2026-05-18
Test drive in Erfurt
Before placing any order, I naturally wanted to drive the car myself first. I booked the appointment online and then had to upload my driving licence in the app. A few days later a Tesla employee called me to go through the details, among other things which model I actually wanted to drive.
On March 14 the day had come. Everything went surprisingly quickly at the Erfurt location. The employee unlocked the car in the app, after which I could pair my smartphone via Bluetooth as a key, get in and click through a short tutorial on the large screen. Adjust the mirrors and seats, get a few basic controls explained, and off I went.
I had two hours, which was easily enough for a stretch of Autobahn and a generous loop through Weimar and Erfurt. Leipzig would have been an alternative, where you can even do the test drive completely without a Tesla employee on board. The Tesla app shows you the exact location of the test car on a map and lets you honk it at the press of a button so you can find it more easily in the yard. The unlock then happens automatically through the app, while you pair the smartphone via Bluetooth just like you would otherwise.
Order and waiting period
Convinced by the test drive, I ordered a Model 3 Long Range RWD two days later, on March 16. The VIN was in the 827 range, and the original delivery window was set for May 9 to May 16. A few weeks later the first push back to May 27 through June 3 arrived, and shortly afterwards it was corrected forward again to May 21 through May 28. Soon after that, the Delivery Advisor reached out via SMS: the car would arrive in Teltow on May 13 and he wanted to set up a handover appointment.
Sounds relaxed, but it really wasn't. I live in Thuringia, which means more than 250 km from the delivery centre. Driving there twice is not an option. And the idea that the car would actually be on site on May 13, when the ship only docks in Zeebrugge around May 12, struck me as fairly ambitious.
What added to my uncertainty was the registration date, which had already been set for May 11. With Tesla you generally try to schedule the registration as close to the handover as possible. In practice, however, there can easily be several weeks in between, depending on when Tesla provides the necessary paperwork and what appointments your local registration office actually has open. If you don't know that beforehand, you first wonder whether the car really should already be registered when you don't even have it in your hands yet.
Visually summarised, the whole sequence looked like this:
The forum
The waiting period was surprisingly entertaining, mostly thanks to a Tesla forum, the TFF Forum. It tracks in detail which VIN sits on which ship, with daily updates on the current position of the freighters and their expected arrival in Europe. If you have never watched how a community builds its own little logistics department out of ship positions, port schedules and VIN lists, I can warmly recommend it. It strips the abstract "we'll be in touch" of its mystery and makes the wait tangible.
The handover
On May 16 the day had finally come. We were 45 minutes early at the delivery centre and were called in after just five minutes. The employee took his time and explained the car properly. A few misunderstandings around the phone key and Tesla account couldn't be resolved on site though, and I sorted those out myself later.
What was annoying was that one of the two key cards was missing. The employee simply shrugged and told me to open a ticket about it. I removed the missing card from the car later the same day so that no open key would remain in the system.
What really bothered me about the handover: you are pushed to sign quite quickly that everything on the car is in order, even though I didn't even have time to walk around the car once. The line above the signature says, in effect, that you have received the vehicle without damage, and that is exactly what you are supposed to confirm blindly. The justification is that you have plenty of time afterwards to report any defects in the app. Here the Delivery Assistant should give you at least five minutes to calmly walk around the outside, briefly sit inside, and then sign. That would make the whole process more relaxed for both sides.
I also noticed a few suspicious looking spots on the bonnet. Most of them turned out to be plain dirt, which an employee then patiently took care of with a cloth and cleaning agent. A more stubborn spot was subsequently dealt with using a polishing machine. In the end the paint was clean again, so no real drama.
First driving impressions
The suspension is noticeably more comfortable than I had expected. During the test drive in Erfurt I had driven the Performance Model, whose suspension felt clearly stiffer. The LR RWD is tuned distinctly softer. Up to about 160 km/h the car feels planted and calm, above that it gets noticeably more restless. Not dangerous, but not the composed feeling you really want on the Autobahn either.
The lane keeping assistant has a quirk I don't quite understand. After a lane change it stays off and has to be re-activated manually. In this class and at this level of software ambition I would actually expect it to engage again automatically after the manoeuvre.
In the TFF Forum many drivers report mild to noticeable steering wheel vibrations starting around 130 km/h, sometimes even below that. I obviously paid close attention to this on the way home. In my case the vibrations are very mild, really only in homeopathic doses. Without the forum thread in the back of my mind I probably wouldn't have noticed at all.
What I had least expected: I am no longer annoyed at having gone with the LR RWD instead of the LR AWD. The acceleration is completely insane and the sound system is genuinely good. Both points I had actually doubted before placing the order.
Verdict
I am very happy with the car itself, after the first few days there is little to complain about. My impression of everything around it is more mixed. On the one hand there is the TFF Forum, where the community made the weeks of waiting surprisingly entertaining. On the other hand the official support, which so far is pulling in exactly the opposite direction. I have meanwhile opened a ticket for the missing key card and am still waiting for a reply. The app is also pretty confusing about it, because it suddenly mentions a cost estimate and asks you to book a service appointment. Both completely miss my actual problem, because in the end all Tesla needs to do is mail me a card.