It's been six months and 15,000kms of driving my blue Tesla Model Y RWD, delivered September 2022 in Auckland, New Zealand. All New Zealand bound Teslas are built at the Shanghai Gigafactory. Having now done countless daily commutes and city driving, lots of rural roads, tricky gravel roads, circumnavigating the Coromandel peninsula, and crisscrossing the North Island, I want to share how I'm finding the car and Tesla - the good, the bad, and my thoughts.
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| A well groomed Model Y soon after delivery at Cornwall Park, Auckland |
Purchasing and finance
I purchased the Tesla Model Y for $79,990 with a $8,625 government rebate to result in a final price of $71,365. I financed it through the ANZ Good Energy Home Loan which provided me $79,990 at 1% interest, fixed for a 3 year term with minimum repayments, directly on top of my existing home loan. They also let you keep the rebate which you can put into savings or pay the loan down. This is the deal of the century as current savings interest rates are 3%+, so you could buy the car using the loan and instead of paying cash, invest the cash into a savings account at higher interest rates, before closing out the entire loan at the end of the three years. You'd keep the interest money with no opportunity cost, and still pay "cash" for the Tesla.
Brand new prices of the Model Y have dropped recently with the net cost being just over $62k directly from Tesla, and slightly cheaper on Trademe (2022 Model Ys are selling for ~60k). That's to be expected with any new car, though it still hurts a little bit knowing your car is worth a lot less than what it was six months ago. Ah well, that's life!
Driving experience
The driving experience has been phenomenal. There hasn't been a day where the car doesn't put a smile on my face. The spec sheets don't do justice for the driving experience of this car. It's comparable to flying a fast jet in the skies (and I know what that's like). It dollops between lanes, gives you as much torque as you want, zooms down motorway onramps, easily maneuvers through traffic, stops on a dime, and has great handling around corners. It also doesn't understand what slopes are - it just continuously accelerates even on a steep hill, something an ICE car just wouldn't be capable of.
Some notes on the driving:
- Acceleration: Even though it's not a performance, this car can fly on on-ramps. It puts a big grin on my face every time.
- Torque: The car provides instant and huge amounts of torque, and with RWD you push into corners, lane changes and onramps.
- Braking: The car with re-generative braking stops real fast, especially when the actual brakes are applied.
- Turning circle: Being a long wheel base RWD vehicle, the turning circle is very large, and makes maneuvering into carparks front-forward challenging.
- Gravel roads: The car can handle gravel roads, including the infamous 309 Road on the Coromandel (if you're brave), but you'll feel the stiff ride. The weight of the car works in your favour gripping to packed gravel, but it also creates a sense of mass which is not a great feeling if you're hurtling through clifftop corners with no barriers.
- Loose gravel roads: The weight of the car makes it challenging driving on loose gravel as the car "sinks" easily and gets stuck. There is a mud/snow setting to help with traction when this occurs, but I definitely wouldn't take a 2WD vehicle on any road with loose gravel - the Tesla is no exception, but its weight makes this even more important.
- Mud and ruts: I took the car through Woodhill forest and to Whatipu which is a complicated drive with windy clifftop gravel roads. Although the car survived, there was a fair bit of vehicle body movement and funny noises as it tackled uneven terrain and ruts. This is to be expected, but still un-nerving. In saying that it's a nice feeling being able to drive in the middle of the bush with heated seats and steering wheels and an all-glass roof to admire the canopies.
- Rattles: I've read the Facebook posts about rattles, but I am yet to experience any that isn't my own doing (e.g. drink bottles).
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| Great car, great view, somewhere on the west coast |
Efficiency and Range
I've been meticulously tracking every drive the Tesla has performed using Teslamate on a Raspberry Pi. With this, I can say with confidence my efficiency is about 157 Wh/km across the 15,000kms or so. There is definitely variance based on the outside ambient temperature, with higher temperatures providing better range and efficiency compared to lower temperatures.
To get a bit more specific, the image below shows the full car Blackbox from Auckland to Tirau (pit-stop at BP enroute to Tauranga). In this example, the car averaged 185 Wh/km, mainly due to the increasing elevation which didn't stop from the half-way mark. You can also see how the battery capacity consistently reduced throughout the drive, and the usage rate directly correlating to elevation increases and my throttle requests (power).
Range wise, my software projects anywhere between 350km - 400km heavily based on ambient temperature, elevation, acceleration, weight, and weather - as the above trip demonstrates. Being a pilot at heart who learned to fly before I learned to drive and always worries about fuel and range (because you don't have the luxury of refueling in the skies), I don't think I'll ever push the car to its reserve "kilowatts", but I would feel pretty comfortable arriving somewhere with at-least 10% charge knowing there's a guaranteed charger waiting for me or a nearby divert station. This to me gives the car an effective range of about 330 - 350kms.
Charging
Charging is an important part of EV life, and it’s mostly fine. Being able to charge at home is great as you always have a “full tank” in the morning. However there are some things I’ve learned can make EV life quite miserable on the road with charging infrastructure (especially in New Plymouth). Some learnings here:
- Wall connector is not necessary, but nice: I purchased a wall connector for $860 and had it installed for $700. Being able to draw 32A to fully charge the car in a couple of hours is convenient especially after road-trips when you arrive home on low charge and have work the next day. The connector is also great when you have free power hours where you want to maximise charging like Contact Energy's good nights plan (but be wary it could be more expensive for the rest of the day). The wall connector also provides peace of mind that the wiring, etc is fine and there's a dedicated circuit running to the Tesla. But given the total cost is around $1,500, I don't think I'd do it again as that's a lot of kilometres that could be done instead.
- Universal Mobile Connector, a must have: I am very surprised Tesla no longer includes this, as I use this every day, and also take it on road-trips where it lets me plug into wall sockets at AirBNBs, etc. So far no host has charged me more, and all have been very accommodating to let me charge - in fact providing suggestions on the best windows to open to run the power lead! The mobile connector has built in plug temperature control, so it will auto-control the amperage as needed. I've found on trips away, the UMC works fine because after a whole day of driving and arriving home at 8pm, the car will usually be ready to go or mostly full by 8am the next day.
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| Charging through the window at Coromandel Cottages |
- Paid rapid chargers: I now have about 5 different apps on my phone for the various charging networks, and this is so annoying. Often you will need to load up credit, or enter in your credit card manually. It's definitely not like a petrol station where you just show up, tap your card and away you go. As an example:
- BP EV Charging
- Z EV Charging
- Chargenet
- Openloop
- Jolt
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| Charging somewhere on the way from New Plymouth |
- Free chargers: There are a few free vector rapid chargers around Auckland, and these are always busy. If you're buying an EV thinking you'll get free charging - it's not a good plan. The economics of waiting for a free charger also don't work out, as even a full charge is just $10 at home.
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| A free Vector rapid charger in Kumeu - the final charger before tackling the Kaipara region |
- Charging on long weekends: The charging infrastructure has not kept up with the adoption rate of EVs, and on long weekends there can be queues for chargers across the country. We encountered this problem during easter 2023 with every supercharger between Whangarei and Taupo completely occupied with vehicles waiting. Although some would say you have to queue for petrol too sometimes, the wait times, and time to fuel are totally different. If you're arriving at a petrol station and there's a car fueling, and another waiting, you're looking at a total wait time of 30 minutes, assuming 10 minutes for everyone. In an EV, this could be up to 1.5 hours since each car needs 30 minutes - a disaster for long weekend planning.
25min+ wait times on easter weekend 2023 for Tesla superchargers. - New Plymouth: We did a trip from Auckland to New Plymouth (360km one way) to catch the festival of lights, and this was the most frustrating trip I've done so far. There are minimal charging facilities en-route, and we got really lucky arriving at the sole Otorohanga 50kw rapid charger seconds before another two EVs, which would have made us very, very late. In New Plymouth, unless you're staying at a hotel with charging (Devon or Novotel), you'll need to use the one fast charger in town, which almost always has a queue. I had to use it at 12:20am so that we could drive the next morning out of the city, and charge along the way. Somehow the charger also faulted mid-way, meaning we had to do some more charging heading back. You will never have these sorts of problems in an ICE car, and although it's easy to say plan around it, you've also got a life to live. Morale of the story: New Plymouth isn't worth the drive until they lose their "petrol forever" attitude.
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| New Plymouth's only charger erroring out on me past midnight |
Interior and Exterior
I objectively think the Model Y is a good looking car, and I have good and bad feelings towards the interior and exterior. I've covered some of these in my review of the Model 3, but my opinions have changed as I've driven this more. Let's begin with the good:
- Exterior Panels: The exterior panels are flawless and none of the infamous panel gaps you hear about online. The Shanghai Gigafactory is known for its quality cars and this is no different.
- Storage: There's so much storage space, boot, under-boot, front boot, centre-console, under-seats, you name it, there's a space to store it.
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| It can fit a lot of Styrofoam for recycling at Mitre10. |
- Exterior cameras: The car has excellent side and rear cameras, providing great visibility as you maneuver your car in tight spaces. I wish there was a front camera too, when parking in.
- The touchscreen: It's game-changing having a large touchscreen in a car. It's basically the iPad you've always wanted glued to the car.
- Ambient lighting: I appreciate the pleasant lighting the car has including puddle lights, makes it so much more elegant.
- Limited spec features: Most other manufactuers have things like auto-tailgate, heated seats, memory seats, etc saved for the limited spec model, yet the Tesla has all of it included, which is fantastic. The rear heated seats is great for keeping everyone warm!
- Front boot: A special mention to the front boot, it works really well to store food and other items, and having a container within it means liquids like milk, etc, are separated from the main cabin if a spill occurs. It also makes it really easy to access when reversed into supermarket parking lots. Great feature!
- Camp mode: I was dubious at first about sleeping in the Tesla, but a cheap mattress topper from Kmart and a pillow later, I love it! Although overnight camping in any vehicle that isn't self-contained (i.e. has a toilet inside) is banned throughout New Zealand, it makes for a great afternoon siesta pod wherever you go (beaches, forests, lakes, etc). There's also dedicated high-tech mattresses that are perfectly molded for sale by various retailers if you want to be a bit bougie.
- Dash cam: I've seen crazier drivers than New Zealanders, but not by much. The built in dash-cam is great for capturing the mad, crazy, and off the charts events that take place while driving. It automatically saves in the event of an accident or when you honk, which is nice.
- Sentry mode: On a similar note, it's nice to have sentry mode providing peace of mind while you're away from the car. Although this drains battery (1% an hour), it's great in and around the city, especially to follow up with insurance on any dings, etc. Although I have to say most footage just shows people admiring the car, or being startled by the headlights that activate when they walk past it.
- Parking sensors: My 2022 build has the ultrasonic sensors, and having accuracy down to a cm along with the audio and three cameras makes it a breeze to park. The parking sensors do have a noticeable lag, so I've learned to still reverse slowly.
The annoyances:
- The sunroof heat: On a scorching New Zealand summer day (remember those?), the car is an oven, and no amount of air-conditioning or cabin overheat protection is going to save your forehead from the heat dissipating from the sunroof. Yes it blocks out 99% of the UV light, but nobody mentioned the heat!
- No spare tyre or repair kit: I understand modern cars don't come with full spare tyres these days (or even tyres full stop), but I'd atleast expect a tyre repair kit to come standard. The roadside assistance service falls apart when you drive out of town. I purchased an air compressor, and an emergency tyre repair spray just in case I get another puncture. Be wary!
- Recessed door handles: These are cool until your hands are busy and you want to open the door with your pinky, or it's pitch black outside and you're trying to feel for them. It's also not very accessibility friendly.
- Glovebox: The glovebox is great in that it can be very safe with the pin, but it's also the downside - you cant quickly reach into it to grab tissues or other items. Using the touchscreen takes time, and isn't great if your hands have muck you need to wipe (with the tissues inside the glovebox).
- The rims stick out: I am so glad I got rim protectors put on the day of delivery. The rims on the car stick out slightly, and you will definitely scrape them on a curb one day, just wait.
- No grabhandles: Those handles on top of the door on the side are nice for passengers when you're driving like a maniac, and the lack of them makes the cabin bare.
- Cupholders: It would have been nice to have adjustable cup-holders by default.
- Sunglasses storage: Although I've found a way around this by buying an after-market centre console storage tray, I still would have preferred to have a place near the hazard light button to store my sunglasses.
- Flimsy visor: The sun visor is really flimsy and magnetic, and it's really easy to displace it when removing or storing away.
- Vegan leather seats: I.e. plastic - gets really hot in summer, and is prone to tearing. They are also not ventilated seats, so it gets quite sweaty quite quickly in summer.
The bad:
- The paint: Hands-down the paint is rubbish compared to other cars - and I'm comparing it to a 2011 Kia Sportage and Mazda Axela. I've already noticed chips, stone scratches, and burnt in soap marks (ok that was me to be fair). The paint quality is just not good enough to stand wear and tear. Worse still is Tesla NZ refuse to sell touch up kits.
- The cabin camera: I understand why Tesla has done this (for safety / AI monitoring human attention), but I refuse to have a fisheye camera pointed inside the cabin at any given time. There's already a class-action lawsuit against Tesla for employees misusing footage. I've used some black electrical tape to keep it shut.
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| Stone scratches |
Autopilot and Tech
My car has Tesla vision for Autopilot (no front facing radar), and I've noticed no difference between vision and radar, having driven a Model 3 previously with radar. I also had a 30 day trial to enhanced autopilot during Christmas 2022. Some notes:
- Just adaptive cruise control: Basically "Autopilot" is just marketing for adaptive cruise control that you find on every other modern car.
- The steering wheel alerts: The car frequently reminds you to have your hand on the steering wheel, which other vehicles like the Rav4 don't demand. This gets annoying when you're on a straight stretch of road like Desert road or the Canterbury plains.
- False positives: The car will frequently provide false alerts when pedestrians are nearby, or the car in-front brakes even if you're within a stoppable distance.
Overall, I'd say the auto-pilot capability on the Model Y is sub-par to most other modern cars. It practically only works on motorways and rural roads with minimal bends or hazards. It also gets quite annoying with alerts compared to cars like the Rav4 and Toyota's active safety features.
There is good news though - I found my Model 3 worse when it came to Autopilot. Tesla seem to have fixed the issues I raised like hugging lane markings, high-speed corners, and over-correction of its mistakes. The autopilot today seems much more refined.
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| Tesla's "Autopilot" is definitely still at the 1-2 stage of this. |
The car also claims to have other automated systems, which I've found very underwhelming, mainly:
- Auto high beams: They have a mind of their own, and operate with no rhyme or reason. They will usually turn off too late to not blind oncoming traffic, and will turn on even in urban settings sometimes. I just don't use auto high beams anymore.
- Auto-wipers: These must be controlled by the same mind as above, as they will activate when there's no rain whatsoever sometimes, and will not turn on at all in a torrent, and when they finally do, you have no idea if its going to start on I or IIII. I still have no idea how these work so badly, since even cars from the 2000s have performed this task with no dramas.
- No rear-cross traffic: The car does not have cross-traffic alerting, which is difficult when reversing out of car parks, especially with the small rear view mirror. The side cameras and fisheye rear camera do help, but it would be good to have extra capability here.
There is one big piece of tech where I think Tesla has knocked it out of the park, and that's their keyless entry system and mobile app. Having the Tesla paired up to the phone just removes all thought about key fobs, and keys full stop. What a fantastic piece of tech. It's also great to be able to see if the car is locked/unlocked anywhere, anytime.
Maintenance and Service
As with most new cars, there's minimal maintenance required in the first couple of years of ownership, but the Tesla is even better because there's no odometer or time based service requirement. I've just had two minor things I needed to do.
- Windscreen washer fluid: Bar's bugs into the washer tank. One refill at the 15k mark.
- Tyre rotation: Tesla did a mobile service at the 10k mark, though there was barely any wear difference on the tyres. ~$45. Wheel alignment was not necessary.
- Two punctures: I had the misfortune of getting two punctures within two weeks of each other on the same tyre. Bridgestone Parnell cost me $60 (ouch), while Auckland tyres did the second one for $25 on a public holiday. Neither had any issues with raising the car, and knew about EVs and not lifting it where the battery pack is.
I will look to replace the cabin HEPA filters at the one year mark since I drive more than average, and I know this DIY job is a bit of a pain since it requires the removal of plastic fairing in the cabin, vs many other cars where you just pull out the glovebox to replace.
In terms of Tesla service, I find them the best I've experienced so far. They are prompt, competent, and responsive.
Accessories
I'm not a fan of decorating my cars, but there were some items I found valuable for the Model Y:
- Wheel/rim covers: I got the Turbine rim protectors for $335 from Tessories. To be honest they're pretty crap - the clips break easily, they're quite flimsy, and the plastic doesn't seem to be UV stabilized, so the blackness fades away. I definitely wouldn't buy them again, but they are cheaper than damaging the rims which can happen easily as discussed above. They have dropped in price to $245 now.
- Double mattress topper: I got a double mattress topper from Kmart for day-camping in the boot. Works well, and super cheap at $60.
- Storage tray: I got a centre console storage tray for about $13 on Amazon Australia, and is a must-have to store coins, glasses, etc.
- Floor mats: The Tesla carpet ones are rubbish if you get your shoes dirty, and I got a full set of floor mats for about $100 from a guy on Facebook Marketplace. Works well, though the plastic TPE doesn't look great inside the premium interior. However, I'd much rather have that than have dirt, gravel, and mud throughout the car.
- Boot liner: I got the premium boot liner for $78.95 (Again they've dropped in price now) from Tessories. This one is fantastic, great rubber quality.
- Towbar: In the end I decided to not get a towbar installed. Tesla has their official one at $2,250 which is ridiculous (and doesn't even include a ball). However, they have also made it very clear to me in writing that should anything happen to the drivetrain and an aftermarket towbar is installed, they will require evidence from me that the aftermarket towbar didn't cause the issue, which means you're running the gauntlet, no matter how experienced the after-market installer is. In saying that, I found Auckland Towbars and Northshore Towbars to be very responsive to my questions and had towbars with ECU fitted for $850. Given there's 7.5 years remaining on the drivetrain warranty, I've decided to wait a little bit longer.
Running Costs
Cost is a big driver when switching to an EV. However, a lot of this relies heavily on government policy. I compared the Tesla Model Y to the Rav4 Hybrid Limited (the other car I was considering, which I feel is the closest in terms of practicality an specs to the Model Y). We'll ignore the price difference and subsidy difference and focus just on annual running costs.
Fuel: Cost of fuel wise, the Model Y is definitely cheaper than the Rav4, even if you factor in 40% of charging occurring away (e.g. road-trips, which adds the most mileage).
Road user charges/taxes: EVs don't have to pay road user charges to promote uptake but RUCs will be added when the extension runs out April 2024. It's possible EVs will have to pay the same RUCs as Diesel vehicles at $0.076 per km, which would add $2,280 to the cost @ 30,000kms vs a petrol car which has RUCs included in the petrol price as a tax. In this situation, the Model Y actually becomes more expensive to operate on a per km fuel basis alone compared to a Hybrid Rav4.
Insurance: The Model Y is also more expensive for insurance. When I compare the cost of full insurance at equal replacement value for both vehicles, all else equal, the Rav4 definitely comes out cheaper. I'm not sure why this is, I speculate its because the Model Y was only released in June 2022 and there is insufficient data for local insurers to create a risk assessment.
Maintenance: The big saving is with maintenance with the Model Y requiring very minimal ongoing maintenance or service. Even though a Rav4 comes with fixed price servicing for the first 3 years at $350, it's no contest to the Model Y. Both cars are known for their reliability so I'm not expecting long term unexpected maintenance costs.
Insurance
A quick side-note, it paid to do research on the cheapest insurance. Ultimately AA Insurance worked out the best for me, but there were some huge variances, even when everything else was equal, across the various insurers.
The final verdict
Would I buy the car again if I was looking for an EV? 100% yes. No car is perfect, but the Tesla Model Y in my opinion, remains the best EV you can buy for less than $80,000 today in New Zealand. Sure, I have a long list of feedback and areas I'm not happy with, but having driven every other EV under $100k available in showrooms in New Zealand, I think the Tesla Model Y is hands down the best electric car you can get (With the BYD Atto 3 hot on its tails).
However, what if I compare the car against other ICE cars in the market? I know its not a fair comparison given they're two different ideologies at this point, but assessing just the car and ignoring the propulsion system - I think there are much better cars in the market at cheaper or similar price points. For example - the 2023 Rav4 Hybrid Limited, 2023 Kia Sportage, and the all new 2023 Ford Ranger Wildtrak. These cars remain extremely popular with kiwis for a reason: they're solid, well made cars, that have understated technology, features, and things just work - the results of experience that comes with having released many, many iterations before. Tesla have built an incredible electric platform and car, but I think they need to work harder to go from good to great. It's nice to have a massive touchscreen and great driving, but it's winter now, and I just want windscreen wipers that work as reliably as the ones on my old 2011 Kia Sportage or Mazda Axela.
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| How it looks today after dealing with gravel, mud, ruts and a long, long easter drive. |
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All photos in this post are mine, and are of my car.