Technology is an increasingly big part of our modern-day cars. Today, depending on how many options you tick before ordering your car, the end product could be quite different from case to case, even though the badging on the boot says the same thing. Of course, the aim of all this technology infused in modern-day cars is to make our life easier and more comfortable. But the question is: do you get what you pay for? This test between a BMW 3 Series and a Tesla Model 3 tries to find out.
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The guys from Good Drive had a rather good idea to put some of the tech to the test. Therefore, they set out to have the two cars park themselves on the street. What you should know from the get go is that they are capable of both parallel parking and perpendicular parking. Both cars use their parking sensors to measure spaces as you drive by and figure out if your car could fit in. The first car to get put to the test was the G20 3 Series.
Initially, it did pick up the space the guys were trying to get into. To be fair, the camera does show what looks to be a rather narrow space, and I’m not certain the 3er would’ve fit in there. When the car tried parking in a different spot, the driver intervened because he though the car was going to scrap the vehicle in front. Then they tried again with the same, initial spot and, while the car did park there, it did it perpendicularly, because there simply was not enough room to park it otherwise.
The Model 3 is shown performing a flawless parallel parking maneuver, even though it does take a while to get the car perfectly aligned. In the end though, the BMW does come with a feature the Tesla doesn’t have though: the back-up assistant. With this feature, the car remembers the last 50 meters covered and can reverse automatically, on the exact same path. It’s something that I tested and it comes in handy, especially in tricky, narrow spaces.
