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Tesla Model 3 Interior Space Compared To S, X – Video
OCT 5 2017 BY ERIC LOVEDAY 77
Is the Tesla Model 3 actually smaller than the Model S on the inside? The interior dimensions might surprise you.
Modern-day cars typically maximize interior space, while minimizing exterior size. The Model 3 is a prime example of this, while the now-dated Model S isn’t so much. Proof of this is found when comparing the exterior dimensions of both cars to the interior space (see graphic below).
On the outside, the Model S measures in at 196 inches long, 77 inches wides and 57 inches tall. Meanwhile, the Model 3’s exterior dimensions are 185 inches long, 73 inches wide and 57 inches tall. Aside from height, the Model S is significantly larger in all other exterior dimensions, but does it carry its size advantages inside? Not really.
Thanks to OCDetailing, we’ve got interior measurements of all three Teslas – S, 3 and X. Here are those figures (via Teslarati):
Interior Dimensions
OCDetailing notes that the Model 3 has spacious seating for driver and front passenger and that front leg room is more than adequate.
Once clear advantage that’s immediately noticeable from the figures above is the rear headroom in the Model 3. Model S owners often complain of having to tilt their heads sideways in the rear to avoid contact with the back glass. This shouldn’t be an issue in the Model 3.
The S does win in all of the width categories though, as it should since its 4 inches wider on the outside.
Study the numbers. Watch the video. Let us know if you’re surprised by the findings in comments below.
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77 Comments on "Tesla Model 3 Interior Space Compared To S, X – Video"
I’m certainly surprised by the rear shoulder room in the Model X: 32.7″ in the middle row and 40″ in the third? Something doesn’t seem right about that, to me.
Otherwise, very impressive Tesla has managed to carve out so much space in the smaller Model 3!
I imagine it’s because there are three seats in the middle row for the config he was looking at.
Better than Audi A6 legroom and headroom (A6 41.3 and 37.2). I’m guessing better than A4, as well, then.
The middle row shoulder room is lousy in the X because the gull-wing doors are so thick. The car retains roughly the same exterior width as the S, so when you make the doors thicker the interior gets narrower.
Yet another reason those doors were a mistake.
Comparable to a Honda Civic… maybe a little bit tighter.
Some dimensions are comparable, but the Model 3 has a significant advantage in others.
https://www.truedelta.com/Honda-Civic/specs-109#section_specs
Compare it to the new 2018 model civic and the interior stats are about equal except for rear leg room where the civic is over a significant 2 inches longer.
http://driving.ca/honda/civic#specs
Honda should just start calling it the Accord now. No wonder it is such a pig. Sochiro Honda must be rolling over in his grave.
Btw, when I glance at the specs for the Audi A4 they seem very close, despite the small exterior dimensions of the Model 3.
Wow, Shaun. The Civic as “pig”
The “pig” of a Civic is several cm smaller than the Model 3 in all three major exterior dimensions.
I assume you’re a rez holder for the new Tesla Sow?
hehehe…
I do understand his point, though. Today’s Civic is significantly larger than the Accord of only 10 years ago.
Same thing with the Corolla. It’s almost Camry size now.
I realize sites like these tend to be populated by greenies, but I wasn’t lamenting the size-creep of the Civic due to potential effects on fuel economy and emissions. Its just one of a number of factors that have caused Honda to move away from enthusiasts over the years, including the switch from double wishbone to Mac struts, change in engine philosophy, etc. Delving into which would be beyond the scope of this discussion.
Understood now, Shaun, and I apologize.
Many’s the aging tuner that laments the end of the Prelude and other great sleek and affordable little platforms limited only by one’s imagination.
BTW, as a former Leaf and now 1st Gen Volt driver I’ve got no room to be critical, but what about the back end of the new Civic? It’s a neck-and-neck contest with the Prius for questionable styling judgment.
The back, the front, the whole damn body of the current Civic took a dive off the ugly tree and hit every branch. I especially hate the squared off look on the front that also afflicts the Accord. It’s like a modern interpretation of the Chrysler K Car.
In America, all car categories are getting larger each generation, yet parking spots at retail locations seem to get smaller.
Also, just as an afterthought…
The inevitable drift to safety features and size is not the only influence on economy of operation. Really, if we could accept the acceleration characteristic of cars from the 70s, we’d use a hell of a lot less energy (yes: electrification helps to cure that as well, I know). As a youngster I remember 0-60 in under 10 sec as a big deal. Now we look at anything over 8 sec as being a dog.
If you’re a frequent user of ACS publications and have an account, you can get a recent CMU paper that discusses this obvious situation with some interesting analysis.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/ipdf/10.1021/acs.est.7b03743
BTW, it was Soichiro, not Sochiro.
You must not be a Honda guy if you don’t know what I’m talking about when I call it that. Also, my apologies for missing a letter in his name when I was typing on my phone as I rocked a baby to sleep
Some years ago (or by now, decades ago) there was a rule of thumb: “American automobiles, like species of animals, tend to increase in size to extinction.” 😉 Probably that’s not as true now as it was back then, but we still see the same trend at least occasionally.
My first car was a 1975 Civic CVCC. Yeah, the Civic certainly has grown quite a bit over the years! And I do find it strange that these days, there seems to be so little size difference between the Civic and the Accord. I’d think Honda would want more distinction between the two, to prevent too much sales cannibalization.
The word American doesn’t belong in there. It happens to all cars. A 3 series is lot larger than it used to be. A Civic too.
Marketing people are adept at selling “more”, so often they convince product design to provide more. More legroom, etc. That makes cars bigger.
And certainly safety requirements have added. Meeting side impact regs requires thicker doors. That means less space or a wider car.
“The word American doesn’t belong in there. It happens to all cars.”
No argument at all from me. I deliberately added the word “American” there because I’m not familiar enough with the trend (or lack thereof) in other countries to speak to that. I don’t recall the exact quote I was paraphrasing, but you’re probably right; it probably didn’t specify “American”.
Of course, the Civic is a Japanese car, not American, but I’m not sure the version of the Civic sold in Japan is the same. I understand that for some foreign make cars, the car bodies are made slightly longer for the American market, and with bigger ICengines.
Also comparable to a Chevy Cruze, which wins in overall rear seating comfort in a car that’s 10 inches shorter and three inches narrower. The theoretical direct competitor to the Model 3 (BMW 3 series sedan) has virtualy identical seating measures, splitting the victory between the two by fractions of cm on various metrics, again versus a car that is slightly shorter and narrower than the Muskmobile.
All that is no big deal becasue people rarely actually take a tape measure to the candidate purchases. But why Tesla merits “applause” or other special recognition for achieving interior volumetric utility normal for the industry is puzzling, particularly in light of the minimalist interior and the putative advantages of EV propulsion packaging.
Reading IEV’s Tesla reviews is like listening to parents at their kids’ football (soccer) matches. Timmy passes to a teammate and there’s hooting and “good job!” from his loving ma and pa, when in fact he displays merely normal quality of play.
And reading your serial anti-Tesla FUD is like listening to the NRA talk about gun control.
The bottom line is the Tesla Model 3 is what is called an IMPROVEMENT by Tesla in designing interior space into a sedan.
Not saying its perfect but it does stack up very well against what they were aiming at as the target which is the BMW 3 series.
I expect as time goes on Tesla will continue these improvements on new models and redesigns.
Well, notwithstanding your tendency to wrap conspiracy and political obsessions into everything you type, I do agree: Tesla is meeting normal standards in interior space utilization.
So, good job, Timmy! Let’s go get ice cream! With sprinkles, ’cause we’re all winners!
Do you hate yourself that you keep commenting on articles about companies you dislike? I should it some kind of weird masochism?
Are you an amateur psychoanalyst? Between your version of Dr. Phil and Get Real’s political idée fixe, you two surely do like to keep comments in line with some narrow standards (based, I might add, on weak intellectual perspectives).
I think Kbm3 has an entirely legitimate question, and it shouldn’t be aimed just at you, Realistic.
Why do so many people who are so hostile to Tesla, seek out and comment on Tesla related articles here at InsideEVs?
I’m very opposed to how industrialized countries are burning up such colossal amounts of irreplaceable fossil fuels, every day, to fuel our transportation and electrical grid, but I don’t seek out forums for coal mining and petroleum production to serially make hater posts there!
If you Tesla bashers hate the company that much, I’m sure you can find a coal-roller forum where your Tesla bashing posts will be quite welcome. Why do you insist on posting such comments here, unless you’re trying to be deliberately disruptive?
“Conspiracy” obsessions?
That is rich coming from a FUDster troll.
There’s no question, Tesla has a packaging problem. I just call it a front problem.
It’s time for them to look at other, better packaged cars like the Bolt, LEAF, etc. and figure out how to stop wasting space on the frunk which is of marginal utility.
There’s no inherent value to making a car bigger, so you really only get added value from what you get from the extra size. And the Teslas aren’t delivering much from their extra size.
BTW, I was passed by a Model 3 today. The hood is so much lower than an S or X when you see it from the front. I thought it would be hard to tell apart from the front but I was quite wrong.
Wow, you sure mixed in a lot of things that don’t have anything to do with this. You don’t want to see wires? You want better performance (but yet larger size reduces performance)? These things have nothing to do with the packaging.
The only value of the larger car is if it brings you more utility. More legroom, more trunk, etc. Tesla adds a lot of extra car size that adds none of this. Including the frunk which just adds a frunk space no one asked for.
You may not like a Bolt but Tesla has to learn a lot from the Bolt, LEAF and plenty of other cars which package a lot better and thus provide more internal space without making the car so big on the outside.
@James:
Thank you for taking the time to write that thoughtful, in-depth comparison. Your comments certainly are more informative than the article!
James, the i3 is RWD.
Want to talk about wasted space? I’ll never forget the first time I popped the hood of a Leaf and my jaw dropped at all the wasted space due to poor packaging. Simply changing how the inverter box was mounted to the tranaxle would have freed up so much space for a frunk.
If you saw the “frunk” in the i3 I think you’d be less excited. Putting in a weatherproof, lockable frunk with a release mechanism convenient and robust enough to use every day would be a pain. And for very little value. People don’t want their space divided into two parts, they’ll just take a bigger single space (trunk), please.
And sure, the LEAF has some problems. It’s an EV built on a platform designed for an ICE. But still, Tesla has some things to learn from it.
The idea isn’t to replace a Bolt or LEAF but take the good ideas from them. And in this case that specifically means better use of space. Especially longitudinally.
The i3’s frunk isn’t waterproof. In fact, dirt and leaves can blow into the space.
Sorry (or not, actually) to interrupt your constant stream of Tesla bashing to point out that Tesla has done at least one thing better than another auto maker.
https://insideevs.com/bmw-i3-frunk/
Look, didn’t you ask for it, comparing M3 to Civic and Corolla?
Where’s the plug in those?
Whatever you plug in, whatever your skills, you choose to criticize M3 over an inch or two of it’s interior.
Not only that —- You do so at length over multiple posts, each time upping the ante.
I don’t buy your pious defense.
I honestly don’t understand why some people act like the Bolt is some massive achievement in packaging design. Its basically does what every other minivan-shaped compact car has done. Increase headroom by making it awkwardly tall and increase legroom by intruding into the rear cargo area. Its nothing new, and its great for those who purely want a practical vehicle and don’t care about how it looks, but not everyone wants that.
realistic said:
“…the Bolt exhibits MUCH more dramatic achievements in interior space utilization in a notably smaller footprint…”
I fail to see why the Bolt EV should be praised for being taller and narrower than comparable vehicles. Sure, that gives it a smaller “footprint”; it also means that side to side, it’s narrow and cramped. The front seats are notoriously too narrow for many people; is that also a “dramatic achievement”?
Deciding to make a car taller and narrower was a choice, not an “achievement”. Ditto with Tesla decision to make its cars longer and lower. That makes them attractive and “sexy” to many or most people, altho it certainly does come at the sacrifice of head room. Being “sleek” and low-slung is, again, a choice and not an “achievement”.
Many of your posts, including this one, Realistic, make me seriously wonder if you meant your screen name to be taken ironically.
I applaud the cabin design choices in the Model 3. The rear headroom accommodates first- and second-world adults better than does the Model S. The S and X aren’t terribly deficient in this regard, but the 3 is excellent in this regard for its exterior size, and doesn’t suffer for it in appearance.
The S is terribly deficient for headroom in the rear considering its size. On the whole it’s tolerable, but a car that large should be more than tolerable for headroom in the back.
The combination of the low roof and high floor (thick battery pack) is a double whammy.
I’m really surprised how many oldsters in Florida get the S considering how much you have to fold yourself to get into it. Old people like more upright cars, the S has bucked that trend somehow.
Being electric doesn’t make folding your old frame into a car any better. Oldsters want upright cars because bending down and getting up is more hassle for them. Some even have true disabilities that make it inadvisable to fold themselves down into an S driving position even if they could do so.
Given this I’m surprised the S has done so well.
You did note I didn’t include the X in my post, right?
The important measure is the rear hip room — important for a family vehicle. While the rear seat of the MS is terribly uncomfortable compared to other cars in its market segment, there is more than enough room to fit any combination of three people or car seats. M3 seems to be tighter.
I’m 6′, and my head has never hit in the back of Model S (Sun-Roof and no-SR). Try Mercedes C-class, or Volt, for significant rear seating issues.
I own an S.
I don’t ever want to sit in the back seat. It sucks.
….and by the way. The Bolt EV has more headroom AND legroom than the M3!!
…but not as much hip room or shoulder room. The Bolt EV is tall, but comparatively narrow, and it has gotten an eyebrow-raising number of complaints about its narrow front seats.
Yes. And most of those eyebrows are people who read about it on the internet and then raised their eyebrows.
For 4 people, it’s a good car. Good room all around. For 5 it’s too narrow in the back. Only good for short trips (20 minutes would start to raise complaints).
As a member of a fairly significant demographic (aging male with increasingly frog-like body, i.e., broad on top, no butt), I find the Bolt to be OK, actually more so in the back seat. I despise being seated 3 across in the back seat of anything, and would definitely not recommend it for any Bolt passengers.
They did improve the back seat after your version, though…So maybe it still sucks but sucks less than before?
Mainly, I’m glad that possibly the only shortcut Tesla made would be that 6 footers aren’t as comfortable in back as they would be on an S Class. But who wants an S Class? Apparently not many as Model S outsells it pretty convincingly.
I stand 6’1″. My height is in my legs, my mother says I’m “short waisted”. I sit in back of Model S and have plenty of leg and headroom.
The downside is sitting next to a guy who is 5’10” and
looking up to him.
Hey bud, you have a Model S and I don’t. I’m still jealous. 🙂
Wanna trade?
@georgeS
….and by the way. The Bolt EV has more headroom AND legroom than the M3!!
Bolt legroom: F 41.6″/R 36.5″/Total 78.1″
Model 3 legroom: F 42.7″/R 35.2″/Total 77.9″
It’s easy to keep the cabin roomy while shrinking the outside. The difference is accomplished by a much smaller cargo area, thus making the 3 a poorer road trip car than the S. The S carries more luggage than most midsize CUVs.
Exactly.
The funniest part of the video was his complete befuddlement that the second row of the three row model X had less legroom than the two row vehicles.
While explaining he may not understand how the seat adjusts.
Seems many Tesla owners and workers at the plant do business with this guy. His detail shop is located in Fremont. Handy.
Surely Tesla moans when he “reviews” their products, though. Can’t wait until real auto experts review the 3.
Is there anyone out there who still believes these videos are a guy “gone rogue” and not Tesla creating some free cross-marketing?
Remember of course that the guy is seeking to build his bona fides as a Tesla aftermarket shop, so there’s that. But if Tesla is in fact nudging him to keep posting, I congratulate them for “breaking the rules”.
That’s what I said cross-marketing. Tesla knows they don’t have to encourage this guy (financially or otherwise). He wants the free advertising. They want the free advertising. So if they approve they both win.
And that’s clearly what it is. If Tesla wanted this stopped they would have had the car out of his shop before he could make his 5th (or whatever) video.
No disagreement, unlucky.
No surprise that serial anti-Tesla trolls would come up with a…conspiracy theory to explain Tesla success and getting free media when the laggard OEMs they support over innovation often have to pay hundreds to thousands of dollars per car for advertising and cash on the hood to sell.
What conspiracy theory? The thinking has been that this guy was getting away with something. Look at the insideev posts and the mentions that “surely this will be pulled down like last time”. I’m didn’t invent this.
It’s just clear now that this is not the case. Tesla wants this stuff up there and that’s why it stays. Something wrong with saying that?
unlucky
pretendedprotested innocence:“What conspiracy theory?”
You mean, which conspiracy theory? You’ve obviously got at least two going on there:
1. The conspiracy theory where you apparently believe this shop is posting videos with the approval of Tesla, despite the fact that they have to keep taking them down. Just who is demanding they be taken down, if not Tesla?
2. The conspiracy theory where you apparently believe Tesla will send the Black Vans to spirit away this Model 3 from the guy’s shop so he won’t have time to make another video.
How could Tesla remove the car from his shop? It no longer belongs to Tesla; they sold it.
Oh, wait! I forgot about the Tesla bashers’ favorite new conspiracy theory, so that’s #3: Tesla only pretended to sell these TM3 to their employees, and employees of SpaceX. So according to this conspiracy theory, Tesla can indeed remove the car from the shop, since it still belongs to them!
ROTFLMAO!
😆 😆 😆
Would you want someone to misrepresent your products?
Not the sort of free publicity any company seeks.
Maybe they figured out that Tesla’s legal dept. would look worse if a national story broke out about it punishing them, rather than just letting his unprofessional and flawed reviews be.
I am not surprised, the seats are way too low to sit comfortably. I would prefer a higher Model Y.
I think that is a more logical and sensible reply to this information than criticizing Model 3 for being a sports sedan.
Everyone is so hungry for M3 info right now, we even make news stories out of hack “reviews” like this one.
Soon we’ll have legit reviews to argue over.
L 🙂 L
James,
No Dinner for you LOL
Tesla doesn’t allow real reviews.
What do you expect people to do?
If Tesla’s worried about hack reviews (as you say above) the fix is simple. Let independent reviewers make a critical review of the car.
Tesla hasn’t allowed it.
unlucky continued his FUD campaign:
“Tesla doesn’t allow real reviews.”
Hey, there’s conspiracy theory 4!
Keep ’em coming Unlucky; you’re providing some great entertainment here!
😀 😀 😀
Meanwhile, back in the real world, here’s a real Model 3 review:
http://www.motortrend.com/cars/tesla/model-3/2018/exclusive-tesla-model-3-first-drive-review/
Shhh, maybe next he will claim that…Tesla paid MotorTrend to write what they wrote!
There is no getting around the fact that adults sitting in the backseat will have their knees poking up in the air.
Guess what, it has almost the exact same interior dimensions as the BMW 3 series, its design target.
Yet I don’t see horders of whining about sitting in the back of BMW 3 series seats.
I don’t see hordes of whiners short-selling BMW stock, either.
Coincidence? Hmmmm… not likely!