u/PerceptionCapital637

Whilst I've always been an EV fan I actually set out looking to buy a petrol performance car. But after weighing everything up, it seems like the Model 3 offers almost unbeatable value, especially considering price used examples are going for. The best thing is there are a ton available, you don't have to drive 500km away to pick them up. There are 30 for sale within 50km of me.

I currently have a super short commute (under 5km) but that may change. Have a garage to charge.

I was looking at turbo and v8 performance cars, but I feel even the base Model 3 offers similar acceleration numbers.

Ideally I'd want to spend the least possible, but within reason. A quick browse of the market is that the actual 'performance' Model 3s are only mildly more expensive.

The feature that stands out and is very important is the highway self drive. The ability for the car to effectively drive itself on the freeway is a standout. But I believe even the 'base' autopilot is good enough that you can effectively set it and just monitor it, only intervening if you need to exit or change lanes.

💰 Budget

• Maximum budget: Flexible, but 40k or under would be great. As there are new examples not much more.

🚗 Typical driving

• Average km/week: 100km a week. (may increase with a new job, but even than would likely be no more than 200-300km)
• Longest regular trip: 50km.

🔌 Charging

• Home charging available just through regular wall socket. But my partner has an EV and we've never had issues charging hers that way.

I have a budget of 30-40k. I wanted something that is generally very reliable, but also has a good amount of performance. I generally prefer the sedan body style.

I've kind of begrudgingly realised, that it seems the best car in the price range that fits all of these is the Model 3.

Even in the more standard RWD trim, they offer the sort of acceleration and performance that was turbo 6 cylinder or v8 performance metrics in past.

Plus they seem to be extremely reliable, whilst also economical being an electric car.

One of the big selling points is also the semi autonomous highway driving, that is genuinely a killer feature.

The big downsides are, i'm not really that well versed in EVs. I really dislike the brand image based on their owner and if anything feel quite disconnected from the brand.

But on a purely perspective, features, reliability, economy, performance etc standpoint, there isn't really that much on the used market for that price.

2024, Piastri has taken the lead early and looks super comfortable. He's under no real pressure. Then McLaren take it upon themselves to undercut him with Norris. That then requires them to implement the most absurd team orders and the whole situation unfolds that takes a lot of the limelight on what should have been a very easy and comfortable win for Oscar.

2025, Piastri is again, the lead McLaren and under no real pressure from Norris who can't pass. McLaren pit him early onto the 2 stop and put him in traffic with Leclerc. They pit him unnecessarily early for a 'undercut' that didn't have any possibility of working. They then of course counter strategy with Lando, let him run long and put Piastri in the position he has to pass another car for the win. A win that, again, been easily his if his team mate wasn't put on an alternate strategy. Piastri goes from following the team set strategy, to having to pass a car on a track thats impossible to pass. Worth noting that this race alone caused a 14 point swing to Norris and Piastri lost the championship by 13 points...

2026, Piastri has once again, taken the lead at Hungary. Immediately the same playbook is occurring, Norris is complaining on the radio and once again McLaren split their strategies to let Norris run long for the best possibility for beating Piastri. That was fine and even if Norris pit he'd come out behind, but then the Sainz incident happens and for potentially a 1-2 lap window Norris can pit and come out ahead so McLaren immediately pit him. McLaren effectively fine tuned the strategy to the exact lap that Norris would take the lead, taking advantage of the misfortune for Piastri. The car failed anyway, but I think Piastri's frustration on the radio knows that this happens way too often.

In all of these races, the situation is clear that Piastri is leading the race, and looking comfortable but he is always racing not just the other cars, but his own strategy team. Norris is fairly consistently run so that his race strategies are always mixed up for the purposes of beating Piastri when they're head to head. Maybe its just Piastri has less flexibility but his team rarely seem to be running the counter strategy when behind, they just follow the leader.

Norris is of course an excellent driver and very fast, this year he's faster of the two no doubt, but it just always feels like Piastri doesn't just have to beat Norris, he has to beat the strategy too.

Link to data

Just pointing this out given the pile on against Piastri this weekend. Even without the further reliability issues he had in practice, as usual his actual qualifying built to quite an impressive lap.

But the energy deployment issues cost him significantly at the end there. On pure merit his Q3 lap was likely equal to, if not slightly ahead of the one Norris ran.

I've never struggled for headroom in commodores before, but at 6'2' some cars are a problem.

But I find that the sunroof in the VF with the seat that doesn't go down nearly far enough can make them quite tight in the headroom department.

Is this a fairly common thing? Given how tall many Aussies are im surprised that such a high percent of them have sunroofs. They're hard enough to find ticking all the boxes.

I've been looking in that sort of price bracket.

Originally I was looking at VF SS, but their prices have just gotten unreasonable and I explicitly want a daily driver, park on the streets etc.

The car that everyone recommends is an i30N, which looks like it has great performance on paper. But as someone around 40 years old they just seem a bit 'young', and I really don't want the loud exhaust.

I really like the IS/RC. The F is too expensive. I had a look an RC200t and I think they might be a bit too mild on the performance side, but otherwise beautiful car.

The 350s have similar numbers on paper to most hot hatches in terms of outright acceleration but everyone seems to write they don't feel like a performance car.

We very recently met a gorgeous dalmatian rescue. Immediately hit it off at our local shelter.

She is 6 years old and a beautiful soul in our interactions.

We have had dogs before, but never a damatian. We were very close to adopting her on the spot, but wanted to read up on the breed a bit more as we didn't know anything about them.

The main thing we wanted from a dog is calm, low energy. As our last dog was old and we both work full time.

We have a house will a very small yard, but not really much 'open space' to run. Our last dog was also very low maintenance, with a short coat and minimum hair loss.

Unfortunately, I read that to appreciate these beautiful dogs, they need to have a lot of time being walked, and they lose a lot of fur so there is a high amount of upkeep.

I just wanted to check in for others opinions, as it unfortunately seems the characteristics we don't want, but as she is older we thought maybe she might calm down. For example our last dog got 2 walks per day, 10 min per walk.