9 Things I hate about the Tesla Model Y
By: Daniel'S Brew
Tags: Electric Car, Tesla Model Y, Elon Musk, Model Y, Tesla

Daniel’s Brew

Welcome to Daniel’s Brew — where I cover personal finance, investing, and career development topics.

1. No place for sun glasses

First, there is no sunglass holder in the Model Y. Typically in most vehicles, especially those in the luxury class, there is normally a dedicated sunglass holder right above the rear view mirror — but in the Model Y, there isn’t one.

No sunglass holder in the Model Y

Now, we can always put our sunglasses in the middle console compartment — which is what my wife and I do, but coming from a car that used to have one of these slots, I kind of miss this feature.

2. Waking up the car takes as long as 30 secs

The second thing I don’t like about my Model Y is that, once the car goes to sleep, after being parked for a while, it can take as long as 30 seconds for the car to “wake up” again.

Sometimes, the app takes between 20–30 seconds to wake up

This is most annoying for me when I have groceries or a package in my hands and I want to access the mobile app to remotely open the truck. Or if I happen to be away from my car but I want to turn on the AC or heater to prepare the cabin before I go out to the vehicle — it could be a bit annoying to have to wait 30 seconds to give that command to the car. Honestly it isn’t too big of a deal, but it is a minor inconvenience when you’re in a rush.

3. Back-up cam is slightly off center

This next one however, does bother me quite a bit. Whenever I’m parking in a parking lot, I usually back into my spaces — but ever since I got my Model Y, I’ve noticed that I park slightly crooked, which is something that’s never happened to me before. I thought maybe it’s just because I'm not yet used to the size or the dimensions of the Model Y and as I keep driving, I’ll get accustomed to the parameters the vehicle.

Well as it turns out, my sense of perception wasn’t off — the actual placement of the back up camera is not truly centered.

Back up camera is about 2 inches off-center

Take a look here — as you can see, the camera is off to the left of the Tesla logo on the back trunk gate. And when you measure from the logo, you can see that the camera is displaced about 2 inches from the center. And because the back up camera is a wide angle fish eye lens where the warping of the edges are exaggerated to provide the widest viewing angle — this slight misalignment really causes a perception issue for me.

I’m sure as I keep driving and parking my Model Y — I’ll eventually get used to it. But as someone likes symmetry and congruence, it actually bothers me quite a bit that Tesla designed their back up camera system this way.

4. No retractable sun roof

Next, the Model Y sports this gorgeous one piece glass roof that spans almost the entire length of the cabin — but as a result, it doesn’t have a sun roof that opens up to outside.

All glass roof on the Model Y

It’s a fair compromise — to have a beautifully solid glass pane as your roof, but on a bright sunny day, sometimes you just want to pop the top.

5. Opening the frunk is cumbersome

The next gripe I have about the Model Y is the front trunk — otherwise known as the frunk.

I know a lot of other Tesla YouTubers have issues with this one and they wish that it would be a fully powered and have an automated opening and closing mechanism. I think that’d be cool too, but for me, the core issue I have with the frunk — is a bit more simple, related to how you command the frunk to open.

You see, to open the frunk when you are outside of your vehicle, you have to open the Tesla app, hit the frunk icon in the center of the screen, then this warning pops up, asking you to confirm you selection. And only after you confirm your choice, does it pop open the frunk.

Daniel opening the frunk

This means that when I’m walking back to my car with my hands full of groceries, I have to fumble to get my phone out, open the app and then give it two commands to open the frunk to my Model Y. It’s an inconvenience that’s unique to Teslas at the moment because other gas powered cars don’t have frunks, as that’s where their engines would go. So for gas cars, their main cargo area is in the back trunk where most cross-over vehicles has a power lift gate button that can be easily pressed to automatically open the gate.

But with Teslas having no engines — and converting this upfront space into a 2nd cargo area, it poses the question of how to effectively engage it when you are outside of your vehicle. I’m not sure if having a button or sensor of some sort in this front of the car would make sense but either way, it just makes it inconvenient sometimes to use the frunk when you’re approaching your car.

6. Can’t pull out the headrests

Number 6 on the list — is a very minor issue that would only affect a certain percentage of people out there, but I’ve found that you cannot remove the headrests in the back seats of the Model Y.

Now why would someone want to do that you ask?

Baby seat in the back row

Well, for those of us that install car seats in the back row for our babies/toddlers, in order to snuggly fit the car seat into place — it sometimes helps to have the headrests removed to give a little bit of extra clearance to the top of the baby seat. It helps keep the seat flushed against the back and bottom of the back row — allowing for a more secure fit. In the Model Y, these headrests are not designed to be removable, so this isn’t an option.

Again — pretty minor issue and only relevant for a certain percentage of the population, but for those of you that know what I mean, it would have been nice to be able to remove the head rests.

7. No Homelink included

Now, at number 7, I was actually surprised that this didn’t make it into the Model Y’s standard features. Apparently when you order a Model Y, it does not come with Homelink — the tool that lets you program you garage door opener into your car.

Homelink to open garage door

Just about every luxury car brand has this as an included feature in their models, but on the Model Y, this is a $300 upgrade.

That means, in order to open your garage, you have to carry your regular garage door opener with you, as opposed to having that programmed into your car. Not a deal breaker obviously, but it would have been nice to have.

8. Lack of overhead handles

Number 8 on the list is the fact that the Tesla Model Y doesn’t have any overhead handles.

This again is standard on almost every regular vehicle and it’s a handy tool to grab when you’re taking tight curves or getting in and out of the car. I really only noticed this when I was sitting in the passenger seat when my wife was driving the vehicle and honestly I don’t use it all that much. But this is supposed to be a luxury car and the fact that these handles are missing — feels just a little bit odd to me.

9. Wiper fluid system

Lastly on this list, we have the wiper fluid distribution system on the front windshield.

Now this is interesting — typically, the the wiper fluid distribution on your windshields happen from specific outlets that are placed on the hood, but in the case of the Model Y, the nozzles are actually built into the wiper system. So as the wipers are moving — the mechanism here, releases the fluid in the path of the wipe.

Wiper fluid distribution system on the Model Y

It’s a cool innovation, but what that means is that the wipers start moving first and the blades are traveling while the fluid is being dispensed, as opposed to the fluid being released a split second before the wipers are activated — like in most other cars.

Why does this matter?

Well, if you have something on your windshield that can smear, like dead bugs, bird poo or tree sap, etc — not having the wiper fluids come out first, might cause the debris on your glass to smear first, requiring you to wipe even longer and expend more fluid than you might have thought. It’s only happened to me once — but when it did, it was pretty annoying.