2023 Tesla Model Y Long Range First Test: Damn, It’s Good

Right around the time we strapped our timing gear onto a 2023 Tesla Model Y, Bloomberg published a survey of owners of the Model 3. The gist was that although the majority of surveyed owners are tired of founder Elon Musk’s antics, they still love their Tesla cars. After a few days with the Model Y, essentially the SUV version of the 3, we understand why: It’s hard to find fault with this electric SUV and easy to see why it’s a strong seller. Clearly, it ain’t all about the Cult of Elon.

The 2023 Tesla Model Y Long Range we drove doesn’t look that much different from the similar Model Y we tested in 2020. What’s changed under the skin? That’s difficult to say, since Tesla doesn’t do traditional model year changes. We can’t ask, because it’s been years since Tesla had a media relations department (and you can only Tweet—er, X—at Elon Musk so many times a year). That said, there have been plenty of changes to hardware (including the battery) and software, so we figured our best bet was to get a Y and subject it to our usual evaluations, including taking it to the test track.

We have lots to say about the Model Y, almost all of it good, but let’s dispense with the hard data. Horsepower and torque haven’t changed since our last instrumented test—384 hp and 375 lb-ft (although it might be 376; we can’t seem to get a straight answer)—but the new Model Y tipped our scales at 4,337 pounds, 20 pounds lighter than the ’20 model we tested. EPA range has grown a bit; it’s now 330 miles versus 316 in 2020.

For all that, the new car is—drum roll, please—slightly slower. This year’s Model Y dashed to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds, 0.3 second behind the 2020 model. The new Model Y ran the quarter mile in 12.7 seconds at 114.9 mph; the 2020 was a third of a second quicker with a nearly identical trap speed. Our test team found the best acceleration came with the ol’ slap-and-go method—skip the fancy footwork and just mash the go pedal.

Perhaps Tesla has altered the acceleration curve to lengthen the range? Seems a fair trade-off to us. After all, the Hyundai Ioniq 5, our 2023 SUV of the Year and arguably the Model Y’s most credible rival, matches that 0-60 time and takes a half-second longer in the quarter. (Let’s not forget these are quarter-mile times most classic muscle cars would give their left glasspack to match.)

Braking from 60 to 0 mph in the new Model Y was identical to the 2020 car at 118 feet, and after half a dozen hard stops, the instrument panel was displaying a brake-overheat warning. That’s no surprise given the Model Y is intended to be driven as a one-pedal car, with regenerative braking doing the heavy lifting. Lateral acceleration was down ever so slightly—0.85 g compared to 0.86—and the new car lapped our figure-eight course in 25.5 seconds, 0.3 second slower than in ’20, and with a tad less grip. Road test editor Chris Walton noted, “It’s been a while since I’ve driven one of these, and I had forgotten how capable and fun it can be.” He called out the quick and precise steering but noted that by the end of several laps, the brakes and tires were clearly unhappy, a phenomenon we’ve seen in other EVs.

The bottom line is that not much has changed with the Model Y in the last three years—and that’s what makes it so remarkable. The EV SUV market has exploded in that time, and MotorTrend has driven—and been impressed by—nearly all of the Model Y’s competitors. And yet all of us who took a turn at the wheel of this Model Y came away with the same basic conclusion: Damn, it’s good.

We’re pretty sure Tesla’s minimalist interior—which has but a single screen at the center of the barely adorned dashboard—was designed to cut costs, but as a user interface, it works well. Even with a lack of familiarity, we never had trouble figuring out how fast we were going or whether we’d left a turn signal blinking. Plenty of us have criticized the button-free, screen-only interfaces of other cars, and we still can’t get used to Tesla’s (and Rivian’s) silly idea of adjusting air vents using a touchscreen rather than, y’know, the vent itself. Still, even the most tech-averse among us had little trouble navigating the system.

Take, for example, Tesla’s Car Wash mode, which we only know about because a sign at our local drive-through scrubber warns that TESLA OWNERS MUST KNOW HOW TO ENGAGE CAR WASH MODE. (We’ve yet to ask about the mishaps that resulted in that sign’s creation, but it’s on the to-do list.) When it came time to wash the Model Y, we didn’t see any obvious way to engage this feature, so we pressed the picture of a Tesla and typed in the Search box—C-A-R-W—and there it was, Car Wash mode. (For those wondering, it closes the windows and charge port, turns off the rain-sensing wipers, shifts to neutral and keeps the parking brake released when the driver seat is empty.) We followed the onscreen instructions and washed our Y with none of the drama that might, say, require a new sign.

Our test Tesla did not have so-called Full Self Driving, the dubiously named, obviously unfinished software that allows some additional hands-free driving capabilities. It did have Autosteer, Tesla’s lane centering system. Engagement is simple: Tap the column-stalk transmission shifter down (toward Drive) once to engage adaptive cruise, again for Autosteer. Speed is adjusted with a thumb wheel on the steering wheel, a setup that makes much more sense than tap-up/tap-down buttons. As for Autosteer, it does a decent enough job on straightaways, but in curves it frequently allowed the Model Y to drift to the outside of the lane before turning—rather alarming, and nowhere near as good as the lane keeping systems in many other cars, including Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis EVs.

Sure, we found more to criticize, just as we do on all vehicles. The Model Y’s ride is choppy, we miss phone mirroring (although Tesla’s software works pretty well), and we did experience the headline-making, overly optimistic range estimates, such as the car using 64 miles of range after a gently driven 43-mile highway cruise.

But neither did we find anything glaringly wrong. Viewed in comparison to other compact SUVs, both electric and fuel-powered, the Model Y is tidily sized, easy to maneuver, quiet, and reasonably comfortable. It has plenty of range and adequate space in the back seat, trunk, and frunk. Whether you view its single-screen interface as futuristic minimalism or ruthless cost-cutting, it’s relatively easy to learn and use. We can’t say it’s leagues better than other, newer electric SUVs, but nor can we say that any of those EVs are leagues better than the Model Y.

There is one area where Tesla blows away the competition, and that’s the Supercharger network. Fast-charging a Tesla could not be easier: Simply plug in, and the car and the charger work out all the authentication and payment details. There’s no messing about with logins or key tags or credit cards, and the svelte Supercharger cable is far easier to manipulate than those 10-ton CCS hawsers. The Model Y even closes the charge port for you when you unplug it. Forget about the technical details; from a user perspective, this is how things ought to work. (Let’s hope Supercharging remains this easy when other manufacturers start using it.)

Many of us went into this evaluation wary of the cultlike vibes from the Teslarati, who gloss over glaring faults, explain away the inherent danger Full Self Driving poses to the general public, and shush owners who dare complain about their Tesla cars, and we certainly don’t want to appear like we are joining their ranks.

But our job is to evaluate cars, not the people who make, own, or love them, and there is no denying the Tesla Model Y is very, very good—and that, as our testing shows, it has been this good for the three years it’s taken the competition to catch up. While some competitors are as good as the Tesla, none is clearly better, and the Model Y is still running at the front of the pack.