Tesla Model Y: My Third Tesla
Taking delivery of a Model Y and reflecting on how Tesla went from a curiosity to the default choice for anyone paying attention to the automotive industry
I took delivery of a Tesla Model Y last week. It is my third Tesla. And the fact that sentence feels ordinary rather than remarkable says something about how fundamentally the automotive landscape has shifted in the last few years.
My first Tesla was a Model S in 2016. At the time, buying a Tesla felt like a statement. You were making a bet on an unproven company with a charismatic but unpredictable CEO, a limited Supercharger network, and service centers that were few and far between. Range anxiety was real. People asked if you could actually drive it on road trips. The car itself was extraordinary, but owning one required a certain tolerance for friction.
My second was a Model 3 in 2018, shortly after the production ramp that nearly killed the company. That car proved the thesis: Tesla could build a mass-market electric vehicle that was better than the combustion competition in almost every measurable way. Acceleration, total cost of ownership, software updates, safety ratings. The Model 3 was not just a good electric car. It was a good car, full stop.
The Model Y is the logical next step. It is essentially a Model 3 with more cargo space, a higher seating position, and a hatchback. It is not revolutionary in the way the Model S was, or scrappy in the way the early Model 3s were. It is refined. Mature. A little boring, in the best possible way.
The Car Itself
The build quality has improved dramatically from my early Model 3 experience. Panel gaps are consistent. The paint is even. The interior trim fits together properly. These sound like basic expectations, and they are, but Tesla's early production vehicles had enough quality issues that noticing their absence feels noteworthy.
The driving experience is pure Tesla: instant torque, regenerative braking that makes one-pedal driving second nature, and the eerie quiet of electric propulsion. The Model Y's slightly higher ride height gives better visibility without sacrificing the low center of gravity that makes Teslas feel planted in corners.
The software is where Tesla continues to separate itself from every other manufacturer. Over-the-air updates mean the car gets better after purchase. In the time I have owned the Model 3, it gained Sentry Mode, dashcam functionality, a significantly improved navigation system, and a theatrical mode for entertainment while charging. No other manufacturer does this. Legacy automakers still treat the software in a car as firmware: static, unchangeable, frozen at the point of manufacture.
Autopilot on the highway is confidence-inspiring. It handles lane keeping, adaptive cruise control, and automatic lane changes with a competence that makes long drives genuinely less fatiguing. It is not full self-driving (despite the name of the premium package), and it requires constant attention, but it is the best driver-assistance system I have used. The gap between Tesla's implementation and what traditional manufacturers offer from Bosch or Mobileye is significant and, if anything, widening.
The Ecosystem Effect
What made me choose another Tesla over the growing field of EV alternatives was not any single feature. It was the ecosystem.
The Supercharger network is the single biggest competitive advantage Tesla has, and most people outside the EV world do not fully appreciate it. There are over 16,000 Supercharger stalls globally. They are strategically placed along highway corridors. The charging experience is seamless: pull in, plug in, the car handles authentication and billing automatically. No app, no RFID card, no calling a support line because the charger is not working.
I have used Electrify America and ChargePoint stations. The experience is markedly worse. Chargers are frequently broken. Payment systems are inconsistent. Charging speeds vary. The networks are smaller and less strategically placed. Tesla built the infrastructure first, and that infrastructure is now a moat that competitors will spend years and billions trying to cross.
The home charging experience is also worth mentioning. I have a Tesla Wall Connector in my garage. Every morning the car is full. In over four years of Tesla ownership across three vehicles, I have spent perhaps 30 minutes total thinking about "fueling." The psychological shift from actively refueling to passively recharging is one of those things that is hard to appreciate until you have lived with it.
The Competition Landscape
The EV market in mid-2020 is more competitive than it was when I bought my first Tesla, but less competitive than the press coverage suggests.
The Porsche Taycan is genuinely impressive but starts at nearly double the Model Y's price and has significantly less range. The Audi e-tron is competent but uninspiring, positioned more as an electric Audi than as a rethinking of what an electric vehicle can be. The Chevy Bolt is affordable but lacks fast-charging infrastructure and the software sophistication of Tesla.
The real competitive threat is coming from Volkswagen's MEB platform, which promises a range of affordable EVs built on a purpose-built electric architecture. The ID.3 is launching in Europe now, and the ID.4 is coming to the US. VW has the manufacturing scale, the dealer network, and the capital to compete with Tesla in ways that startups like Rivian and Lucid cannot, at least not yet.
But manufacturing scale and dealer networks are advantages in the combustion world. In the electric world, the advantages are software capability, battery technology, charging infrastructure, and the ability to iterate quickly. Tesla leads on all four. Whether that lead is durable is the multi-billion-dollar question.
What Three Teslas Taught Me
Owning three Teslas over four years has given me a longitudinal view of how a technology company approaches the automotive industry, and it maps surprisingly well to how I think about software platforms.
Iterate in production. Tesla ships imperfect products and improves them continuously. This drives traditionalists crazy, but it means Tesla vehicles from 2020 are meaningfully better than Tesla vehicles from 2018, which were better than those from 2016. The feedback loop between customer experience and product improvement is tight in a way that annual model year refreshes cannot match.
Vertical integration matters. Tesla designs its own batteries, builds its own charging network, writes its own software, and manufactures its own vehicles. This gives them control over the full stack in a way that automakers outsourcing to tier-one suppliers cannot replicate easily. It is the same advantage that Apple has over Android OEMs: when you control hardware and software, the integration is seamless.
Infrastructure is a product. The Supercharger network is not a cost center. It is a product that makes Tesla vehicles more valuable. Similarly, in enterprise technology, the platform is not overhead; it is what makes the applications on top of it possible. Invest in infrastructure and the ecosystem compounds.
The Model Y is not the most exciting car I have ever owned. That distinction belongs to my first Model S, which felt like driving the future. The Model Y feels like driving the present, a present where electric vehicles are the obvious, rational choice for most people.
That transition from "the future" to "the present" is the whole story of technology adoption, compressed into four years and three cars.