The MOT tester wiped their hands, walked me round to the back of our Model 3 and pointed at the rear brake discs. They were the colour of an old garden gate. "You don't use your brakes much, do you?" I said it was a Tesla. The tester nodded as if that explained everything, and wrote an advisory.
That was summer 2025, six years into owning a car that mostly slows itself down. Every Tesla does still have a brake pedal, and the tester had just checked that ours worked. When you lift off the accelerator in a Tesla, the motor slows the car and sends the energy back into the battery. With the stopping mode set to Hold, it brings you all the way to a stop, so the brake pedal hardly gets used. That's one-pedal driving. In our experience it takes about a week to learn and gives a little range back on hilly roads. The brake pads last for ages, and in a damp country the discs need one small habit to stay healthy.
Unlearning the Discovery Sport
My driving habits came from the Discovery Sport, an automatic that rolled along happily whenever you lifted off the accelerator. On my first school run in the Model 3, in the summer of 2019, I lifted off at the top of a hill the way I always had, and the car slowed as if someone had thrown out an anchor. The elder boy's water bottle ended up in the footwell. The dog gave me a look I've only otherwise seen at the vet's.
When regenerative braking slows the car hard, the brake lights come on to warn the car behind (Tesla Model 3 owner's manual, as of October 2026). I didn't know that in the first week, and spent most of it checking the mirror for an irate van driver.
The knack is to treat the accelerator as a dimmer switch. Ease off gradually and the car eases down with you. By the end of the week I was gliding up to junctions and the boys had stopped narrating every stop. The school-run queue, where the Discovery Sport lurched between brake and accelerator for ten minutes, became the easiest part of the day. My partner was converted fastest, because one-pedal driving makes it much harder for me to brake late and then apologise.
Hold, Creep and Roll
Our car has three stopping modes. Creep moves the car slowly forward near a stop, like a conventional automatic. Roll lets it freewheel near or at a stop, as if it were in neutral. Hold keeps the regenerative braking going down to a standstill and then holds the car there (Not a Tesla App, January 2024).
I use Hold. My partner prefers Creep for the multi-storey car park at work, and the stopping mode doesn't sync to driver profiles (Tesla, as of October 2026), so whoever drove last decides. About twice a week I stop at the end of the drive and the car carries on creeping gently towards the hedge.
A new car may not give you the choice. In the US, Model 3s and Model Ys built from 2024 only have Hold (Not a Tesla App), and Tesla's current UK Model 3 manual (checked October 2026) no longer describes the three modes, so check the car's own settings on a test drive.
Down Fish Hill with the energy graph
Friends always ask how much range regen gives back. My partner's answer is "less than you go on about it". The more useful answer is that it never gives back more than the hill took.
In the spring we drove up to Broadway Tower, at 312 metres the second-highest point on the Cotswold escarpment (The Walking Englishman), then came down Fish Hill into Broadway for ice cream, roughly 200 metres lower. With four of us, the dog and a picnic, the car weighs a little over two tonnes, and bringing that down 200 metres releases about 1.1 kWh. Air resistance, the tyres and the motor all take a share, and the car's energy graph showed we'd got back roughly half a kilowatt-hour. At our summer average of about 4 miles per kWh, that's two miles of range. The climb up had cost more than twice that.
So the gain is on the way down. The Discovery Sport turned that energy into hot brake discs, and the Tesla puts a good share of it back in the battery. Round here every village seems to sit at the bottom of a hill.
Hold suits steep single-track lanes, but Tesla's manual says not to rely on regen to stop you. Heavy loads, steep hills and wet roads all lengthen the stop, and in snow or ice regen can cost you traction. On a frosty lane in January I brake with the pedal like everyone else.
Cold mornings and a full battery
Regen can be limited when the battery is cold or already full (Tesla). A full battery has nowhere to put the energy, and a cold one can't take it in quickly. The car shows you both. A dotted line on the power meter marks how much regen is available (Not a Tesla App, January 2023), and on a cold morning a blue snowflake by the battery meter warns that regen may be limited (Tesla, as of October 2026).
We met both on the same January morning, setting off for Yorkshire at minus three with the battery charged to 100%. At the first junction the car rolled on a lot further than my right foot expected, and I used the brake pedal for the first time in weeks. The boys talked about it until Leicester.
Now I use Schedule to warm the car before we leave on cold days, which Tesla says avoids limited regen (Tesla), and we charge to 90% day to day, going to 100% only the night before a long trip like our Yorkshire run.
The brakes at 60,000 miles
Back to the MOT. New front pads on a Model 3 are 10 mm thick, and Tesla's service limit is 2.8 mm (Tesla, as of October 2026). At around 60,000 miles ours still had about 7 mm left on the pads the car came with.
The same manual warns that because the pads are used less, rust can build up on the discs, especially where roads are salted in winter, and that you should use the brake pedal regularly to prevent it. Tesla also recommends cleaning and lubricating the calipers every year or 12,500 miles where roads are salted (Tesla maintenance intervals, as of October 2026). The gritters are out on our lanes most frosty nights, so ours gets done.
At the MOT, a disc fails if it's significantly and obviously worn, and a big difference in braking effort across an axle on the rollers is a fault too (gov.uk MOT inspection manual). Badly rusted discs can cause either. Ours got away with an advisory, which sits in the car's MOT history for any future buyer to read, as I mentioned in checking a used Model 3.
Now, once or twice a week on a straight, empty stretch, I brake firmly with the pedal from about 40 mph. My partner calls it my brake workout. The dog has learnt the spot and braces against the boys before I do it. This summer's MOT came back with no advisories, and the discs are a respectable shiny grey.
What I'd tell a friend
Give it a week. Use Hold if your car offers it, and ease off the accelerator rather than lifting suddenly. Keep the pedal for frosty lanes and for a firm stop now and then to keep the discs clean. Charge to 100% only when you need it. The last time I borrowed a petrol car, I lifted off approaching a junction, the car carried on as if nothing had happened, and I found the brake rather quickly.
From February the Model Y takes over the Yorkshire runs and the camping, and the Model 3 stays on the school run, where one-pedal driving earns its keep in the queue. If this would be your first Tesla, ordering a new Model 3 or Model Y through our referral link(referral link) gets you 650 free Supercharging miles (as of October 2026). Use it before you place the order, because Tesla can't add it afterwards.
