What's the difference?
It is highly unusual to drive around in a bed, but that’s what it felt like we were being asked to do with the new and terribly exciting Tesla Model 3 Performance.
Tesla doesn’t do media launches, nor traditional marketing, so everything about this event was predictably peculiar, but when we were told this new car was causing so much excitement that we should pull a sheet over it every time we stopped, to avoid people photographing it, or touching it (“if someone tries, just politely ask them to stop” as we were advised) we hit peak weirdness.
Eventually, they did agree to pull the sheet off one and let us have a look at the most exciting car Tesla has ever made that’s not a Cybertruck.
The Performance is the Model 3 Tesla engineers and designers always wanted to make. Clearly, it was going to be called the 'Ludicrous', because some staff kept stuffing up and calling it that. It’s a shame the name wasn’t used, but at least it still gets an 'Insane' mode.
They really wanted to go all out with the original Performance version, but “a guy called Elon” didn’t want to add all the complexity that required at the time - he was focused on quality issues and ramping up production - but this go around he has let them have their heads, and encouraged them to go hog wild.
That means an entirely new power unit at the rear, staggered 20-inch wheels for sportier turn-in, aerodynamic changes for more downforce and less lift, new seats and the fitting of active dampers to a Model 3 for the first time, to help provide proper, track-ready handling.
We set out into the embrace of the adoring Los Angeles public (truly, no city on Earth boasts so many Tesla owners, they are everywhere) to find out if all the fuss is worth it.
Sedans have long been supplanted by SUVs as the family favourite but they still have their charms for those drivers who like something that feels more dynamic on the road.
Enter the limited edition Volvo S60 Recharge Black Edition which sees the return of a plug-in hybrid powertrain for Volvo’s only sedan.
I’ve been family-testing the PHEV variant to see just how practical a sedan is for the modern family, and whether it's rivals, the Audi A4, BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C200 have anything to worry about.
The Model 3 Performance is one of those cars that’s undeniably impressive in almost every way, and hugely fast in absolutely every way, and yet can somehow still leave you feeling slightly cold. Or at least damp with fear sweat.
It’s not my kind of sports car, but if you love speed, and EVs, and Tesla, you’re gong to think it’s the Queen Bee’s knees.
Publishers: Please place the following in BOLD after the verdict:
Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.
The Volvo S60 Recharge Black Edition proves sedans can still be sexy and an excellent family car, providing your family is on the smaller side. I only have one kid, so it's perfect for our activities and gear. It’s wonderful to drive and has a great features list but it's not without its quirks.
My son thinks it looks cool, and we enjoyed bellowing out a few renditions of the original Batman theme song this week. He has had a lot of comfort in the back seat, too.
Tesla’s design folks waxed long and loud about how they’d finally been able to visually lift and separate this Performance Model 3 from the basic one and they point to the new front and rear fascias, more aggressive styling, aerodynamic flicks, integrated cooling ducts, rear diffuser and carbon-fibre spoiler, which are there not only to look good, but to to “optimise lift balance and high-speed stability”.
Now, I’ll grant you it’s better than a normal Model 3, and that we were regularly approached by excited Tesla fans asking “is this the NEW PERFORMANCE OH MY GOD I WANT ONE NOW?!?"
But honestly, I still think it’s a bit subtle, and that includes the strange little 'Performance' sticker/badge on the rear, which does look a lot like the Ludicrous symbol that Elon loves, from the awful movie Spaceballs, but Tesla staff insist it’s not, nor is it Plaid.
Clearly, the design tweaks are there for a reason, and train spotters will note the differences immediately, but it’s still just not the most exciting car to look at, nor is it anywhere near as exciting to behold as it is to drive.
The S60 Black Edition nails it on design. It sports a handsome and sleek shape that manages to look sporty and elegant. It's exactly what you expect a luxury sedan to look like.
My seven-year old dubbed this the Batmobile, and for good reason, every accent is black!
The grille, badge and 19-inch five-spoke alloys look aggressive against the 'Hammer of Thor' LED headlights and make this design look hot.
You better like black paintwork, though, as that is the only choice for this variant.
The interior hasn’t seen any changes for the 2025 model and it seems Volvo is streamlining most of its interiors to look the same.
You could find this dashboard in most of its cars, which is fine because it’s a good-looking treatment full of soft-touchpoints and high-quality materials. But there’s also nothing that sets the Black Edition apart from its stablemates. It would be nice to see a point of difference.
The dashboard is headlined by the 9.0-inch touchscreen multimedia system and a 12-inch digital instrument cluster. You have some other nice focal points in the large sunroof and massive air-vents, which add some interest to the dash.
Overall, it’s a pleasant interior but maybe not as fun as some of its rivals.
Inside, the big news is the new seats. Tesla was happy to admit the pews fitted to the previous Performance just weren’t up to the job of holding humans in place when applying so much G force.
The new 'Sport Seats' feature enhanced side cushioning and side bolsters for better lateral support during dynamic driving. And they can also be heated and ventilated.
Elsewhere, there’s some carbon-fibre trim on top of the dash, with a Tesla-first weave pattern to further help the Performance stand out within the Model 3 line-up.
Other than that, it’s pretty standard Tesla sedan, which will be familiar if you’ve ever caught an Uber in Los Angeles. Spartan, minimalist, slightly cheap-feeling.
As for the practicality of the tech, I'm still against the giant 15-inch tablet-style touchscreen, for everything, the replacement of an indicator stalk with buttons and not having a speedo right in front of your eyes, where you need it.
The cabin of the S60 is fairly practical with the front row feeling spacious for my 168cm height. It’s a low car, so if your knees squeak you might find it annoying to get in and out of!
The comfort of the front seats cannot be understated. They feature a two-position memory function, lumbar- and side-bolster adjustments and under-thigh extenders. Plus, with the heat and ventilation functions, you’ll look forward to a long journey.
Because of the sloping roofline, it’s a bit awkward to get in and out of the back seat but once you’re in there is a stack of room (behind my driving position) and the outboard seats hug you into position, so you don’t move around in corners.
Seats are comfy for long journeys and outboarders enjoy heat functionality, too. The pillar-mounted directional air vents are super practical and the hardened kickplates are a godsend for parents with wildlings like my son, who seem to want to put their feet on everything.
The transmission tunnel is massive, though, so keep the middle seat reserved for kids only.
Up front, individual storage isn’t as great as you might hope for with the glove box being the largest cubby on offer. The middle console is literally a tray and it doesn't fit my iPhone 15 Pro Max (I have a thin case, as well!).
There's no centre console storage aside from the two cupholders, and this variant misses out on a wireless charging pad, so my phone and 'bits' have been shoved into the cupholders or on the passenger seat, which is a tad annoying. The storage bins in each door feature a small drink bottle holder but are, again, shallow.
Individual storage is a bit better in the rear with two net map pockets, two large cupholders in the fold-down arm rest, as well as a drink bottle holder in each storage bin.
Technology is well-rounded and the multimedia system (powered by Android Automotive) is easy to use, but curiously you don’t get Android Auto in this model!
You do get a bunch of built-in apps like Google Maps and Spotify. There's wired Apple CarPlay and satellite navigation, too.
You get a head-up display and the digital instrument cluster looks high-end with its graphics and shows your sat nav directions, which is always handy.
Charging options throughout are good with two USB-C ports in each row, while the front also gets a 12-volt socket.
The boot is slightly smaller compared to its rivals at 427L thanks to the electric components but it is still well-sized for my grocery run and it’s not too difficult to grab things that slide to the back.
You get a 'tyre mobility kit' (rather than a physical spare) underneath the floor and I like the way you can hang the home charging cable bag out of the way.
The Black Edition has a hands-free tailgate which is operated by a kick-function. But you don’t have an electric button on the lid and the kick-function didn’t always work to close it! That said, the lid isn’t heavy, so it’s nothing to split hairs over.
Tesla says the price for the Model 3 Performance will be "starting at" $80,900, plus on-road costs. There's no word on whether there will be different spec levels and the company does not like answering questions or providing information.
What we also know about Tesla is that the price quoted could move down, or up, at any time, quite randomly, so if phrases like "residual value" or "depreciation" are of interest to you, it can be a challenging brand.
That side swipe aside, this sounds like astonishingly good value for this much performance from your Model 3 Performance. A Hyundai Ioniq 5 N would give it run for fun and involvement, if not brand fans, but it's $111,000, while a Porsche Taycan kicks off at $164,000 (it is a lot more car for the money, but it might struggle to keep up with this Tesla, at least in base model form).
In terms of equipment, it's pretty much standard Model 3 fare, other than the fast bits and a spot of carbon here and there.
You get 'Autopilot' included, of course, but you can't use all of its 'Full Self Driving functionality' on Australian roads. Not yet, anyway.
There are two variants for the S60, the mild-hybrid Ultimate or the plug-in-hybrid Recharge Black Edition, the latter being our test model.
The Recharge Black Edition is priced from $88,990, before on road costs, which positions it towards the lower end of the market, with the Audi A4 Avant 45 TFSI Quattro S Line MHEV being the most affordable at $85,700 MSRP.
Next up is the Mercedes-Benz C200 MHEV at $89,900 MSRP and then the BMW 330e M Sport PHEV at $98,700 MSRP.
The interesting thing, though, is you don’t pay extra for any packs on this model, which is rare for a luxury brand. It’s pretty well-specified already.
Luxury features include powered front seats that have adjustable side-bolsters, lumbar support and two-position memory function, as well as heat and ventilation functions.
Other items include heated rear outboard seats, a heated steering wheel, a panoramic sunroof and beautiful Nappa leather upholstery throughout.
Practical features include dual-zone climate control, handsfree boot opening and double locking, which is when you lock the car from the outside and if there is forced entry via a smashed window, for example, the doors still can't be opened, even from the inside.
Technology is robust with a 9.0-inch touchscreen multimedia system including in-built Google Apps (Google Play and Maps, YouTube, and Spotify).
Other items include wired Apple CarPlay, the 'Volvo Car Services App' with a four-year subscription and over-the-air updates, 12-inch digital instrument cluster, Bluetooth connectivity, digital radio and a 15-speaker Bowers & Wilkins 'High Fidelity' audio system.
Unfortunately on this variant, you miss out on Android Auto capability and a wireless charging pad.
If you’ve ever driven the previous Model 3 Performance you’ll know that it could well have come with Space X badging (arguably Elon’s more impressive engineering achievement), because it really did thrust rather than accelerate.
But this time the engineers wanted to go all out. Customers appreciated the incremental performance they got from the last Model 3 Performance version, but they told Tesla they wanted more.
With many enthusiasts among Tesla's engineering and development team, they looked to unlock the performance potential of the platform.
So, that meant a whole lot more madness and torque thump. It comes from a new Performance 4DU, an all-new drive unit - featuring an entirely new rear motor that uses bar-winding technology - unlocking 22 per cent more continuous power, 32 per cent more peak power and 16 per cent higher peak torque delivery.
Overall figures are 380kW and 740Nm, but looking at them written down, they seem big, yet not as big as they feel in this car, as it’s shoving you from a standing start to 100km/h in three seconds flat.
It feels faster. Sick-making fast, even.
The S60 Recharge Black Edition’s plug-in hybrid powertrain features a 2.0-litre, turbo-petrol, four-cylinder engine and an electric motor that combine to produce 340kW of power and 709Nm of torque.
It has serious kick and can do a 0-100km/h sprint time of just 4.5-seconds. The eight-speed auto transmission is smooth as silk and creates a refined on-road driving experience.
Despite being heavier and gruntier, Tesla claims the new Performance Model 3 manages to be more efficient than the one it replaces, albeit delivering just a two per cent reduction in energy consumption. Claimed energy usage is 16.7 kWh/100km.
Tesla claims a total range of 528km on the WLTP, which is obviously going to drop if you drive it the way its makers clearly intended.
Using a Tesla Supercharger, you can add 228km in 15 minutes and... that's all Tesla will tell us. There are no official figures available for how long a full charge takes, on either a Tesla charge or a home wallbox of your own.
The official combined cycle fuel consumption figure is an extremely low 1.4L/100km and I did two economy tests this week covering a healthy mix of open-road and urban driving.
Charging it every day for four days, gave me a real-world usage of 3.8L/100km and charging it once in three days gave me a trip readout of 5.6L/100km.
The PHEV powertrain has proven itself economical whether you dedicate yourself to the charging or not, so that’s pretty good.
The Black Edition features a Type 2 port for AC charging, but it can’t be hooked up to a DC fast charger.
This doesn't worry me because even on a standard domestic house socket you can charge the 19kWh battery from 0-100 per cent in just five hours, which is pretty fast for a PHEV.
You also get up to 90km of WLTP-rated pure electric driving range in this, which is good for a plug-in.
Very occasionally, one drives a car that makes the human body feel inadequate to the task. I would have worried that I’m getting old, that my body is simply too flubby and my brain too broken, to cope with the kind of wild acceleration and brutal g-forces the Model 3 Performance delivers.
But, fortunately, I had a videographer in the passenger seat, a much younger man who loves fast cars, and he kept threatening to vomit when I drove it hard, too.
I’ve driven quite a few cars that you can use make your passenger sick, or hurt their necks - one obvious competitor in the shape of a Porsche Taycan Turbo S comes to mind - but it’s very rare that a vehicle is so intense it can make you, the driver, feel bilious.
Yes, you do bring this on yourself, by choosing to push this Performance anywhere near its limits through particularly sharp and intestine-shaped roads like the canyons outside Malibu Tesla chose to launch it on.
On longer, sweeping bends it was far more of a joy, and less physically punishing, but in the tight stuff it often felt like corners were being thrown at you, as if you were driving behind the Millennium Falcon and being pulled along in its wake.
The brakes, special new sporting ones with track-ready pads, were up to the task, even though it often felt like they couldn’t possibly pull you up from the speeds you were doing.
And yes, it was entirely my fault that the very first time I even gently prodded the throttle and it launched me ahead past a California Highway Patrol officer, that was my fault too. Three minutes into the drive, holding an American fine, I had already deduced that perhaps this car was too fast for my own good.
But lots of EVs are fast in a straight line, you’re really comparing the length and depth of your “oooophhh” sounds at this point, but where this one succeeds is by being a lot better in the handling and ride and cornering departments than most.
Tesla’s stated goal with this car was to move beyond straight-line speed, to become more than a one-trick pony, and to do that it’s given the Performance a stiffer structure overall and updated the springs and stabiliser bars.
Aerodynamic changes have reduced drag by five per cent, delivered a 36 per cent lift reduction, and a 55 per cent improvement in front-to-rear lift balance.
Tesla’s own, in-house version of adaptive dampers, not an option but included in every Performance, work with the car’s 'Vehicle Dynamics Controller' through its various modes - 'Insane' and 'Track' being the most… ludicrous - to immediately respond to driver inputs.
The Performance rides well on LA’s awful concrete freeways but feels absolutely nailed down when you attack even a bumpy driver’s road.
This version also has a lot more power going to the rear wheels, to help it feel more sports-car playful and to fire out of bends the way an enthusiast’s car should. And make no mistake, I met them, the people behind this car are serious driving enthusiasts (although they demur, slightly, on whether their boss is one).
Track mode will allow some serious adjustability, drifting ability and fun, so the kind of people who want to hurl around a racing circuit in silence will love it.
Perhaps the only let downs are that it still feels a bit austere inside, just not very special, and that the steering is just a bit digital, soft and uninvolving, compared to the cars they clearly benchmarked against - BMWs and Porsches.
A lot of people think driving a Volvo means it’s stately or boring. Get in the Black Edition and it will change your mind.
The power it has is awesome and the pick-up will blow your hair back. Power delivery feels effortless.
The firm suspension and steering provide great road feedback and dynamic handling. While the suspension is firm, the comfort in the cabin is high and you don’t wince going over a pothole. The cabin is very quiet which makes it feel refined, too, even at higher speeds.
You do feel a bit low when you’re sitting next to a big SUV at lights but visibility is pretty good with the wide windows and pillars that don’t get in the way.
I've been precious about going over speed bumps or exiting a ramp, because it's easy to scrape underneath the nose as the S60 sits quite low. But on a whole it's pretty easy to park.
The 360-degree view camera system is clear and has a birds-eye and reversing view but I'd like to see both feeds pop up at the same time. It's easy enough to flit between the views when needed.
Tesla provided no information about safety for the Performance Model but it is assumed it will be unchanged from a standard Model 3.
Aside from Autopilot that means auto emergency braking, lane keep aids, and instead of blind-spot monitoring, it gets the surround radar view and blind-spot cameras when you indicate.
The latest Model 3 has an additional centre airbag for a total of seven, as well as additional bolstering where the doors meet the body in response to requirements in its American home market.
It should be able to carry its maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating, which the original version achieved in 2019.
The S60 Recharge Black Edition has just been launched, so it’s not covered by its siblings’ maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating from 2018 but it features all of the goodies you’d expect from a Volvo.
Standard features include blind-spot monitoring, rear collision warning, forward collision warning, rear cross-traffic alert, lane departure alert, lane keeping aid, traffic sign recognition, an intelligent seatbelt warning, a head-up display, adaptive cruise control, 'Pilot Assist', a tyre mobility kit and a 360-degree view camera system, as well as front, side and rear parking sensors.
The S60 Black Edition also features Volvo designed safety items like the 'Side Impact Protection System' (SIPS) that reinforces the car's steel framework at the sides and disperses energy in a side collision.
It also features a 'Whiplash Injury Protection System' (WHIPS), which if hit from behind, the headrests move with the occupants to limit injuries.
One of the highlights is the programmable spare key where you can limit audible levels and speed limits. Which is perfect if you have a teenager who borrows your car. And the spare key is bright orange, so there's no sneaky 'whoops, I grabbed the wrong key' moments!
The rear row features two ISOFIX child seat mounts and three top-tethers. You'd be doing very well to fit three child seats in, so two will fit best.
Again, we've been asked to assume the Performance will come with Tesla's standard four-year/80,000km warranty and roadside assistance. And that the battery and drive unit will fall under an eight-year/192,000km warranty, whichever comes first.
Tesla says it monitors its cars to ascertain when they need servicing, and so it is based on a case-by-case situation. Every 12 months/20,000km is recommended for a general check-up, and includes tyre rotation.
Wiper blades, brake fluid and cabin air filters need replacement every two years while the air-con service is every six years.
Of course, there are no oil changes, filters or spark plugs to replace, and even brake pad wear is less than on an ICE vehicle because of the regenerative braking system. Although it will likely be higher in the Performance variant.
The S60 comes with a five-year/unlimited km warranty, which is a normal term for the class.
You can pre-purchase either a three- or five-year servicing plan and the three-year plan costs $1750, while the five-year plan costs a flat $3000 or an average of $600 per service, which is reasonable.
Servicing intervals sit at every 12 months or 15,000km, whichever occurs first.