(VIDEO) Canadians harshly criticize the new Tesla Model 3 Performance, after it overheated its brakes in the third corner of the circuit and could not even make a short lap without warnings | PiataAuto.md

The Tesla Model 3 Performance, launched a few months ago after the facelift of the model, is a formidable electric car in what it claims to offer, combined with a price even more decent than combustion cars with comparable performance. In the US, the Model 3 Performance has 510 hp, exactly what the BMW M3 Competition xDrive had before the facelift that added 20 hp, but the price of the two models is completely different, and in general, you can’t really find models with combustion, of 510 HP, which costs comparably. In Europe and Canada, however, the model comes with Chinese batteries and has 460 HP, which is impressive anyway. But Canadian journalists blasted the new American electric model in harsh criticism.

When it was launched, the Model 3 Performance announced that it had much better brakes, brakes have always been a problem with Tesla’s performance models, which have the power and weight, but almost always have too weak brakes. Only on the Model S Plaid Track Pack was that problem solved by carbon and ceramic brakes and a few other engineering details. The Model 3 Performance, however, is a smaller, lighter model with half the power, and many of its gas-powered competitors manage to have steel brakes that last much longer.

The two Canadian journalists who tested it say that the car has clearly become better in suspension and handling on public roads. And in a straight line, the acceleration is fulminant, of course, thanks to the two electric motors and their great power, delivered instantly.

The car offers the driver the possibility to very dynamically adjust the weight of each axle in the all-wheel drive, thus printing a more neutral behavior, more focused on understeer or oversteer. That can make it pleasant to drive and relatively intuitive in printing controlled skids, a fact that cannot but be liked in a car with the Performance index on it, with which you could go out on the circuit from time to time.

However, when a specialized drift mode is engaged, the Tesla becomes less intuitive, and drifts can be a bit more chaotic, punctuated by jerky inclusions of the front axle with more torque.

All this would be relatively acceptable and probably for most owners of this model all the features so far are the ones that will matter in real life. But the journalists were at a circuit, so they tried to drive the electric car there to get the best lap time, from three power laps and a fourth cooling lap.

It’s just that the Tesla Model 3 Performance overheated its brakes in the 3rd turn! And here we are not talking about the Nurburgring, a long circuit of over 20 km, but a much shorter circuit from Canada, very safe and temperate. And the model’s brakes issued overheating alerts after just 3 turns.

The journalist tried to drive the entire tour at full speed, even with the brakes overheated, but before long the brakes were not only warning, they already felt much less effective and dangerous, and the tires chosen by Tesla overheated as well and they began to no longer offer any grip and lateral support, so the car skids with all 4 wheels towards the outside of the turn under the action of centrifugal forces.

Therefore, more than one round stronger she simply could not be driven. And Canadian journalists see that as unacceptable from the point of view of general engineering standards. “Every other manufacturer in the world, if they had tested the car on the track before the launch and seen how it behaved, they would have had engineers say no, the car is not good enough to be launched publicly, and after that they had to follow a refinement before launch, but not at Tesla” — they say. It is not necessary that carbon and ceramic brakes were installed, if they could simply install larger and more powerful regular brakes.

Any other car with the “performance” qualification from another manufacturer, whether premium or non-premium, was going to last more than one lap of the circuit, more than 3 turns, they say. And they offer the example of Honda, a manufacturer that does not claim to be premium, but which, when it launches performance cars, has jewels carefully calibrated by its engineers, which can even withstand some circuit tours in some weekend outings .

See the entire experience of the Canadians in the video below.