2023 Tesla Model Y review

Tesla certainly doesn’t want for sales in Australia. The electric car specialist moved more than 8000 Model Ys from January to May 2023 and over 3000 in May alone – numbers that would please any marque in the country.

With the discontinuation of the brand's Model S and Model X, the newly-specced 2023 Tesla Model Y looks to continue the company’s quirkiness and strong sales.

The Model Y is Tesla’s mid-sized electric SUV that starts at $69,300 for the single motor Rear-Wheel Drive variant and $98,600 for the dual motor Performance AWD.

Tesla has now added the mid-spec Long Range AWD, which bisects the other two at $81,900.

While the Long Range AWD has dual motors, it doesn’t produce as much oomph as the Performance. It does, however, boast a longer range than either of its stablemates, with a claimed 533km giving it nearly 80km more than the RWD and 20km on the Performance.

The Model Y’s hunched silhouette and slight panel creases indicate function over form, as do the flush door handles that have to be popped out with a thumb before operating them. It is indeed slippery through the air, with a drag coefficient of just 0.23.

The dashboard trim is also function over form, with an office furniture look fashioned from recycled materials and a spareness permitting a much larger windscreen. More luxurious are the leather steering wheel and well sculpted and generously padded seats.

Like all Teslas, the Model Y eschews traditional dials and gauges in favour of a large central tablet, something others have since imitated to a degree. Seeing nothing but faux birch wood where the speedo would normally be is disconcerting at first, but in time the driver’s eye gets used to checking the top right corner of the touchscreen.

All the car’s other functions are accessed via this screen, except for the sound system volume and some sub-functions that are operated with rollers on the steering wheel. It’s helpful indeed when, for example, you adjust the seat and a prompt pops up asking if you’d like to save the new position, but digging through a menu to switch the A/C to recirculated still feels like a step back in convenience.

Another interesting feature is a virtual reproduction of the road around you, including lanes, vehicles and even witches’ hats. It’s especially useful for minding blind spots (assuming you trust the AI) and it can tell the difference between a car and a truck, although it became rather confused when we pulled up beside a car carrier at traffic lights.

Below the screen on the centre console are dual induction chargers, while rear passengers get two USB-C ports for their devices. The Model Y can take three occupants in the back and all have ample leg and foot room, although there’s no centre armrest.

The boot area is long and narrow between the wheel arches, while the hatch-like roofline means low clearance towards the boot lip. The ‘frunk’ adds a small but deep storage well and there’s no spare wheel, something rural buyers should take into account.

While Tesla insists on withholding power and torque figures, one need only press the accelerator to ascertain the dual motor Model Y has oodles of both.

It is indeed capable of its claimed 0-100km/h in 5.0 seconds.

Less impressive is the steering, which can feel indirect at times, and the ride is a bit lumpy. Around the suburbs, though, these are non-issues.

The 2023 Tesla Mode Y at a glance

In some sense, evaluating a Tesla on traditional benchmarks misses the point.

Tesla ownership is about drilling down into the menus on that enormous screen and discovering ‘dog mode’ (which keeps the air-con on and disables the doors for your pooch to be inside for a short time) or ‘sentry mode’ (which will trigger cameras to record should anyone lean on the car).

The Model Y is an iPhone in a world full of Nokias, and that technological ‘otherness’ forms a large part of its appeal.