comments For anyone living under a social media rock, #vanlife has become one of the biggest viral trends of the last few years. Taking off during the pandemic, on TikTok the hashtag has been viewed more than 12 billion times, with a further 15 million posts on Instagram. The nomadic way of life is popular with (mainly) young people, and preceded the 'underconsumption core' lifestyle. Golden sunsets, expansive beaches, fairy lights and romantic filters; living out of a van is as Instagram aesthetic as it gets (on the surface). But what about living out of an electric car? Could that be the most eco and luxury van life possible? Or is the reality just a photo opportunity but a holiday to avoid? This is Money’s Freda Lewis-Stempel took a new Tesla Model Y with its own specially designed 'Air Mattress' and ‘Camp Mode’ to one of the remotest islands in the UK to find out.... Can you really sleep in a Tesla? This is Money's Motoring Reporter Freda Lewis-Stempel puts the electric car version of the #vanlife trend to a very remote test.... How the Model Y is designed for 'van life' glamping? It makes sense to first explain how Tesla has taken the American ‘van life’ idea and added special features to the Model Y SUV to make it double up as a home on wheels. Tesla Air Mattress: This £200 blow-up mattress has been designed to fit the rear of the car perfectly when the back seats are folded down. Penned on tracing paper, it has the cutouts in precisely the correct places in order for it to sit flush to the floor around wheel arches and arm rests. It pumps up almost instantly when connected to the car's 12V outlet in the boot. Just roll the air mattress out, plug the air pump into the 12V, slot the air pump nozzle into the air mattress intake, turn the air pump on and watch it inflate. At this point you can decide to go full glamping ‘boujee’ and bring a sheet, pillows and duvet like we did, or you can go more pop-up tent style and just use a sleeping bag and inflatable pillow. Tesla has a specially shaped Air Mattress for its Model Y SUV that inflates to turn the car into a bed for the night Tesla's Camp Mode is another sleeping-friendly feature that keeps the cabin at the perfect temperature overnight to make sure you don't get too hot or cold Camp Mode: Sort of genius from Tesla, Camp Mode maintains the optimum temperature and airflow within the cabin while you sleep so you don’t wake up freezing cold or boiling hot in the middle of the night. It also maintains the lighting setup you want or even music or a podcast if that helps you sleep. There's even a Camp Profile which remembers your preferences and sets them automatically when you want to crash for the night. To enter Camp Mode, just tap the temperature menu icon on the bottom of the screen and select Camp (or use the Tesla app). Sentry Mode, auto lock and the Model Y’s alarm system are all disabled with Camp Mode so the alarm doesn’t go off every time you exist - just remember to lock the car yourself while you sleep! Why Scotland? Scotland is popular for wild camping because of the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, which gives everyone the right to access Scotland's outdoor spaces. You can park and camp by the side of the road as long as you aren't blocking access or parked dangerously. The Outdoor Access Code does stipulate you should camp away from roads, but campervans frequently park in larger lay-bys. As some of the most remote and dramatic countryside in the UK, especially on the islands, Scotland is also a brilliant place to put EV charging and range anxiety to the test too. Day 1/night 1: Regrettable decision? It can only get better... My plucky school friend and I left London at around 5.30pm to drive up to the Peak District. It was all going swimmingly, cruising up the M6 in the warm, extremely comfortable and smooth Model Y. Though I tend to find Teslas a bit clinical (or 'spaceship-y', as my friend said) for long journeys, their performance is undeniably strong. The space, comfort, and how Teslas hold their range makes driving for hours minimum effort, and the Y was no different. Deciding to charge at the Superchargers near Stoke-on-Trent - because we didn't know how much range Camp Mode would use overnight - we snuck in the back door of a restaurant nearby to use the loo to brush our teeth and get ready for 'bed’. There were a few funny looks as we set the air mattress up for the night at the Superchargers (so we didn’t have to figure it out for the first time in the middle of nowhere in the pitch-black Peaks), but it was very easy to set up. While the Y finished charging, we used the Theatre function - which has Netflix, YouTube, Hulu etc - to watch the different Christmas adverts on the touchscreen; Waitrose’s ‘who dunnit’ was of course the clear winner. Thanks to Tesla's Theatre suite we could watch all the Christmas adverts on YouTube while the car charged Brushing your teeth and washing your face in a restaurant loo near a Tesla Supercharger is the glamorous reality of Tesla living Then we drove off in search of our sleeping spot in the wild for the night. We’d pre-selected a place using the Park4night app, but driving up to a lay-by under a remote bridge and encountering just one guy and his camper van we got the heebie-jeebies and decided to find an alternative. The only other option nearby was a lay-by/field gate entrance, and (after accidentally driving through someone’s farmyard) we decided this was the best of two rather unappealing options, as it was already almost midnight. Off to bed (a bed that was as steep as Everest because the parking spot was on a sharp incline) I awoke just over four hours later at 4.55am. My friend had seemingly disappeared. In a bleary state, I thought she'd been abducted, but thankfully she’d just moved to the front seat to try and sleep. Turning the headlights on, we had a near heart attack (my second in 10 minutes) when they picked up a Land Rover Discovery that had silently turned up sometime between 12.40 and 4.55am. Convincing ourselves we weren’t going to end up as front page horror story news, we tried to get back to sleep. It was at this point we learnt two valuable EV glamping lessons: never park on an incline and an overinflated Air Mattress is, as I ruefully summarised, like sleeping on a slab of rock. Waking up in Leek in Staffordshire wasn't the most picturesque first wake up in the Tesla I'd envisioned as the beautiful countryside was hidden in fog and we'd had 4 hours of sleep each I failed to fall back to sleep, but my friend did, so I watched a very cold and wet dawn creep in through the windows and panoramic sunroof. It was about as picturesque as you can imagine watching a dawn rise while sleeping in the Model Y. I also watched two other cars come and go – one of which was a hunter’s van containing three Hound of the Baskervilles-sized hunting dogs. In the end, my friend and I ended up getting four hours sleep each. It wasn't a great way to kick-off but thanks to the Camp Mode we were at least nice and warm. And, as only a year before we'd spent a night in the Peaks in -5 degrees on top of a Jeep Wrangler in a Tentbox, we knew how absolutely brutal car 'glamping' really can be. Going for a brisk wake-up walk around 8am, we packed down the Air Mattress and set off for our pre-Scotland charging and feed stop at Tebay. Tesla unveils Long Range Rear-Wheel Drive Model Y - and the new version of the UK's best-selling EV comes with 373 miles of range