Impressions – One week in a Tesla Model Y

We recently took a family vacation to Southern California. Some fun in the sun at the beaches, with a side trip to Disneyland to boot. We had first considered driving down from Seattle to Newport Beach, a drive we’ve actually done before, but we ultimately decided to fly down instead, and rent a car.

When I went to the Hertz site, I saw they had Tesla’s for rent, at a lower price than a comparable sedan, so I thought, “why not, I’ve never actually driven one before, let’s see what all the fuss is about”. So, a Tesla Model Y would await.

After a brief scare at the rental facility (you’re going to wait 3 hours to get the car), turns out, it was actually sitting right there waiting for us (thank you super credit card).

Now, I’m clearly a tech head, and have known about and followed the Tesla story from day one. Surprisingly, I’ve never actually driven one in all these years. I’ve read tons of reviews, and even own some shares of the stock, but actually experiencing the hype, not so much. My perspectives are a mix of technical analysis, and pragmatics. I’ll start with the technical perspective.

You get in, it’s a car, solid enough, comfortable enough, slow roll out of the rental facility at 10mph. When can I hit that accelerator and be thrown back into my seat like I’m launching a jet fighter? OK, we finally hit the freeway and… POW!! Shazowaa!! What a rush. OK, that lasted about 3 seconds, now settle down.

The drive

First is the ‘accelerator’ otherwise known as the ‘gas pedal’. Of course there’s no gas, but push the pedal on the right, and you go faster. Electric cars typically have regenerative braking. What that means is that the motor itself is used to help slow the car down, and while it’s doing that it generates electricity to recharge the battery a bit. You notice it most with slow city driving. Take your foot off the accelerator, and you instantly start to slow down. It took me several tries before I got good at stopping at the right place at a stop light. I was usually far short, because in our gas cars, taking your foot off the accelerator just puts the car into ‘roll’, it just keeps going til you put your foot on the brake. Of course, with the Tesla, you can actually tune this. There is a ‘roll’ mode, but I left the regen braking on because I wanted that new experience.

As far as handling, it’s a car, turn the wheel, and it turns. One thing I did notice was that when I put on the turn signal to change lanes, it would automatically turn off once we were in the lane. That’s different than my much older Toyota Venza, which requires a certain amount of physically turning the wheel before it “clicks” and turns itself off.

In general, it drives like a car. Nothing super spectacular, and no glaring omissions. Although I did not figure out how to use the full self driving, there was this “go the speed of traffic” feature we did use. I used it in stop and go traffic. Just turn it on, and you can remove your foot from the accelerator and brake. When the car in front of you moves, the Tesla will move. When it slows down or stops, the Tesla will follow suit. This is great for saving you feet from pedal fatigue.

Modernity

There are a class of conveniences that I think can be chalked up to simply being a modern car. My Venza is circa 2010, so a bit long in the tooth (and it lacks bluetooth playback). Many of the features of the Tesla can probably be found in any modern car. Of course bluetooth pairing, although it did not like my wife’s One+, but paired with my iPhone 12. Very curious that. Having Netflix and Youtube built in was a plus for when we visited the charging station (more on that later). There is a convenient ‘click to talk’ feature as well. Just click the button no the stearing wheel and say what you want “turn the AC up”. This is great, because since all the commands are hidden in the touch screen, and there are very few physical buttons in the cabin, having viable voice command is an absolute must.

Fit and Finish

In general, it seemed to be a fairly solid car. In particular the doors slam solid. The frunk though, that seems to be another story. That was the flimsiest hood I’ve every experienced. I thought I’d bend/break it if I slammed it down, rather than cradling it back into its closed position. I hope that improves over time, it seems like an oversight on an otherwise solid feeling car.

The ‘sun roof’ extends the whole length of the car. That was a funny one in the beginning because we were first looking for the ‘sun roof’ before we realized it was the whole roof.

Range/Charge Anxiety

Never having driven an electric, I was not familiar with how far you can go on a charge, when you should recharge, etc. Since we were staying at a hotel that did not have an on-premise charging station, I was probably more conscious about our state of charge each time we went out. We started at about 70%, and went 30 miles to the hotel, down to 50ish%. Then a trip to Long Beach, and we were looking for a super charger for the return trip. 20 minutes on the super charger and we were back to 80%. A few more local small trips, and by friday, we were back in the 40% range, and looking for another top up. Another super charger, another 20 minutes, another 80%. We did not bother charging before returning the car, but there was a charging station near the airport.

I can say I felt range anxiety. We were going to take a side trip to Arizona, and the internal mapping app showed we’d make it with a couple of charges along the way, but I thought better of it, and we did not take that trip.

I’m sure if I were a regular driver, and charging it at home, I would not feel the anxiety, and I’d love never having to go to a gas station again, ever.

Final Impressions

The Tesla Model Y is a great rental car. A dual motor, maxed out unit is quite nice. There’s a bit of getting used to, but if you already have a modern car, the differences are so minor, you get over them within minutes.

Would I buy one for my family? Well, no, not really. This didn’t come down to any technical features, it came down to pragmatics. We have a family of 4, with two young children. Our lives require a minivan, or equivalent. We need to hault stuff, bikes, equipment, multiple kids (beyond our own), and a sedan just doesn’t do it for us. I’m not quite sure how a model Y gets an “SUV” designation, but it’s not even a ‘station wagon’ like the Venza is.

For our family, we need utility, either that of a minivan (Chrysler Pacifica is our daily driver), or a king cab truck.

I’m desperate to get into electrical vehicles, and we’re just pumping out more pollution every time we drive today, but I want to make a practical choice if I can. I would love to get an all electric minivan, although I haven’t seen one in production that would foot the bill yet. Barring that, I would not mind a Ford F-150 lightning. I had money down on a Rivian originally, but cancelled at the last moment because the price was just too outrageous for what it was (a mid-sized truck).

In short, the Tesla Model Y was a great rental car experience, and I will likely rent one again next time. As a practical matter for our family though, it’s not the car for us to make as our next purchase.