The Tesla Model Y Is the Tesla Everyone Is Waiting For

This is the new 2020 Tesla

model

and it is the newest Tesla on the market. Deliveries started just a few days ago and it's a big deal because it's finally a relatively affordable family crossover SUV from Tesla and today I'm going to review it. I borrowed this

model

from a viewer here in the San Diego area who built one of the first and in fact the first to be sold new to a customer and in my opinion it's a really important one, probably the most important on sale right now is because

everyone

wants SUVs and crossovers right now, that's where the market is headed, but Tesla's lineup has a lot of cars, most of their sales are the Model 3 and Model S sedans.

Tesla has a crossover, the Model of the next year. It's still not a cheap Honda CRV but it is much more affordable than the model upgrade to the performance, which starts at around $61,000 and has a 0-100 time of three and a half seconds, putting it deep in sports car territory, and yet it's not a sports car, but rather everything. On the contrary, it's actually a family crossover about the same length as a BMW X3 or Jeep Grand Cherokee. And like those models, the Y model seats five with two rows of seating, although Tesla says there will be a third row next year to expand the Y model's practicality, this particular Y model is well equipped with the performance improvement and with the Tesla Autopilot autonomous driving system. for a sticker price of just under 70,000.

And today I'm going to review it first, I'm going to take you on a tour of the model and and I'm going to show you all the cool quirks and features of the latest Tesla, then I'm going to take it out on the road and drive it and then I'll give it an excellent score. I'm going to start with the peculiarities and characteristics of the model and the most important thing. area and that would be pointing out the differences between the model y and the model 3. These cars share about 75 of their parts, but there are some key differences that I'll show you and that means starting in the back seat and the y is a larger car than all three intended for more family use as a crossover would be for that purpose.

I'm happy to report that legroom is fine. I'm six foot three six foot four for reference, the driver's seat is located where I would. sit in it and I have good leg and knee room back here, it's not huge or overly generous but it's more than enough to sit comfortably which is nice but the most important thing is the headroom. I was really worried that headroom would be an issue on this. Due to the sloping roof design, you can see it as sloping over the rear seats and I thought that would limit the headroom in the rear, but that's not the case.

I'm sitting here perfectly upright and I still have a couple of inches between my head. and the roof now part of the reason is this panoramic glass roof which is not as thick as the typical interior roof of a vehicle, which gives you a couple of extra inches of space, enough for my head to fit in here, but I can say with confidence there. There is more room in the rear seat back here than in the model 3 for heads and legs in the model. And now I will say that there is one drawback to the back seat and that is that it feels a little cramped if you have two people back here.

No problem really, but the middle seat is a little tight. The seat seems perhaps a little narrower than it could be to provide good space for three passengers. Now there are some drawbacks throughout the Tesla's minimalist interior and they are felt in the rear. Seat, for starters, has rear climate control vents, but there are no climate controls back here. Rear seat passengers cannot change their own temperature. You also have heated rear seats back here which is a nice luxury feature except you can't control them from in the back there's no buttons there's no screen back here to activate the heated rear seats instead , you have to politely ask the front seat occupants to turn it on using this central screen.

It's a strange decision, but there are some good elements worth mentioning here and there. It is a center armrest, you fold this panel in the middle of the seats and you can see that it is an armrest that also includes cup holders, which is good for rear seat passengers, especially since it will mainly be used to transport children for many families. Benefit here you have USB ports and not just regular USB but USBC, you can see them under the rear vents, two ports, one for each rear passenger which is nice to have and then another notable element of the rear seat is this latch on the side.

From the seat next to the headrest you can use this latch for two different purposes: one is to adjust the backrest to several different positions for greater comfort. You can see that you can adjust it upright or tilt it back depending on what you're looking at. because you can also use this latch to hold it down and lower the seat in case you want more cargo space, the entire seat back doesn't lower at once, that way you can put a large object here but also keep a seat. available in case you want to carry more cargo and still have a rear passenger, of course you can also fold the whole seat down if you want, just go to the other side, there is a corresponding latch there, lower it and then the whole seat.

The rear is folded down and then we move on to the cargo area on the model and there are a couple of interesting elements back here, especially compared to the Model 3, which of course is more sedan-like in its cargo area now. , for a start. Look, it's a big cargo area with a total of 66 cubic feet. Tesla says it's pretty standard for a vehicle this size. I mentioned earlier that the bmw x3 and jeep grand cherokee are about the same size as the y model and also have about the same cargo volume. like the and, but it's worth noting that this cargo volume is a substantial increase over the Model 3, which is about 15 cubic feet.

It has more than four times the cargo volume than the model 3 and that alone will push some people to switch from the 3 to the and next, some notable elements in the cargo area, one is the fact that you can lower the rear seats from here back from the cargo area, on the left, on the driver's side, you have two little switches and you can pull a switch and it will lower the corresponding rear seat. It's a very easy process and many crossovers and SUVs have this, although it's worth noting that you can't use these switches to raise the seats back up if you want the seats back up. you have to walk around and put them back into place manually.

Now, an interesting element on the topic of folding seats relates to the middle seat, which can actually be folded separately from the other two seats on the side that you can't do that with. one of these switches in the back you have to turn and pull this little latch on the back of the middle seat. I guess the theory here is that Tesla wants you to be able to have two passengers in the back seat instead and also have a few extras. Cargo space in case you want to carry some skis in here or something makes sense, but the strange thing is that when you fold down the middle seat you have this little bar that sticks out quite annoyingly and looks a bit strange I guess. that's the bar that the middle seat would normally attach to when it's in place, but when you have it folded it just hangs in space, a bit of an odd design decision, and next I want to talk about loading. area itself because there are some pretty clever tricks around the cargo space now, on the one hand you can see in its natural state that you have a kind of flat floor and then little cavities on either side where you can stick things if you don't want to. they roll as you drive, that's pretty standard, but check this out, you pull this little leather loop and then you can lift up the back half of the cargo floor where you have a cargo floor underneath for more storage.

Many cars have this. but this one is surprisingly deep, you can put a lot of stuff in there again keeping it out of sight and making sure it doesn't roll around in the larger cargo area while driving, but that's not all the smart cargo storage. There is also a second underfloor cargo area directly behind the rear seats here as well. You open it up and you can see there's even more storage here again to put more items out of the way if you don't want them to roll around or if you don't want them to show in the back of your vehicle.

Another thing I want to mention, like I said, is that this model has two rows of seats, but a third row is supposed to be available sometime next year, maybe. I wonder how I can get a third row back here. I'm assuming the third row will be rear facing so face rear which is a solution Tesla has used in the past and I say that because the rear design is very tilted. You couldn't really fit a third row facing forward and put the headrests and seats in place. This vehicle is too small and the rear end drops too low and by the way, another thing worth noting in the cargo area is that there is no cargo. cover which is unusual for crossovers or basically anything with a hatchback, so you can't cover the things you have here, although I will say that with the factory supplied tint it is very difficult to see, so it is a little difficult to tell what Anyway, you have pretty good privacy even without having a cover and then we move on to the rest of the model.

First I want to cover a few more differences between the and and the three, one is the black border on the outside. You can see the door handles and several other pieces are black, most model threes have those things in chrome, it looks a little better, a little more modern in black and they have their standard in black and the next one is another which is pretty silly, the seats. The seats in the and are the exact same seats as the three, but because this is a taller car with a higher passenger compartment, they had to sit them higher and they literally did, they are just mounted on platforms to that the Exact same seats as the model 3, just glued into these platforms to give them a higher seating position and next up, here's another welcome change: the panoramic roof, no, it doesn't open yet, but it has a great piece of unbroken glass, with no crossbar in the middle, it's just this giant piece of glass that allows you to feel like you're one with the atmosphere, although it's worth noting that it's heavily tinted, so if you live somewhere sunny or hot, Florida, Arizona, you won't get too much. the sun comes in there and makes you feel uncomfortable and the next difference between the model 3 and the model y is the design of the wheels.

It has completely different wheels than the three, both the base model and the performance. You can see these 21-inch wheels that I think this car looks really great, although they will definitely make the ride feel a little harsher, we'll find out in a moment, and then I want to cover the rest of the quirks and model characteristics. There is so much technology to cover that I'm not going to get to everything I did. I went into a lot of depth on much of this technology when I reviewed the Model 3 and Model 3 Performance and I'll link to those videos in the description below if you'd like. a very close look at all the technology in this car, you should check out those videos, but I'm going to hit the highlights here and that means starting with what I like most about Tesla and that would be the autopilot.

Autopilot is Tesla's self-driving system that automatically applies the brakes, speeds up the lane change for you, and the system just keeps getting better and better. Here I am using it. You can see the car takes this curve. I'm not touching the steering wheel at all. It is a very complete autonomous driving system. That said, it's not completely autonomous, regardless of what Tesla can tell you, and you have to tap the steering wheel from time to time to make sure the car knows you're still here and still paying attention that way. I can avoid people who are watching a movie or reading while they are behind the wheel and then something unexpected happens and there is an accident for me, although one of the really cool things about Autopilot is the graphics that show up on the screen while you drive .

I used to be able to show cars and maybemotorcyclists or bicycles and maybe big trucks, that was it, but it's gotten a lot smarter, look at this, there's a truck and it shows a truck specifically on the screen, that's cool and look at this. Here's a truck and it shows a truck specifically on the screen, it's smart and it's smarter than even that. Look at this, I'm sitting at a traffic light with a red turn arrow and green lights and you can see that the screen actually notices the red turn arrow and the green lights and you can also see the arrow painted on the ground, noting that I'm in a left turn lane which is a pretty cool trick and the reason this system now recognizes traffic lights is because Tesla is reportedly planning to roll.

We have developed a version of Autopilot that will not only slow down when the car in front of you slows down, but will stop when it detects the traffic light, and in my opinion, using this and seeing this screen does a very good job of noticing each traffic. The light and the color of all the lights is really impressive and it will be interesting to see if they can implement it successfully and next I want to go over two of my favorite tech features in this car, although I covered them before. in my model 3 performance review one is sentry mode okay look at this you see these little cameras on the outside of the car one is here on the pillar there's another one here and if you look around you can see some more cameras .

The good thing here is that you can program your model and to activate the sentry mode when it is locked and then the cameras will always be alert to detect movement in case someone approaches your car, if that happens the lights flash and a warning appears on the center display informing you that sentry mode is activated. activated and you don't want to get into this car, then when the car owner returns to your car after having it parked for a while, it will tell you how many times sentry mode was activated while you were away, so you can tell if someone approached your car while you had it parked and potentially tried to break in and because the cameras monitor, you can even see clips of what the sentry mode detected in case something is damaged or stolen, you basically have security cameras.

For your car, the other feature I really like here is something called dog mode. You go into the climate control and you can put it on dog mode and then you can leave your dog in the car and the climate control will stay on and maintain the interior. at a reasonable room temperature so your dog doesn't potentially die trapped inside a hot car, that's pretty good, but of course you're worried about someone seeing your dog in the car not knowing you're in dog mode and then snapping window. to put it away even though it's nice and cool in here, check this out, the display actually lets people know that the car is in dog mode and the temperature is nice and comfortable in here, it's a really cool idea for people who want to leave their dog in the car while they run to a store and then some other interesting quirks and features.

One item worth noting on the climate control has something called camping mode and if you activate it it will keep the climate control running until the car drops to 20 battery, I guess the idea here is that maybe you can camp in the car and keep you at a comfortable temperature and the car will still run on climate control, that's why they call it camp mode and then another thing worth mentioning. the climate controls that's how you turn on the heated rear seats, see, just go into this menu and turn them on. This car even has a heated center rear seat that I have never seen before.

Very unusual feature, unfortunately rear passengers cannot. turn it on themselves, you have to ask the driver to go into this menu and then another one of my favorite Tesla features is the steering wheel dials, okay, take a look at the steering wheel, it has these little dials here and on the right. now if you move this one it adjusts the radio volume, there's nothing unusual about that, it's pretty standard on most cars, but it's unusually special on this car because these dials do a lot more than just the radio volume , enter the steering wheel adjustment on the infotainment screen. and you can suddenly see that the dials have changed their purpose and now you can use them to adjust the steering wheel, tilt it up and down and telescoping it forward and backward.

It's a really cool use of these dials and we're not done yet. however, because if you go into mirror adjustment on the center screen, the dials can now adjust the mirrors and you can see that as I move, the dial around the mirror will move accordingly, so These dials can have several different functions depending on what you're trying to do in the car and that's a really cool idea, and then you go through some of the other notable elements on Tesla's giant central display, one of them with the door locks that you can see here and that you can configure.

The locks lock automatically when you walk away from this car. Modern Tesla models don't have a traditional key like most cars, but rather most key functions are performed from an app on your phone, so you don't walk away and press the lock button. on your keychain, so it's handy to be able to set it to automatically lock when you walk away. However, it is worth noting that if you are allowing someone to borrow your Tesla, you do not need to also lend them your phone in order to gain access, you simply give them this card, this little card fits in your wallet, you can carry it with you and when you want to unlock the

tesla

just hold it on this little spot on the b pillar and the doors unlock from there if you want to start the car you have to hold the key near the cup holders on the center console and the car will start and allow you to drive away, so that's what you give to your friends or other family members if they want to borrow. your model and then some other interesting elements on this screen.

I love the acceleration modes. You have sport or relaxation with modern lingo and then another notable element here, you can choose to set what happens when you stop like at a traffic light, you can have the car remain stationary or go slowly and you can adjust that setting here depending on which prefer and then another item worth mentioning are the settings for sentry mode, including the fact that you can disable sentry mode when you have the car at home or at work, this makes sense because if you have the car parked in your garage or driveway and you are constantly walking around it, sentry mode will activate everything.

At that point you don't necessarily want that, so it's nice to see that you can turn it off in certain places, and then another cool feature: you have all these cameras in this vehicle, like I showed you before, and they're always recording while you're driving. In case there is an incident on the road and if you want to save a clip, you can program it to do so when you honk the horn. I guess the idea is that if you honk, you'll have some trouble on the road or something. Dangerous situation and the car will automatically record and save those clips around its horn, very cool and then an unusual element on the center screen is something called Joe mode.

He wants to know what it is. Explain that you will alert the driver when necessary. but keep the alerts to the rear passengers to a minimum so as not to distract them or perhaps wake them up when you are driving and set the example of the rear passengers as Joe's children, who exactly is Joe? I really don't understand that one. I don't understand that one a bit, but the idea is still pretty good: a system that mainly keeps the alerts and sounds up here so that the rear passengers are not disturbed, and then a few more functions with the screen, for starters, you can use it. open the tailgate, just press this little open icon here and the tailgate will open automatically.

You can also use it to open the front trunk, press to open and the front trunk will unlock, but then you have to go over there and open it, and yes, this vehicle. It has a front trunk, one of the benefits of not having a big engine up there, so you have even more cargo capacity than you do in the back. Another thing I like about those controls is that you can see the vehicle on the screen. The color matches this real vehicle, blue and blue, which is really cool. The car shown on screen is actually your car, which is a nice little touch.

I also like the screen's responsiveness to actual use of the brake light and turn signals. Check this. I'm braking and you can see the brake lights come on on the screen, not just the back, and I put on the turn signal the same way, the turn signal now comes on on the screen letting me know it's on in both. in my virtual car and in my real car and one more interesting element, you use this screen to open the glove box, you can see there is a little glove box icon, you press it and that's how the glove box opens a little more complicated than your standard .

Opening the Glove Box Now, speaking of interior storage in this car, there's quite a bit besides the glove box. To start, you have this center console between the seats, you can open it up and there's like a little top shelf or you can take it out. and has a larger, deeper storage area in the center console. You also have two central storage areas further forward next to the cupholders, the top one contains the wireless charging system so you can place your phone in there and it will charge wirelessly while you drive. The other is just a traditional storage area where you can store more things if you don't want them to roll around while you drive.

The most interesting thing about these small storage areas is that their lids are magnetic so they do not close. Instead, you simply place it near where it's supposed to go and a magnet does the rest. The funny thing is that if you get too excited and try to slam the lid, the car will display a warning message on the center screen telling you to be nicer, I've never seen this before, a warning message telling you to You calm down with the center console lid closing, something funny and then I want to talk about the interior in general, very similar to the model 3, but if you have.

I haven't met a Model 3. Expect minimalism. It doesn't have all kinds of consoles, buttons and layouts. It's a very simple, very basic minimalist interior. Some people like it a lot. Other people really don't. I personally like the minimalist interior. It looks modern, fresh and futuristic and I think it's very much in keeping with Tesla's kind of design ethos here, although I still wish for a head-up display right in front of the steering wheel to show you the most important things, what equipment you have. Whether how fast you're going, whether the turn signals and wipers are on just a small screen or a projection on the windshield like so many other cars, you have to look at the top left corner of the screen instead. and it will be out of your reach. in line of sight and a little too far away to be completely convenient, they can solve this problem very easily and then there are a couple more items worth pointing out here, for example, the doors open electronically, so that there is no traditional mechanical latch that you pull, but instead you push this. and that will electronically open the door and then you can open it from there, but in case the battery dies while you are inside the car, you will no longer be able to open the doors, there is a manual door opening mechanism that you can see. here you simply pull it and the door will open with its traditional mechanical latch, although when you do this a warning appears on the screen informing you that opening the door manually can damage the edge of the door, so it's not something you want I do this quite often and finally our last interesting interior item here are the sun visors which are magnetic.

Now I've always known that the viewfinder mirror cover is magnetic and works with this kind of gimmicky feature that allows you to open the viewfinder mirror without having to do it. the cover hangs too low, it's a clever little thing but on this car the visor itself is not held on with a clip but a magnet, you can take it off and you can see there is no clip holding it in place just a magnet when you get it close to where it needs to go which is a pretty neat idea and finally I want to talk about trim levels and model numbers.

Now you can only get the long range model and the performance as I mentioned for a long time. the range starts around 53,000 and the performance starts around 61,000. Now from there you can get the performance in two ways: the performancenormal or you can get the performance with the performance upgrade so you can have performance without performance and performance Tesla's performance trim levels are still confusing even though it appears they have now ditched that p85d model that most of the People didn't really understand, except Tesla enthusiasts. Now, as I mentioned, the base model of the Model Y is coming in about a year. and will start from around forty thousand dollars with rear-wheel drive and a range of approximately 230 miles.

Right now the Long Range and Performance model comes standard with all-wheel drive and has a range of about 315 miles which is pretty good unless you get the performance then your range drops to 280 miles because you have wheels larger, but you also get performance brakes and a slightly higher top speed. Interestingly, the performance improvement is actually free, I guess, because you're getting some stuff. but you're also losing range, so you can choose whether you want the performance with the highest range or the performance with the lowest range and the biggest wheels. Now the 0 to 60 time for the long range model is 4.8 seconds, the performance is three and a half seconds, which is a little slower than the performance of the model 3, as expected, because this is essentially just a larger model 3.

Finally, as for colors, white is free, there are a few other colors available, all cost an extra thousand dollars. at least that part of this process is pretty simple and those are the quirks and features of the

tesla

model and now it's time to take it out on the road and see how well it handles driving the model and I'm going to start where

everyone

starts oh wow god this is so fast it's amazing that it's so fast i drive a lot of fast SUVs but there are a couple of really unusual things about this one on the one hand it's so instantaneous um and then there's no sound but you step on it and oh my god I'm sure I'm running out the range at an incredible level right now doing this, but it's also a lot of fun, wow, that's crazy, obviously this is a little slower than the performance of the model 3, but in my mind it's a trade-off worth making because you get extra cargo space, a lot more, four times as much and, um, you're sitting a little bit higher, which some people, oh everyone, want to sit on, but people do want that, so that you have that ability. so you have a more practical vehicle here now in terms of steering and handling, you can very quickly say some interesting things, one is, the steering is still very quick, that was something I loved about the model 3, there was no laziness in the center, the moment you start turning it starts turning, some automakers don't make their steering fast enough off center in my opinion, even good, established automakers, most of them, of Indeed, Tesla has done well, but a big difference that can be noticed here from the beginning is that this car is taller and therefore in terms. from the handling um, you're seeing more body roll and you're not going to get as much as a bmw m3 sports car uh, you feel like you do in the model 3 performance, but at the end of the day, even elon can't fight the physics, that's a reality of a higher car.

This thing is so cool that you're sitting down. I just think it's Tesla's best combination yet, which is why I like it so much. I like model 3, but. Like most people, I've gotten more and more into SUVs, I have a ton of them. This is where the market is headed, so this car is not as flashy as when the Model 3 came out or when the S came out or when the roadster is coming out, um in the sense that it doesn't open up totally uncharted territory. , but entering this new segment it's a different world, especially when the third row comes out and people can use it as a really practical minivan replacement toyota highlander competitor, you know, that will make a big splash, it's reasonably quiet, um, nothing particularly unusual here, it's similar to other crossovers that are this price in terms of noise and quiet on the road, maybe even a little. quieter you feel the road more, you definitely feel the road more than many of the competitors, but I think that's because it says 21 inch wheels and larger wheels will always have that effect, you have less tire sidewall This It is the high performance model.

The suspension has been upgraded to provide a sporty driving feel. At the end of the day, it will be a little harder, of course, very quiet. Otherwise, obviously, without a gasoline engine, you don't hear any engine noise. What surprises me is the lack of wind noise. You know, Tesla is always a question mark because the build quality is never as consistent as other large-scale automakers, so you come in when you say, "Well, you." Can you tell if something is going to be a little off and you might be able to hear the wind? No, actually, it feels very, very quiet in terms of wind noise, better than some recent ones, the recent Ford Explorer.

I was recently on the right road. on the ramp, here it's time to have fun, man, it's very fast and you know, one interesting thing is that it doesn't stop coming, this car has a lot of horsepower, one of the first criticisms of the first electric vehicles, like the leaf and the bolt. Yes, at first it's fast, but then it slows down. You get the high-performance versions of these Teslas and that's not the experience you have anymore. You just have power, power, speed, speed, and it keeps going, so that's the Tesla model. A really important vehicle for Tesla, the Model 3, has been very popular and tremendously well received, but with the market trending towards SUVs and crossovers, this is the Tesla that everyone will want and it is a great vehicle and could be the best. -Tesla rounded, especially when the third row of seats comes later to add more practicality anyway, with all that in mind, now is the time to give the model and a Doug score and the Doug score is 68 out of 100, which It's a huge score, really excellent. showing that it places the model and here among other tesla models and other luxury suvs of approximately the same size, the model and surpasses them all and it is obvious why it is more practical than the model 3, it is faster than a bmw x3m of the competition and has better technology than basically anything, the lowest score comes in style, where the model and gets a 5 out of 10.

It's certainly not beautiful, although I personally don't consider it ugly; Otherwise, this is a great all-around vehicle and I think it's more well-rounded. that a model 3 and a better buy than model x model x costs more money is not faster and has those stupid doors that are so flashy and ostentatious and attention seeking. I see no real reason now to buy a model