Now, with the Tesla Model Y arriving in India from the ‘land of the free’, as suddenly as a post on X, I might add, I certainly wasn’t expecting my time with it to be limited to a couple of hours. Such brief periods, in my experience, work best with big V8s; you know, those lovely machines that try to kill you every time you so much as look at the right pedal. Or even the left one. That leaves this account to be nothing more than a meandering first impression. Then again, in this electrified age of automobiles transmogrifying into transportation devices — and they do indeed feel like driving laptops from different brands — I couldn’t help but plonk myself into a Tesla. After all, Tesla is the one who made EVs cooler than the North Pole, right? And to no great surprise, as it goes with EVs, I came away a bit nonplussed.
That, you may think, is a surprising thing to say about (somehow) the world’s largest-selling car for the past two years. Those with their heads full of fossil fuel may be seething at the fact, too, but the Model Y doesn’t care — it does its own thing, and rather differently, too. Perhaps a bit too differently. To begin with, like a lot of pretentious Indian cars, it claims to be an SUV — and it is decidedly not one. If anyone begs to differ, I’ll happily take their Model Y rock crawling and see if we can reach a mutual understanding. It doesn’t look like a sedan or a hatchback or an SUV, but has elements of all three, and to me that makes it the automotive equivalent of the monotreme (egglaying mammal) we call the platypus. And that’s not an insult because I do like the way the Model Y looks. Like I said, this Tesla does its own thing.
As an additional example, the Model Y has external speakers behind its front bumper that can play whatever recording you like from a USB port, and for that reason alone I cannot wait to get my hands on the car again. And the fact that I could have fun with the feature sitting inside a cavernous and comfortable cabin made it even better. There was also a central storage compartment at the front so deep that it swallowed the better part of my arm. And the cabin was so austere, it felt like being in a high-tech monastery. That part is down to the all-controlling central screen. Everything happens there, and I was almost surprised that the Model Y even had a steering wheel and pedals.
It is a fantastic and responsive screen, too, and I had no problem accessing anything I needed, even the horn… okay, I’m kidding. For the duration of the brief drive, I set everything to ‘standard’ and set off in typical EV silence. And frankly, it felt like any other electric car at low speeds — that’s not a knock, that’s just a fact. For that matter, I can’t tell the difference between any of the myriad 1.2-litre turbo-petrol cars these days, either. What none of them will do, though, is reflexively tighten your grip on the steering wheel when you stomp down on the right pedal. I expected this, the 60-odd-kWh version to be a bit tame, seeing as I came to the Model Y after spending some days with a 79-kWh car, but the Tesla somehow felt more powerful. And it’s a properly quick machine, too, hitting speeds that were quite illegal within city limits.
No doubt — there was some clever tech working in the background to deliver that kind of unexpected performance. One-pedalling it was quite easy, too, and the Model Y felt composed at all times. Whenever required, I could rely on the brakes to avoid literally merging into the morning rush-hour traffic. Ride quality was quite acceptable as well, even with those 19-inch wheels, and stability was never in question. The steering was light and easy, too, and the car was extremely manageable in town. Despite the lack of time, it didn’t take long to realise that the Model Y is a solid car to drive. And I kind of wasn’t expecting that. As for its range, I’ll have to spend a few days with it to see how far it can stretch the electrons in its battery.
I did find a few things strange… well, strange until you get used to them, I suppose. This was the first time I had a button on the steering wheel for the headlights’ high beam. Then there were the scroll buttons that operated literally everything in the car, including the rear-view mirrors. Nifty-ish. I had to swipe up and down on the top right of the screen to go forward or backwards, and in the middle to park it. If I drop my phone, the most it’ll cause is inconvenience. I don’t even want to think what’d happen if that screen were to crack. And the areas around the external cameras got pretty hot, too; and it wasn’t even summer in Mumbai. The charging port opening automatically when the gun was brought close to it was pretty cool, though.
Tesla’s much-debated Autopilot feature is a software add-on worth Rs 6 lakh isn’t available in India, and it’s not clear when it’ll be, either. I say it’s a good thing, too; I’m genuinely afraid that if it were, the car would either simply freeze in one place or we’d witness it becoming sentient and going on a murdering rampage. Also, it’d make what’s already a pricey car even more so. The standard Model Y is priced at Rs 60 lakh and the long-range version is yours for Rs 68 lakh, which seems a bit excessive; without the hamstringing taxes, it’d be in the same ballpark as premium Indian-made EVs. Then again, the Model Y comes with the aura of a technocrat as standard equipment, one who launches rockets into space, who wants to live on Mars, who preaches against and then for AI, who commands a major social-media outlet, and who still has the spare time to pick a fight with a US president.
On occasion, I find myself being a bit uncharitable towards electric cars, for what I believe are all the right reasons. Then I remind myself that when the electric guitar was first invented, there absolutely must’ve been people who railed against it. The Model Y displays the kind of innovation and radical rethinking that traditional automotive manufacturers seem averse to, and I cannot help but applaud that. The tech displayed in the Model Y, even if it may come across as a bit gimmicky, is quite something else. Who knows, if Tesla has its way, we just might see the windshield turning into a screen, too. Nonetheless, I’m not sure what Tesla’s arrival means in the Indian context; I will leave you to form your own opinion and we’ll see how it goes. For now, I’m happy that the name that belonged to one of the greatest minds ever to have existed, Nikola Tesla, sits on a device I think he’d have liked very much.
