Honestly, if he doesn't sit in traffic most of the time, at least in my opinion, he might be better off with normal cruise control. I still wish I had access to it as the TACC slows down so early, and I'd rather not start slowing down, eventually move over, and have to regain all of that lost speed. It also causes me to do something that I hate doing, and that's sitting in the left lane more. The reason is that I know if I move back over, I only have maybe a few seconds before TACC would start slowing down for the next car.
What I'm more curious about is how he'll like the in-cabin changes with the Partial Premium Interior compared to the full-fledged Premium Interior. The biggest differences that I see are no streaming, no garage door opener, no traffic visualization, and "less immersive audio" (no one is sure what the configuration is). Although, it's worth noting that the streaming and traffic are not free even if you have the Premium Interior. After the first year, the fancy Internet features cost $100 a year. Given how Tesla uses AT&T and how bad AT&T is around here, it's a real debate on whether it's worth it. AT&T has this issue where it fails to properly pass off to a new tower, which you'll see when you have about 3 bars and nothing is working, but a few seconds later, you're at full signal and it starts working. I had a similar problem with my iPhone before I switched to Verizon years ago. I could be at a place, have reception, but nothing worked. If I got in the car and drove, once the signal passed to a new tower, it worked fine.
1. He has a very short work commute & has a lot of stuff in his town. He wanted TACC, but only TACC, not auto-steer & everything else. On a tangent, when I got rid of my Renegade, I really wanted to get TACC on my next car, as I drive a lot of highway miles. It came down to the Honda Rideline truck & the Ford Mustang. The Ridgeline has a somewhat poor implementation of the Honda Sense suite, which doesn't behave like the CRV...it over-compensates even worse than the Tesla by leaving too big of a gap between cars even on the lowest distance setting & then braking harder & more often than it needs to.
My wife's Forester has EyeSight, which has a really good implementation of TACC. The Mustang has Ford's version of adaptive cruise control, except that I hated the 10-speed transmission (especially after the Renegade's crummy 9-speed implementation), so I went with stick-shift. Surprisingly, they do offer adaptive cruise on stick-shift, except that (1) it disengages as soon as you press the clutch pedal, which is annoying (I didn't get the package, and even regular cruise control disengages when you engage the clutch), (2) it disengages when you slow down (which makes sense, re: manual transmission), and (3) it was a pretty rare option on the 6-speed manual configuration.
I bought a year-end model (outgoing '18) & decided I didn't "need" it as a must-have, especially as it was super hard to find, even on the existing remaining stock of the available '18 automatic models. As I've driven the car over the last 6 months, I've found that I rarely even use cruise control (I used it a ton on my Renegade) because shifting in traffic is even more fun when you actually have the power to go with it, haha! The only thing I wish it had was blindspot detectors, not because the sports car visibility is bad (it's actually quite good! better than my previous 2nd-gen Kia Soul, actually!), but just for safety reasons, as my state has some pretty insane roads. I can always add it aftermarket down the road, however, as they sell kits (Goshers etc.).
He is taking his 3 on a road-trip this summer & it looks like Tesla still offers the free Autopilot trial for a month, so he'll probably get that enabled for the trip to see how it works. I'm very curious to see if Tesla can meet their promise of FSD at the end of the year...
2. I'll take some pictures when he gets it. He really wanted the premium seats, as they are ridiculously comfortable, but again, his commute is pretty short. He's driving a Honda Fit EV now & installed the charger literally by his front door (no garage, so no garage door opener needed), so this is a perfect swap. His biggest issue with his Fit is the winter range...the batteries aren't insulated, so he gets about 19 miles of range at 20F, and about 5 miles of range at 0F, which is pretty useless, especially because when you turn on the heat while driving, it eats up the range like crazy!
I'll also have to compare it to the new Nissan Leaf. My other buddy just replaced his OG Leaf with the upgraded version, but also kept his old one (100k+ miles on an 80-mile battery!). 2008 - 2015 Leafs are selling between $7k to $12k around here with 20-40k miles on them...super cheap, if you can handle the range limitations, and I hate to say it, but as much fun to drive as my Mustang (in the city at >40mph, at least), thanks to the instant torque & low CG/weight of the battery.
3. He mostly listens to podcasts, so he wasn't too worried about the speaker setup, and that can always be modified later with a Da Vinci DAC or whatever.
4. AT&T is terrible in our area. I switched from AT&T to Verizon like you did on my personal phone because of this.
5. Tesla's website is amazingly spartan about the differences between models & options. One of my buddies has a loaded X, so I'll have to compare stuff like traffic visualization & Internet browsing to the Standard Plus Model 3's configuration.
6. The Standard 3 is 0 to 60 in 5.6 seconds, and the Plus is 5.3, which is what my Ecoboost Mustang is rated at. But I have to shift manually, and I think the instant torque off the line will be a huge advantage for the 3.
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