2021 Tesla Model Y review: Why you shouldn't buy Tesla's littler SUV

Speaker 1: This is a Tesla model. Y not only one of the best selling EVs in the us right now, but one of the top selling cars in the world, it's obviously a huge success for Tesla, but it's the car itself. The success Tesla has received for years, for general, poor craftsmanship in their cars. Eque ball build quality overall, and a general disregard for safety. And when it comes to their software, particularly [00:00:30] driver assistance features, but what's it like to actually own one? We bought this one and after 1600 miles of testing and over three months of ownership is time for our full review for our model. Y we wanted to lease a long range variant to get the full 330 miles of EPA estimated range. We paid an extra $1,000 for the deep blue metallic paint, but stuck with the smaller wheels to avoid another $2,000 upcharge and a ride quality downgrade. Speaker 1: The tow hitch hidden behind [00:01:00] the rear bumper, or was another $1,000 and another $1,000 for the white interior. Finally, and most egregiously, we paid $10,000 for the full self-driving upgrade. Something we're still waiting to receive. Total price came out to $67,490, including $1,200 in delivery with Tesla calculating a $48,980 residual after the 24 month term, my new Tesla has already raised the price on that car since we [00:01:30] got it. And we'll probably have raised it again by the time this video gets published, so good chance your cost will be different. And what do you get for your money? Will you get yourself a nice, comfortable crossover SUV? There's tons of headroom up front and plenty in the back too. And if you fold the rear seats down, you've got 76 cubic feet of cargo space that makes it far more practical than the model three with its funny little trunk opening and other than the $7,000 upcharge over the model three long range, you're not really [00:02:00] giving out much of anything. Speaker 1: Either. The handling here is maybe a little, little bit more compromise than on the sedan, but frankly, the model three is handling isn't that great either. So it's not really much of a sacrifice. The ride quality in the model, Y is a little bit less than I'd like. And as us, despite going with 19 inch wheels, which should give a little bit better than the 20 inches, but still it's better than the Mustang Mae. And overall, when people talk about the model Y of being fun to drive, they're talking less about the handling and more about the acceleration, [00:02:30] which never disappoints Speaker 1: Even on the highway where a lot of lower powered EVs run on steam, the model Y leaps forward and keep in mind. This is the long range model. Y not, not the performance. In fact, I don't know why anyone would spend the extra five grand and give up 27 miles of range for the model Y performance. It's plenty quick as it is. And just how many miles of range are we talking about? The model, Y is EPA rated for 330 miles of range on the 19 inch [00:03:00] wheels, Tesla doesn't quote a battery size for the model Y any longer, but the pack is somewhere between 75 and 82 kilowat hours, which like all Tesla sits down in the floor of the car. That's backed by the nation's most comprehensive. And in my testing, most reliable charger network in our fair weather range test, we've been seeing pretty close to the EP ratings in the car, does a great job of estimating range remaining. Speaker 1: When you use the integrated nav. I'm curious to see how that holds up over the winter though. I'm also looking forward to seeing how this interior [00:03:30] holds up. Normally, I wouldn't recommend paying extra four white upholstery. If you actually use your SUV as a utility vehicle, indeed ours is showing a bit of discoloration and it also feels distinctly rubbery. The bigger talking point in the interior is the display that sits right here in the center and the general lack of physical controls, pretty much anywhere else in here. That means you're gonna be doing a lot of things through the display. Let me give you a few examples. If you wanna change your mirrors, it's two taps here, and then [00:04:00] you rely on the left thumb wheel to go up and down or left. And right, if you want to change the steering wheel controls again, it's two taps here to bring up that control and then left control again, to go up or down left to right now, that's a little clumsy and a little sluggish, but honestly, that's fine because you're not gonna be those things every day. Speaker 1: My bigger concern is with the things that you are going to be doing every day. For example, changing the follow distance with cruise control. You do that now with the right thumb [00:04:30] wheel pushing that right or left. And the problem is I can never remember if it's right to extend the follow distance, or is it left to extend the follow distance and with any other car on the planet immediately intuitive that I never had to think about it, but with here, I can just never remember. And then there's the lack of a gauge cluster, which was one of the more talked about features or absent features on the model three. Honestly, I don't mind it's absence most of the time, it's easy enough to look over and check your speed to the right, but what's [00:05:00] harder is checking the things like autopilot status, which is situated lower on display. Speaker 1: You really have to look a long way from the road to see that it all works, but the model Y would be better served with at least a simple gauge cluster or a heads display. And for a $70,000 car, that absence feels a bit egregious. It really feels like I should have ventilated seats too. And Android auto and apple CarPlay. Of course, part of the reason why this car costs $70,000 is because we paid up for [00:05:30] the wildly optimistic, hopelessly delayed full self-driving package, which costs a whopping 10 grand. And that cost is despite this being one of the first model wise built without an integrated radars sensor. Speaker 1: And that seems to be this car's downfall the model Y relies on optical sensors, you know, cameras to see the world around it. There's an array of them up there in the windscreen. They're on the fend in the B pillar in the back of the car. And all those combined allow the car to [00:06:00] see the world in 360 degrees and identify objects around it. And that's how it knows to speed up or slow down based on traffic on the highway to hit the brakes automatically a pedestrian jumps out, things like that. The problem is those cameras seem to be getting confused and there's sometimes struggling to see the world around them. And it's most often evidenced by what's called Phantom breaking where the car just out of nowhere stops on the brakes I've had this happen so often that it is really disconcerting and sometimes so aggressively [00:06:30] that the abs engages this is not a minor fault. Speaker 1: You can imagine the danger of slamming your brake on the highway. Should you have someone following closely behind you? This is not okay. And since I know that for many people, a Tesla is their first new car or first new car in a long time. Anyway, I wanna make it abundantly clear. This is not normal. I've seen false positives in other cars, but never with this frequency or this severity. And to be, this is unrelated to a full self-driving recall [00:07:00] that Tesla issued not long before we film this, our car is not running the recall beta firmware, but the latest production software pushed to all cars. As far as autopilot, the rest of the time goes, it works pretty well on the highway lane centering even the automatic lane changes, but it still gets confused by secondary roads were lane split or merged. And I know some of you will say, well, you shouldn't be using autopilot on roads like that, to which I would say, if autopilot is unsafe to use on secondary roads, then Tesla needs to take a cue [00:07:30] from Cadillac, super crews and others, and just disable the thing. Speaker 1: There is a lot to like about the Tesla of model. Y the range of performance are superb. The comfort and utility are good. I don't even mind the anonymous styling, and I haven't even talked about all the great unique features in this thing, like dog mode and the integrated surveillance system. But I have real concerns about the active safety and the sensor package in here. And frankly, I don't think full self driving is ever going to happen. And I know tell will get better. They'll [00:08:00] iterate their software and this system will improve, but that the company would release a car like this and put it on the road and charge you money for it. That to me is unacceptable. So take your money and buy any other EV on the market. There are so many great choices right now. Pick any of those, just don't pick one of these.