2024 Tesla Model 3 vs 2023 Tesla Model Y
- by Carsguide.com.au
- Dec 31, 2023
- 0 Comments
- 0 Likes Flag 0 Of 5
On the inside expect the standard Tesla stuff, like synthetic leather interior trim, the huge 15-inch centre tablet screen with integrated nav and always online connectivity, dual wireless chargers, and a panoramic sunroof.
The whole look and feel is super slick, as always, but is notably missing Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. Tesla is hoping you’ll use built-in versions of all your favourite apps. Too bad if you use one which isn’t offered.
LED headlights, performance tyres, and a power tailgate add to the gear list, but interestingly there’s no V2L - one key feature still missing from the Tesla brand, and something which adds a slight advantage to its rivals from Kia and Hyundai.
Of course, the software is the biggest sell. As though to prove Tesla is a software company first and a car brand second, the software in this car is by far the best on the market.
It’s super slick, and offers the most feature packed and functional app. It’s stuff like this which is hard to go back from, and is still keeping Teslas feeling more futuristic than most electric rivals.
It’s worth noting: even at this inflated price, the Model Y Performance still seems like decent value given how quick it is.
The only comparisons, cars like the Porsche Taycan, Audi e-tron GT, and BMW iX cost more, with the exception of the Kia EV6 GT which is similarly priced and offers similar specs and features.
Under the bonnet
If you’ve ever driven the previous Model 3 Performance you’ll know that it could well have come with Space X badging (arguably Elon’s more impressive engineering achievement), because it really did thrust rather than accelerate.
But this time the engineers wanted to go all out. Customers appreciated the incremental performance they got from the last Model 3 Performance version, but they told Tesla they wanted more.
With many enthusiasts among Tesla's engineering and development team, they looked to unlock the performance potential of the platform.
So, that meant a whole lot more madness and torque thump. It comes from a new Performance 4DU, an all-new drive unit - featuring an entirely new rear motor that uses bar-winding technology - unlocking 22 per cent more continuous power, 32 per cent more peak power and 16 per cent higher peak torque delivery.
Overall figures are 380kW and 740Nm, but looking at them written down, they seem big, yet not as big as they feel in this car, as it’s shoving you from a standing start to 100km/h in three seconds flat.
It feels faster. Sick-making fast, even.
Under the bonnet
Tesla, always mysterious when it comes to hard specs, does not offer official power and torque figures for any of its models. Just the ever-impressive 0-100km/h sprint times.
However, looking at documentation the brand has officially filed in China (where the Model Y for our market is built) reveals specs of 220kW/440Nm for the rear motor, and 137kW/219Nm for the front motor, placing it pretty far up there in the EV performance charts.
It’s not just raw power, either. The Model Y performance also scores a lowered ride, bigger brakes, impressive torque vectoring software to keep everything under control, and interestingly, what Tesla tells us is a new suspension tune (even newer than the set-up we tested when the Model Y first arrived in Australia in late 2022.)
It’s all very impressive-sounding, but does it work? Read on to find out.
Efficiency
Despite being heavier and gruntier, Tesla claims the new Performance Model 3 manages to be more efficient than the one it replaces, albeit delivering just a two per cent reduction in energy consumption. Claimed energy usage is 16.7 kWh/100km.
Tesla claims a total range of 528km on the WLTP, which is obviously going to drop if you drive it the way its makers clearly intended.
Using a Tesla Supercharger, you can add 228km in 15 minutes and... that's all Tesla will tell us. There are no official figures available for how long a full charge takes, on either a Tesla charge or a home wallbox of your own.
Efficiency
The Model Y Performance has an official, WLTP-rated consumption number of 15.4kWh/100km, which grants the car a 514km driving range.
Few EVs manage to get over the 500km range mark, so this fact alone is pretty impressive.
In our testing the car returned a higher figure of 18.7kWh/100km, reducing range to the mid-400s on a full charge.
We only had the car for three days, so I expect, like the standard Model Y, it would be possible to get close to the official number with a longer-term test.
When it comes to charging, the Model Y can hit an impressive 250kW on a fast DC charger, allowing a charge time of around half an hour on a compatible unit. Expect more like an hour and a half on a more common 50kW unit.
Meanwhile the slow AC charger will hit a peak of 11kW, allowing the Model Y to charge from 10 per cent in more like seven hours. Still, adding roughly 75km of range an hour is worth it for longer stays at shopping centres or the like.
Interestingly, the Model Y doesn’t offer V2L, that is - the ability to power devices from its charging port. It seems to be one key piece of EV equipment missing from its spec list.
Driving
Very occasionally, one drives a car that makes the human body feel inadequate to the task. I would have worried that I’m getting old, that my body is simply too flubby and my brain too broken, to cope with the kind of wild acceleration and brutal g-forces the Model 3 Performance delivers.
But, fortunately, I had a videographer in the passenger seat, a much younger man who loves fast cars, and he kept threatening to vomit when I drove it hard, too.
I’ve driven quite a few cars that you can use make your passenger sick, or hurt their necks - one obvious competitor in the shape of a Porsche Taycan Turbo S comes to mind - but it’s very rare that a vehicle is so intense it can make you, the driver, feel bilious.
Yes, you do bring this on yourself, by choosing to push this Performance anywhere near its limits through particularly sharp and intestine-shaped roads like the canyons outside Malibu Tesla chose to launch it on.
On longer, sweeping bends it was far more of a joy, and less physically punishing, but in the tight stuff it often felt like corners were being thrown at you, as if you were driving behind the Millennium Falcon and being pulled along in its wake.
The brakes, special new sporting ones with track-ready pads, were up to the task, even though it often felt like they couldn’t possibly pull you up from the speeds you were doing.
And yes, it was entirely my fault that the very first time I even gently prodded the throttle and it launched me ahead past a California Highway Patrol officer, that was my fault too. Three minutes into the drive, holding an American fine, I had already deduced that perhaps this car was too fast for my own good.
But lots of EVs are fast in a straight line, you’re really comparing the length and depth of your “oooophhh” sounds at this point, but where this one succeeds is by being a lot better in the handling and ride and cornering departments than most.
Tesla’s stated goal with this car was to move beyond straight-line speed, to become more than a one-trick pony, and to do that it’s given the Performance a stiffer structure overall and updated the springs and stabiliser bars.
Aerodynamic changes have reduced drag by five per cent, delivered a 36 per cent lift reduction, and a 55 per cent improvement in front-to-rear lift balance.
Tesla’s own, in-house version of adaptive dampers, not an option but included in every Performance, work with the car’s 'Vehicle Dynamics Controller' through its various modes - 'Insane' and 'Track' being the most… ludicrous - to immediately respond to driver inputs.
The Performance rides well on LA’s awful concrete freeways but feels absolutely nailed down when you attack even a bumpy driver’s road.
This version also has a lot more power going to the rear wheels, to help it feel more sports-car playful and to fire out of bends the way an enthusiast’s car should. And make no mistake, I met them, the people behind this car are serious driving enthusiasts (although they demur, slightly, on whether their boss is one).
Track mode will allow some serious adjustability, drifting ability and fun, so the kind of people who want to hurl around a racing circuit in silence will love it.
Perhaps the only let downs are that it still feels a bit austere inside, just not very special, and that the steering is just a bit digital, soft and uninvolving, compared to the cars they clearly benchmarked against - BMWs and Porsches.
Driving
I’ll just cut to the chase here: Sorry Musk haters, the Model Y Performance is truly, deeply impressive.
I didn’t stopwatch test its 0-100km/h sprint time, but 3.7 seconds certainly feels possible, and totally visceral.
Yes, the Model Y Performance will turn your groceries into a fine paste on the back of the boot if you stick your foot in, but the sprint time is far from the most impressive part of the drive experience.
I’d hand this honour over to the handling. The Model Y is simply incredible at holding onto the road.
Try as I might on one of Sydney’s best and curviest roads, the Model Y simply wouldn’t misbehave.
It’s almost surreal feeling the computers work their magic in the corners, taming the physics of a 2.0-tonne SUV, constantly fighting understeer or oversteer on the fly to keep it all tidy.
It does all of this in silence, with just the tyre roar to indicate your velocity. I must admit. I didn’t expect such ferocious ability from this car.
I certainly expected speed, but not this level of tidiness for something heavier and taller than a Model 3.
The trouble for a traditional car enthusiast, then, is the fact the Model Y is almost too good. It’s clinical in the way it attacks the road, and feels almost unfair, artificial, as though a computer is doing the work for you (it might as well be).
It feels risk-free, drama-free, feedback-free. While the experience of driving such a machine is nothing short of incredible, I somehow think it’s not the kind of thrills combustion enthusiasts are looking for.
Even the steering is artificial, with three heavily computer-assisted modes. I must say, 'Sport' and 'Standard' are a bit too heavy, with my preferred steering mode being the 'Chill' setting, which is the lightest and makes the car feel a bit easier to wrangle in the corners.
The three regen modes will actually appeal to a variety of tastes, allowing the car to behave either like a single-pedal EV (my preferred mode) or more like a combustion car, with a creep mode and a roll mode which will be more familiar to those who haven’t experienced an EV before, or are not fans of regenerative braking.
The new suspension has improved the ride significantly, with the Model Y Performance lacking the brittle edge which I experienced when the Model Y first arrived a few months ago.
It feels like it deals with sudden jolts a bit better, but make no mistake, this is still a firm ride, and the Y still has a firm frame.
While the ride has improved, it is still susceptible to significant amounts of jiggle, with the ride being notably busy over poor road surfaces. Still, it’s good to see this common issue with Teslas starting to move in the right direction.
Safety
Tesla provided no information about safety for the Performance Model but it is assumed it will be unchanged from a standard Model 3.
Aside from Autopilot that means auto emergency braking, lane keep aids, and instead of blind-spot monitoring, it gets the surround radar view and blind-spot cameras when you indicate.
The latest Model 3 has an additional centre airbag for a total of seven, as well as additional bolstering where the doors meet the body in response to requirements in its American home market.
It should be able to carry its maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating, which the original version achieved in 2019.
Safety
Teslas are very impressive when it comes to safety, with an almost unprecedented number of sensors, and, importantly, great software to process what the car sees.
This is best seen through the radar screen which the car displays alongside the map, which is constantly collecting data on what the car sees around it.
It gives you confidence the car has seen and categorised a potential threat, usually before you have, and if ANCAP’s testing is anything to go by, it works, too.
The Model Y, including this Performance variant, wears a maximum five ANCAP stars, performing extremely well across all categories, with a particularly high score in ‘adult occupant protection’, and ‘Safety Assist’ which considers the abilities of its automatic safety systems.
While the Model Y’s suite is broader than individual standard active safety items offered by other brands, equivalents of most systems like auto emergency braking, blind-spot monitoring, lane keep assist, and things like traffic sign recognition are on-board.
Even the adaptive cruise control is one of the best on the market, remarkably good at lane keeping and steering assist, but I’d question whether it’s worth splashing for the controversial 'Full Self Driving' option.
Coming in at more than $10,000, it’s questionable if any of the included software features are even legal to use.
Ownership
Again, we've been asked to assume the Performance will come with Tesla's standard four-year/80,000km warranty and roadside assistance. And that the battery and drive unit will fall under an eight-year/192,000km warranty, whichever comes first.
Tesla says it monitors its cars to ascertain when they need servicing, and so it is based on a case-by-case situation. Every 12 months/20,000km is recommended for a general check-up, and includes tyre rotation.
Wiper blades, brake fluid and cabin air filters need replacement every two years while the air-con service is every six years.
Of course, there are no oil changes, filters or spark plugs to replace, and even brake pad wear is less than on an ICE vehicle because of the regenerative braking system. Although it will likely be higher in the Performance variant.
Ownership
It’s a good question: What’s it like to own a Tesla. Some of the numbers aren’t promising, like, for example, the four-year and 80,000km warranty promise which is one of the shortest new car warranties on the market right now.
However, Tesla does cover the high voltage battery and drive components for a much longer eight years and 192,000km, guaranteeing 70 per cent of the car’s original battery capacity at that time.
Teslas have condition-based servicing (because, of course they do), meaning the car will tell you when it wants to visit a Tesla workshop based on various inputs. Seems logical, but not very transparent.
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