Tesla Model Y Review & Prices

The Tesla Model Y is an electric SUV that offers great value for money with cutting edge technology, loads of range from its big battery versions, and impressive practicality.

It’s based on the Model 3, but it’s a bit bigger and taller. It’s like going for the Xbox Series X over the Series S – it’s very similar under the skin, but you just get a little bit more of everything.

And if you’re shopping for the Model Y there are countless similarly priced electric alternatives to consider, such as the Audi Q4 e-tron, Kia EV6 and Ford Mustang Mach-e – even the slightly less practical but more affordable Tesla Model 3.

There’s a lot to love about the Tesla Model Y, but one of those things is not its exterior design. It’s a rather anonymous blob, particularly with its lack of a traditional grille up front, and the odd sloping roof that’s probably meant to ape sporty coupe lines but instead just gives the car really bizarre proportions.

Tesla Model Y: electric range, battery and charging data

Range: 283-331 miles
Efficiency: 3.6-4.0 miles per kWh
Battery size: 60kWh / 78kWh
Max charge speed: 250kW
Charge time AC: 7hrs 34mins, 0-100%, 11kW
Charge time DC: 27mins, 0-80%, 250kW
Charge port location: Left rear
Power outputs: 347hp / 389hp / 432hp

Fortunately things improve inside. The minimalist design doesn’t quite have the wow factor it had when it debuted all those years ago, but the simple, uncluttered appearance still works well for the most part, even if the materials don’t feel quite as posh as in alternatives such as the Ford Mustang Mach-e.

You get the Tesla-traditional 15.0-inch infotainment screen dominating the cabin, and there’s very little in the way of physical switchgear. Pretty much everything, from opening the glovebox and moving the steering wheel position, to more typical stuff like controlling the navigation and music, is done through the touchscreen. It takes some getting used to, but it’s fairly intuitive once you’re tuned into it, and the screen is clear and responds very quickly to your touch.

You might scoff at the all-digital-everything ethos up front, but there can be no complaints when it comes to practicality – there’s loads of headroom and legroom in the back seats, and the boot is massive, eclipsing most alternatives and offering more room than bigger, pricier SUVs. There’s a useful front boot, too.

You have a choice of three motor and battery combinations. The Rear-Wheel Drive model is the most affordable, but it has the lowest range and least power of the trio. The Long Range model, unsurprisingly, goes the furthest between charges, while the Performance sacrifices a bit of range to give you supercar-baiting performance. Whichever version you choose, the Model Y is one of the most efficient electric cars you can buy, which helps keep running costs down, and you get access to Tesla’s fantastic high-speed Supercharger network.

You don’t have to get the Performance model to enjoy exhilarating acceleration away from the lights – even the entry-level model would keep a hot hatch honest. It’s not quite as much fun in corners though, thanks largely to light steering and the fact it feels very heavy. It’s also quite uncomfortable over bumps and not the most refined car for motorway cruising – the Ford, Audi and Kia mentioned earlier are all better all-rounders behind the wheel.

With that being said, if you can sacrifice a bit of comfort, the Tesla Model Y does all the important family SUV stuff right, particularly with it being so spacious inside and having a ludicrously huge boot, as well as coming packed full of clever safety kit.

Interested? Check out the latest deals on the Tesla Model Y or browse an extensive stock of used Model Ys from our network of trusted dealers. You can also take a look through other used Tesla stock, and if you need to sell your current car, Carwow can help with that, too.

Tesla has a premium image, but its prices don’t necessarily reflect that anymore. Entry level models start around the same price as other excellent electric SUVs like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and the Kia EV6.

You’re looking at high-spec Hyundais and Kias for the price of the Long Range, though, while the Performance is similarly priced to the high-power Kia EV6 GT.

Options and customisation is fairly limited for Tesla – there are a couple of alloy wheel designs, a couple of interior colours and a handful of paint choices. Tesla’s advanced driver assistance technology is available for a cost – Enhanced Autopilot, which is essentially a lane-keeping adaptive cruise control system, and ‘Full Self Driving Capability’, which doesn’t quite do what the name suggests, cost £3,400 and £6,800 respectively. You can also order a home charging unit for about £500.

Stunning acceleration, but a stiff ride quality doesn’t make for supreme comfort

In town

The Model Y is great around town, because its electric motor makes it quiet, smooth and refined to cruise about in slow-moving traffic. And all Model Ys have performance to burn on city streets – scooting out into gaps in traffic is no stress.

It’s not all good news, though. The Model Y can be quite uncomfortable over bumps in the road, especially on larger alloy wheels. It thumps into potholes and jiggles about over poorly surfaced streets.

Another problem is the huge turning circle. It labours around tight turns that are easy in other EVs such as the Skoda Enyaq.

Rear visibility is poor, which would be a real pain when parking if it wasn’t for Tesla’s excellent camera system. This gives a brilliant view all around the car, so there’s no excuse for scratching those expensive-looking alloys...

On the motorway

Some electric cars are nippy around town but begin to run out of puff on the motorway. That’s definitely not the case with the Tesla Model Y – whichever motor you go for it'll get you up to motorway speeds in no time, and has enough in reserve to pull off swift overtakes when required.

Much like around town, though, the Model Y doesn’t really smooth out lumps and bumps at speed, so the car feels a bit fidgety compared with the rock solid and refined Audi Q4 e-tron. The Model Y is less hushed than most electric cars, with road noise seeming to echo around in the tall and roomy cabin.

Tesla's Autopilot system does at least help to take the strain out of motorway driving. It's similar to the adaptive cruise control tech you get on many other cars, and isn't the smoothest at adjusting your speed to cars in front, but it works well enough overall.

On a twisty road

The Tesla Model Y is an exciting car to drive when the road starts to twist and turn, but it’s not quite as much fun as the Model 3. Like that car it has very light steering that gives no feedback about how much grip the front tyres have, but the Model Y is heavier, so it’s not as agile. You do still get super-responsive steering, but there’s something oddly false about its sportiness – the Ford Mustang Mach-e is similarly uncomfortable, but translates this into a fun driving experience more convincingly.

You do at least go from one corner to another very quickly indeed, especially if you choose one of the four-wheel drive models. These put their power to the road really well, even if the surface is wet and greasy. However, even the entry-level rear-wheel drive car is quicker than most other electric SUVs.

Lots of space front and rear, but having to use the touchscreen to adjust your driving position is frustrating

You sit up higher in the Tesla Model Y than in the Model 3, but not as high as you’d be in a larger electric SUV such as the Kia EV9.

There’s a good range of adjustment to the seat and the steering wheel moves up and down as well as in and out. However, fine-tuning the driving position is a bit of a faff, because you need to fiddle with the touchscreen to make even simple adjustments.

Whether you want to move the wheel, seat, or even adjust the door mirrors, you need to do it through a touchscreen menu and the small round buttons on the steering wheel. It’s a much more time-consuming process than adjusting the seating position in any other car.

On the other hand, you can set up a driver profile which includes your ideal seating position and the angle of the mirrors, so you won’t have to keep fussing with the controls every time you drive.

There are big storage bins in the doors, and more storage and cupholders between the front seats. Lift up the driver’s armrest and you’ll find more space. There is a glovebox but you need to use voice control or the touchscreen to open it, which is unnecessarily complicated.

Space in the back seats

We’d much rather sit in the back of the Model Y than the Model 3. Not only is there more space, but the seat cushion is further from the floor, which makes for a much more comfortable seating position. The seat backs recline if one of your passengers wants a snooze, and the flat floor means there’s space for everyone’s feet, even with three in the back. Because the front seats are quite high you can stretch your feet out underneath them.

There’s an armrest which folds down out of the middle seat, although it’s a shame that there isn’t a cover for the cupholders set within it, because they dig into your elbow.

You get ISOFIX mounting points for the outer seats, but they aren’t the easiest to use because they’re hidden between the seat base and back. Flip up covers would make life easier for parents with young children, but at least it's nice and roomy so bulky child seats will fit easily enough.

Boot space

The Tesla Model Y comes with a front boot with a 117-litre capacity. That’s genuinely useful, because not all electric cars maximise this under-bonnet space, and the Tesla's capacity is massive even compared with the ones that do.

It's unlikely you'll need it, though, as the boot has a huge 854-litre capacity including the underfloor storage. You can fold the rear seats down for even more space, with no step to the boot floor.

That makes it one of the most practical electric SUVs you can buy, and by some margin. The Skoda Enyaq is considered a spacious car but it’s still a long way off the Tesla at 585 litres with the seats up. The Q4 e-tron and Hyundai Ioniq 5 are similar at 520 and 527 litres respectively, while the Kia EV6 lags some way behind with 490 litres.

It’s a shame there are no tie-down points to stop things sliding around, though. There’s no luggage cover either, which means whatever you put in the boot can be seen by potential thieves.

Tesla's minimalist design philosophy looks great, but controlling everything through the touchscreen can be annoying

Tesla used to get a lot of stick for iffy build quality and materials that looked out of place in a premium-priced car. The Model Y is a big improvement and looks and feels far more solidly screwed together.

If you think a Volvo’s dash doesn’t have many buttons, wait until you sit inside the Tesla. The Model Y takes minimalism to new extremes.

You get two scrolling buttons on the steering wheel, and stalks for the indicator and windscreen wipers. That’s pretty much your lot when it comes to physical controls. Everything else – and we mean everything – goes through the touchscreen.

And what an impressive bit of tech it is. The 15.0-inch infotainment screen looks fantastic. It’s slick and responsive, though there are so many different menus and functions that it takes a bit of getting used to.

In most upmarket electric SUVs, you’d expect a second screen in front of the steering wheel with a speedo to let you know how fast you are going. Not in the Model Y. There’s just a plain dashboard where you’d expect the digital dials to be.

Very minimal, very smart. But there are downsides. The Model Y’s speed is shown in the corner of the touchscreen. It’s not easy to read at a glance and depending on your seating position, your arm and hand can get in the way of seeing it. Really, a high-tech car like this is crying out for a head-up display to put important info directly into your line of sight, but the Model Y doesn’t have one.

Other features are easier to like, such as the big wireless charging pad with room for two phones. And it’s great that Tesla has thought about keeping you entertained while you recharge, with Netflix and some games to keep you occupied.

There’s no Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, which is a shame. However, fortunately Tesla's navigation system works pretty well and incorporates charging stops if required. You can also connect your phone to stream music via Bluetooth, or just log in to the built-in Spotify app in the car to access your playlists and podcasts directly.

Tesla offers some of the longest range EVs you can get. In base form, the Model Y has a claimed range of 283 miles. Jump up to the Model Y Long Range and you get 331 miles, while the Performance is quoted at 319 miles.

The rear-wheel drive Kia EV6 has a maximum range of 328 miles, or 314 miles in all-wheel drive, dual-motor performance guise. The cheapest Hyundai Ioniq 5 goes up to 238 miles per charge, or 315 miles for the big battery version.

As for charging speeds, they’re all pretty similar. The Model Y can get up to speeds of 250kW at a fast charger, it's 220kW for the Ioniq 5 and the EV6 splits the two at 233kW. Tesla says its chargers add about 150 miles of range in 15 minutes.

Any electric car is cheap to fuel compared with a petrol or diesel car, but that’s not to say all electric cars are equally affordable to run. The Model Y is very efficient – it’s up with the very best when it comes to stretching every possible mile from a battery full of electricity.

Exactly how much a charge will cost depends on whether you are at home or using a public charger. Which brings us to one of the biggest advantages of choosing a Tesla over any other electric car – the Supercharger network. This is the biggest and most extensive collection of rapid chargers, and other EV owners can’t yet widely use it. They're incredibly reliable, easy to use, and are regularly rated the best public chargers by EV owners.

If you’re a company car driver, any electric car is a great choice thanks to exceptionally low tax rates, and private drivers are quids in too, as there’s no Vehicle Excise Duty to pay until 2025.

The Tesla Model Y is a very safe car, earning a rating of five stars out of five in Euro NCAP safety tests. The score for adult occupant protection was 97%, with an 87% score for child occupant protection. The Tesla’s protection of vulnerable road users scored an impressive 82%, and most impressively, the safety assistance systems scored 98%. Only the Model S and Model Y have achieved this in recent years, and few other cars have even got close.

So, the Tesla has lots of clever systems to help you avoid a collision, and if a crash happens it holds up well. As for security, enable Sentry mode for the on-board cameras to start recording whenever the car is approached after it’s been locked.

Early Teslas had an iffy reputation for faults, but things have improved. In the 2023 Driver Power car satisfaction survey, the American car manufacturer was ranked third overall, behind only Porsche and Polestar.

In general electric cars are more reliable than cars with an internal combustion engine, as there are fewer complicated moving parts. The Model Y didn't make it onto Driver Power's list of the 75 best cars to own, but the closely related Model 3 came 22nd.

A decent four-year, 50,000-mile warranty is standard, with the battery and motors covered for eight years and 120,000 miles. You also get over-the-air updates to fix minor issues and update the software.