A shout-out to Ryan Shaw for his excellent coverage about everything-Tesla on YouTube. Having recently watched his YouTube video entitled ‘NEW Tesla Model Y Launched In US | They Changed Everything‘, something I have been wondering about has been clarified – mystery solved!
So, what’s the mystery? Well, it was my understanding that both the Model 3 and Model Y standard configuration (aka single motor/RWD) were using LFP batteries sourced from CATL in China. However, when the new Federal tax credits were announced, the base Model 3 fell off the list, but the base Model Y stayed on it for the full $7500 tax credit (now deducted from the purchase price at time of sale for those who qualify). So, why the difference if both use CATL batteries?
Sourced from the transcript of Ryan’s video, Ryan says:
The standard-range Model Y was always in a bit of a weird spot in the US since Tesla didn’t introduce it for a while. Elon said the range did didn’t meet Tesla’s standard of excellence so they got rid of that and then eventually they did bring it back but with a 260 mile range instead of the previous 240 mile range which raised some questions as to the battery pack. And now, with recent changes to Tesla’s lineup, we have learned that Tesla was secretly selling these customers long-range cars that were just ‘software-locked’.
This past week, Tesla finally introduced the all-new long-range rear wheel drive Model Y this is a trim they originally announced for this car back in 2019, but it truly never came to market. The only way to get a long-range Model Y was to upgrade to all-wheel drive. That’s great, but for many customers that second motor actually isn’t necessary, and they’d rather have the increased range of a single motor. Elon Musk announced this car saying the standard Tesla Model Y now has a 320 mile range although it is rear-wheel drive. The precision of Tesla’s electric motors means it still has great traction on snow and ice with All Season tires.
As we can see on Tesla’s website, that trim now has replaced the standard-range Model Y but with a slight price increase of $2,000, so now the base price of the Model Y is up to $44,900. In any case, this rear-wheel drive Model Y gets a 320 Mi range, 10 m higher than the all-wheel drive. The same 135 mph top speed and 0 to 60 in 6.5 seconds making it the ‘slowest’ available Tesla. Upgrading to induction wheels drops the range from 320 down to 295 miles. And it’s worth noting that these are using the new EPA testing standards so range predictions here should be more accurate than previous years.
Ryan continues, I think it’s a very smart move by Tesla and this car will be extremely popular. Range is very important to people even if they don’t really need it and a $2,000 price bump to take 260 Mi up to 320 is well worth it for many. With that said, many customers over the past couple of years purchased a standard-range Model Y and we have now learned that they were actually buying this car. Elon Musk tweeted, saying ‘the 260 mile range model built over the past several months actually have more range that can be unlocked for $1,500 to $2,000 with gains of 40 to 60 miles of range depending on which battery cells you have.’ So this whole time Tesla was selling a software-locked version likely due to battery sourcing.
It was probably just easier and cheaper to create a lower range version of this car that they could sell for less than it was to make and source an entirely different battery pack for production. They have done this in the past a few times especially with the Model S. It definitely sounds odd at face value but when an unlock like this is offered, it can make a lot of sense. The interesting thing to keep in mind here is let’s say you have a standard-range Model Y and that they offer a $2,000 upgrade that gets you 60 more miles of range, matching the 320 mile estimate for the long-range rear wheel drive. Today, this is a long-range battery, so your advice is going to be that for battery longevity you should charge to 80% daily and reserve 100% charges for road trips.
In practice, that will actually mean that you are daily using 80% of your battery’s potential, or 256 miles of it, versus if you don’t pay for that range unlock you can charge up to 100% or around 260 miles each day, so really this software unlock will only truly benefit those who need to charge to 100% on a semi-regular basis. Once Tesla offers that upgrade that will definitely be a consideration since you only want to charge to 80% each day. Anyway, is unlocking the full battery necessary for your personal needs? Either way this is an exciting upgrade for the Model Y and I still hope to see the return of the standard-range version, just with its own actually smaller (hopefully LFP pack) in the future. Most of this comes down to scaling and tax credit eligible battery sourcing…
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So, I was confused, and perhaps many others are as well. When I order my Tesla, what battery technology does it have? Is it software-locked or not? How should I charge my Tesla for best battery longevity? Etc… My hope is that you, the consumer, will be better informed now about the choices you are making, and Tesla will be more transparent about the options available to you.
In the meantime, Ryan’s video did clear up my questions about why certain cars qualifiy for tax credits and others don’t, and what battery tech is offered in the Model Y base model, which I think many will consider to be the BEST EV on the market today – that is until the Model Y ‘refresh’ in 2025, in which case it will be even better!