The Tesla Model Y L makes sense as a concept on paper, but there’s been plenty of time for it to simmer in the month between the MIIT pictures dropping and the official on-sale date in China, and it’s still a bit puzzling. Sure, the Model Y has brand equity as it was the world’s best-selling car for a while, but considering most things aft of the front bulkhead are new, that’s an awful lot of sheetmetal to change just to build something that still looks suppository-ish.
Still, style is a matter of taste. If people want slightly frumpy cars, let them buy slightly frumpy cars. What often really matters is how they function, and while the Model Y L seems sound on paper, there are two things that immediately seem odd, and they’re attached to the rear seats.
Let’s start with a few notes on things that are less quirky but still good: The second-row captain’s chairs in this stretched, six-seat Model Y aren’t just heated, they’re also ventilated, a cure for BSTL if ever I’ve experienced one. While uncommon, it’s welcome to see ventilated second-row seats make inroads into more cars, giving second-row passengers first-class comfort. Less common still is the presence of heated third-row seats, a feature even most luxury SUVs don’t come with. Growing up, velour and ultra-processed school lunches had the same effect, but it’s nice to know that third-row seat warmth can still be assured in an age of pleather and healthy meals.
Oh, and the Model Y L isn’t exactly a slouch, but it isn’t as quick as the Performance trim despite sharing the same output. Tesla claims zero-to-62 mph in 4.5 seconds, quicker than most mainstream dual-motor electric crossovers but still a bit of a let-down.
However, we need to talk about the rear seat armrests, because as soon as I saw the first official interior pictures of the Model Y L, I thought they looked insane. See, most captain’s chairs feature fold-down armrests screwed into the sides of the seats, and while that’s fine and preferable to a console, it can restrict the width of the passageway between the seats. Tesla hasn’t done that. Instead, here’s a photo showing rear inboard armrests on great plinths rising from each seat base, like they’re stolen off a Hermann Miller or something.
On first glance, this seems wildly impractical and easy to strike your shins on, so I did some digging. It turns out that not even Tesla is slapdash enough to fix armrests in this position because that’s foolish. Instead, a YouTube video from channel AutoWorld shows that the rear armrests fully retract flush with the seat squab, and can be deployed at the press of a button. Yes, those massive supports just disappear down into the seats, an overcomplicated solution to be sure – but one for which I do kind of have to hand it to the engineers.
It seems like Tesla may have actually, genuinely improved a thing. The traditional fold-down armrests are great, but they do take up width in a vehicle, and they can be a bear to adjust if you’ve injured your shoulder. At the same time, having a sort of wall with the armrests up to catch things dropped by rear passengers is nice, and being able to adjust the height of each armrest without altering its angle seems more ergonomically correct.
So now the question is: Is Tesla the first to use this setup on a road car’s captain’s chairs? Digging into my memory banks and Google images, I can’t say I recall another thing to use a setup quite like this. The four-seat Range Rover uses a more traditional center armrest; all the really big American SUVs use either fold-down armrests or a fixed console; neither the BMW X7, Volvo XC90 nor Mercedes-Maybach GLS use the Model Y L’s setup; and the six-seat Model X doesn’t feature inboard second-row armrests at all. It seems like there’s some actual useful innovation going on here for once, and it seems complicated enough that I’m surprised the Germans didn’t think of it first.
Top graphic image: Tesla
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A pixelated seat with the topshot text of “SEATING SHOCKER” implied something other than a motorized armrest, but I digress.
In typical Tesla fashion, these aren’t the worst idea in the world, but then they had to go and make them motorized, which I would imagine only excites people who lease their cars.
They could have done those armrests that rotate along the longitudinal axis, the kind you sometimes see in buses.
I’m not sure plinth-style armrests are compatible with American thighs.
Tesla doesn’t need any more help making itself indistinguishable from office furniture as it is.
Those are fun
The aisle-side armrest in business class on older Delta A330s works similarly. They disappear when not in use and essentially become part of the seat. The crew makes a big deal about them being retracted for takeoff and landing. Seems a decently clever solution.
They look like the armrests on an office chair we had when I was growing up.
This is not a compliment.
came to say the exact same thing!
I’m pretty sure my flight simulator’s chair (just an office chair) has the same armrests. Their comfort level is 10 percent, with the 10 meaning “better than nothing.”
so it is a van now, we get it
Was it ever not a van?
it was an SUV … a crossover, and whatever elon was smoking on that day
Please don’t tell me there is another motor attached to them? Please let them just be a spring, button, and detent.
This is a Tesla. They have multiple motors and are controlled by swiping graphics of them up and down on the main screen up front.
“and can be deployed at the press of a button.”
Presumably a few menus deep in the touch screen software.
As for the ventilated and heated rear seats, I’m sure juice boxes and child/uber passenger effluents will make quick work of those.
If you can control these from the front seat it really opens up a world of possibilities for people stuck in “Weekend at Bernie’s” situations.
I think we have different definitions of cool
Alot of Chinese vans have all sorts of things that pop up like that. Not sure about arm rests. But definitely tables and phone mounts.
I work on Teslas and I’ll give the mechanisms in those arm rests about eighteen months before they break and jam up.
Pixelated image related to a Tesla and I expected to see penis-shaped armrests. Still a little surprised they aren’t 420mm x 69mm and open up to provide storage for baggies of oregano-like substances.
That pixelation could easily send one’s mind down a hole, rabbit or otherwise. I predict at least a few rule 34 “attachments” will end up strapped to these armrests in the coming months.
I assumed it was shaped to cup your elbow to hold one arm at a jaunty angle.
Heil have to hand it to you, I did Nazi that coming.
I was wrong. I thought they were height adjustable. But they are still silly.
Get the crap out of here with that nonsense. That’s f-ing fast. Faster to sixty than most people should be allowed to go on public roads.
Indeed!
Now all we need is to get an RV 34 feet or larger to get that acceleration and we can get to the campground and relax that much quicker and no need for a pesky CDL or test to drive it.
That’s neat I guess, but as an owner of a 7 seat SUV with captain’s chairs, anyone trying to get in/out of the 3rd row just uses the handle on the outside edge of the captains chair and it slides and pivots forward. No need to climb between the seats.
It looks like the captain’s chairs are on sliders, but if these armrests were Tesla’s workaround for not making the seats quickly easily pivot out of the way for rear access (that is, not waiting for a power seat slider to glacially move the seat forward), that’s a fail.
I simultaneously love and hate that we’re in an era where a 0-60 time of 4.5 seconds in a family hauler is “a bit of a let-down.”
Also, get off my lawn!
I’m surprised they don’t just force your arm up into a permanent Nazi salute.
Sorry, an “excited wave”.
I despise Musky, but I do think he was actually intending to throw his heart out to the audience and not heil Hitler. He wants to be liked so much that I can see him doing that.
There’s already a gesture for that. It looks very, very different and he’s even used it before. Either he was dog-whistling, being an edgelord, or both, but any other interpretation is straying into willful denial.
Again, I cannot stand most things about him and am well on record of such. However, I think this was just more Ketamine addled stupidity his part. If I have any will on the matter, it tends towards not giving him any benefit of the doubt, but this one just doesn’t feel intentional.
These will absolutely break the next time a 300 pound individual gets tossed around a sharp curve right into it. Unless these are made with 100 percent titanium and not any sort of plastic, they’re going to fall faster than broken boards at a Karate exposition.
Maybe they’re not for the US market? /\o/\
My joke in Slack is that Tesla used the finest motors it could find at the local Home Depot.
Its being sold in China, so I don’t think that’s much of a concern, their obesity rate is only about 5%
Hey Tesla cars are bullet proof or hadn’t you heard?
I honestly came here expecting either a phallus or at least an armrest affixed with an outstretched hand that could be locked in the 45-degree position for no ergonomic reason. Or possibly both at the same time.
Saw a new model y the other day – that might be the ugliest car I’ve ever seen.
The demise of that company is really incredible.
Saw a new model y the other day – that might be the best mild update of a bestselling crossover i’ve ever seen.
The lack of demise of Tesla yet is incredible despite Elon’s antics. I chalk it to how good the model y looks.
I can’t explain why, but it makes the car look like it’s constipated.
Is there something that stops them from retracting into the seat when you put weight on them? Sometimes arm rests get treated more like body supports than rests…
They are motorized so maybe it’s a worm-gear situation, a la a window motor? Can’t say, the video linked in the article doesn’t seem to show him lower them.
I’m more curious if it has a load sensor on it; you could easily be sitting on the retracted armrest and hit the button, so hopefully it doesn’t break trying to lift you up with it.
Putting motors in an armrest just seems like a massive over complication. I assumed from the video they were just a gas strut that popped up or something.
Hmm good point, I guess I can’t say with certainty it’s a motor. But I still lean that way because (1) Tesla, and (2) the way it extends and stops suddenly feels more like a motor than a strut. Still just a guess!
Remember when seat recliners didn’t need motors just a switch and movement
My truck ain’t got no fancy seat motors, thankfully.
Same here. Nothing in the article states they’re motorized.
So the first time a large person sits down there and is tossed around sharp curves, you’ll realize how fragile they are when the motor and the plastic breaks.
Good job on providing a solution for a problem no one had.
It’s just too bad that every passenger has to individually download the Tesla app, sign up for an account, and activate the armrests themselves.
And in the case of an emergency, the manual override is a yellow strip of fabric located in a trunk storage compartment.
/s but sounds about right for Tezlur
It’s not so bad, the can also be controlled from the infotainment screen buried under only 2 submenus!
“Sorry, but your armrest subscription has lapsed…”
made me LOL!
I see the sarcasm symbol but I get the feeling you just might be correct