Tesla Model Y review

From £44,9808

Europe's biggest-selling electric car gets some key refinements and improvements, and an entry-level model that champions value for money

The primacy of the Tesla Model Y - still the best-selling electric car in both the UK and Europe - is slowly fading. Back in 2023, after production at Tesla’s European ‘gigafactory’ in Berlin fully ramped up, this was Europe’s fastest-selling new car of any kind. In 2024, however, it dropped out of the continent’s ‘big three’ - and now seems less and less likely to return.

Not that Tesla’s taking this lying down. Late last year, the firm announced this new entry-rung, ‘Standard’ version of the Model Y. At list price, it costs £3000 less than the equivalent bottom-rung model (the RWD) did in 2022, and about £7000 less than the next model up in the lineup.

But the car’s headline price is only half of the story. By optimising both equipment specification and performance, Tesla has produced lower cost of insurance and stronger residuals for it; the latter driving value through all-important personal finance. Tesla's manufacturer-backed PCP deals on the Model Y Standard car start at just £300-a-month - the kind of outlay EV owners will be more accustomed to paying for considerably smaller, shorter-range cars from classes below. They could actually be cheaper still once you factor in the £3750 deposit booster offer that the firm is currently offering, to buyers trading in either combustion-engined cars or competitor EVs.

As regards the wider Model Y model lineup, a fairly wide-ranging update was executed in 2025. Beyond striking changes to the body, they included a Cybertruck-style front lightbar, and myriad other tweaks to constituted the so-called Juniper facelift.

At the same time, pricing was made more competitive than ever. When the Model Y first landed in the UK in 2022, a 434bhp Long Range variant with four-wheel drive would set you back £54,990. Today the same model is marginally less powerful but costs an inflation-busting £51,990, despite having additional kit that includes ventilated front seats and electrically folding rear seatbacks.

Advertisement
Back to top

It’s a strong twin-prong attack. One with a whiff of Hail Mary? Perhaps. So far we've tested both the Long Range Rear-Wheel Drive, to which our various figures and charts relate; the Long Range dual-motor car; and the bottom-rung Model Y Standard. The Long Range Rear-Wheel Drive is the mid-ranking Model Y with a declared range of 387 miles and an asking price of £48,990. 

The list of cars you might conceivably cross-shop with the Tesla is now vastly greater than it was even three years ago, and many of them sit on fresh platforms and certainly aren’t shy when it comes to battery capacity and performance. Tesla has long been a technology leader, but there’s no denying the rest of the world has caught up.

Does the hitherto formidable Model Y still cut it? And can some boosted value credentials give it a new lease of life? Let's find out.

Advertisement

DESIGN & STYLING

8
Tesla Moel Y Standard review 2026002

On the road, this updated Model Y stands out from the old car in an instant. The geometry of the body and therefore the swept silhouette are largely unchanged, but the curvaceous front graphic of the original Model Y – which reminded one tester of an “angry piglet” – has given way to something far sleeker and more Syd Mead in feel.

At the front the headlights sit beneath the lightbar, and beneath those you will notice new air curtains that help drop the drag coefficient to 0.22. That’s the same as the Mercedes-Benz EQE saloon and puts the Kamm-tailed Tesla at the slippery end of its class. Hidden in that tail is another lightbar, but it’s one with a difference: those behind you don’t see the LEDs themselves, only the soft blush they create in the bodywork beneath. You might also notice the subtly more pronounced spoiler lip, which is claimed to reduce lift.

You still get aerodynamic 19in wheels as standard. The 20in items in the photos are a £2100 option.
Illya Verpraet
Road Tester

Dimensionally, the Juniper Model Y is a little longer than the car it replaces – at 4790mm, the Tesla is longer than any of its direct rivals – but the wheelbase is unchanged, and at 2890mm is close to the three-metre mark that generally guarantees excellent occupant space. Tesla also claims to have increased the stiffness of the car’s steel/aluminium structure by 3% and simplified some of the castings, helping to shave some weight off.

Our Long Range Rear-Wheel Drive test car trod the scales at 1903kg with 47:53 rear-biased distribution. For a full-size crossover carrying 82kWh of nominal battery, this qualifies as sprightly. The comparatively basic Audi Q4 E-tron we tested in 2021, which has a similar mechanical layout to the Model Y Long Range RWD, came in at 2112kg. Even the smaller-battery Peugeot e-3008 weighs 2132kg by our reckoning, so the Tesla’s figure is impressive. We also weighed a 2025 Long Range Dual Motor, and the penalty for having that extramotor on the front axle is 115kg – about what you would expect.

And how much less Tesla are you getting with the Standard model? Honestly, you might well think not much. There’s a LFP (lithium iron phosphate) battery in place of the regular car's NMC (nickel manganese cobalt) one about the capacity of which Tesla remains coy - quite rightly pointing out that too much emphasis is put on this by its rivals, and not enough on actual efficiency. When pressed, it will confirm that the car has ‘around 65kWh’ of usable capacity, however (down from about 75kWh in the Long Range models); which, on our chilly test day, delivered perfectly creditable real-world range of between 250- and 280 miles.

You get rear-axle-born, single-motor drive in the lower-order models - and, in the Standard model's case, from a power unit of 'about 300 horsepower' (another thing Tesla seems needlessly coy about), though it's actually tuned to produce slightly slower acceleration, and a lower top speed, than the old RWD model had in 2022 (the car’s UK insurance classification has been reduced from group 37 to 34). In neither case would you be likely to notice the difference, however, to which we’ll come shortly. And, as you add motors, so power ramps up - to a maximum of 460bhp in the case of the twin-motor Performance model.

You probably will notice the altered head- and taillights of the Standard model (you may not even mourn the omission of the front and rear light bars), while the simplified-looking bumpers front and rear help to cut drag.

Dual-motor cars also have the option of an Acceleration Boost mode. For suspension, meanwhile, Tesla shuns any kind of active air springing, and instead goes with conventional coil springs front and rear; combined with normal passive dampers in the case of the Standard model; 'frequency selective' double-rated dampers on Long Range models; and programmable continuously variable dampers on Performance models.  

There are now cars in of the Model Y’s ilk with rear-wheel steering (MG IM6), air springs (Porsche Macan Electric) and even adjustable Öhlins coilovers (Polestar 2) of course - but all these systems are absent on the Tesla, although it does employ double wishbones at the front. In terms of suspension tuning, Tesla has softened off the suspension rates for the Juniper update, in an attempt to address the ride-quality concerns that have always afflicted the Model Y.

Advertisement

INTERIOR

7
Tesla Moel Y Standard review 2026007

While most carmakers are on a mission to strip complexity out of their interiors, Tesla is slowly adding extra stuff in. Don’t get your hopes up: it’s still minimalist to the extreme, with essentially no buttons - but the car's materials have had a bit of an upgrade, the centre console has gained some flexibility, and ambient lighting has appeared.

Obviously, the sparse-looking, ultra-decluttered style still isn’t to all tastes, but it somehow doesn’t look as generic as some of the Chinese contenders, and the palette of materials and colours is quite cohesive. In upper-level trims, even the door bins are soft-touch and carpeted, which isn’t the case on some much more expensive cars.

The seats are set quite high in a Model Y, to create foot space for rear passengers. It doesn’t create a sporting driving position, but in combination with the low scuttle and windows and high roof, it creates quite an airy feeling.
Illya Verpraet
Road Tester

The British Leyland level build quality that Tesla became known for at one point is long gone, but a loose trim piece in the headliner of our test car still caused a few squeaks.

The centre touchscreen is mostly familiar. The display is extremely clear and responsive, with important functions just one press away; although it delivers a lot of functions through fiddly, small icons and sub-menus, which are distracting to navigate while driving.

The car's lack of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto is also annoying; but over the years Tesla has expanded its library of third-party apps. As well as Spotify, there’s built-in Apple Music and Podcasts, Tidal etc; so it’s not the problem that it could be - although, for a car that champions tech, it's still a conspicuous failing.

Tesla’s upgrade efforts don’t extend to a dedicated instrument display, which is also annoying since it forces you to look farther from your natural line of sight than seems necessary for things like a speedometer. Some testers quite liked the clear view of the road ahead that this gives, however; others thought that little compensation.

In the back, the big news is the addition of a small touchscreen, which means that rear passengers no longer need to ask the front occupants to turn on the heated seats. The screen also does media, YouTube and the like. 

In the Standard model, there’s no secondary touchscreen or seat heaters for back-seat passengers. In similar vein and in pursuit of that lower sticker price, synthetic vegan leather has been substituted for a cloth/’leather’ upholstery combo. There’s a slightly simpler seven-speaker stereo fitted, and part of the car’s full-length glass roof has been covered up with a trim cover, to make it look like a regular sunroof.

That apart, the Model Y Standard is very much like any other Model Y. It doesn’t quite have class-leading knee or head room, but they’re good enough, and because the bench is set fairly high, the seating position is comfortable. The backrest can now also recline electrically in upper-tier models, or manually elsewhere.

It’s with storage space where the Model Y blows away the competition. The boot is enormous by itself, and that’s before you count the underfloor storage and the big frunk.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

7
Tesla Moel Y Standard review 2026016

To drive, the Model Y remains a car whose lack of physical controls and conventional instrumentation does seem to gaslight you a little bit about what actually constitutes ease of operation. Well rehearsed as it may sound, given that Tesla is now more of a generalist brand than one for technophiles, the argument certainly bears repeating.

You do get a physical indicator stalk here, as well as actual buttons for headlight flash and wash-wipe. Unlike in other Model Ys, you also get manual steering column adjustment (whoopee). And yet adjusting the seat position and door mirrors, and activating the demister/adjusting the climate control, is all through the 15in touchscreen. Selecting drive or reverse is likewise via a fiddly touchscreen slider, rather than via a physical thing you can easily locate and grab at a glance. It's annoying; and, for one tester in particular, didn't become much less so over time.

The Model Y isn’t entirely devoid of buttons. The one on the left steering wheel spoke can be assigned an additional ‘long press’ function, to adjust anything from heater temp or fan speed to folding the door mirrors. Shame you can assign ADAS functions to it.
Matt Saunders
Road test editor

Sometimes the Model Y seems to be able to use its parking sensors to recognise automatically when, departing a parking bay or making a three-point turn, you might want drive or reverse - and will select it for you. When it works, it’s quite clever; but, annoyingly, it doesn’t always. And so what you’re left with is a car that, at a fundamental level, just isn’t as simple to control as it ought to be; and that has something of a variously obliging or disobliging mind of its own.

In the context of an everyday family EV, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the car's level of performance. A 0-60mph time of 5.7sec, and 4.3sec for the dash from 30-70mph, made our Long Range Rear-Wheel Drive test car almost identically quick as the last generation of Honda Civic Type R.

The calibration is reasonably good too. You either lounge about in Chill mode, during which the accelerator pick-up is notably muted; or remain in the standard setting, which is more binary if you’re clumsy, but mostly gives a sensibly bright response when you’re pulling away – what most people like to have in an EV.

There are still no paddles for toggling regen, however - your only options for adjustment come through the touchscreen. Standard mode is close to a one-pedal setting, but isn't quite strong enough to reassure you to fully leave the brake pedal alone; and Reduced mode isn't quite a full-on coasting setting. In Tesla world, as with the control layout, that's just how things are done; like it or lump it.

One lesser-reported change for the Juniper update, and that makes quite a difference, is the addition of brake-by-wire. Tesla used to be one of the only EV makers that didn’t have a blended brake pedal, whereby regenerative force and physical pad-on-disc retardation both unfold during the travel of the pedal. Instead, you got heavy one-pedal driving with lots of lift-off regenerative force, while the brake pedal only acted on the discs.

Now, you have to regulate either a little, or most, of the regen through the brake pedal. That makes the Model Y more like other EVs to drive; though it's driving regimes are still not quite as adjustable or controllable as many rivals are.

The Model Y Standard, meanwhile has a performance level that may be gentler than that of its rangemates, but still feels assertive enough whether you’re around town or out of it. It’s agreeable enough to drive - except for when the car’s various ADAS systems decline to come to heel. The assisted cruise control has an especially irritating habit of dropping out every time you change lanes on the motorway (which may explain why you see so many Tesla middle-lane hoggers), and its various other systems are harder to find and control through the touchscreen than they would be - if there were, you know, buttons for them. 

As for the Long Range AWD - well, it is very quick indeed – considerably more so that the Long Range RWD version to which the above chart relates. It's the only one to have it you want to go super-saloon baiting.

RIDE & HANDLING

7
Tesla Model Y 2025 Review interior driving 9278

The Model Y’s ride quality has improved across the gamut of all the derivatives, and there’s no longer the sense that you have inadvertently left the car’s suspension in Sport mode.

The jagged edges of the original car’s low-speed gait are now largely absent, and at motorway speeds the Model Y settles more easily, labouring expansion joints and the like less than before. It’s an easier car to live with, no question.

While there remains a tautness to the ride quality that borders on the unnecessary in the case of the Long Range Rear-Wheel Drive car, the Standard model is a little bit gentler of temperament - though still firmer-riding than the average SUV. Tesla wants its cars to feel agile and ‘connected’, and it has achieved this; but given the Model Y is a crossover without any real credentials as a driver’s car, the character of mid-range models could safely have been shifted into an even more relaxed space without giving anything away.

Those who do want a Model Y optimised for everyday jobs would be advised to stick with the 19in wheels; whether by ordering a Standard model, or keeping the specification of their Premium model simple. No, they don’t look particularly special, but the extra sidewall positively contributes to ride quality in a way you will thank yourself for as the miles pile on.

Elsewhere, Tesla has slowed the speed of the steering from 2.0 to 2.4 turns between locks (these figures aren’t quite as frightening as they seem because the car’s turning circle isn’t especially tight), and this has made the driving experience more intuitive.

Equally, the off-centre response remains faintly hair-trigger, and if you really dial into the motion in those incipient degrees of travel, you will notice that it isn’t perfectly smooth. Factor in weighting that feels synthetic and there’s no risk of this helm providing much in the way of engagement, although it moves neatly enough in its lighter weight setting and is accurate enough once you are fully accustomed to the action.

It’s a similar story with body control, which exists but without much deftness. What movement the body is permitted is generally taken up quickly before it meets a wall of resistance. This is an effective way of ensuring the car changes direction quickly, and it will allow you to put the Model Y down a tortuous road without much hassle, but it isn’t at all natural in feel.

Tesla Model Y news

New Mercedes CLA vs Model 3 and MG: Can anyone topple Tesla?
New Mercedes CLA vs Model 3 and MG: Can anyone topple Tesla?
New Mercedes CLA vs Model 3 and MG: Can anyone topple Tesla?
New Mercedes CLA vs Model 3 and MG: Can anyone topple Tesla?
New Mercedes CLA vs Model 3 and MG: Can anyone topple Tesla?
New Mercedes CLA vs Model 3 and MG: Can anyone topple Tesla?
New Mercedes CLA vs Model 3 and MG: Can anyone topple Tesla?
New Mercedes CLA vs Model 3 and MG: Can anyone topple Tesla?

Moreover, while the car’s roll reflex and steering action are both quick, they often don’t feel quite well aligned enough with each other. As a result it can be a difficult car to ‘flow’ down the road.

As for the handling itself, it isn’t bad. Our RWD test car had a neat enough balance and when pushed slightly out of its comfort zone on track was impressively resistant to understeer and gripped well, remaining on its line. The ESP is very conservatively calibrated, though, to the extent that you wonder what it might be hiding.

The answer for anybody who wants some dynamic interest and polish is to look first to the Kia EV6 and perhaps the Ford Mustang Mach-E.

We should also touch on isolation. The new Model Y plays a strong hand here, and is notably hushed at speed with little in the way of wind noise and road roar (especially on the smaller wheel). To thank for this is new laminated glass (fitted to Long Range models and above), although we wouldn’t be surprised to find that further insulating materials had been added: 65dBA at 70mph is quiet.

Assisted driving

All Model Ys come with Autopilot as standard. You can upgrade to Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) Capability for rather a lot of money. In Europe and the UK, where there’s stricter regulation of that sort of thing than in the US, we wouldn’t bother with the latter, because the differences are minor in terms of what you can actually action on the road; although Tesla's mid-level Enhanced Autopilot option is worth having if you're a motorway regular, because it addresses the irritating dropping out of the piloted cruise control system when changing lanes that we referred to earlier.

Otherwise, the ADAS features are relatively unintrusive, though a little inaccessible to turn on and off. The lane keeping assistance is quite mild, the car's overspeed warning likewise; and a permenant screen icon for that, at least, makes it easy to disable.

Advertisement

MPG & RUNNING COSTS

8
Tesla Moel Y Standard review 2026001

The most significant development here is how much better value the Model Y represents now than it used to. Thanks to the Standard version, it’s now rather a lot of family EV for surprisingly little outlay, with PCP finance on offer from just £300-a-month. More surprising still, in fact, when you actually work out how much more a month you might be expected to pay for some of its opponents.

With new-found competition and brand cachet that perhaps isn’t as strong as it was for Tesla, it's clear that this is a brand that understands how much harder it has to work on value. The range now starts at £41,995 for the Standard model, which is a price that actually does little justice to the car's position on monthly finance. Long Range models start from £48,990; twin-motor ones from £51,990.

There aren't many options on the Model Y, but the ones that do exist are very expensive. Red paint is £2600.
Illya Verpraet
Road Tester

Optional spend is reserved only for the wheels, paint, leather colour and Autopilot packages. Remember, too, that you're getting an SUV that over-indexes on interior space – in real terms, it is a match for a full-size estate like the Volkswagen ID 7 Tourer.

A test average of 4.0mpkWh for the Long Range RWD car (expect a little lower for the 4WD car) is also impressive and gives a real-world range of 315 miles – excellent for the size of the battery pack. From the smaller-batteried Standard model, expect between 250- and 280 miles of electric range, and closer to the former at motorway speeds.

As for rapid-charging speed, the car's headline power figure is 250kW, although pre-conditioning is required to hit this level and we don’t test cars in that way. Our Model Y Long Range Rear-Wheel Drive hit a peak of 187kW but tailed off quickly, and the weighted average from 10-90% was just 115kW.

We expect the latest raft of crossovers, such as the MG IM6, to comfortably exceed this figure. The Tesla Supercharger network is also no longer the trump card it used to be, now that cars from other makers can use some of them. Some remain Tesla-exclusive, though, and a Tesla’s navigation is still plugged into live updates about which superchargers are busy or out of service in a way that others’ aren’t. As a result, Tesla’s EV route planning is still second to none.

Advertisement

VERDICT

8
Tesla Model Y 2025 Review rear action blur 9293

Tesla’s ability to innovate fast, keep production costs low, and offer a proprietary network of rapid-charging stations justifiably resulted in it achieving immense growth in the first half of this decade.

Lately those advantages have diminished as the rest of the industry has caught up; but with this update the Model Y remains well worthy of consideration, especially for those who prize a lounge-like ambience and practicality, and can live with the considerable frustrations of a cockpit largely devoid of physical switchgear, a distracting infotainment system, and some annoying ADAS systems.

The Model Y is also priced more keenly than before - the arrival of the Standard model moving the car into value territory that it has never inhabited previously, and likely to bring in customers who simply thought they couldn't afford a family-friendly Tesla. For the Long Range models, the offerings of the likes of Skoda and MG are at hand to question the any bargain status; but they still pack in plenty for the money.

Set against its versatility and sensibleness, there is the fact that ride quality, although improved, isn’t as slick as it could be. And while charging speeds are fine now, they will soon look a bit off the pace. 

All in all, the Model Y is still compelling, and has a lot more rational, value-driven appeal than it used to. To drive and interact with, however, it remains a bit of a curious, testing, acquired taste that doesn't prioritise simple drivability as much as such a generalist mid-market family car probably ought to.

Illya Verpraet

Illya Verpraet Road Tester Autocar
Title: Road Tester

As a road tester, Illya drives everything from superminis to supercars, and writes reviews and comparison tests, while also managing the magazine’s Drives section. Much of his time is spent wrangling the data logger and wielding the tape measure to gather the data for Autocar’s in-depth instrumented road tests.

He loves cars that are fun and usable on the road – whether piston-powered or electric – or just cars that are very fit for purpose. When not in test cars, he drives an R53-generation Mini Cooper S or a 1990 BMW 325i Touring.

Richard Lane

Richard Lane
Title: Deputy road test editor

Richard is Autocar's deputy road test editor. He previously worked at Evo magazine. His role involves travelling far and wide to be among the first to drive new cars. That or heading up to Nuneaton, to fix telemetry gear to test cars at MIRA proving ground and see how faithfully they meet their makers' claims. 

He's also a feature-writer for the magazine, a columnist, and can be often found on Autocar's YouTube channel. 

Highlights at Autocar include a class win while driving a Bowler Defender in the British Cross Country Championship, riding shotgun with a flat-out Walter Röhrl, and setting the magazine's fastest road-test lap-time to date at the wheel of a Ferrari 296 GTB. Nursing a stricken Jeep up 2950ft to the top of a deserted Grossglockner Pass is also in the mix.

Matt Saunders

Matt Saunders Autocar
Title: Road test editor

As Autocar’s chief car tester and reviewer, it’s Matt’s job to ensure the quality, objectivity, relevance and rigour of the entirety of Autocar’s reviews output, as well contributing a great many detailed road tests, group tests and drive reviews himself.

Matt has been an Autocar staffer since the autumn of 2003, and has been lucky enough to work alongside some of the magazine’s best-known writers and contributors over that time. He served as staff writer, features editor, assistant editor and digital editor, before joining the road test desk in 2011.

Since then he’s driven, measured, lap-timed, figured, and reported on cars as varied as the Bugatti Veyron, Rolls-Royce Phantom, Tesla Roadster, Ariel Hipercar, Tata Nano, McLaren Senna, Renault Twizy and Toyota Mirai. Among his wider personal highlights of the job have been covering Sebastien Loeb’s record-breaking run at Pikes Peak in 2013; doing 190mph on derestricted German autobahn in a Brabus Rocket; and driving McLaren’s legendary ‘XP5’ F1 prototype. His own car is a trusty Mazda CX-5.