Gadgetory

(jazzy music) - Hey all, this is Nilay from The Verge. We're here in New York City in front of our office. Tesla gave us a Model 3 for the night. So, I'm just gonna cruise around the city, pick up some friends, and see what they think. Let's go. This is actually the fully loaded version, so it's extended range. It gets 310 miles on a full charge. It's got all the options. So, the car starts at 35k, that's what Tesla says, but this model, all the way loaded up, red paint, fancy wheels, the whole nine, is 60k basically. So, pretty up there. And the first person we're gonna pick up is Ashley Carman, a great gadget reporter, whose been reviewing a lot of cars for us. Here she is. - Okay. - Oh, and Becca's here too. Hey, Becca. - How you doing? - So, Ashley, you are a gadget reporter on Circuit Breaker. - Yes. - You have done a bunch of screen drives for us, you did a BMW 5 Series, you know, Rolls Royce-- - Yep. - You did a Hyundai. - Yep. - The Hyundai was nicer than the Rolls, I think. (laughter) I am gonna ask you to do a series of challenges in this car, because you're looking around, there are no buttons, there's no knobs-- - I've also never been in a Tesla before, so-- - You've never been in a Tesla before. - So, this is all new to me. - So, if you've been in a Model S, you'll probably be able to figure this out pretty easy. Challenge one-- - Okay. - I just want you to turn on some music, very basic, people do it in cars all the time. - It's very basic until you have cameras on you. (Nilay laughs) Okay, let me see. I'm gonna go with the music note, I'm gonna press the magnifying glass, I'm gonna put on Fiona Apple-- Because that is, for some reason, I think it's the winter it's making me-- - Very dramatic choice. I want you to change the direction of the air vents. - Okay, so I see the temperature here, manual-- - There you go. - Is it seriously gonna be this? - Yeah. Isn't that cool? - What? - So, the way this works-- - Such a crazy-- - There's a jet that blows up and a jet that blows out, and when you move this around, those two interact and it blows faster or slower and it directs the air towards where you're going. - This is just not how I think about vents. - It's just so cool. - Yeah. That's pretty dope. - I want you to lock the doors. - Okay, well, there is no locks, I don't think. (Nilay laughs) I'm gonna go back to this handy-dandy car menu. I'm in the locks menu, I found the locks menu. - I will tell you that this confused the hell out of me earlier. - I don't know, Nilay, I'm in the locks menu. This feels like the place. - You are in the locks menu. It's right here. Beep. - Oh! - That's the door locking. - I didn't even think to look up there. - Well, it's funny because it's the main thing you want to do, so it's up here, it's like it's always at the root level. This map-- - Yeah. - Get rid of this. It says Google in the corner. Those are some Google maps. - Yeah, see, this is what really stands out to me, because if you haven't tried a bunch of cars, you don't realize how terrible map interfaces are. - Really? So, it's Google Maps on the screen, but the navigation is actually cool. Ashley, you're a gadget reporter, this is like a $60,000 gadget, does this appeal to you, is this like a good gadget? - As far as the actual display goes, this really just feels like an iPad Pro to me, and that's nice. I actually really like this display. I was super skeptical, I even wrote like a Hot Take when they announced the model, I was like, "It needs a head's up display", because I love heads up displays. This is around the BMW price range and the actual car feels a lot cheaper, like this wood paneling, I do not dig, it feels, I don't know, and this side door, it doesn't feel like $60,000 to me. - Right. - This feels very, like, utility. - Right. All right, well, thank you for coming on this ride with me. - Yeah. - I assume you're going partying now. - Yeah, I'm just so ready to tear it up. (Nilay laughs) - All right, so, I've been driving this car for a while now, just picking people up, cruising around the city. It is ridiculously fun to drive. And then the other thing I've noticed is people are, they are drawn to this car like nothing else. The red paint helps. If you want any other color but black, you have to pay $1000. I recommend buying the red paint for $1000. You know, from the outside just looking at it, it's got a lot of that Model S vibe. It's a little bit more aggressive in its design. Everyone's expectations when they get into it are completely blown up, because you're expecting to be in a car, and the inside of this thing looks nothing like a traditional car. So, a lot of people have been asking me how this compares to a Model S, yo, is that Marques? (horn honks) Marques! What's up, buddy? - What's good? - You own a very famous Model S named Apollo. - Yes. - I follow the adventures of Apollo all the time, and you spent like three days in a Model 3 recently, right? - Yeah, so we spent a little time in a Model 3. It compared well in a lot of ways, and it's really familiar. I've driven some other cars that don't compare in like any way to mine. It does a couple things better than my car, and it does a couple things worse. - Really? - Yeah. - What does it do better? - The UI here, it's a little faster, the touch response is faster. It's also updated and the maps are a little bit better. The front trunk opening is a little bit finicky on Model S's, just everyone's Model S. Model 3 is just, one hand, close, easy. If you get used to the air suspension on a Model S, then the coils here will feel a little too firm. If you get used to zero to 60 in 2.4 seconds, then this might feel a less than that. - How old is your Model S? - About a year and a half. - Okay, so here's my big concern with this display. It's basically a giant tablet. Five or 10 years from now-- I mean, you don't hold on for a phone for five or 10 years, you don't hold on to a tablet. Is yours slowing down at all? Do you think that's gonna make it five years, 10 years, as long as you keep a car? - I do view it the same way as you. I did lease my car anticipating it like a piece of technology and I don't expect it to last as long as a normal car. So far, in my year and a half, it hasn't slowed down, so that's good. I'm hoping it doesn't, because that's kind of important that it keeps up with all the things I need to do, like unlocking it on the screen. - I find myself wondering, A, are regular people going to be able to figure all this out, and, two, like, honestly, it's a computer and I'm with you. I mean you probably change phones faster than me. I change my phone every 25 minutes. - Right. - And this kind of scares me. I've got to be honest with you, that it's kind of locked in to this. And you can get over the air updates, but are they gonna swap out processors in 10 years? Things like that. Or are they just gonna call them all back and give people new ones? - Yeah, I think it would be cool if they actually changed out the computer because I know the computer in the Model S, I thought they would have updated already, because it's been the same since the beginning of Model S. (bouncy music) - Compared to Auto Pilot on your S, do you find this one better or worse? What was your response like how it-- - Yeah, the actual driving part was identical, just having all the cars in front of you and sensing everything around you is the same. But my problem with it is the physical control of Auto Pilot. So, on Model S there's a separate stock, you double tap down, and if you want to change the distance between the car in front of you, you just rotate it. In this car you have no Auto Pilot stock, so you double tap the drive stock, and then to adjust the distance of the car in front of you, you have to go into a menu and hit up and down in the menu on the screen. - Whoa! - So, you know, you're not, you're technically not really driving and you can afford to look off the road, but I feel like they could have done way better with that. - Yeah, I feel like they went, this is a weird phrase, maximally minimum. - Yeah. - There's as little stuff as you can have over here, and sometimes when you're actually just driving, you want those controls around you. - Yeah. Some of these buttons are unassigned, for the most part, and they can, as they learn about how people use the software, assign them, so I think they can use that right wheel to control distance, because now it's unassigned while you're in Auto Pilot. That would be easy. - So, this car, I was saying earlier, is almost 60k, because it's all optioned out. - Yeah. - The base model Model S is, I don't think anybody gets one, but it's close to that range too. Would you get this specced up versus getting a Model S at the base level? - I think at 60 grand, or roughly what this is, I would pick an optioned up Model 3. - Really? - Because baseline Model S, you don't get Auto Pilot, right, you have to pay extra. Baseline Model S, you don't get glass roof. Baseline Model S, you don't get premium speakers. So, it'll feel similar, but I feel like you'll get a better experience with an optioned up Model 3. That's just my opinion. I haven't driven a baseline Model S. I could be proven wrong. But Tesla will always tell you Model S is a better car. That's just my opinion on if you're gonna drop exactly 60 grand, that's probably where I would lean. - All right, man, well, I have stolen you and driven you around in circles too much for the day. I'm gonna let you go. Do you want to plug your channel? - Yo, MTV HD on YouTube or any other social. I did a Tesla video, it might have been this exact same car. - I think it was the exact same car. - It was this exact same car. - I changed it from Auto Focus to the Verge. - That's amazing. Take it easy. - Thanks, Brother. I've got to get this thing back to the Tesla dealership. Oh, hey Loren. Come on in. Loren, do you want to come with me to the meatpacking district? - I do. - Because I have to get this car back to Tesla. - You know, I love those clubs. - Who doesn't love a hot club? So, this is Loren Grush-- - Hi. - Who you probably know from Space Craft. - I cover the other Elon company. - So when you think about Elon, right, obviously SpaceX like really inspires people. - Oh, yeah. You know, it's funny, I saw some comment the other day that was talking about just the kind of sheer difference between how the two companies are covered. You know, SpaceX has got its criticism and people who like to criticize it, but overall, most people kind of acknowledge that the company has been a big disruptor in like a very old-timey industry. Ironically space is kind of set in old ways. - But I wonder, the way Tesla has covered it, is like, they have competitors. SpaceX doesn't have like consumer level competitors the way Tesla does. - Yeah, I mean, they have like one or two major competitors. But in space, having competition is, everyone kind of says it's good. The more other companies elevate, it all elevates the industry. It's not, it's definitely not the same field as cars, by any means. And the difference too, I think, is this is more to towards the consumer. And SpaceX, you know, not everybody launches rockets. - No. - Not everybody needs their rockets to be launched. So, it's a very different type of market and maybe that's kind of why things are different. It just sounds like they have a lot of production problems, and that is just not an issue for SpaceX. (Nilay laughing) If anything, they have an abundance of rockets because they keep landing them all the time. - So, when you're in this car and you're looking around it do you see any family ties between all the Elon companies? - Elon loves a streamlined aesthetic. - He's doing something with these cars that make them look really different. If you look at all the cars around us, they all have grills, they need air intakes for their engines. This car doesn't need one, so they just flattened out the front of the car. They designed it around being an electric car. - And all my stuff is up in the hood right now. - That's true. That front trunk is actually like pretty useful. So, I'm gonna do something. - Okay. - So, we're on the West Side Highway. I'm just gonna put the hammer down. - What's the hammer? Can you even do that in New York? (Loren screams) Oh, my god. Please don't put that in the video. (squealing) That's like a freaking roller coaster ride. - [Nilay] Yeah, I mean, this car has a ton of torque. - [Loren] I like speed, it's just unexpected. - [Nilay] Yeah. - [Loren] And it's also a car. Like, I don't like cars. - [Nilay] You don't like cars? - [Loren] Well, I do like cars if I'm in control. - [Nilay] I see. Do you want to drive? - [Loren] No. - [Nilay] You sure? - [Loren] Maybe. - [Nilay] Do it. It's not my car. So, very basic stuff-- - [Loren] Yeah, what do I do? - [Nilay] First, your mirrors. Phil, Phil, come back. Stop! - [Phil] What's wrong? - [Nilay] Nothing's wrong, I don't think. - [Loren] Put the hazards on. Put the hazards on! - [Nilay] I don't know how. - [Loren] Go around us! - [Nilay] You guys, we need the key card! - [Phil] It's in the car with you. - [Nilay] Oh. Okay. We're good. We're good. Put your foot on the brake. And then now you're in drive. - [Loren] Okay. Sorry. - [Nilay] I didn't know where the key card was. (laughing) - Oh, that's fun. - Do you see what I'm saying?