By Gareth Butterfield 
I was scrolling through Auto Trader the other day, as you do, and noticed that used Teslas are amazingly affordable.
For example, there’s a 2021 Tesla Model 3 Long Range advertised at the moment for £11,800. Admittedly, it’s done 140,000 miles, but that’s a lot of car for the money.
Up the budget to just £13,500 and I’ve also spotted a 2019 Standard Range Model 3 with only 39,700 miles. So for less than £15,000 you can get a super-modern EV at less than five years old and, if you shop around, you’ll probably find one with less than 40,000 miles on it.
But what would it be like to live with, I wondered. Handily, the nice people at Tesla were happy to help me find out. They sent me a 69-reg Model 3 Performance with a spit under 40,000 miles on the clock, and I’ve been using it as a workhorse for a few weeks.
Spoiler alert: I’m thoroughly impressed.
Admittedly, this being a Performance model in pretty much flawless condition, its value is probably closer to £20,000 – maybe £18k if you smile sweetly enough, but it’s still a remarkable chunk of cutting-edge EV for less than the price of a current hatchback.
In case you’re not familiar with the Model 3, it’s the entry-level Tesla in the UK, one of only two we can officially buy new. The Model Y is its stablemate here.
It’s very much a saloon, but looks like a sleek, four-door coupe. It has bucket loads of tech, it’s extremely spacious and comfortable, it eats up long journeys, and it drives really nicely.
It has plenty of Tesla quirks baked in, like slightly annoying indicators, no physical buttons, no Android Auto, and an app instead of a key. Live with a Tesla for a while, and these become less of an annoyance, trust me, but it all takes some getting used to.
Teslas are sometimes lambasted for poor build quality, but here I am whirring along through the Peak District in a six-year-old car that theoretically has its best years behind it and I can’t detect any squeaks or rattles.
Hunt around enough and you can see some slight wear marks on plastic surfaces, but other than that it’s in really good condition, and certainly feels ready for another decade.
And while I’m hunting for signs of premature ageing, I dive into the menu on the 15″ touchscreen to see what the battery health is like after nigh-on 40,000 miles. According to the car, its “energy retention is within the expected range based on its age and mileage”. “Your battery is healthy”, the message proudly proclaims as a headline.
There is a way to do a thorough healthcheck of the battery, but it’s a process that takes a few days and requires charging and discharging and I just don’t have the time nor the equipment.
I’ve got a 150-mile M1 jaunt to do soon though, so I’ll get a feel for it, at least.
This car, as I mentioned is the “Performance” model, which means it has a frankly unnecessary 500bhp. I don’t need to tell you how absurdly vivid that is in an electric car. Acceleration is borderline nauseating, but there’s a remarkable pliance to the handling. Tesla has managed to create a car that can actually give you some excitement on a twisty road, even though it’s lacking a V8 bassline.
As much fun as it is impressing (or scaring) your friends and family with blistering launches, it does eat into your battery range. And that’s going to be the biggest concern when buying any used EV.
But, remarkably, after 300 miles of motorway, I can honestly say there has been no noticeable encroachment on its overall capacity over this Model 3’s life.
Range is a funny thing, there are lots of factors that affect it. The way you drive, the amount you’re carrying, even the weather. But I was able to dust off my longest trip in the Model 3 without any hint of anxiety, and only one brief stop-off to charge.
This is largely thanks to Tesla’s incredibly clever navigation system, which lets you know while you’re plugged in how much battery you can expect to have left by the time you arrive.
It’s also testament to the superb Supercharger network, which bucks the trend of an otherwise slightly unreliable infrastructure by just working really well.
If you did fancy owning a cheap EV, you do have quite a few options. Jaguar’s iPace, for example, is embarrassingly accessible, and prices of Porsche Taycans have plummeted too.
I’m certainly not an EV evangelist, I love an engine and I want internal combustion to last forever, but we have to be realistic in this day and age.
And, when all’s said and done, there’s something wonderfully calming and joyous about driving an EV, with its lack of gears, its instant torque and its complete silence at low speeds. And that’s before we consider the easy servicing and the reliability.
I’m certainly not suggesting everyone should go out and buy a used Tesla. I’m finding myself increasingly tempted as I marvel at how much you get for your money, but I’m not ready to take the plunge just yet.
That said, if anyone’s about to buy a five-year-old EV I’d doff my cap to them. Depreciation and battery degradation are obvious leaps of faith, but I can’t think of another way to get quite so much car for your money.
I feel I should reiterate here… You can get a high-spec, comfortable, spacious, fast family saloon that’s cheap to run and a doddle to service for £12,000, and it won’t have done moon miles, and it might be less than five years old.
When you sit back and think about it, a used Model 3 makes a lot of sense. Dammit, now I’m tempted again.
