Skip to main content

You'll be able to sleep in the back of a Tesla Model 3 (if you're not too tall)

goldman sachs downgrades tesla stock model 3 delays feat
If you want to save on a hotel room, or just take a nap, a Tesla Model 3 could do the trick with the room it has in the back. If you’re more than five and a half feet tall, you’ll have to sleep sideways or bend your knees, but it will work, as reported by Bloomberg.

Recounting his experiences “camping” in a $145,000 Tesla Model S, Tom Randall also referred to the Model 3’s inside dimensions. With the back seats folded flat and a cover over the truck storage well, the full five and half feet of horizontal space will be ready for your nap — or your overnight.

Related Videos

It’s referred to informally by a community of enthusiasts as Tesla “Camper Mode.” Those who take pleasure in sleeping in the wild — or at least in a campground — in the back of their luxury electric sedans do, however, need to make a few adjustments to the car’s systems.

Because an electric car is silent when not moving, noise isn’t a problem and ventilation needn’t be an issue either. Assuming your battery won’t run down too far, you can set the climate control system temperature, fan, and filtration to your preferred levels. In Tom Randall’s test night, he found that the battery charge decreased from 40 percent to 33 percent. That still left him with a 90-mile driving range for the Model S configuration he was sleep testing.

Randall constructed impromptu covers for the Model S’s daytime running lights and the car’s touchscreen. He set the touchscreen to the lowest brightness setting and “threw a towel over it.” He also engaged the parking brake and locked the car doors via the touchscreen controls.

One of the pleasures Randall described was the view of the nighttime sky through the Model S’s panoramic sunroof.

The Model 3’s final specifications have not yet been released to the public — that likely won’t happen until either this fall or sometime in 2017. Randall’s source, who is familiar with the final Model 3 design, told him about the flat-fold seating and the 66-inch interior length behind the front seats.

After the Model 3’s initial introduction, concerns about its small trunk opening were answered with the announcement it would be larger in the final design.  Of course, if you were planning to sleep in the back you wouldn’t enter and exit through the trunk — you’d simply use the back seat doors.

Sleeping in your car used to be a trade-off between steamy, closed windows or mosquitos. Prudent concerns about exhaust gases kept most from closing the windows and leaving the motor and AC running. While Elon Musk likely never thought that his cars would enable overnight camping without worrying about bugs and gas poisoning, it looks like that’s what the Model S now and the Model 3 later will both provide. The Tesla Model X SUV won’t work, by the way, because the rear seats don’t fold flat.

Editors' Recommendations

Mercedes is finally bringing an electric van to the U.S.
Front three quarter view of the 2024 Mercedes-Benz eSprinter electric van.

Mercedes-Benz might be known for luxury cars, but it also makes vans, and it's finally bringing an electric van to the United States.

Scheduled to start production this summer, the 2024 Mercedes-Benz eSprinter is an all-electric version of the Sprinter full-size cargo van that's already a favorite of delivery services like FedEx and Amazon, as well as camper van converters. While the automaker has been selling electric vans in Europe since 2010, the new eSprinter is the first one aimed at the U.S. market.

Read more
Audi ActiveSphere concept is part luxury sedan, part pickup truck
Audi ActiveSphere concept car in a mountainous setting with a bike on the rear rack.

Audi unveiled the fourth and final member of its Sphere-branded series of concept cars, and the design study is unlike anything we've seen before. Called ActiveSphere, it's an electric luxury sedan with a generous amount of ground clearance that can turn into a pickup truck.

Created at the Audi Design Studio in Malibu, California, the ActiveSphere stretches approximately 196 inches long, 81 inches wide, and 63 inches tall, figures that make it about as long as the current-generation A6, 7 inches wider, and 6 inches taller. It wears a rounded exterior design characterized by thin headlights, a transparent piece of trim where you'd expect to find a grille, and a fastback-like silhouette.

Read more
2024 Polestar 2 gets a major overhaul for the 2024 model year
2024 Polestar 2

Volvo off-shoot Polestar is looking forward to an eventful year. It will begin production of the 3, its first crossover, and it will release a comprehensively updated version of the 2 sedan that's sportier than the outgoing model, more road trip-friendly, and better equipped.

The biggest visual difference between the original 2 and the new-look car due out in 2023 as a 2024 model is found on the front end. The electric sedan swaps its grille for what Polestar designers call a SmartZone that frames the front-facing camera and covers the mid-range radar used to power some of the electronic driving aids. While the shift isn't significant, it's symbolic. The grille created a visual link between the 2 and the 1, Polestar's now-retired first model; the SmartZone brings the sedan in line with the sleek-looking 3 unveiled in late 2022.

Read more