If anyone was expecting fair and reasonable comparison you haven't been reading auto magazines very long.
Early in the article:
>As if there weren’t enough built-in tension already in this test, Hong rolls a grenade into the big picture takeaway from the comparison: “Comparing this Model 3 to the Bolt and Leaf isn’t fair—like comparing a BMW 3 Series with a Camry or Accord.”
Because they're comparing off the shelf standard equipped Bolt and Leaf with the top of the line Tesla with extended battery and advanced features.
Sure it's because that's all they had but then they should have waited to do a review. But like tech journalism, auto journalist is all about the reads and clicks in the 21st century.
I'm not sure if that's the base Leaf because Nissan doesn't appear to have pricing on their website, but they definitely tested a loaded Bolt. The base Bolt starts at $36,620 according to a quick search and the one MT tested was $43,905.
Th big difference to me is that Tesla is the only one so far offering a larger battery and Autopilot/FSD, which add $17k to the price of the 3.
Hopefully Tesla will make the base 3 available early next year so the base version of each car can be compared.
Thirty seven years ago Motor Trend declared the Chevy Citation their “Car of the Year”. My family owned one. Ignoring the aluminum block Vegas, that has to have been the biggest piece of shit ever to roll off a Chevy assembly line. Don’t believe me? Ask my Dad, who worked for GM at the time. But Motor Trend seemed to like it.
I’ve tried to remember that any time I’ve read a Motor Trend article and asked, “WTF?”
Wait, they compared the $60,500 Tesla with the $43,905 Bolt and 2/3 of the reviewers chose the Bolt.
The only one who chose the Tesla talks about how sub-par it is overall, with "infotainment and autonomous systems are still a work in progress", but "new software features are being beamed in seemingly every night" and then magically the Tesla comes out on top?
That's before we go into "our finishing order in this first-ever comparison test of affordable long-range electric vehicles".
Yes, what a surprise that they ranked in order of price, but what did surprise me was how dramatic that price difference was: $60k Tesla, $41k Bolt, $37k Leaf. Who would have thought - a car that costs twice as much gives a better experience. A correlation between price and experience?
My (highly optioned) 2015 LEAF was $22K after incentives ($7500 in federal and $2500 in state cheese, a few grand in Nissan cash, a free level 2 charger, some dealer concessions, and 0% financing for 5 years).
The 2018s are more (larger battery), but the net price will still be significantly cheaper than the average new car transaction price which is just a few dollars shy of $35K. (I tried to find the median; it was not easy and I gave up and took the average. I would bet that the median is still well over $27K.)
The state and federal rebates have made a used Leaf a great deal; you can get them from 7-10k. Great car if your round-trip commute is 80 miles or less.
Early in the article:
>As if there weren’t enough built-in tension already in this test, Hong rolls a grenade into the big picture takeaway from the comparison: “Comparing this Model 3 to the Bolt and Leaf isn’t fair—like comparing a BMW 3 Series with a Camry or Accord.”
Because they're comparing off the shelf standard equipped Bolt and Leaf with the top of the line Tesla with extended battery and advanced features.
Sure it's because that's all they had but then they should have waited to do a review. But like tech journalism, auto journalist is all about the reads and clicks in the 21st century.