Tesla Model Y review: is this new SUV too fast?
It’s so much faster than it needs to be, and I say that as someone who is a big fan of silly amounts of power.
There are some challenges you simply should not hurl at people. For example, you should never say to a small child, “I bet you can’t drink a litre of red cordial, straight up”, or to a large man-child, “I don’t reckon you can eat three Big Macs in 60 seconds and then burp the theme to Jaws”, nor should you ever encourage a vegan to convince you that their diet is delicious.
Recently, I was being inducted into a new Tesla Model Y (this is always necessary with Teslas, they can’t just throw you the keys and wish you luck, partly because they prefer you to use your phone to open the doors) by a bubbly PR person and a young man who seemed to have supped so heavily of the Elon Musk Kool-Aid that he would happily give his life as part of the company’s Autopilot Full Self-Driving research.
The young man gooed and ga-gad over the vehicle’s many unique features – like the fact that adjusting the mirrors has been made inestimably more complex and annoying than seems possible, or wise – and in particular the vast amounts of power and speed available in this Performance variant.
He then insisted that, despite the fact that it was raining hard enough to make Noah sweat over his belt sander, this Tesla Model Y simply would not break traction. Ever. No matter what I did. This proud proclamation caused his PR colleague, who has known me for some time, to make an involuntary groaning noise and a face that suggested she’d just eaten three Big Macs in 30 seconds.
As tempted as I was to throw what is a surprisingly large, SUV-esque vehicle (4.75m long, 1.62m wide and almost 2m tall) that weighs two tonnes into a corner at pace, just to prove him wrong, I didn’t have to. As soon as I drove out on the road I became typically enraged by the many things that do my head in about Teslas – why the steering wheel feels so cheap, the company’s refusal to accept that a head-up display, or even a speedometer that’s actually in your eyeline, is a safer option than tucking your speed reading in the corner of its Space Invader screen – that I forgot about the traction challenge.
Fortunately, the conditions, the laws of physics and the fact that the Model Y uses essentially the same tyres that conventional cars do, combined to send the rear end of the vehicle into a quick sidestep as I took a familiar bend at a not-unusual pace.
The other important factor was that, unlike more conventional SUVs, the power-mad Model Y Performance, with its devilish dual motors, is attempting to get 393kW of power and 660Nm of torque to the ground (even a Range Rover Sport has to make do with 294kW and 550Nm).
This is yet another thing that seems slightly unhinged about this Tesla; it’s just so much faster than it needs to be, and I say that as someone who is a big fan of silly amounts of power.
Despite its pilot whale proportions (yes, a Model Y is actually more than twice as heavy as said mammal – one of the few that goes through menopause, which is your free fact for the day – but it’s the shape of it I’m referring to) this Tesla can hit 100km/h in just 3.7 seconds, but even that figure doesn’t tell the whole, alarming story.
The Model Y isn’t just fast off the line, or fast for a $98,600 SUV, it’s shockingly quick at any point in its throttle travel – knock-your-sunnies-off-your-head fast. If it looked, or felt, more like an electric sports car it might make sense, but the whole combination of big bus with mad thrust is just odd – like a couch that can fly you into low orbit. So many of the frothing Tesla buyers who order one without ever taking a test drive must get the fright of their lives when they finally take delivery. It’s certainly amusing to drive, though, and if you set the steering to Sport the feedback is quite good, while the ride and handling balance seems well sorted.
But this is the marketing genius of Tesla. My tween daughter loves the fun and games and no doubt daydreams about being able to stare at screens while being driven around by clever software, all of which seems entirely likely by the time she’s my age. With my full curmudgeon on, however, I’d have to say that if this car is the future, you can keep it.
What concerned me most, though, was that the Tesla really does feel like a car that’s designed for an autonomous future. There is so much that you are allowed, and even invited, to do on its giant screen while driving that I’d call it borderline dangerous. And there’s so much more childish tat – from video games to music recorders, sketch pads and fireplaces – that you are supposed to be entertained by via that screen when it’s sitting still that it starts to feel like a Media Room on wheels.
Tesla Model Y Performance
Engine: Dual electric motors (393kW/660Nm)
Economy: 15.4 kWh per 100km, range 514km
Transmission: 1-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive
Price: $98,600
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
