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Tesla’s Model 3 Heat Pump is a game changer compared to its old system
Tesla’s addition of a Heat Pump to its 2021 Model 3 was installed with the intention of bringing owners of the company’s most affordable vehicle more range and more efficiency. Now that the newly “refreshed” Model 3 is making its way to owners, it is proving to be around three times more efficient than older builds of the vehicle.
A new video from well-known EV content creator and Tesla owner Bjørn Nyland showed that the heat pump gives owners around three times the efficiency compared to the previous HVAC system, which used a Positive Temperature Coefficient, or PTC system. This proves the addition of the heat pump was a strategy that will end up paying dividends to owners in cold climates, especially now as the Winter months are making their way to many owners across the U.S. and European markets.
Nyland compared a brand new 2021 Model 3 to his older version of the car, which does not have a heat pump equipped. Performing stationary tests to see which system was more efficient in heating up the vehicle during a chilly December night was the perfect test in Nyland’s eyes, and he came out of it with results that proved Tesla’s new system was superior to the old one.
Nyland used Camp Mode to test the efficiency of the two cars. Camp Mode maintains a temperature in the cabin while the vehicle is stationary and is ideal for those who sleep in their cars overnight. Because it uses energy from the car’s battery to maintain a comfortable cabin temperature, it was ideal for it to be used during this testing scenario.
After three hours of heating the cabin, both vehicles showed a drop in the state of charge, of course. However, the differences in the drop were night and day. The heat pump-equipped 2021 Model 3 had dropped only 3% in the three-hour span, while the sedan’s pre-heat pump variant had lost 10% of its battery.
The 2021 Model 3 has a 73.5 kWh battery pack with little-t0-no degradation due to its new powertrain that had only 65 kilometers on it. It used only 735 W of energy per hour, meaning 2,205 W were used over the course of the test.
The older Model 3 evidently did not have the efficiency that the new, heat pump-outfitted Model 3 did. After starting at 56%, the three hours of heating the cabin had brought the car’s state of charge down to 46%, meaning it was using roughly three times the amount of energy that the heat pump did. This equated to 2170 W of energy being used per hour by the old Model 3.
It is no secret that using a heat pump is more efficient than the past PTC HVAC system was. Tesla installed the heat pump in the Model Y and made it standard upon the car’s first deliveries in March 2020. Tesla decided to then make it standard in the Model 3 after refreshing the car in October 2020.
Tesla formally adds Heat Pump to Model 3 parts catalog after ‘refresh’
More tests are likely to come that will compare the two systems, but this test shows the efficiency differences in the two cars while heating up. If you’re spending nights in your Model 3, the new 2021 variant may be the way to go to alleviate any concerns about range diminishment overnight.
Nyland’s video comparing the two Tesla vehicles is available below.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
Tesla short seller Michael Burry, the subject of the film “The Big Short,” where he was portrayed by Steve Carell, has revealed he has opened a new bet against the stock.
In a new update to his Substack newsletter in a post titled “Trading Post June 30, 2026,” Burry revealed a new set of bets against Tesla, Caterpillar, NVIDIA, Applied Materials Inc., and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.
In regard to Tesla, Burry wrote:
“And finally I shorted Tesla at 416.22. Happy it jumped back to this level.”
This means Burry likely opened his new short position after the company’s recent rally on Wall Street, which saw Tesla shares sink in mid-May, only to recover to well over the $400 mark. Currently, shares trade at around $427.
The company saw a big Tuesday as shares climbed considerably, over 10 percent. The size of the Tesla short was not provided, nor did Burry give any information on the position’s structure, the number of shares, dollar value, or whether options were used in the short.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
Over the years, Burry has been one of the more vocal critics of Tesla, calling its share price “media inflated,” and saying it was “ridiculously overvalued” as recently as December.
The company has largely transitioned away from being known as an automotive company and instead is much more widely regarded as an AI play, mostly due to its Full Self-Driving efforts, Optimus robot development, and data collection related to both.
This has not pulled those skeptics away from being vocal about their distaste for how Tesla is valued, but there’s no denying that the company is a global force in many things, including sustainable energy, automotive, and AI.
Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.
“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.
It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”
Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.
There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:
“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”
SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.
Tesla has expanded the footprint of a massive safety feature worldwide with a recent Software Update labeled as 2026.20.6. The expansion of the “Blind Spot Warning While Parked” feature represents the more widespread availability of the feature, which aims to prevent “dooring.”
Dooring is when a driver or passenger opens a car door into the path of an oncoming road user, usually a cyclist or motorcyclist. It is among the most common types of cycling accidents, the League of American Bicyclists says.
For this reason, Tesla created a feature that warns occupants not to open the door because an object is approaching. The feature will sound a chime, and it will also delay the opening of the door to prevent an incident.
The release notes state (via Not a Tesla App):
“If you attempt to open a door while an approaching object is detected in your blind spot (for example, a bicyclist approaching from behind) a chime sounds, and your door will not open upon initial button press. Wait a short time and press the button a second time to override the warning.”
Tesla initially rolled out this feature back in 2024 with the Model 3 “Highland.” However, it remained with the Model 3 exclusively for over a year; that was until Tesla added it to the Cybertruck this past Spring.
Now, it is making its way to the new Model Y, 2021 and newer Model S, and 2021 or newer Model X.
The prevention of dooring incidents could eliminate many injuries to cyclists, especially in an urban setting. Dooring accounts for 10-20 percent of bike-related crashes in major cities, and over 17,000 dooring-related incidents were treated in the U.S. over the course of a decade. These usually involve fractures, contusions, and head trauma.
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
SpaceX gets initial stock coverage from Tesla’s biggest bull
