Tesla Model 3 review

Yes, you do have to do this bit yourself. All UK-spec Model 3s come with the company's Autopilot system built in as standard. You’ll have visions of setting the nav for Saint-Tropez, bedding down for the night and waking up on the Riviera. Not yet, by a long stretch.

Autopilot is merely an umbrella term for adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, lane following assistance and pedestrian avoidance steering. All terribly useful and well integrated, but nothing you can’t find in a petrol powered BMW 3 Series and co. Don't be drawn in by claims of 'Full Self-Driving Capability', much less spend nearly £7k on it.

So what will the car actually do?

UK law currently restricts the extent to which your car can be let loose on the roads (although plans are afoot). You have to keep your hands on the steering wheel and remain in control of the car, but it’ll do all the usual adaptive cruise control stuff plus suggest lane changes based on the satnav route.

Press the indicator button and the car will lurch over automatically provided there’s a suitable gap. Is it worth the money? It is not. Maybe on the wide, homogenous roads of the USA, but not in the UK where the car bongs every 30 seconds to tell you it’s turning Autopilot off and you’re on your own.

The Summon feature is a great party trick but better suited to sprawling American parking lots than your average provincial high street. We’ll bet you end up just taking over and doing it the old-fashioned way, using the old supercomputer between your ears.

What about steering the Model 3 yourself?

With this latest version of the Model 3 you finally get the impression the engineering has met up with the ambitious tech, but it’s still not as good to drive as its main rivals. The steering has a grainy feel to it and there’s little self-correction coming out of corners: it’s like using a force feedback PC wheel from the early Noughties.

The Model 3 is a decent enough tourer: it sits well on the motorway and cruises with ease. Show it a country road and it starts to get a bit wibbly, the front wheels failing to communicate what they’re up to and the skittish ride sending the car about the road. It’s less of an issue around town.

The acceleration is impressive, but then most electric cars are fast now. To be honest, we set the acceleration to ‘Chill’ mode rather than anything too raucous. The automatic regen works better than any other system we've used, adapting seamlessly to the conditions.

Is the range good?

Tesla's range claims (318 up to 436 miles, remember, depending on which model you go for) are reasonably attainable if you can drive sensibly, but the Model 3 is very tough to drive daintily. Which is a mark of how good the electric tech is.

You basically treat it like a petrol car: the range readout on the central screen remains accurate across a journey, and the nav will route you to a reliable charge point when you need to top up. The Model 3 makes going electric as painless as it's possible to be right now.