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Electric cars are now officially S3XY. Tesla revealed the
final component of Elon Musk’s suggestive orthographic
adventure with the usual sound-and-light show at the
Hawthorne Design Studio.
There were few surprises, other than the fact that Tesla
will offer an optional 7-seat configuration. The Y’s form
factor is both practical (it’s smaller than the X, but appar-
ently offers more usable cargo capacity than the 3) and
stylish (don’t call it a hatchback – according to Tesla, it’s
a mid-sized SUV – and whatever you do, do not mention
that it looks just like a Prius).
Tesla has said that Model Y shares about 75 percent
of its components with Model 3, which should allow a
cheaper and faster production ramp, and that the new
vehicle will “most likely” be manufactured at Gigafactory
1 in Nevada.
Model Y boasts a 0.23 drag coefficient and 66 cubic
feet of cargo space. It will offer up to 300 miles of range,
a 0-60 time as low as 3.5 seconds and a top speed of up to
150 mph.
“It has the functionality of an SUV, but it will ride like
Tesla Model Y electric
crossover revealed – deliveries
to begin in fall 2020
Photos courtesy of Teslaa sports car, so this thing will be really tight on corners,”
said Elon Musk. “This will be the safest mid-sized SUV
by far.”
Musk also implied that Model Y will have all the hard-
ware required for full self-driving functionality: “The
cool thing is, it’s ‘feature complete’...It will be able to do
basically anything just with software upgrades.”
Deliveries of the $47,000 Long Range version, with
300 miles of range, along with the $60,000 Performance
version, are expected to begin in fall 2020. The $39,000
Standard Range variant, with 230 miles of range, is
promised for spring 2021.
The Model Y online design studio is now open, and
buyers can place an order with a $2,500 deposit.