Tesla Model Y Review 6 Months Later - A BIG REGRET?!

right so I've owned the Tesla Model y for about six months now and I was gonna do a review straight away but I thought that's not going to be very helpful for you because how can you properly get to know a car inside out in that short amount of time you need to really get to know all of the little features and details pros and cons all the quirks especially when jumping from a petrol or diesel engine which I previously owned things you can only really know after a good few miles so here we are six months in what's it really been like to drive in terms of comfort and enjoyment the software and infotainment system app usage and connectivity subscription hardware and build quality charging including home and public options and the dreaded range anxiety that you'll only truly know if you've driven an EV before but I'll try and explain even for those that haven't and everything in between and crucially do I regret going for the model y do I regret going for Tesla in general over another electric vehicle and do I regret going electric full stop spoiler alert I've absolutely loved some elements of this car but it's not all been plain sailing which is upon travel cars boats shocker now for reference if you haven't seen any of my content before then I am more of a tech reviewer than necessarily A Car Guy even though I have done car content before so if there are any car terminologies Etc that I don't mention that I possibly should then I can only apologize but I'm 100 sure regardless of that if you are looking at getting a new Tesla or you are indeed just interested in knowing what it's like to own and drive an EV you will find this video useful and hopefully enjoyable and of course there's a glutton of tech here too in the Tesla Model Y which I'd like to think I'm pretty clued up on like the infotainment system on this huge 15.4 inch tablet-like screen now you can control pretty much anything you want to do in the car all from this display from sat nav to steering charging and much much more within the lock section you can add your key cards that Tesla provide you with on order when the car arrives to unlock and drive your car but this isn't the most Optimum option in my opinion because number one you have to get the card out of your wallet you have to then try and place it on the side of the car door in the right place to use the NFC technology like a contactless payment in a shop and then you have to have the card placed in this Central section here below the cup holders and there isn't even a little Inlet here to stop the card from sliding about it doesn't seem the most thought out process but then I don't actually think there'll be many people that will use this method once they've set up the car as you can also pair a fob which you can have on your house keys and you can open the car drive the car open the boot Etc but the fob is 170 pounds as an extra which I think considering the amount of money you're spending on a new Tesla you'd like to think the ability to open the car with a fob would come as standard however even though I think that is a little bit Naughty from Tesla you can of course just straight up use your phone which is what I do using the Bluetooth on Tesla app on your device of choice iPhone or Android the car simply unlocks when you approach it and locks when you move out of that proximity zone now this of course has one possible security problem if you lose your phone someone can gain access to your car but I do have a special tip which I strongly advise you to do and manage to set up a pin on your display because as soon as you get in the car you can't drive it until you've inputted the prompted PIN number so even if somebody gets into your car they can't drive it also on the app you can check things like your car's location or the car's cameras by enabling Sentry mode you can open your boots both front and back and you can also lock and unlock the car or remotely you can adjust the aircon settings prior to getting in the car so you don't come back to that dreaded sun-baked sauna-like heat with the melting metal seat belt buckle and then there are also things like pet settings and a window vent option to keep dogs Etc safe but when your phone's not handy your central screen also has similar access to your climate controls which are hugely customizable you have this bio weapon defense mode which while it may sound a little bit dramatic using a high efficiency particular air filter or HEPA or HEPA as it's known by the cool kids it does help protect you from various air pollutants like exhaust fumes and smoke Airborne pathogens bacteria viruses and mold spores and odors and pollen for you hay fever sufferers out there it may come in handy I don't know I don't have hay fever apologies if I'm robbing salt in the womb but I do think this is a pretty cool feature which I haven't really seen on many other cars if any but if you like that you may also like this foreign I mean it's not for me personally but I know some of you out there will be a big fan of this um Tom Ford ring you can only use this in part mode though so you can't drive up to the traffic lights wind down your window and just let out a stink bomb unless you put it in park very quickly yeah it might be doable try it and let me know you also have your apps available which you can drag and drop to have quick access to your favorites and you can add up to a total of five I do feel like I'm always needing a sixth or a seventh would be nice to have more than five including the likes of Bluetooth radio your wipers a Theater app more on that in a second and Spotify Etc now Spotify does seem to be a free service here once you set your car connectivity to the premium account which is 9.99 a month but I've also read that Spotify is a 30-day free trial I don't know for sure because I've only just activated that Spotify account but for that 999 Tesla connectivity account you basically have a a package that gives you all the functions that require an internet connection web browser music and video streaming gaming and more originally I would just tether from my phone I have unlimited data so that made sense but I did notice that there seems to be a drop off in that connection reliability when you go from using it to then going to drive everything shuts down for obvious reasons in terms of safety but then when you stop the car park the car you then I found have to reconnect your phone's tethering to the car again and that seems a bit fussy if you just want to go straight in and use that connectivity as soon as you stop the car that is a little bit of a faffy issue with tethering and there may be a safety reason behind that from Tesla or they may do it secretly as a way to get you to go premium like they did with me so it may just be a problem I'm having and I'm interested to hear from fellow Tesla drivers or it may be done by Design the cynic in me believes it might be the latter for me though I I am glad I've added that subscription because it just guarantees the connection works and this is very important for me I feel there's no point in having all of these cool smart connectivity features if you have to faff to get them to start like what's the point right the use of the theater mode for example when you want to park the car and Chuck on a bit of Netflix or Disney Plus for the kids in the back while you're having a rest a bike to eat a drink Etc and it just works straight away which I think is quite important I think time is incredibly valuable and this is why I also decide to generally update the software as soon as the upgrades are available these software updates which can be initiated in the car or on your smartphone you will get a notification of a software upgrade available offer the chance to push the latest technological breakthroughs that Tesla are working on one such technological breakthrough is of course Tesla's famed autopilot or Auto steer or autonomous driving Hands on the Wheel at all times but we'll talk more on that when we talk full driving in a second outside of the screen there really is nothing else on the dashboard and Teslas are actually really fairly Limited in terms of functions or buttons which can be a little irritating at times like with the whole smart movement sometimes just a designated Hardware button or lever actually is easier and quicker to do outside of the two knobs on the wheel and the driving levers there really is no other way to control things the levers help to control your windscreen fluid and windscreen wipe but you can't seem to customize things like the speed of your wipers without the screen you can't adjust the mirrors without using the screen and if you're driving this can be a little bit fiddly in terms of the right stick which puts your car into a movement Direction either drive or reverse I have noticed occasionally when I try and jump in and move quickly either forwards or backwards it sometimes takes a few ghosts to actually engage you do have to be quite deliberate with it put your foot on the brake and press quite slowly and firmly and then it engages and I don't know whether this is done by Design to stop accidental touches because nobody wants to go backwards when you're meaning to go forwards Etc but it is something that I think I would prefer it to be slightly more responsive from a starting position It's just sometimes a little bit frustrating the two knobs on the wheel which in itself is okay it's fairly comfortable to hold for long Journeys it does the job if it little Bland they have some customization also the right can control voice assistant and decide how many car spaces behind you want to be from the car in front when you're using cruise control more on that later because as you'll see it can basically self-drive to a point and the left knob controls play pause skipping tracks and volume and it opens the glove box with a press and hold now pressing both together resets the center screen and I only found this out when searching for the dreaded black screen problem which has happened a couple of times now where I've gone back to the car I'd open the car I got in the sound of the car turning on was there my music even started playing but there was no screen functionality I was touching it nothing was happening it was just black this meant because I had the pin on the car I couldn't drive the car so I was like that's a bit of a design flaw but luckily like I said press and hold the two knobs for about 30 seconds and the Tesla logo reappears in the middle of the screen and then it comes back on no problems like I said it's happened twice a little bit frustrating but no major biggie outside of that you have two wireless charging pads here in the front and you have two USB type-c charging ports here in the back that you can plug in a cable and there really is a lot of space inside the model y not only in terms of seating layout and leg room but also in terms of storage and boot space we've done Beach trips airport runs and just simple things like School runs and I've been able to pretty much fit anything I've wanted to into the car during that time you can also buy a roof rack and a towing accessory as well but both are unnecessary for me personally you can easily fit four adults and and a slight squeeze five into the model y with ample room to stretch bikes because there's no Central section here and there's decent enough Headroom with the Panorama glass roof also making it feel that little bit more spacious for reference I'm six one storage bins in the front and back doors are of a decent size and this Central section here also has tons of extra storage both under this flap here and also inside here loads of places for you to store all of your important gear or in my case just junk so we're gonna close that because that's embarrassing that's probably been there for about four months the boot is pretty huge as well at around 850 liters and you also have a second compartment underneath which I used to store my standard charging cable the menikes cable and this cheeky little lectron cable here more on that little gem when we talk about charging in a minute and you also have around 120 liters in the front because there is of course no engine so we have a fruit or a front if you're American trunk trunk boot fruit yeah but in terms of space it really is an excellent family car if you have children and want to use car seats this can again be done although Teslas have a strange way of doing things I think compared to normal cars that I've tried before they don't actually have designated holders at first I thought this was a little bit strange and I do have slight concerns over possible wear and tear between the two bits of leather but I guess only time will tell on that outside of that these seats have held up pretty well again being a young family we've had toys and remnants of beaches coming back with us from day trips and after giving it a good cleanup safe to say there haven't been too many problems in terms of wear Signs Now I have purchased separately covers to go in the boot on the floor where the feet go Etc and although this is an added cost I would strongly recommend doing this if you are keeping the car for a prolonged period of time links to the ones that I've bought in the video description below but no pressure to go and buy them it's not that sort of Channel now I have noticed one issue with the car seat in terms of the inbuilt alarm system that registers when it feels weight on the seat and prompts you to put your seatbelt on so if you're a person and you're in there it's going to go off if you've got a heavy bag again on the seat it's going to go off the same problem applies when you're using the car seat it senses as a child sat on the back seat and the alert seems to go off and it's not until I've had to actually manually plug the seat belt in behind the car seat that that goes off and that is a little bit irritating it should as soon as the car seat is connected to that rung there should be some form of system that signals to the car that they're locked in because they've got the seat button in the car seat they don't need that one to actually be plugged in as well now I did research online and it looked like there is or at least used to be a way of manually turning that alert off once it pops up on your central screen but when I've tried to do it it doesn't seem to do that so maybe it's just the way I'm doing it maybe I'm not doing it properly but when I'm pressing on that alert nothing's happening I can't manually turn it off and I've had to manually plug in the car seat otherwise you're going to be getting that noise going off the whole journey which I suppose is okay if you're into a bit of translation moving on and speaking of Music model y has a 14 speaker audio system with nine speakers in the front four in the back and a subwoofer in the boot and you also have two amplifiers as well it is a little bit echoey because of all the space and the hard surfaces but you can adjust the car's audio EQ not that I have and while it may not be the best sounding car on the planet for an electric SUV it's probably one of if not the best now in terms of range I have the rear wheel drive model which gives you apparently 283 miles on a full charge now for reference this is the exact equivalent of traveling from London to Newcastle weirdly 283 miles to the exact point according to Google Maps now I did actually want the 20-inch black induction Wheels upgrade from the 19-inch Geminis but with stock issues it meant that if I wanted the car there and then around April when I ordered it the standard gem lies were the only ones available in stock and to be fair with these wheel covers on you can almost achieve the same look and you get a few extra miles range yes I probably still would have preferred to get the induction wheels and had I had more time or had them in stock than I would have gone with that but personally I think these really are the best covers available for Gemini Wheels if you want that induction look and again I'll leave them listed in the video description if they're still available I have no idea but what about range and the dreaded range anxiety range anxiety the fear you're going to run out of charge mid Journey without a charging station in sight dead car stranded well this is where two main points come to mind and subjectivity is key because it really does depend on number one your daily routine and number two your living setup your house and your availability to include a home charging connector I work from home I don't do a huge amount of miles and I have the luxury of having a Tesla home wall connector installed at my property this means that I've only ever used a public charging station four times in nearly six months and two of those were before I'd even had the connector installed at my house Tesla charging stations are often in car parks at the back of hotels Etc and you can search for them and they will let you know if there are spaces vacant and I don't really know anyone that's really had a problem with availability when arriving at one this may change as Teslas become more popular and or when Tesla start opening more sites up to standard Eva charging for non-tesla cars but one of those times I used a Tesla public charger was coming back from a week in Anglesey and I used the Tesla supercharging station in Flint the sat nav told me I wasn't going to have enough battery to get home from my trip away and it said that I would need to go to that specific charger because it was on Route and I needed about 10 miles top up to get fully back home now when I arrived I plugged it in the Tesla pump recognized my car without me doing anything and by the time I'd been to the toilet at the hotel the car told me I had enough charge to get home I think it cost me around two pound fifty and five minutes if that three minutes I think it was and that Top-Up was charged directly to my account as I'd set up my bank account through the Tesla app but this is one of the things I love about this car you type in your destination and it tells you what battery level you should have when you arrive based on the speeds it predicts you to go using these speed limits on said Journey again this helps to reduce that range anxiety the slow you go the longer the battery will last the quicker you go the quicker it will drain so if you are looking to eke out a few extra miles on that battery the key is to slow down a bit so if you want to go 16 or 70 for example for about 30 minutes you will get a decent chunk of battery added on another cheeky tip turn off your Sentry mode if you want to save battery standby drain is significantly more when you have this enabled now the Tesla charging network is the most complete out of any EV combo but there are also a lot of other non-tesla charging sites that you can connect to using this menikes cable these often slightly slower than the Tesla superchargers which can also range in power and therefore speeds themselves so a full charge at one of these could take you anywhere up to four or five hours and payment is a little bit more fluffy with downloading specific apps scanning QR codes tapping your contactless card on the machines Etc it's not incredibly difficult but it's no Tesla supercharged experience and those longer charging speeds will make longer Journeys significantly less enjoyable than a petrol or diesel car and this brings me back to my original Point personally I would only get a Tesla or an EV if I had a home connector already installed or I have a very small amount of mileage if none of these apply I don't know why you would deal with the hassle if your miles are high but you have a home fast charger then fine if you don't have a home fast charger but your miles are low then again also fine I'm a double whammy because I have flow miles and I have a home charger so it works perfect for me but you may not be in the same boat there's that pun again travel sailing but it cut no rubbish again I can plug my car in overnight to charge for a couple of hours and wake up to a full 100 battery and even if your commute to work for example is substantial you shouldn't have any problems getting from A to B without the worry of finding and using public charger if you fast charged at home because you have a guaranteed 100 when you start not many people are going to be driving from London to Newcastle or even half that distance in one day and if you do then you are going to be probably looking at a petrol or diesel a van something like that but for me knowing that I could leave the house every morning with 100 battery is an experience like nothing I've had before you can never really get that on a standard car so it's a big Plus in my eyes and charging is also significantly cheaper with electric vehicles although you do have to factor in like I said getting a home charger installed for example that is an added expense that you wouldn't have normally if you don't have a fast charger you can still use the standard charging cable that comes in the car and this can connect to any home socket but it does take like half a day to charge so frequent drivers with quick turnarounds would struggle and the cable itself might not actually be long enough to reach a power outlet again if you don't do many miles and you'll turn around isn't that quick then you could make do with that standard charger charge it for half a day here and there when you're not using it and then every second or third day when you use the car you're gonna have a full battery again but if you're using the car two days in a row for more than one or two miles then this is where you're gonna struggle if you are looking to use the standard charger say you're away and using another property that doesn't have a home fast charging connector I strongly recommend that you purchase something like this electron extension cord which can safely and efficiently connect to your standard charger if said charger doesn't reach your car from the power outlet again you don't need it and again it is another expense but it may be incredibly useful and again avoiding range anxiety but what about the actual Driving Experience now I've heard a lot of people mention that it is quite jerky and the suspension is incredibly firm and while I can't say that isn't factually a little bit true I don't think it's quite as bad as Manny make out changing lanes at high speeds did take a little bit of getting used to it does feel a little bit light and jerky and potholes and speed bumps are a little on the bumpy side but all in all it's a fairly comfortable drive and the zip out of the blocks at traffic lights for example on an EV and in particular Tesla's is a joy the instant acceleration on an electric vehicle is just a joke I don't condone speeding though 70 mile an hour tops for you wreckage of Ace fans out there disclaimer get that in your notebook I don't know what that is what are you doing now the reverse of this is of course braking which is almost non-existent thanks to the regen system which basically not only charges the battery as and when you slow down but as soon as you take your foot off the accelerator the car comes to a stop like so once you get the hang of being able to gauge your natural stopping distances it's so enjoyable not having that jerky accelerate brake mentality that you see drivers everywhere have especially at roundabouts and traffic lights the car will automatically go into park once stopped so you won't roll and then as soon as you hit the accelerator again you're away it's just so simple you can adjust the regen to behave more like a standard motor car but I've enjoyed this experience you can still also use the brake pedal if needed and this is also really nice and responsive and natural feeling underfoot and the only time I found the experience to be a little too jerky is the odd occasion when the auto cruise control is slightly too responsive what I mean by this is when I'm driving on the motorway or dual carriageway for example I will tend to put it into cruise control and the car will naturally break when the car in front begins to slow down or somebody pulls out for example your car will naturally react to that and adjust the distance between you and the car in front and I believe it uses the onboard cameras to do so you can adjust like I said the distance from the car in front in your settings but it's just nice knowing you can stay a safe distance from the car in front without really having to do a great deal and this is ingenious 10. it makes long distance Journeys a dream and you'll also get alerts and a corrective steer if the car feels like you aren't staying in the lane as you should be if you're not paying attention it'll tell you even if it's a little bit sometimes oversensitive sometimes if someone in front breaks hard and fast or somebody pulls out and or changes Lanes very quickly he sometimes can over anticipate and break a little too jerkley and this is just something I've again had to get used to if you're easily flappable like my wife you may let out a little Screech every time this happens but if you're more like me a bit more relaxed and you are in control of the car you know it's probably going to do that if you see somebody pulling out then you're not going to be as was stressed out by that experience and I suppose it's better to be over precautious than under and smash into the back of the car in front but what about the full autopilot Driving Experience that Tesla are famed for well it is still in beta so I'm not sure how complete the technology is right now but it really does work and it's incredibly fun and impressive all at the same time now occasionally you do get a little prompt just to make sure your hands are near the steering wheel in case of an emergency but the fact that this is even possible is incredibly impressive now the way it works is the car uses the cameras on the outside of the car to check out road markings and make sure you are staying within the lane and you can also Speed Up and Slow Down based on the car in front as you can see we've just done there because we've approached a traffic light here there has been a couple of hairy moments where I've had to take over the steering wheel as and when we've approached a a b road with limited Road markings for example but on the whole all it's worked really really well and I'm not gonna lie it is incredibly fun I feel a bit like Batman now Tesla do say it's designed for Motorway and long distance driving but I have tested it on a couple of A and B roads as well and on the whole it has worked incredibly well across the board occasionally you do get a prompt as you can see here just make sure you keep your hands nice and Vigilant near the steering wheel in case of an emergency the beta warning may be enough to tempt you not to use this feature though and I'm also not a fan of the parking alerts while the new camera distance detection system seems to work fine I've not smashed the car into a wall for example I do feel like I've been overly cautious when parking like I'll leave more than enough space when really I could be a little bit tighter and this is simply because the system says it's been downgraded from the previous model going from the sensor system to this camera version there may be a suitable reason why Tesla have done this and it may be better in the long run I don't know but it's never nice seeing that you've just bought a new car and you've got a message saying this isn't actually as good or it's been downgraded from the previous car yeah I'm not sure about that one it just makes you feel like they know it may not be as good and therefore they have to let you know in case there's an accident doesn't fill you with a huge amount of confidence visibility is good you can see pretty much everywhere with large glass on all sides although at the back you can't really see all that well a trade-off for that slightly sporty Coupe slope look again you can use the onboard cameras to check behind you if needed and when you indicate the side cameras flash up to show if there's a car coming up behind you and all these cameras can be set up to record said footage in the event of an accident where the insurance company may require the footage for example and the video clips from the previously mentioned sensory mode can also be saved and you will get a notification and you can play it back watching the screen if there's anyone standing around your car meddling Auto full beam works really well lowering the beam as and when the car sees another oncoming car even if it's a fraction slower to change from what I would manually do most of the time the center car location for Sat Nav is really handy and I love the fact that you can upgrade your car with a 20 minute patch through your phone it would be cool if there was a way to clean the glass roof outside of going to a car wash but I don't know how feasible that would be and a heads-up display would be a nice addition on the windscreen although again the negativity around this of having to look slightly down and left to the screen to look at the speedometer as opposed to looking down on a normal car it's it's the same distance yeah I don't think the hype around that problem is all but it's cracked up to be I haven't noticed that that being an issue at all and all in all outside of the points that I've made on the negatives the Tesla Model y has been an absolute Joy To Own and drive this is the first EV I've owned and while I wouldn't say I'm 100 always now gonna drive electric vehicles I do feel with that technology now available it would be hard pushed for me to go back to driving a motorized car any questions you have let me know in the comment section below try my best to answer them follow me on my other social medias for short film content on Teslas EVs and Tech in general and I'm also going to try and get hold of the brand new soon to be released Tesla Model 3 so make sure you subscribe for that my name's Adam you've been the best as always I love you I'll see you next time [Music] foreign

Channel: ASBYT

Views: 168,244

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Length: 29min 59sec (1799 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 12 2023