The 2024 Model 3
The new and improved Tesla Model 3 is about to enter the North American markets, and Tesla’s Vice President of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy took to social media to share some extra details about the refreshed model’s features that we hadn’t heard about yet.
Several questions were answered by Moravy in a thread created by Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt to show off a video the company recently released explaining their methodology for the Highland refresh of the Model 3. As Lars is a bit of a rare figure to see online, the community immediately began asking questions, starting with one about the new suspension.
Lars is asked if the new suspension is anything like the comfort suspension on the Model Y, and he responds by saying that the Model 3 now has a completely unique shock absorption system called Frequency Selective Damping.
This reduces the frequency of shaking in your belly-area in the 4-6 hertz range - and since it’s isolating such a specific frequency, it won’t affect your steering at all, while still removing the effect of the small bumps that frequently happen on some roads.
There was also some mythbusting being done by Lars after someone made a comment about the seat space being apparently smaller in the rear, after Lars confirmed that the new Model 3 has more trunk space.
Lars quickly fired back, explaining that the trunk space was expanded mostly through shuffling around the overall packaging in the rear design of the vehicle - which included a change to the incline of the rear seats. This shuffle also allowed for some extra cushion in the seat base back there, so new Model 3 owners will get a slightly larger trunk, and some comfier rear seats.
In fact, new seats have been a bit of a theme with the Model 3 refresh - with a Performance model having just been spotted in Santa Monica on February 18th with white sport seats. This wasn’t part of Lars’ posts on X, but it does reinforce his comments on the new seating.
One really important clarification was made by Lars further in the thread, however. The Tesla exec was asked why Tesla doesn’t publish information on their recommended tires - because a lot of Tesla owners end up getting less mileage out of their vehicles after changing the factory tires because of a lack of information.
Lars responded that it’s actually a good idea to get that information out there, and that he and his team will “get on that”. In the meantime, though, Lars said that any tire designed for Tesla by any manufacturer they work with, will include a letter T and a number next to it - indicating that it is a tire recommended by the manufacturer.
After that, the conversation died out a little - with Lars only offering up the fact that the Model 3 now has two microphones for calls instead of one - something that has been covered before now. But it was still great to see someone with such hands-on knowledge of the car get into the social media trenches and answer some questions.
The new Model 3 is seeing a lot of attention now that the initial Cybertruck fervor has died down a bit, and its introduction to North America will likely see a big swell in sales.