monthly, right.

So if you know someone who drives a Tesla and you pick up a new Tesla, you'll get 3 months free of Full Self-Driving before you decide if you want to use the subscription or not.

Right.

Those are right now the only Full Self-Driving incentives we have.

Okay.

And are you active or retired military? No.

Teacher?

No.

Student? No. First responder? No. Okay. Those people are— Podcaster, tech guy.

That's—

I don't think that qualifies for much, does it?

Yeah. No, you give us good information.

Yeah, I'm also an investor. I have Tesla stock too, so I have that as well. Thank you. So since 2012, actually.

Yeah, you're riding it. Okay, yeah, very nice. But, um, those are our American heroes. We have an American heroes discount, which is an additional $500.

Yeah, okay.

Um, right now the state is still giving $1,000, um, towards any car MSRP under $50,000.

So is that taken off the top, or is that a rebate that you get later?

That gets taken off of the Duet delivery.

Oh, okay.

If I hit Edit Leasing, we're looking at Premium Rear-Wheel Drive. So you'll include taxes and fees. So you'll see after taxes and fees, that's how much you need to bring when you pick up the car. Mm-hmm. If I uncheck that, that number goes up.

Your monthly stays the same.

Okay. But how much you have to print would decrease.

What's the— is there much of a difference in the price going from $10,000 to $15,000?

So that was about $480,000, that was about $530,000.

Okay.

And if you want to do less months, 2 years instead of a 3-year, it's also going to jack up the price. Oh, right. But the cool thing about our website is you can play with these numbers however you want. The prices are non-negotiable, and these are for well-qualified buyers. Right. So unless your credit history is not great or your credit score is not where you want it to be, is roughly the numbers that you'd see. Okay. But let's say the most we can bring is $615,000.

Yeah, I'm currently paying over, over $600,000 now.

Yeah, so with zero down, let's just do 15,000 miles. With zero down for 15,000 miles, miles, you're looking at about $627. Okay, but again, you can always play with the calculator, add more money. Same with the finance tab. Okay, go over that, explore on your own. Okay, or I can have someone reach out to you. Yeah, cash number doesn't change. Okay, all right. And of course, you got a select color you want.

Yeah, that's the— that's a big choice. That's a big choice to make. I'm sure that there's even more options.

So white will be $1,000, blue is $1,000, black, diamond black, is $15,000, and silver and red are both $2,000. And that's just going to change your monthly payment.

So the same color that I have now is probably that. That's, that's no extra charge for that? Yep.

Okay, that's included, right? Um, it's pretty cool.

It is my car. It's a color of mine.

In the sunlight it looks black and it hides the dirt pretty well.

Yeah, I think it's called something different. I think mine is, it's like a midnight blue or something like that. That's what they call it, I think, in my model year.

Yeah.

Sounds about right. Yeah, midnight something. Yes, it's totally—

and then you can change the wheels. Wheels are also going to be an upcharge.

Yeah, I probably wouldn't do that because those don't get as good, good, good miles. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

And it's a $1,500 upcharge.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with these stock ones.

Oh yeah, no, they're fine. A beautiful Yeah. And then black and white interior.

Yeah, I like the white, white interior. Now, is that a little extra? That's $1,000. Yeah, I had to pay a little extra for mine too.

You already have a home charger, so—

I do.

You don't need to worry about that. And then you can select accessories. You can buy them now, they'll ship to your house, or you can—

Projection lights.

Yeah, so the projection lights are pretty cool. They're kind of like puddle lights. You open the door and it kind of projects Tesla onto the ground.

Ah, okay, cool.

When it's raining, yeah, on asphalt.

Yeah, yeah, I have it in my car.

Yeah, but you can buy these at any point. Yeah, before, right after you take delivery. Um, but that is This is the website, and if you're ever curious about what offers we have, you go to vehicles, you can do current offers. This will say all of our current offers we have for all of our models. If you want to schedule a demo drive at any of our locations, yeah, you can do it there too. Yeah, to get a trade-in estimate for your car, click on that link. Pre-owned trip planner, all these are nice little tools you could use to better understand what you want to get out of it.

So how would a trade-in in my situation impact the lease on a purchased vehicle?

So the cool thing is, let's go back to our little calculator.

Yeah.

You can get a trade-in value right here. You'll put in your VIN number, you'll answer some questions. And then you'll get an estimate, and then that estimate can be directly applied to this calculator. So if you have negative equity or positive equity—

I have positive on it, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah, that would directly affect this.

Okay.

And you can see kind of a better understanding of what you're trading. Please be noted that some leases are accepted. I know you're not leasing your car, but just for people watching. Sure. Some lease— some companies don't allow lease trade-ins.

So when you say lease trade-ins, you mean a purchased vehicle trading in for a leased vehicle? A leased vehicle trading in for another vehicle. Oh, don't allow that. Yeah.

So financing and cash are are your best bets. Or if you're unsure, you can always double-check with one of us.

So how would you make a change in, in the vehicle at the end of your lease term?

Yeah, so, um, there's two different options at the end of a lease. You can return it to us, or you can buy it out. As of November of 2024, I believe, we released the buyout option for our leases, which you people a lot of flexibility. You'll find that value down here. Again, those are some cash numbers, so I can't really get into that. Yeah, yeah, that's where you find it. Sure. Or if you want to get into another car, we actually had a customer earlier today. His lease ends in April, and he's looking to get a new car, and the car is projected to arrive, because we don't have inventory, sometime after his lease ends. So we're extending his lease just a little bit to cover that time for him to drive his lease to the delivery location, return it, and drive off in the new car.

So is there usually an adjustment up or down of the lease rate on a trade-in, or is it pretty comparable usually, or? Well, so let's say you're on a— you've been on a 3-year lease and it's at $500 a month. So you— but you've kept your vehicle, you know, below 15,000 miles a year for that term. If you're on the 15,000, what's the typical— I mean, is there a hit to the value of the vehicle that surpasses like maybe a like almost like a swap of sorts, you know, or is there typically less value to the vehicle on trade-in that gets added onto the lease?

That would be a great question.

You can ask Mike. Yeah, I was just curious. Right, right.

If I had to take a stab at it, of course a car with lower miles will always be worth more.

Right. Oh, obviously. Yeah, correct. Yeah, I think that's, that's a big factor. If you're leasing and your, your payments will stay the same even if you trade in for a new model in 3 years, then that's probably a better scenario. But I guess it's possible, it depends on what Tesla does with their pricing, right? Exactly. Over time, our prices can change.

Yeah, drop of a hat.

Yeah, they can go down or up. —which I've seen it happen both ways. This year, actually, a couple of times. It depends on if you're upgrading to a higher level model too, right? There's a lot of variables to go into, but what would be kind of the cheapest or less expensive option for someone that wants to buy a Model 3 or lease a Model 3? What's the least expensive option?

It would be our rear-wheel drive Model 3.

It's this one here, right? Yeah.

Now I know there's some concerns. We're in the Northeast, it snows, there's ice. Why am I getting a rear-wheel drive? You're crazy.

Yeah, well, I have a— I mean, mine is an all-wheel drive, and it's great to have an all-wheel drive car in snow, but You know, here in Connecticut, they do such a great job of plowing the roads quickly. It's usually— I don't think it's a big issue. I'm originally from Seattle. Oh, quite a difference. In Seattle, if it snows 2 inches, the whole city shuts down. Yeah. So, but it's different out here. But yeah, I think you're right. A four-wheel drive is— it's technically not— well, is it technically a four-wheel drive? Yeah, I guess It is, yeah.

And some cool things to know about an electric car, electric rear-wheel drive to be exact, is there's a low center of gravity. Oh yeah. So instead of a front-heavy engine where all the weight is shifted to the front of the car, your back wheels are pushing against that weight in the front, you have that battery that lays flat along the bottom of the car distributing the weight, low center of gravity. Yeah, it, it, it still won't perform as an all-wheel drive. There's nothing that beats an all-wheel drive in the winter, right? But me personally, in my 2025 Model 3 rear-wheel drive, the past couple snowstorms we had, you didn't have much of a problem?

No.

Yeah, I allowed, I allowed enough space for my car. Yeah, at stoplights, stop signs, um, I didn't really go over probably 7 mph.

Maybe 10 if I was going a little bit— Wow, living on the edge. Yeah, so this is probably the least expensive option. Now, granted, if you went down to like 5,000 miles or 8,000 miles, it probably would drop. Oh, 10, 12, or 15. Okay.

And again, you can always change the down payment. This is with $3,000 down. And if you— without a trade-in, without the American Heroes benefit, that I was talking about. Yeah. So you can always see if you qualify.

I mean, that, that for me would be, uh, over, over $200 a month reduction on monthly payment.

So, and it really comes down to what are you looking for, how much do you drive. Yeah, it's a great option. Yeah, great entry. You know, if you lease it, you end up you don't like it, You upgrade to something new like the Premium. Yeah.

At the end of your lease. Right.

But it's a nice little trial car. Safe, safe car, full self-driving, all of that's included.

Well, I think if I consider annual mileage at 10,000 miles, that may be right at the edge of what my consumption is or my usage, because I'm at over 31,000 over Well, over 4 years is— that's like 75,000 or 8,000 miles a year. That's what that is.

So just for a little safety buffer, we did the 12,000?

Well, just up another $30 or something like that. Yeah.

And then for every mile you go over, it's 25 cents. Okay. And it's not per year, it's at the end of the lease. So let's say the first year you drive 13,000 miles. Yeah, you did 1,000 miles over the limit. In theory, you really have 36,000 miles to play with. And if you run over in your first year, you just have to cut back on your—

yeah, it's hard to cut back. I'm not going to drive today, but I'll drive tomorrow. But I can't quite drive as far, right? Yeah. So yeah.

Did you want to take a look at the rear-wheel drive before you head out?

Uh, it's probably the same car, it's just, it's more of a mechanical thing. Um, so no, I think, I think you've done a nice job of helping me kind of work through this and talk, talk through the, the options.

I appreciate that. Let me go over our inventory. Okay, for people who want to get into a car as soon as possible. Yeah, you go to vehicles again. This is just tesla.com, vehicles. We have pre-owned. Oh, you can check what cars we have that are Tesla Certified Pre-Owned, right? But let's go new. We love new. So you can play with the cash, lease, finance numbers here.

Oh, okay.

Let's do Model 3 and we want the rear-wheel drive, right? So right now we have all of these cars ready for pickup within a week or two. Okay. And this is always updating every day, so we might get more, they might disappear, and some cars have price reductions. So this car has a price reduction because they're demonstration cars, kind of like the car you drove. There's some miles on it. Yeah, right. And if you wanted it, we know there's some miles on it, so we're gonna take some money off of that.

Okay, that's a good option too.

And then you have all your models here. Yeah, trim, paint, wheels, interior.

Okay, so I'm assuming most of these are probably trade-in vehicles. Is that what they are?

Those are all completely new.

Oh, they are? Oh, okay.

Okay. So you'll know, it'll say new vehicle. Now if we did pre-owned, we don't have any pre-owned rear-wheel drive 3s, but you'll see it starts looking a little bit different.

So you have all-wheel drive 3s, right? Yeah.

Like standard rear-wheel drive plus, like We have a lot of variety, so totally worth checking out if you're looking for a little lower payment.

Do you break out the groups by hardware 4 versus hardware 5, hardware 4 versus hardware 3? No. So it's, it's more you have to decide that based on the model year, probably, right? Yeah.

Okay.

And if you're ever curious or concerned, you can always reach out I mean, if it's a— chances are if it's a 2025, it's probably a Hardware 4 car.

2025, 2026s?

Yeah, you're, you're clear.

I picked up my car in March, it's a 2025. Okay, so 2025, and it was, um, yeah, it currently has the latest Hardware 4 and full self-driving version.

So, so is there any advantage to getting, getting one new versus press one of these?

Uh, it really comes down to you. Okay, what's your budget?

Well, not you personally. No, no, no, no, I get it.

Like a person's budget, right? We have a lot of parents come in who are like, oh, my son just turned 18, I'm looking to get him a Tesla because they're really safe. Do you have any pre-owned, like 2020 Model 3s? Right, because they're going to be significantly less than a newer car., but they'll still get that Tesla feel and that Tesla safety. Yeah. So it really depends on how much you're willing to pay and what you're trying to get out of the car.

Yeah, I'm just curious what the— is there more incentives, I guess, behind buying a new one versus a pre-used one? I'm not even sure what you call these. They're pre-owned.

Yeah, yeah, okay. Um, so pre-owned cars, yeah, they're going to have some miles on it.

Yeah, price is going to be down, uh, and—

but it's not, it's not—

I mean, I'm back on new. Oh, you are back on new? Okay, okay. Yes. So, um, what's the, the usual miles on one of those pre-owned cars as far as miles driven? It probably varies a lot, I would imagine, but yeah, like you can sort—

you have some more you can play with. You can play with the mileage. So if you're looking for a certain mile range— yeah, I know, that's what I was about to say. I don't want more than 31,000 miles on the car. So all of these cars will have less than 30,000 miles on it. So you can see like that one has 27, that has 26, this has 30,000 on it. So you can pretty much see everything about the car on the premium.

Okay. All right. All right. Well, thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Robert, my pleasure. It was fun to talk with you and fun to get in one of the new ones.

It's always, always good.

Whenever you're ready for that upgrade, yeah, well, reach out. Yeah, I'll go to the website too and just explore. But yeah, please do. Oh, I'm definitely ready for an upgrade. It's just what's the, what's, what's the timing of it for me is the only, only question at this point. One last note. Sure.

Uh, this is probably mentioned earlier in the video, um, but when you're registering a car in Connecticut, we're not a dealership, right? Of course. So if you are planning to register a car in Connecticut, be mindful that the only two delivery centers we have right now is Mohegan Sun near New London, right? Or Mount Kisco, New York, which is over the Stamford border. And those are the only two options. Milford, Stamford, even our pop-up in West Farms. All of those locations are great for doing a drive, talking to an advisor, getting more info about a car and ownership.

Well, and a service center too, right?

Oh yes, two service centers in Connecticut.

Milford, right here. And Stamford.

Stanford, yep.

Yeah, I've been to that one. I had my front windshield replaced.

So yeah, be mindful of that if you are considering getting one.

Okay, awesome. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate you spending so much time with me. Appreciate it.

You're welcome.

Okay, pleasure. All right, I'll be in touch. All right. Okay, thank you. Water or anything? No, no, that's okay. All right, thank you. Okay, you too. Well, thank you for watching. This was a terrific experience, you know, a little bit behind the scenes of trying to pick up a new Tesla Model 3. So thank you so much for watching today, and I'll keep thinking about different topics I can cover on my channel. So I appreciate you being here. Subscribe and follow here, and I'll keep you up to date with what I'm going and what I'm doing with, uh, my next step with Tesla. So thanks, have a great day. Thanks, bye.