Hello folks!

How good is a Tesla? In this post, I sat down to list the things I like and don’t like about my Tesla Model Y Long Range after 1 year of ownership.

You’ll find 26 Tesla-specific reasons (and 4 bonus EV-related reasons) to buy one. And to balance the review, you’ll get compelling 4 reasons not to.

So, if you’re in the market for car, and Tesla is in your list, read on. Otherwise, well, I hope you’ll at least enjoy the pictures and videos!

(UPDATE - I’ve removed all videos because I ported this over from Ghost and it was just too painful to move everything over.)

~Nick

More than a decade ago, I went with a bunch of fellow National University of Singapore (NUS) students to the fabled Silicon Valley.

We stopped at every noteworthy and up-and-coming startups at the time – Dropbox, Evernote, Facebook, Google – as a way of learning the ways of entrepreneurship, including the wonderful idea of “paying it forward.” Why else would these busy people grant time with an audience of undergraduates from Singapore?

One of my most vivid memories was visiting a Tesla showroom. No, Elon Musk didn’t grant us an audience, but we nonetheless arranged a visit to one of their showrooms and I had my first chance to see a Tesla up close.

23 year old me inside a Tesla Roadster in San Jose

Sitting in that car was awe-inspiring. I was just a kid then, still yet to prove myself outside of school. A futuristic supercar that drives itself felt out of reach.

But even then, Elon had a grand plan, the spokesperson tells us:

• Sell expensive electric cars to rich people,
• Use that money to fund the development of an everyday electric car for the masses.

Now, over a decade later, Elon Musk has delivered millions of cars and on his promise.

A Tesla Model Y (the one I now own) is not cheap, but neither is it expensive compared to other cars.

In the Christmas of 2023, I paid 52,800 EUR (after German government subsidy to the tune of 6,000 EUR) and took delivery of a showroom Tesla Model Y Long Range in midnight cherry red:

34 year old me with my own Tesla Model Y at an apple farm in Germany

Spoiler: It’s the best car I’ve ever driven.

In this post, I’ll review the car and share the main reasons why I think people should consider getting a Tesla if they’re in the market for a car.

I’m writing this for 2 reasons:

1. Tesla produces good cars that moved (and is still moving) the car industry forward. I consider spreading information about Tesla as a way of ‘paying it forward’ to the environment.
2. To give people a personal review of Tesla as a consumer. I’m not sponsored by Tesla and neither do I hold any Tesla stock (true as of 2024). That said, if you read the review and use my link to buy a Tesla in the end, you’ll get $1000 off and I’ll get a reward in the form of $500 credits.

The point of this article, though, isn’t to evangelise. It’s more to inform. Please don’t buy a Tesla just because you read about all the nice things in here. If my circumstances were different – e.g. if I were still living in Singapore, or if I am struggling to pay the bills – I would not have bought a Tesla.

Let’s be adults and make purchasing decisions based on our own criteria and life situation.

🎁 Referral code – If you have decided to buy a Tesla – good for you! – you can use this link to get $1,000 off your Tesla. Tesla will reward me with $500 in credits.

Quick facts about me for context

We’re a family of 3 plus 1. Two adults (mid-30’s), one toddler (3) and a mini poodle (13).

Mileage after 10 months: 8,000 km.

We live in an apartment (not a house) in Germany near the western border and drive mainly in Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium. There are Tesla Superchargers spread throughout this region.

I mostly charge the Tesla in our basement wall charger, which was installed for communal use in our estate. It’s a “charge and then move away to free up the spot” kind of situation.

Alright, with that context, let’s get to it as we have a long list!

BECAUSE IT’S A TESLA

Probably the most capable and safe headlights ever made

I’m leading this list with something you probably didn’t expect – headlights!

I didn’t know how treacherous it is to drive in the night in Europe and in North America until I did it. For kilometers and kilometers there’d be no street lamp!

I’ve had to do occasional night drives with my Tesla and it is hands-down the car with the best headlights. Everything in the road, including all kinds of road signs, just gets fully illuminated.

The reason is fascinating. A Tesla’s headlight adapts to what’s in front of it.

Not just directly in front of it but waaay ahead of and beside it.

It does this because of Tesla Vision. And it can do this because of Tesla Vision.

As you drive, if you have Adaptive Headlights turned on, the car will adjust “pixels” on the headlight to prevent blinding other road users (cars as well as pedestrians) that it sees. If it sees that the road up ahead is all clear, then it’s full high beaming.

And it actually works reliably. You can literally see pixels turning off and on at spots where there are cars and humans. They turn on again once those are passed. This happens ultra responsively down to the millisecond.

‘One pedal driving’ means you stop smoothly every time

Every time I see a red light, I like to play a game. I call it, Can I Stop Perfectly Softly?

I like to accelerate and decelerate perfectly like a sine curve. That ending is hard to achieve with brakes.

It’s a game I play because it requires skill, but the real reason is because I like smooth stops. It feels like an extension of who I am to stop gently rather than abruptly. And it’s just more comfortable on the spine for everyone in the car.

Well, guess what? Teslas do this perfectly without any effort on my part. The engineers have built this into the regenerative braking system, and they’ve executed perfection.

In the “Hold” Stopping Mode, you get smooth, buttery stops, every single time. Even on slopes. Tesla’s official driver’s manual for the Model Y says this about “Hold” mode:

Maximizes range and reduces brake wear by continuing to provide regenerative braking at speeds lower than with the Creep and Roll settings. When Model Y stops, the brakes are automatically applied without you having to put your foot on the brake pedal. Whether stopped on a flat surface or a hill, Vehicle Hold keeps the brake applied, provided your foot remains off the accelerator and brake pedals.

It doesn’t say it smoothly stops. But it does, and it’s wonderful.

Autopilot keeps you safe and lets you enjoy the scenery more

Is Tesla Autopilot a gimmick?

That’s the question I was most curious about when I bought the car. Does it work? Does it work in Germany? How well does it work? Would I use it on every trip onto the Autobahn?

The verdict is out: I use it practically on every trip longer than 50 km.

The way it works is you pull down twice on the drive mode selector (right side of steering wheel). You’ll then see the lane markings in the real-time visualisation appear blue. That’s it.

With Autopilot engaged, the following bazillion things happen to provide a ‘future of technology’ experience:

• Stays in lane, navigating bends while staying dead center in the lane
• Accelerates to your set speed limit (adjustable with the scroll wheel on the fly)
• Slows down when there’s a car directly in front
• Slows down when there’s a car that looks like it’s about to change lanes into yours
• Steers slightly to one side of your lane when there’s a truck in the adjacent lane
• Stays within 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 cars’ length behind the car in front (you choose)
• Warns you if you’re not keeping you hands on the wheel and applying slight pressure once every 5-10 seconds
• Disengages completely if you violate the “keep your hands on the wheel” rule a few times

So that’s what happens in a nutshell.

What it’s good for is a whole ‘nother thing. I love Autopilot for a few idiosyncratic reasons:

• I feel like I’m in the future. There is no car that even comes close to Tesla Vision AI capabilities for semi-autonomous driving.
• I can safely go hands-free for a few seconds to open a water bottle and take a sip.
• I can let the car drive while I look around once in a while at the scenery.
• I can safely drive with lower cognitive load and reallocate that to talking to my wife, daughter, or listening to a podcast.
• For longer trips (50 km to 700 km), it keeps us safer and helps me arrive less fatigued. I’m the sole driver of my family so this matters.

Literally the Safest Car in the world

I have staved off colliding into a car ahead of me a few times because of the early collision warning chime. It’s a loud, unmistakable chime that that’s equivalent to a “WATCH OUT!”

Before owning a Tesla, I didn’t know much about active safety. Apparently car safety is evaluated in 2 broad categories: passive and active safety.

Passive safety is what happens when the car collides with something. Seat belts prevent you from flying out the windshield. Airbags deploy to prevent you from smashing your face on the dashboard. The bonnet crumples to absorb shock.

Active safety is what happens to prevent your car from colliding with something in the first place.

So passive safety is like medical treatment, while active safety is prevention.

We’re talking about things like automatic emergency braking:

If immediate action is not taken when Model 3 issues a Forward Collision Warning, Automatic Emergency Braking (if enabled) may automatically apply the brakes if a collision is considered imminent

Or the cabin camera observing your alertness and warning you that you seem sleepy and probably need to pull over for some rest when you’re using Autopilot:

The cabin camera can determine driver inattentiveness and provide you with audible alerts, to remind you to keep your eyes on the road when Autopilot is engaged.

Of course, when it comes to safety, we probably shouldn’t take Tesla’s word for it. In 2022, Tesla Model Y earned the highest safety rating of all cars from the Euro New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP). Their press release contains a few interesting details that aren’t covered in their driver’s manual that contribute to this high rating:

Collision Avoidance Driver Monitoring System: Uses direct monitoring to detect a distracted driver and automatically adjusts the sensitivity of the Forward Collision Warning system to be more reactive.

Standard acceleration is already ludicrous

Tesla has a ‘ludicrous mode’ on some of their vehicles (not mine). It also has a paid software upgrade that can unlock crazier acceleration (available in mind, but I didn’t buy it).

I strongly believe that people don’t need any of that anyway.

I drive in ‘Chill’ mode most of the time, because ‘chill’ acceleration is already ridiculous.

Just search YouTube for ‘Tesla acceleration’ and you’ll see how stupidly powerful the normal acceleration already is.

Fun fact: I named our Tesla is Ip Man, after the martial artist (here played by Donnie Yen):

Ip Man (葉問). This guy is the actor. He can also kick ass.

I thought that’s an apt name because look at the guy – he looks pretty normal, right? That is, until you test him…

Automatic signal off after lane changes

When you turn on the signal on the highway or in the city, what happens to the signal light after you finish the lane change?

On every single car I’ve driven before this, the signal light stays on because the mechanism for automatically turning it off is based on steering angle.

Not on a Tesla! On a Tesla, because of its constant vision-based sensing of its environment including what kind of road you’re in, what lanes and road markings are around, it can tell if you’re just lane-changing instead of trying to make a left turn at a junction.

The result? You only have to turn on your signal and focus on lane-changing. When you’re done, you’re done. Yet a little more cognitive load taken off from you by the car.

(Note on reliability: The hit rate from my experience is not 100 percent. It’s more like 85 percent. Sometimes, especially when I happen to be lane-changing near a junction, I still do have to be conscious to reset the signal.)

Secure the glovebox with a PIN

Because I live in Germany and drive often around countries in the EU, I’ll often keep my family’s passports in the glovebox of our Tesla.

Two things make it a safe place to store valuables:

1. It’s PIN-secured and has no physical handles. The catch is electronically released.
2. “Sentry mode” is an active deterrent to break-ins in the first place.

Prevent drive away theft with another PIN

On top of “Sentry mode” deterring car theft, Teslas also come with a PIN lock to electronically prevent unauthorised driving.

For context, Teslas don’t have an ignition button (what would it ignite?). There’s no engine start button either. Your phone or a keycard must be inside the car, and when you’re ready to drive, you just step on the brake, pull down on the gear stick, and drive.

That’s how it would work if you didn’t turn on PIN to drive anyway. If you enabled the feature, stepping on the brake brings up a PIN input, same spiel as any smartphone.

Tesla Supercharger Network is fantastic

I’ve driven to Amsterdam from Düsseldorf and used only Tesla Superchargers to recharge. It never felt like I was too far away from one that I would be stranded without juice.

Here’s a map of Tesla Superchargers around western Europe:

Supercharger network at a glance around where I live – Germany You can view the full map yourself without an account on their website.

Tesla Superchargers are easy to use in other countries

A big ‘problem’ for long-distance driving with an electric car is charging.

It’s not that the network of charging stations isn’t large enough. In many places, the infrastructure exists. But access might differ from city to city.

We’re still in the early days of electric cars, so there’s no standardised way of accessing charging stations yet.

This means that as an electric car owner, you might need to set aside an extra 30-60 minutes to plan your long-distance trip and pre-install apps and pre-register accounts to gain access to charging infra.

I’m sure that as electric cars take over the roads, but until then, the only real solution is to have de facto access to the largest network of electric charging stations in the world.

I’ve driven to the Netherlands and Belgium and accessing the Tesla Supercharger stations there is identical to accessing it from where I’m based (Germany).

You don’t need an account (you have already configured your Tesla account on your car). Nor do you need to swipe a card, change language, enter a PIN, etc.

The entire process to charge a Tesla at a Supercharger is:

• Pick up the charging head
• Point it at your port
• Press an inbuilt button on the head, which communicates magically to your Tesla to open its port
• Plug in

In older Superchargers, charging a Tesla Model Y Long Range (bigger battery) from 10% to 80% takes about 45 minutes. In newer Superchargers, it takes about 25 minutes. With 80% battery, I can drive 300 km easily. Maybe even 400 km.

🗣️ Referral code – If you have decided to buy a Tesla – good for you! – you can use this link to get $1,000 off your Tesla. Tesla will reward me with $500 in credits.

Daily driving lasts 2 weeks on 1 charge

With my Tesla Model Y Long Range 80% charged, I can sometimes go up to 2 weeks without additional charging.

My average no-road-trips week consists about 10 km per day of driving on weekdays and 30 km on weekends. That’s (10 km _ 5) + (30 km _ 2) = 110 km per week, 220 km for 2 weeks. By then there’ll be around 20% charge left.

The real range of a Tesla Model Y Long Range is around 450 km at 100% charge.

Full glass roof makes the interior feel more dynamic

Not sure if you know this, but Telsas have a front to back glass roof.

To be honest, this is a terrible idea in a country near the equator (like Singapore) because it practically transforms your car into a greenhouse. i.e. it gets insanely hot and stuffy inside if it’s 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit) outside.

But in any other weather, the glass roof is a huge plus, especially for passengers in the back. You don’t get to enjoy it as much when sitting in front as the glass room begins just above the driver’s head.

Our daughter, who sits at the back right seat, has been able to see more flocks of birds, planes, and towers than in any other vehicle.

And because it’s specially treated, the glass blocks UV rays and IR rays so your skin doesn’t get cooked. That treatment also makes the roof rather dark when it’s very sunny outside – it works well enough that we don’t see a difference in our toddler’s ability to fall asleep when we drive.

Your phone is the key

My iPhone with the Tesla app installed is my car key.

I can and do do many things I never used to do with my car key, like:

• Unlock the car for my wife when I’m a few blocks away sitting in restaurant\
• Ventilating the car on a hot day remotely by opening all 4 windows slightly
• Turning on the A/C on a hot day remotely
• Checking the car’s GPS location when I forget where I parked
• Being notified when I accidentally leave the boot open for long, and closing the boot remotely

All this functionality comes for free with your Tesla, i.e. you do not need to pay for Premium Connectivity to access these features.

Avoid idle charging fees by adjusting charge limit on the fly

To facilitate judicious use of charging facilities, most charging stations around Europe typically limit the amount of ‘over time’ you can leave your car docked to a station without actually charging.

This is even more true for Tesla Supercharging stations because they are meant to recharge EVs (electric vehicles) in quick cycles. So Tesla, for example, will charge ‘idle fees’ if you leave your Tesla plugged in after it’s charged to the limit you’ve set (e.g. 80%):

The Tesla app allows owners to remotely monitor their vehicle, alerting them when their charge is nearly complete and again once it reaches the charge threshold. For every additional minute a vehicle remains connected to the Supercharger, it will incur an idle fee. If the vehicle is moved within five minutes, the fee is waived. Idle fees only apply when a Supercharger station is at 50% capacity or more. Idle fees double when the station is at 100% capacity.

There’s a table on their site breaking down the idle fees per minute in every country. In Germany, it’s 50 cents per minute, or 1 EUR when the station is 100% occupied. Steep!

Tesla app when charging is in progress.

So, why is it useful to be able to adjust the charge limit on the fly, say from 80% to 90% or 100%? Why not just set the limit to 100% in the first place?

This is where battery biochemistry and physics comes in.

Tesla had a few blog posts published from its early days that describe how batteries can be kept in optimal health. A few rapid-fire knowledge bullets:

• Battery lifespan = cycle life + calendar life
• Keeping a battery’s State of Charge (SOC) as low as possible (but above 10%) extends calendar health
• Avoiding leaving a battery in a SOC of over 95% reduces both physical and electrical stress on the insides of the cell
• ‘Two factors shorten calendar life considerably: lifetime average temperature and time spent at high states of charge. Batteries would last the longest if they were stored in a refrigerator at a very low state of charge.’

So the point is we should avoid charging beyond 80% – a recommendation that’s in your face in the Tesla dash and app, where it says ‘80% is enough for daily driving’).

Armed with this knowledge, I always set my charge limit to 80% at maximum. But sometimes, you know, when you’re trying to finish your Filet-O-Fish at McDonald’s, and your car is reaching the charge limit… you just have to move the goal post a little. So I’d increase the limit to +5% to ‘buy’ me more time.

Note: Tesla also implements the idea of a Congestion fee for Supercharger stations, which is ‘a fee you pay when a Supercharger site is busy, and your vehicle’s battery is above a certain level.’ This one’s unavoidable with adjusting charge limits.

Note 2: In the end, in my opinion, the idle fee and congestion fee work very effectively in favour of EV owners, because life would be more haphazard if you always arrived to a full charging station.

Child lock can be enabled on each side individually

Self explanatory. Useful for parents with 1 kid.

Trip Planner removes stress from road trips

Still requires a bit of planning if you want to decide exactly when you rest, because the trip planner doesn’t give you alternatives unless you cleverly fiddle with some parameters.

But it solves the basic problem: charging on your way to a far away destination.

It also recalculates your remaining battery and redirects you if you drive unexpectedly like a crazy person or (more likely) when you’re stuck in heavy traffic.

I’ve seen the warning on the big screen when this happens, where it says something along the lines of “Not going to make it to the originally planned charging station. Reroute to nearer charger?” Tap OK and it redirects you. Easy stuff.

Low latency, crystal clear cameras

Because Teslas have gone full vision, meaning their Autopilot system uses camera images to make split second decisions of how to drive your car for you, the cameras on Teslas are of very high quality.

There are cameras on the front, side, and back. I rely on the rear camera quite a lot when reversing the car and it’s because the image is crystal clear and ultra low latency. It’s like seeing behind yourself, except with a big of a fisheye effect for a wider field of view.

The most minimalist yet functional dashboard

One thing I was unsure about but have grown to like is the complete lack of a typical car dashboard.

Modern Teslas (Model S, 3, X, Y) don’t have a dashboard. No physical buttons, no overly embellished plastic parts, just a simple touchscreen from which you have access to everything. The only physical buttons are on the steering wheel or on the doors.

Even when the scenery outside is mediocre, the interior always feels calming. I know some people don’t like this tradeoff, but I personally have grown to enjoy it. There’s literally nothing to clean!

There’s a real Scandinavian feel to the interior because of the lack of visual clutter. If that’s your style, this could be a huge plus point because no other car has gone this minimalist with the dash.

More space with a ‘frunk’

This might no longer be unique to Teslas, but a frunk (or ‘froot’) tells you that the car is built from the ground up as an electric vehicle. That, as opposed to electric cars that reuse the same chassis as internal combustion engine cars.

An electric car has no bulky internal combustion engine to occupy the front space, so why not pass that space savings on to the driver and simultaneously improve safety by letting it crumble more in a head-on crash?

Since we got our Tesla, I’ve been using the frunk for the same set of objects:

• A backpack containing me and my wife’s climbing shoes and chalk bags
• The charging cable (those things are heavy and bulky).
• Our city’s electric car charging card.

In this way, I don’t have to grapple with moving stuff away to make space for groceries in the boot.

Park perfectly every time with Park Assist visualisation

This one’s a revelation. It came in the form of a software upgrade, meaning it wasn’t shipped with the car, which makes it even more wonderful.

What do we actually do when we reverse a car when parking?

After using this feature for a while, I realised that it’s mimicking exactly what my brain does when attempting to park – i.e. form a spatial map of the surroundings and move the car to not collide into anything.

I want to know if there’s a pillar. I want to know if there’s a car. I want to know if there’s a bollard that’s behind the car.

Not just that, I’d like to know the shape of each of these things. Big or small car? Pillar? Bollard? Fence? Person?

Now my car does that for me.

When driving at crawling speeds, the Tesla visualises the spatial map around the car and presents it on the screen. It is refreshed every in milliseconds and provides a responsive and reliable representation of your car’s surroundings as you move.

I like to calibrate myself to the visualisation by moving the car back a few centimeters and checking how the visualised objects are responding to our new position. After using this for months, I can confidently say that the relative distances of everything represented on the visualisation are 100% reliable.

In short, it’s easy (and cool) to park a Tesla.

To see this in action, search YouTube for ‘tesla vision park assist’! But here’s a clip of me showing the feature when driving in close proximity at a red light:

Tesla Vision Park Assist in action (albeit not in a parking situation)

No artificial engine noise when driving

Maybe not everyone likes this, but before I owned a Tesla I’d driven an electric Renault Zoe that deliberately produces a loud hum when driving.

Why? Just why? Who likes car noise?

The Tesla drives quietly, stealthily, and it so far hasn’t proven to be a safety hazard in my hands. Road users have had over a century to get used to checking for cars to prevent getting knocked down. We can mostly count on that.

Yes, I’ve had a few occasions on narrow roads where I’ve had to overtake a pedestrian with headphones on, walking on the side in the direction of traffic, completely – stupidly – unaware of a car creeping behind them. In these cases I roll down the window and shout ‘HALLO!’ and that usually resolves the problem.

The Tesla does make a ‘Woooooo’ sound when reversing, though, and I think that’s when it’s called for because it’s easier for accidents to happen when a car backs up. Now whenever I hear a ‘Woooooooooo’ I know it’s Tesla reversing, and I instinctively move the heck away.

Navigation is 10x easier with a big screen

I’m prone to missing turns.

Not anymore due to the huge space dedicated to showing navigation instructions on my Tesla.

I almost never miss turns anymore because now I can actually see each road in a junction on the map and tally them to the actual road that I’m supposed to drive on.

Software updates improve the car over time

Over-the-air (OTA) updates happen every few weeks with a Tesla. This is what makes me confident that I’m going to drive this car for at least a decade, if not longer.

In 1 year of ownership, I’ve experienced a refreshed UI, new pixel-by-pixel adaptive headlights, parking visualisations, and more. More will undoubtedly come. It’s a car that can actually get better with time.

Question: Do you need to pay for premium connectivity to get OTA updates? The answer is no. Updates come with every Tesla for free (you need to connect it to WiFi though – I use my mobile phone hotspot since it has an unlimited data plan).

The delightful ‘Go On Green’ chime

Let’s end the Tesla-specific list with a fun feature. This one has, I believe, saved me from being honked at at least 10 times.

When stopped at the red light, you might talk to your passengers in the car and become engrossed. What inevitably happens? You forget to check the traffic light turning green. HONK!

Tesla, again since its AI is vision-based, provides a nifty feature that plays a soothing, airplane-like ‘doooong’ when the traffic light turns green.

It works regardless of whether you’re the first car at the light or if the car in front of you has just started moving after a pause.

🗣️ Referral code – If you have decided to buy a Tesla – good for you! – you can use this link to get $1,000 off your Tesla. Tesla will reward me with $500 in credits.

Play Spotify without draining your phone battery [Paid]

With a Premium Connectivity subscription, which I can subscribe and unsubscribe on a monthly basis via the Tesla app, I can listen to Spotify directly in the car without needing to connect to my phone via Bluetooth.

(Tesla has, through OTA updates, recently added support for YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Apple Music, Audible, and more.)

This was definitely a game changer for me.

Another very, very often used feature for me, which comes for free with every Tesla (i.e. standard connectivity), is voice commands.

One of our toddler-aged daughter’s favourite things to do in the car is listen to music, and since she can now speak and recognise the album artwork displayed on the big screen, she has started to ask for songs.

‘Daddy, can you play “Come and Get Your Love”?’

It’s honestly a lot of fun! Whenever she asks me for a song, I’ll tap the right scroll-wheel button on the steering wheel and say, ‘Play Come and Get Your Love.’ With a 95% hit rate, the car will start playing the song I asked for on Spotify.

In case it’s not clear why this is more than a gimmick – it means that I can do things that I would need to do (e.g. satisfy my daughter’s auditory cravings) without taking my eyes off the road.

With voice commands, not only do I not have to tap unsafely on the screen while driving to find and play a song, I can also:

• set/increase/decrease the fan speed and A/C temperature
• enable/disable steering wheel or seat heating
• find and play a podcast
• start navigation by saying ‘navigate to X’

It’s not a full voice assistant (yet), so I can’t ask questions and get answers to trivia and expand our knowledge together while driving, but that’s honestly a smaller use case for us than playing specific songs.

You can fit an IKEA window bed in it

There’s a ton of space in a Tesla because it has been designed from the ground up and doesn’t dedicate space for a huge internal combustion engine. Interesting fact – an electric motor can be up to 10 times smaller than an internal combustion engine!

Yes, electric cars need batteries, which also take up space, but these can lay flat like they do in Teslas. They’re distributed throughout the floor of the car, which frees up space for the driver’s use within the other parts of the car. (They also, by the way, pulls the center of gravity way down, making the car much, much less likely to sideturn or overturn.)

We once bought a second-hand IKEA window bed on eBay, which we dismantled and successfully fit into the car. We both still managed to be in the car, too. That was a fun day as we got a few laughs from pedestrians.

0:00 /0:10

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Proof that this car has a lot of space

BECAUSE IT’S AN EV…

Kids can continue sleeping on arrival

Before I drove a Tesla in Germany, I drove a diesel van.

Our 1 year old would be sleeping in the car seat during the drive, but she would wake almost immediately once we’d arrived and killed the engine. I was the same when I was a child, waking once the combustion engine vibration and noise suddenly stops.

Ever since I’ve switched to an EV, this ‘problem’ has been resolved. Our daughter has continued sleeping sometimes up to 30 minutes more upon arrival. The difference is so big because an electric motor produces neither vibrations nor noise, so the only constant sounds that we hear inside the car are road noise and music. Increase the music volume enough and the road noise fades into the background.

When you stop a Tesla, you don’t ‘kill the engine’ so much as set your car to Park. Parked (i.e. idling), the car takes no more energy than is necessary to power the onboard computer and A/C, so it’s much more environmentally friendly to wait inside an EV than a ICE with the engine on.

The A/C continues to run by default. The music continues to play by default. So on arrival, I would park gently and set the car to Park, letting our daughter’s brain grow with her nap. And my wife and I get to enjoy the music, look around, and fiddle with our phones.

You can ‘work from car’

By day I’m a software engineer working fully remotely, so I can technically work anywhere in the country I’m employed. I fully capitalise on this fact as a father of a young daughter who has ball practice, bouldering sessions, dance and martial arts classes in various places throughout the city.

I’d drive my wife (who accompanies our daughter) to these sessions and find a place to park for free. Then I’d simply work from the car.

Four things make this possible (and comfortable) in a Tesla:

1. The front passenger seat is extremely spacious => physical ergonomics
2. The glass roof lets in a lot of daylight => visual ergonomics
3. The car is a giant power bank, capable of charging my laptop and phone without the ‘engine’ being on => range and sustainability
4. I pay a reasonable amount for unlimited data on my phone, hotspotting for my laptop => internet access To me as a remote worker, this has to be one of the biggest perks of owning an EV!

No ‘Engine’ That Could Fail To Start In Cold Weather

Winter temperatures in Düsseldorf, Germany don’t go lower than -5 Celsius (23 Fahrenheit), so if you live in Canada or something, please take this point with a pinch of salt.

That said, my van used to give me cold sweats when I try to start them in the winter. Internal combustion engines work literally with fire, and the cold isn’t kind to fires that want to burn.

Electric motors on the other hand are affected by cold temperatures in terms of the battery performance. Starting my Tesla in winter has never posed a problem for me. I don’t know about you, but that eliminates a potential big source of stress for me.

Free Parking In The City When Charging

In my city, if you park in a lot with a charging station, you can usually park for 4 hours without paying for parking – you just pay for the electricity!

Photo by ADAC

This has become a pretty big deal to me because of the cost savings when driving in the city. When my wife and I feel like having lunch outside on a workday, we’re comfortable driving because we know that we’d likely not have to pay 3-6 EUR per hour for parking and instead can redirect those savings to fuel.

Though I have to admit, I don’t know if this is a thing in other countries other than Germany.

Things I don’t like about my Tesla Model Y

I don’t think a Tesla is perfect. Here are the main issues I find with mine.

One of the things that sticks out most for me, quite literally, is the non-adjustable headrests on all the seats. While the seat can recline, raise, and move laterally using the motorised controls, the headrests cannot even be adjusted manually.

Yes, it’s one less moving part, contributing to the minimal aesthetic, but I would have expected this in any car. It’s a piece of function I miss, especially since the headrest is a bit stiff.

Next, there’s the notorious fact that Teslas have a wide turning radius. I quite often have to do 3-point turns when other cars can manage with a single turn. This hasn’t bothered me as much because I’m generally a confident driver, plus the shift lever works with simple up and down motions, so changing driving modes is quick.

Owners also used to complain a lot about the stiff suspension system. I read about this in the forums before buying my purchase, and it was the biggest factor for me against buying a Tesla initially. But I read that Tesla had taken the feedback and improved their suspension with ‘comfort suspension,’ and to me, it’s clear that it’s not that bad. Though, I’d describe the suspension as an dampened go-kart like in a Mini rather than a bouncy BMW.

Then there’s the door opening angles. My Tesla Model Y doors open only in 3 fixed angles. This makes helping my toddler in and out of the car a challenge in tight parking lots because I can’t maximise the door opening angle and dedicate my hands to kid-retrieval. Thankfully I mostly travel with my wife, so one of us would hold the door open and the other does said retrieval. But I imagine this could be annoying if you have to do it yourself a lot.

There you have it!

Once again as an obligatory reminder – please don’t buy a car on impulse. I did not write this to peddle Teslas. Bookmark this post, refer back to it for reconsideration, share it with your partner (and friends?) to facilitate discussion. Then buy if you’re convinced.

I hope this article – and your future Tesla, if you buy one! – serves you well.

🚗 Referral code – Just once more in case you missed it. If you decide to buy a Tesla after reading this review – good for you! – you can use this link to get $1,000 off your Tesla. Tesla will reward me with $500 in credits.