[MUSIC PLAYING]
CARLOS LAGO: The test track's back open, yay!
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And construction has apparently restarted, too,
so you'll hear people banging on wood
and sawing stuff as they build those homes.
Anyway, we've owned our Tesla Model Y for about three months.
And that's been really frustrating.
Not that there's anything really wrong with the car,
maybe aside from the ride quality,
but it's been frustrating because we haven't been
able to test this thing yet.
Why is that frustrating?
Well, it's a Tesla Model Y Dual Motor All-Wheel Drive
Performance, with the Performance upgrade.
It has performance in its name twice.
And with that kind of performance being promised,
you want to find out how much you actually get.
So now we get to finally attach our data acquisition hardware
to this thing and find out how much it weighs, how quickly it
can stop, how hard it can corner,
and how fast it can accelerate.
But before we do all that, make sure to like, comment,
subscribe, and visit the links below
to see more about Edmunds Long-Term Vehicles
and what our ownership experience
has been like for this car.
So we're going to start out by weighing the Model Y. Now,
we weigh cars by putting each tire
on a scale at the same time, and then summing all the weights.
And that gives you the total weight of the vehicle,
and also the front and rear distribution.
Why do you weigh a car?
Well, it's important to help fill out the dynamic painting
of a vehicle.
So it can help you understand attributes
about why a vehicle behaves the way it does.
It also helps you classify a vehicle
depending on what you think it should weigh
and what it should weigh within its group of competitors.
Yes, we made sure to fill up the Model Y
before we weighed it, because, you know,
all those electrons are real heavy.
The total weight of our Model Y Performance Performance
is 4,419 pounds.
And yes, that's more than the Model 3, the car
that this is based on.
But hey, that's what you get when you make that car bigger
and add more stuff to it.
And 21-inch wheels, those certainly aren't helping.
This is also lighter, though, than the Model X that we had
earlier and the model S we had before that--
and quite a margin, especially versus the Model X.
What's impressive, though, is, the weights that I've seen
published for other fast luxury SUVs--
like the BMW X3M and the Mercedes Benz GLC 63 AMG--
this is actually-- what we see here
is lighter than the weights that's been published
for those, so good on Tesla.
If you're looking for a fast SUV,
and you want it to be really light,
I think it's between this or the Alpha Romeo Stelvio
Quadrifoglio.
A lot of hard names to pronounce there.
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We perform brake tests by doing repeated emergency stops
from 60 miles an hour.
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We report the shortest stopping distance
we record, and also report on the performance of the braking
system.
Do the brakes heat up like crazy over a period of stops?
Do the distances increase like crazy?
This is a measurement of the effectiveness
of the tires, which gives you the shortest stop possible,
and also the braking system as a whole.
We feel this is important because an emergency stop is
the most high-performance thing most drivers are
going to do when they drive.
So we also use this as an opportunity to talk about pedal
feel and ABS sensation, as well.
[TIRES SQUEALING]
So our best stop from 60 was 108 feet,
so that mean there's a lot of grip
in these Pirelli P-Zero tires.
But overall braking performance, repeated stops,
was solid, as well, because we only
got as high as 109 feet after multiple stops.
And that speaks to the braking system's capabilities overall.
Our testers also reported really nice pedal
feel-- that I can agree with having just
done that-- minimal nosedive, and plenty of stability-- so
overall, a really strong result for the Model Y Performance
performance.
One of the most traditional ways to measure handling
is through what's called a skid pad test.
What's a skid pad?
Well, it's a 200-foot diameter circle
that you drive around as quickly as possible in both directions,
and you hold a constant radius while you're doing so.
Why do you do that?
Well, we've got to back up a little bit.
When you turn left or right, you feel that sensation often
in your gut going the opposite direction.
That's called a g-force.
You're making one when you're turning.
Now, when you turn and sustain the speed around a corner--
or in this case, the skid pad--
you're going to sustain a g-force.
Now, the higher that g-force is, the faster you're
going to go around the circle.
That means the more grip you have in your tire.
That works for the other direction.
Now, what we do is we go around the circle in either direction
as fast as possible for one lap.
And we average the left and right g-force results.
And that tells us, effectively, how hard the car can corner.
[TIRES SQUEALING]
The Model Y averaged 0.95 g on their skid pad,
just under that coveted 1.0 g number.
And that's a lot of stick.
You could make the argument that the grip in the tires
outweighs the penalty in ride quality.
Some of us at the office are still
kind of on the fence about that, but we'll let you decide.
Now, that's also the highest result
we've ever recorded from a Tesla.
It's a really strong performance from an SUV in general.
As for other handling attributes,
we also ran it around our handling course.
And we noted that the steering is very quick,
and that feels good.
But it also can make for a lot of body roll.
But the roll is pretty well-managed in this case.
But again, that's probably also because of the ride quality.
The only constant was the stability control
and that you always feel that nibbling at the front brakes
when you're trying to drive as fast as possible.
And you also don't get full acceleration
until the wheel is basically straight.
So not an ideal car for setting lap times,
but certainly a fun one to drive.
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Finally, we get to find out how fast it is, though.
But a few things that we have to address first.
Now, all of our testing here uses a GPS data logger
that talks to a number of different satellites 100
times per second.
That's way more than your phone does
with the performance timer on there,
so you can trust our results.
Too, we report 0 to 60 1/4 mile with trap speed,
and 0 to 60 with one foot rollout.
The one foot rollout basically subtracts a foot
from that acceleration.
And no, that's not realistic.
It's what every major brand does out there that tests cars.
So you can compare that result to the results
that they get when you want to talk to your friends
about cars at the bar.
Hey, you know, whatever.
Now, a word about weather correction.
We normally apply weather correction to every vehicle
that we test so that we can equalize performance
between different days, accounting
for humidity, temperature, and barometric pressure.
The thing is EVs don't rely on atmosphere to make performance,
so we don't apply the weather correction to EVs.
Let's get tested.
Launching a Tesla is about as easy
as it gets for a production car.
The only thing you really have to do
is make sure you aren't in Chill acceleration.
You have to be in Sport, or I like to call it No Chill.
That's probably what it should say.
And then you just slap the accelerator like this.
That never gets tiring.
That never gets boring.
That's quick.
The best acceleration we recorded
was 0 to 60 in 3.7 seconds.
With one foot rollout, it was 3.4 seconds.
And the 1/4 mile was 11.8 seconds at 115.6 miles an hour.
That's really, really fast.
And what's nice is, we've also had an experience
with previous Teslas that the acceleration diminishes
dramatically after multiple acceleration runs.
That wasn't the case with this Model Y.
The performance kept up, which I guess
is appropriate for a Model Y Performance performance.
It's so silly.
There it is, Model Y Performance Performance tested.
And what did we learn?
Well, it's a heavy-ish vehicle, but not as
heavy as some other high performance SUVs out there.
It stops short and consistent.
It holds a respectable amount of g's on the skid pad.
And it goes like stink in a straight line.
I think that makes it pretty deserving of the Performance
Performance name it claims, so good on you Tesla.
Now the question is, what should we drag race it against?
I have some ideas, but I want to hear yours, too.
So leave them in the comments below, down there.
I'm going to go join you.