We test drove the Y and passed on it. We found the visibility out of the back poor, all the mirrors tiny, and the headrest also tiny and my head kept rolling off it. Do you not experience these problems?
The rear visibility felt weird when I test drove it for sure, coming from a normal sedan. But, over a year in to ownership, it never feels tiny when driving it. All the cameras and sensors make it a MILLION times better to maneuver in small spaces than my old car. It was more a matter of getting used to something different (and I'd argue objectively better) rather than an overall downside.
As for the headrest, I've never thought about it once myself.
> Why is it objectively better to have less rear visibility?
Because it's an artifact of the tapered afterbody that makes the cars the most energy-efficient on the road. Teslas beat every other EV on range, and the tiny handful of cars that do better (Lucid Air being the most notable) do so with significantly larger batteries. Everything has tradeoffs.
FWIW: a few years of driving a van in my youth cured me of reliance on the center mirror anyway. This is very much an ejectable feature in my mind, something very much worth trading for ~30 miles of extra range or whatever.
There are plenty of other quirks like this. The Y has a very poor turning radius (to reduce the void size in the wheel wells) too. It only comes in five boring colors. The third row seating is real and useful, but the headroom is comically small (same tapered afterbody). Everyone has their own list. The car isn't perfect.
But it's absolutely as close to perfect as anything else I've driven.
I think the Air is sort of the exception that proves the rule. Though it's also early and independent verification on production vehicles is still in the future. They're only barely shipping right now.
I didn't say the Mach-E was more efficient. I said you get more battery for your money.
In the end what's going to matter to most people is how far they can drive for the money they spent.
You should also watch the video. Tesla's EPA range figures are inflated. You need to do range tests in the real world (like in the video) to see more practical results.
> I didn't say the Mach-E was more efficient. I said you get more battery for your money.
In response to my point that Teslas were more efficient than other cars, though. I guess I don't understand "battery for your money" as an advantage. If you buy a pickup instead of a sedan, do you usually claim that it has "more fuel tank for your money" when people complain about gas mileage? Ford ships a slightly cheaper car with a significantly more expensive part. That's bad for Ford and at best a wash for the consumer (though it does cost more for electricity, that's a small pert of operating an EV). That's a disadvantage, right?
> I don't understand "battery for your money" as an advantage.
Why would I spend more money for less battery when I can spend less money for more battery? More driving range is an advantage.
> do you usually claim that it has "more fuel tank for your money" when people complain about gas mileage?
These are EVs, not ICEs. Live in the real world, not a rhetorical one.
In any case, for EV pickups you absolutely want more battery for your money. You want it for range, you especially want it for towing range, and you also want it for vehicle to load applications:
This is getting very Gishy. I'll just repeat the original point upthread and depart: Teslas (and the model Y in particular) have poor rearward visibility because of a tapered afterbody, and this was done as a deliberate design decision (one of many) that makes them the most aerodynamic cars on the market. None of that has to do with towing or V2L.
Mercedes got one good test from Edmunds that looks a little better in terms of km/kWh than a Model S (but not the Y or 3), and one duck from Nyland that showed them way behind. If you're trying to claim that car is clearly better then the only thing you can possibly be citing is... advertising materials. Practical realities say the production EQS fell way short of where it claimed it was going to be last spring.
Again, the only car out there with a realistic claim (i.e. in independent testing) to be significantly better than a competing Tesla is the Lucid. And not by a lot, but it looks real.
You claimed Tesla had superior aerodynamics to any other car on the market. That's factually not the case.
I always find it funny that people get so bought in to something as trivial as a car brand that they're unable to differentiate fact from fiction any more.
That's the power of advertising I suppose. They've advertised at you and it worked.
Not sure how you'd get to objectivity, but there are tradeoffs. The M3 and MY have higher rear which provides more trunk and rear passenger space. I drive an M3 and usually keep the rear seats folded down to add a little more visibility out the back. Cameras and visualization compensate sufficiently in my view.
It's to me a minor negative in a long list of positives, and not a reason to avoid Tesla.
The Y's overall visibility is objectively better than my old sedan. It's also really hard to have that really aerodynamic shape and good rear visibility. The Y's visibility reminds me of a Prius in a lot of ways.
I've never thought once that the rear visibility was a problem on the freeway.
FWIW We went with the VW ID.4. $20k cheaper with federal rebate, and absolutely love it. Doesn't feel cheap. No issues with visibility or headrest size, prefer mechanical door locks, and appreciate not having a single offset screen. Wish CarPlay was a little more integrated with the rest of the car, and I miss physical buttons for things like setting temperature (which is even worse on a Tesla Y as there are no buttons, but it seems at least their touch screen has more things visible at once than the VW does). Having to touch a touchscreen while driving is difficult, even as a passenger, because unless you're on the most perfect road ever the shaking will make it hard to tap your target.
Same here. I needed a larger car that can seat my family of five (3 kids). Everyone was cramped, the visibility was poor, especially with everyone in the car and I just can’t get over having the dashboard in the center. It’s a shame because I really love the acceleration, I love the technology, and I would love having an electric car. Model X would be a great fit, but not for a 6 figure price.
In the end I got a Subaru Ascent, which is a better overall fit for my family than the Y, but I’m not excited about it like I am a Tesla. It’s basically a glorified minivan (actually, it’s even a little less utilitarian than our Odyssey).
But there are some exciting new electric cars and vans coming, and I’m really looking forward to the next generation of electrics!
Model Y owner, visibility is definitely not an issue. If you used to drive an F150 maybe, but apart from that is very spacious car. I'm 6'3 and I have 6'4 friend in back of me with no issues. I can also do a camping mode in the car.
This is by far the best car I ever owned. It's nothing even to compare with. My friend bought 2 years old BMW, and I feel like there is a 10 years gap between bmw and tesla.
I guess you just biased against tesla. Check the videos about their car seats on youtube. they are one few companies that don't outsource Car seat production because of ergonomics.
While I agree with you that the rear visibility seems really bad, you eventually get used to it. Don't get me wrong -- that's not a valid excuse but in my experience I've never felt like I couldn't see what's behind me. Suggesting that's what the cameras are for is, imo, a worse excuse.
As for the head "rest", technically it's a head _restraint_ not a head _rest_. Your head shouldn't be resting against it while driving.
It's a typical first impression before I bought model Y i saw one youtube review one person criticized the seats. He had some back pain issues due to some medical conditions. After he drove model Y on o long distance 500+ miles he said he's taking his words back.
It almost scared me away also because it looks visual but I can confirm seats experience of tesla is very good. Musk in interview to Munro told they tried several contractors to produce a comfortable seat. Most cars outsource seats. They ended up producing their own with better ergonomics. They invest a lot with distributing the pressure/weight across entire seat.
The rear visibility came up a lot in reviews early on. After a day or so of driving, it becomes unnoticeable and doesn't actually cause a problem in practice. On top of that, you can turn on all three rear facing cameras while driving for amazing visibility.
I don't use the headrests, but I've found the seats to be amazingly comfortable on long road trips.
The rearview mirror itself has a light filter which works in concert with the light filtered by the back window such that the interior of the car does not show up on the mirror, but everything coming through the window is perfectly clear.
So if you were looking at it going "this is too dark" it was probably misunderstanding a feature.
In terms of the amount of space you can see, it is sufficient.. but also the 3D rendering will give you a much better idea of what's behind you than any mirror.
Actually I wasn’t concerned with the darkness, just total visibility.
My understanding is that the 3D rendering is meant to be a subset of what the car sees, and not a safety feature. If that’s the case, I saw it miss all kinds of cross traffic and other cars that should have been in it… and that was just on a short car ride plus the few times I’ve been in other Teslas.
> but also the 3D rendering will give you a much better idea of what's behind you than any mirror.
I don’t buy this. To me it’s a poor substitute to look down at a display rather than a quick glance out in my rear view mirror to learn the distance to the car behind and it’s acceleration curve, who is behind me, etc. I much rather rely on my human eyes to gather all the information I’m looking for than an abstracted subset by an inferior camera with latency, and then having to extrapolate distances.
