- Tesla recently offered Model 3 owners a software upgrade to enhance the performance of the long-range version of the car.
- The upgrade costs $2,000 and drops the 0-60mph speed to 3.9 seconds from 4.4 seconds.
- That's BMW M3 territory, for a car that isn't even Tesla's top-spec performance model.
- Comparing the two, I'm impressed by the Model 3's extra straight-line speed, but I'd still take the costlier M3 as a driver's car.
- Sign up for Business Insider's transportation newsletter, Shifting Gears, to get more stories like this in your inbox.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
It's become alarmingly fashionable to compare the Tesla Model 3 with other luxury sedans, especially BMWs.
The basis for these comparisons is to suggest that Tesla has begun a process of "conquesting" its "competitors'" customers. This provides Tesla's boosters with the math they need to predict Tesla sales increases, which to grow in the US market in particular would need to capture market share from brands such as BMW, Mercedes, Audi, and Lexus.
I don't think that math makes sense. But Tesla recently offered a acceleration upgrade to its long-range, dual-motor Model 3, the second-highest-performing variant of the car. The 0-60mph time has, according to Tesla, dropped to 3.9 seconds from 4.4 seconds. The cost to the owners would be $2,000.
(The Performance trim offers a 0-60 mph time of 3.2 seconds.)
Forgetting for a moment the in-app-purchases aspect of this - Tesla owners might at some level feel like their vehicle is more like a video game than a vehicle - I thought that it would be reasonable to run a straight-up comparo of the long-range Model 3 and a similarly quick bimmer, the M3.
We're currently between M3 editions; the outgoing car was retired in 2018, but the new 3-Series has launched, and we should see a successor M3 next year.
Here's how the upgraded Model 3 long-range and the M3 stack up:
