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Porsche Whistleblower: “60% of all delivered Taycan have battery issues that caused replacements, damages and fires”

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4 years ago

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“Six out of ten Porsche Taycan” ever delivered have a problem with battery management that affects and damages battery cells, requires replacement of cells and batteries, and is causing vehicle fires, according to a source working at Porsche’s headquarters in Zuffenhausen, Germany. Porsche is reportedly hiding the problem from customers and authorities and quietly replacing damaged battery cell modules without informing customers to cover up the problem. Tesla offered to help Porsche with battery management through Audi contacts years ago, but Porsche management at the time rejected any external help, saying it could handle everything internally, the source noted.

“The problem affects six of ten delivered vehicles,” the source, who could be described as a whistleblower, said.

A Risky Business

The Porsche whistleblower explained that the Taycan’s 800V high-voltage onboard charger used today does not control the charging process well enough and can overcharge some battery cells, causing them to overheat. For safety reasons, overheated battery cells are disabled and isolated from the battery pack, reducing battery capacity and thus the vehicle’s range. The problem occurs when the batteries are charged at a low AC speed of up to 7.5 KW, a common use case for all charging, such as at home or on low-speed chargers, the source said. 

The 800V architecture of the Taycan, a vehicle the German automaker is proud of, has many advantages, but the strong current requires a very well-controlled charging process to avoid charging some cells faster than others. The battery cells in a BEV are always charged in parallel to shorten the charging time, but this carries the risk that some cells will be charged faster than others. If one of the many cells in a BEV is charged faster than the rest, overcharging and overheating can occur, which can lead to vehicle fires, if, for instance, an additional air leak happens. 

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About 1% of the 60% of vehicles affected, or about 360 Taycans out of 36,000 vehicles delivered, had a preventable vehicle, cable, or smoldering fire attributable to the problem, the whistleblower said. These are figures from Porsche’s internal statistics, which the company updates on an ongoing basis to keep track of safety issues. The reason the whistleblower, who works for Porsche in Zuffenhausen, is talking about the problem at all, risking his job and more, is that the company has decided lately not to replace the Taycan’s onboard charger, but to continue shipping vehicles and all future new Taycan models with the problematic system, which may pose a notable safety risk.

The Porsche Taycan’s charging port. (Credit: Porsche Newsroom/Twitter)

Porsche uses an inexpensive onboard charger that does not control the process well, the whistleblower explained to me in detail. Fires have occurred in the Taycan battery, the source explained, due to the problem described. Porsche is reportedly aware of the problem and is working on it, but the automaker has not solved it or informed customers or authorities so far.

Instead, the company is reportedly hiding the problem for cost and reputational reasons, the source stated. This is because if acknowledged, all Taycans would require a recall and the replacement of their onboard charger, and all batteries would have to be inspected and tested and, if affected, replaced. The cost, the source said, would be in the hundreds of millions of euros and the damage to the company’s image could be even greater. 

A Remarkably Short Warranty

An apparent hint of Porsche’s challenges with the Taycan’s battery could be seen in the warranty for the all-electric sports car, which happens to be one of the lowest on the market with just 60,000 km or three years if following conditions (Porsche Warranty Requirements) are not met:

Vehicles standing longer than two weeks supposed to be connected to a charger

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  • Customers must assure that the Taycan’s state of charge remains between 20% – 50%
  • Customers must make sure that their Taycan is not exposed to continuous sunlight

Vehicles standing longer than two weeks not connected to a charger

  • Customers must charge the Taycan’s battery before to 50%
  • Customers must check every three months and assure SoC remains at or above 20%
  • Customers must assure that their vehicle’s temperature is between 0C – 20C

While 160,000 km is an average battery warranty in the industry, Porsche confirmed to me the 100,000 km lower, 60,000 km warranty and its restrictions.

It is a well-known risk in the industry that when charging BEVs, an imbalance in the battery cells can lead to a sealed, encapsulated, and deactivated cell that can then overheat and cause battery damage and even fires if, for example, there is an additional leak in the battery box through which air can enter. Porsche’s 800V high-voltage architecture is more vulnerable in this regard than a low-voltage architecture such as Tesla’s 400V, or what other manufacturers use. Most of the BEV battery fire-related problems recorded in the past typically occurred in low-cost BEVs that lack sophisticated battery management systems or onboard chargers. Porsche has cut costs for its premium Taycan BEV, which poses a risk to customers, according to the whistleblower.

The Porsche Taycan’s battery pack. (Credit: @PorscheTime/Twitter)

Costs and Savings

The cell damage can be repaired at great expense, but in most cases, Porsche chooses not to, the whistleblower said. To compensate for the vehicle’s reduced range due to encapsulated and deactivated battery cells, Porsche in many cases reportedly unlocks unused, reserved battery capacity, effectively tricking customers into thinking everything has been fixed, even though the affected cells are no longer in use and remain a potential risk, the source said. Customers who don’t know that a cell in their battery has a problem may not even recognize the reduced range in their Taycans because Porsche releases unused battery capacity and therefore the problem is not detected at all from them. This could explain why the number of the reported battery problems on the Taycan shared by the media is much lower than 60%.

For all vehicles Porsche informs needing a repair, the customer is charged 600 euros/cells module, although the internal labor cost is just 26 euros, the whistleblower said. Porsche charges customers even though no repair has taken place at all but just a battery module cell exchange, the source added. A Taycan has 33 battery modules with 12 cells each adding it up to a total of 396 total cells. Issues that happen and should be covered by warranty are, with regards to labor cost, paid by the customer, creating high service and maintenance profits for Porsche.

Considering the battery degradation that all BEVs experience sooner or later, the 60% Taycan customers who have the battery problem described by the whistleblower will have a lower total battery capacity than paid for after the so-called “repair” and will experience an earlier reduction in range and thus a reduction in vehicle value. If the problem of overcharging the onboard charging cell occurs more frequently, the damage can accumulate to the point where a complete battery replacement is required, according to the whistleblower. If what the source reported is correct over time, all 40% Taycans not yet affected by the issue may one day experience the same problem, depending on the charging behavior of their owners.

To pretend to have done a repair that never happened and accept a lower battery capacity caused by a cheap Porsche onboard charger without informing the customer would be misleading, to say the least. Worse, the replaced battery cells and modules are susceptible to the same problem, and owners accustomed to charging at home with AC power up to 7.5 KW may soon be faced with the same problem again after their battery packs have been “repaired.” Disregarding the cost and depreciation is bad, but the safety issue is the most serious problem of all and should be, based on the information my source shared, investigated by authorities in all countries where the Taycan is shipped.

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A Porsche Taycan RWD displayed in a showroom. (Credit: Ma. Claribelle Deveza)

An Invisible Fix

A different, more sophisticated charger for an extra 70 euros from the same supplier with a good reputation would solve the problem, but Porsche has so far decided against the hardware change, according to my sources. What sounds like a small additional cost is not small in the automotive industry, where target costs are a critical measure of team success and on which bonuses depend. The recent decision of Porsche not to use a better more sophisticated charger that would solve the problem for the foreseeable future made the source a whistleblower who rightly saw this as an unacceptable risk to customers.

The Taycan vehicles experiencing the charging problems are divided into three groups by Porsche and dealers, the whistleblower stated. Dealerships are under strict NDA and face losing their Porsche certification if they talk about the practice that the automaker is executing for years.

Affected Taycans are categorized as:

(a) Green – repair

b) Yellow – review with Porsche internal technical department

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c) Red – replacement 

All vehicles that fall into the “Red” category receive a new battery module or entire battery with spare parts that are available within 24 hours. Not all customers with “Red” designations are informed that the cell module had been replaced on their Taycan, the whistleblower said. The newly installed battery is reportedly “read out” and the data is displayed to the customers who are informed, claiming that it is data from the old battery after the “repair.”  This, according to the source, effectively gives false proof that everything has been “fixed”. The new battery is then assigned to the old serial number, and this is how Porsche erases all traces that indicate fraud, the whistleblower said. That’s why it’s hard to prove that Porsche is cheating customers and misleading the public, the source explained to me. While vehicles designated as “Green” had been “fixed,” cars designated as “Yellow” are still undecided and need to be investigated.

If the authorities demand a Taycan recall and replacement of all onboard chargers and batteries, the associated costs will be in the hundreds of millions of euros the source stated. Provided that the whistleblower’s information is accurate, about 60,000 Taycans delivered so far would have to be recalled worldwide, with costly repairs, testing and hardware modifications. The reputational damage would be high and, like the VW Group cheating scandal, a major negative for the iconic automaker that claims safety comes first.

In the past, some Taycan battery fires, such as the one in a garage in the US state of Florida in early 2020 that occurred during nighttime charging, were never fully resolved after investigations began. My source said that Taycan fires were directly attributable to the problem with the charger and could have been prevented if Porsche had used a more expensive, higher-quality charger, as one would expect from a premium automaker. A small deviation during the charging process of only 0.1% can easily cause a vehicle fire when overcharged by 1%, my source said. The supplier has a reputable name, but a cheap charger was chosen to keep costs down.

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Porsche’s Zuffenhausen site. (Credit: Teslarati)

Teslarati reached out to Porsche to comment on the whistleblower’s claims and received following feedback on November 23:

“I checked with our R+D department in Weissach and all of the issues addressed lack any basis. Based on this information we can´t confirm any of the issues,” a spokesperson from Porsche said.

The source was confronted with the feedback from Porsche and stated in another phone call that only a very small team is involved in the matter, and it is no surprise for him that many within the automaker do not know about the described issues. Many more details were revealed, but they are not included in this article to protect the source. The source explained that in previous cases, Porsche made sure that employees who leaked information never got a job in the industry again.

Other sources informed me years ago that during the development of the Taycan, meeting target costs was a large challenge and that this may have led to the unwise decision to choose a cheap charger. Currently, the VW Group’s BEVs are lower-margin compared to the company’s ICE models and not all are positive, creating strong pressure from management to reduce costs. Given the Taycan’s high price and good sales figures, it is reasonable to assume that it is profitable, but it may not generate as high margins as the company’s iconic ICE models.

The whistleblower also said that years ago, Tesla offered to help Porsche with its battery management system, but the German automaker declined the offer. Around three years ago, Porsche asked Tesla through Audi contacts if they could help then, but at the time, Tesla declined. My source said it was pure arrogance on Porsche’s part that led to today’s problems, as Tesla had been willing to help them. 

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Previous problems with Taycan batteries led to a preliminary investigation by the US NHTSA in early 2021 into the sudden discharge of the 12V battery, which could result in the vehicle coming to a sudden stop. The NHTSA noted nine official complaints from Taycan owners, and Porsche recalled 43,000 Taycans to repair shops at that time. Taycan forum members report a variety of different battery problems as well as the media (e.g. a Taycan burned down in Florida), that may or may not be related to what my source reported. Overall, if we add all together, it appears that battery problems with the Taycan are not uncommon and with more age of batteries and vehicles, more issues may be reported. From what the whistleblower explained, the strategy from Porsche seems to be to solve or isolate technical issues without public notice.

The good news for the Audi e-tron GT that is produced on the same VW PPE BEV platform as the Taycan and shares many parts with it, is that Audi opted for a different and better onboard charger. The described problem is not existent with the e-tron GT, the source told me, but it’s unclear why Porsche isn’t learning from the Audi team in that respect.

A Porsche Taycan being towed. (Credit: Agero/Vimeo)

A Note from the Author

As a writer, I do my best to thoroughly qualify every source, and I choose not to publish a story if there is any doubt about the credibility of the information or the source. I have direct contact with the person that provided the information in this article, know his identity and profession, had several calls and exchanges with him and know people who have met him in person.

My intent is not to disseminate misleading or sensational information, and this is a guiding principle for all my work. Since my source has passed my credibility check through multiple channels and has repeatedly provided many in-depth technical details on the issue, I feel it is my duty to inform the public with this article while I don’t have hard evidence and therefore can’t confirm the information to be right. According to the information provided by the whistleblower, Porsche has decided to take a big risk on the health of its customers for cost, profit and reputation reasons.

As a German who is proud of the heritage of the automotive industry in my home country, and as a former Porsche customer, I am truly shocked by what the whistleblower has told me. The cheating scandal has changed the culture in the German automotive industry many have told me for years, but it looks like the same structural problems remain and lead the industry right into the next big scandal.

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Disclaimer

The Author, Alex Voigt does not own or had ever any Porsche or VW Group stock, derivates or other direct or indirect investments in the company. There has been never any business relationship between the author, Porsche, and the VW Group. The original and first clues to this exclusive and disturbing story came from Christoph Krachten, who came across it while researching his German best-selling book about Tesla.

Alex Voigt Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/AlexVoigt

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Alex Voigt resides in Germany and is an Engineer, Consultant, and Manager with experience of 25 years in Supply Chain Management, Software, and Process improvements in many industries including High Tech, Automotive, and Retail. Throughout his career that brought him into MD positions, he has met and learned from Mid- and Top Managers of most blue-chip companies in Germany and many international within transformational phases.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3: First Impressions

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51 minutes ago

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April 7, 2026

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Tesla started rolling out Full Self-Driving v14.3 to Early Access Program (EAP) members earlier today, and I had the opportunity to see some of the improvements that were made from v14.2.2.5.

While a lot of things got better, and I truly enjoyed using Full Self-Driving again after being stuck with the widely confusing and frustrating v14.2.2.5, Tesla still has one major problem on its hands, and it has to do with Navigation and Routing. I truly believe those issues will be the biggest challenges Tesla will face with autonomy: the car simply going the correct way, not conflicting with what the navigation says, and taking the simplest and most ideal route to a destination.

Here’s what I noticed as an improvement with my first hour with v14.3. This is not a full review, nor is it reflective of everything I will likely experience with this new version. This is simply what I saw as a noticeable improvement from the past version, v14.2.2.5.

There is also a more streamlined version on X, available at the thread below:

Yellow Light Behavior is Significantly Better

On v14.2.2.5, I had so many instances of the car slamming the brakes on to stop at a yellow light when it was clearly the safer option to proceed through. There were several times when the car would be about 20 feet from the line, traveling at 15-20 MPH, the light would turn yellow, and it would slam the brakes to stop. I would nudge it through yellow lights constantly because of this by putting my foot on the accelerator.

The instances I’m talking about here would not have been close calls — the car would have likely moved through the intersection completely before the light would turn red.

On multiple occasions this evening, FSD proceeded through yellow lights safely, without hesitation or any brake stabbing. It was refreshing:

This was a huge complaint with v14.2.2.5. Sometimes, it’s a safer option to go through a yellow light, especially when you have traffic behind you. It’s a great way to get rear-ended.

Parking Performance

I had four instances of parking, and FSD v14.3 really did a flawless job. I was very impressed with how solid it was, but also with how efficiently it moved into the spot. When there was traffic around with past versions, I usually chose to park manually just because FSD took its time getting into a spot. I don’t see that being an issue anymore.

I complained about parking a lot and shared several images on X and Facebook of those examples:

No issues with it this evening. 4/4. Here are two looks:

Highway Performance

FSD v14.3 passed the five cars shown in this image:

The sixth was 200-300 yards ahead of the fifth. In v14.2.2.5, FSD would usually stay in the left lane, especially on Hurry and Mad Max. It did not do that, as it instead chose to get back over in the right lane after passing the final car.

Speed was not much of a concern here, even though it was going 21 MPH over. Although it was fast, I did have a line of cars behind me traveling at the same speed, and FSD had just merged about a half mile prior, so I chose to let it continue.

There were no instances of camping in the left lane for extended periods of time. I do want to do more testing with the Speed Profiles because they were in need of some work with the previous version. I am starting to side with those who want a Max Speed setting, which was removed last year.

Navigation and Routing Still Need Work

I was heading back toward where I came from, so I turned “Avoid Highways” on to take a different way. This confused the Routing system, and instead of turning left, then right, as the Routing said, the car turned right, then indicated for another right, basically going in a big rectangle. The car ignored the second right-hand turn and continued straight. I ended up turning “Avoid Highways” off and letting the car pick the same routing option as what took me here.

I have truly complained so much about Navigation and Routing that I’m starting to feel sort of bad. It is obviously such a massive challenge for some reason, but I am confident it will improve. I recall seeing Tesla hiring someone for this role a few months back, so perhaps there is hope for it to get better.

Smarter Behavior When Approaching Exits/Routing

This probably should be grouped in with Highway Behavior, but I wanted to highlight it on its own.

The highway exit pictured was always frustrating for v14.2.2.5. In the Hurry speed profile, I have seen it try to execute passes on multiple cars with as little as 0.6 miles to spare before taking the exit.

With three cars ahead of it, it chose to reduce speed and just wait until the exit. It was refreshing to see an improvement here, so I hope this behavior persists. Sometimes there’s just no reason to pass when you’re less than a mile from getting off the highway anyway.

Larger Visibility Warnings

Tesla seems to have increased the size of these “Camera Visibility Limited” warnings. Previously, they were just small thumbnails:

Stop Sign Behavior

This is probably the biggest improvement of all, because how it behaved at Stop Signs in v14.2.2.5 was so incredibly terrible and disruptive to the flow of a busy intersection.

There are several four-way, all-stop intersections near me. In the past, FSD would stop well behind the Stop Sign or the white-painted line on the road. It would then inch forward, stopping again at this line, essentially making two stops at a single intersection.

If there is visibility, I don’t truly care where FSD stops, as long as it stops once. Stopping twice just isn’t ideal or logical. I can’t imagine many humans would do it, I know I wouldn’t.

I didn’t have that issue this evening:

This was pretty tight, too, in the sense that both my car and the other one got to the intersection at the same time. FSD may have stopped first, but the other vehicle was probably around the same point that I was when FSD decided to stop. I was happy to see the assertiveness to proceed; it felt like it was ideal to just go through. I was happy it didn’t stop a second time up at the line. I’d be fine if it stopped at the line, as long as that was the only stop it made.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3 rolls out: here’s what’s new

We are in EAP and will be on the road with v14.3 in the coming hours, so we’ll have a lot of things to discuss over the next few days, especially coming from v14.2.2.5, which I called the most “confusing” FSD release of all time.

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April 7, 2026

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Tesla has officially started rolling out Full Self-Driving v14.3 to Early Access Program (EAP) members, and there are a lot of new improvements.

We are in EAP and will be on the road with v14.3 in the coming hours, so we’ll have a lot of things to discuss over the next few days, especially coming from v14.2.2.5, which I called the most “confusing” FSD release of all time.

Tesla brought out a lot of improvements, according to the v14.3 release notes, which list a vast number of fixes, new features, and new capabilities.

Here’s what Tesla’s release notes for the v14.3 release state:

  • Improved parking location pin prediction, now shown on a map with a P icon.
  •  Increased decisiveness of parking spot selection and maneuvering.
  • Rewrote the Al compiler and runtime from the ground up with MLIR, resulting in 20% faster reaction time and improving model iteration speed.
  • Enhanced response to emergency vehicles, school buses, right-of-way violators, and other rare vehicles.
  • Mitigated unnecessary lane biasing and minor tailgating behaviors.
  • Improved handling of small animals by focusing RL training on harder examples and adding rewards for better proactive safety.
  • Improved traffic light handling at complex intersections with compound lights, curved roads, and yellow light stopping – driven by training on hard RL examples sourced from the Tesla fleet.
  • Upgraded the Reinforcement Learning (RL) stage of training the FSD neural network, resulting in improvements in a wide variety of driving scenarios.
  • Upgraded the neural network vision encoder, improving understanding in rare and low-visibility scenarios, strengthening 3D geometry understanding, and expanding traffic sign understanding.
  • Improved handling for rare and unusual objects extending, hanging, or leaning into the vehicle path by sourcing infrequent events from the fleet.
  • Improved handling of temporary system degradations by maintaining control and automatically recovering without driver intervention, reducing unnecessary disengagements.

Tesla also listed a handful of future improvements as well:

  • Expand reasoning to all behaviors beyond destination handling
  • Add pothole avoidance
  • Improve driver monitoring system sensitivity with better eye gaze tracking, eye wear handling, and higher accuracy in variable lighting situations

CEO Elon Musk has said that v14.3 could be “where the last big piece of the puzzle finally lands.” We have high expectations for this release because, in a lot of ways, v14.2’s final version was extremely disappointing and seemed to be a regression more than anything.

Nevertheless, Full Self-Driving v14.3 is going to be quite an interesting test, considering this is also the first time Musk has stated it will feel like the car will be “sentient.”

Reasoning will be a bigger piece of the puzzle with this release, although there were some elements of it in v14.2.

Tesla AI Head says future FSD feature has already partially shipped

We plan to travel plenty of miles with it over the next few days, so we’ll keep you posted on what our thoughts are.

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Tesla Model Y ownership review after six months: What I love and what I don’t

I pay about $25 more a month than I did for my Bronco Sport for my Tesla. It was a no-brainer to switch. Like any car, it isn’t perfect, but my Tesla has more things right than any other car I’ve owned, and that makes it truly incredible.

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April 7, 2026

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Credit: Joey Klender

It has been just over six months since I took delivery of my Diamond Black Tesla Model Y Premium Long Range (at that time, it was called the Tesla Model Y Long Range All-Wheel-Drive).

In those six months, I have had the opportunity to experience true and pure electric vehicle ownership, what comes with it after driving a gas vehicle for my entire life, and, to be completely frank, there are not many things I would change.

Owning a Tesla was something I never thought I’d do until I owned a house, simply to take advantage of the advantage of home charging. However, I had to take the chance last year with the elimination of the $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit, as well as to avoid the mountainous stack of repair bills that were presenting themselves with my Ford Bronco Sport.

There are a lot of things I love about my Model Y, and there are a handful of things I wish I could change. In this piece, I plan to break down the ownership experience through about six months with my Tesla Model Y, hoping to provide you with enough insight to potentially make a change — or stick with what you have.

Things I Love About My Tesla Model Y

Driving Experience

Tesla really pushes Full Self-Driving and autonomy, but there are times that, as an owner, I feel I need to drive this car manually. Tesla put so much effort into the Model Y’s engineering and driving experience that it feels like a bit of a disservice to have it drive itself around all the time.

The suspension in this vehicle, as well as its ability to handle sharp corners, its quick acceleration, and its ability to hug the road at spirited speeds, is truly something you need to feel for yourself. I personally have never had a car that was truly geared toward driving this way. Other than a short-lived ownership experience with a Honda Civic a few years back (something I won’t ever do again), all of my vehicles have been SUVs or compact crossovers.

Credit: Joey Klender

Having a car that offers both a fun driving experience and cargo space is what the Model Y truly is all about. It’s a fun car to drive, but it also has a lot of functionality.

It is always a treat when it’s a little warmer out, I can roll the windows down, and take my Model Y to a tight back road in Pennsylvania to have some fun. I have never loved driving in the traditional sense. I don’t hate it, but it’s not necessarily “fun” to me, but that’s probably because I never had a car that was engineered to make the driving experience enjoyable.

This has truly changed my perspective on driving, and the Model Y is probably the second-most-fun car I’ve ever had the pleasure of driving. The first? The Tesla Model S.

Home Charging and Supercharging

Now, Home Charging is relatively new to me, and I covered my process for figuring that out in another article, which is linked here.

Waking up in the morning and having some additional range is really a great feeling — and with gas prices going through the stratosphere, the money I’m saving on gas is something quite special.

Supercharging is also a fun experience for me. Do I wish it were a faster experience? Sure. But there’s plenty to do in the car: Netflix, Hulu, Tesla Arcade, or head into whatever convenience store is nearby, use the restroom, and grab a bite to eat.

I have come to enjoy the evenings that I’ll head over to the Supercharger and plug my car in for half an hour before a longer drive the next day (if I didn’t plug in soon enough at home and need some fast-charging).

Tesla also added a new Supercharging “Wrapped” feature at the end of the year, gamifying the entire Supercharging experience. I’m excited to see all the places I’ve charged at the end of 2026.

Sporty, Clean, and Fun Interior

The interior of my Tesla is probably one of the most underrated features of my car, but it’s definitely my favorite. With vehicles I’ve purchased in the past, the big selling point is the inside for me, not the outside. Of course, I want my car to look good to others, but ultimately, I’m paying the payment and I’m spending 100% of the time I’m using the car on the inside of it.

This highlights the need for a comfy, cozy, and capable cabin that has all the features I could want. In Pennsylvania, we have cold winters and hot and humid summers. The Model Y has heated seats and a steering wheel, as well as A/C seats. The HVAC is incredibly capable, customizable, and comfortable for all passengers, allowing them to make adjustments wherever needed.

At night, the black interior coupled with the accent lighting makes for one of the coolest, spaceship-like interiors on the market. Tesla always called it a “Rave Cave,” and it truly feels like it.

Tech: From Full Self-Driving to Other Features

Tech is really the biggest part of owning a Tesla; it is so advanced that it almost feels like it’s not even a car. Full Self-Driving is obviously such a huge advantage, and I’ve talked about it in great detail, both positively and negatively.

I could write 1,000 words on FSD, but I don’t want to focus on it solely, because there are so many other things that need to be highlighted.

One thing Tesla really has over others is the ability to improve its cars continually. Simple features like a charging adjustment, new modes, or activating features that weren’t quite ready previously are all things Tesla has added through Over-the-Air updates.

I don’t know if I could pick just one as a favorite, but in the six months I’ve had my car, the most useful thing I’ve come across outside of FSD is Summon. While it is hit or miss a lot of the time, there are little features, like moving the car forward or back from the Tesla App, that are incredibly useful. Adjusting a park job, making snow shoveling around the car easier, or even moving the car slightly when I’m taking photos or video is incredibly seamless with this functionality.

Cargo and Interior Space

One of my big concerns when going from a Bronco Sport to a Model Y was cargo space, only to find out the Model Y has more space than the Bronco Sport. I always have something in the trunk, whether it is luggage, my golf bag, shoes, or groceries. I’ve never felt like I’ve needed more space in this car, although I’m sure that day will come when I get the boys together for a golf trip and I am driving.

I’ve packed luggage for my Fiancèe and a few of her friends on a trip to Disney with no issues. Four girls going to Disney for five days is a challenge that will frighten even the most capable vehicles. I had no issues.

But what is also great about the Model Y is that it has the room to do other things, like fit an entire mattress for camping. SNUUZU makes an amazing Tesla mattress that I have thrown in the car to watch sunsets. This Summer, I’ll do some camping with it.

It’s one of the many things about this car that I really love.

Things About My Tesla Model Y I Do Not Love

Winter Range

There’s no getting around the fact that owning this car without a faster charging option at home in the winter is truly frustrating. I was charging much more frequently in January and February than in any other month.

I took a 40-mile round-trip drive to grab some hot wings with friends in January. It took about 105 miles of range.

The cold weather was truly a frustrating time to own an EV, and my problems would have been solved with a Level 2 charger at home. Even still, the drives that were a few hours long were going to be fit with 10-15 minute stops to grab some range at a Supercharger.

Navigation

I really think that Tesla could have the best navigation out there. They always talk about licensing FSD, but if they were to license their Navigation software, I think it could overtake Apple Maps, Waze, and others. With a weather radar, live traffic updates, satellite imagery, and more, the Navigation system is truly the best around.

However, the Navigation itself, meaning the routing, is absolutely abysmal. It doesn’t learn from mistakes, it doesn’t learn more ideal routing, and it doesn’t seem to improve at any point. It still tries to leave my neighborhood by turning left out of a right-turn-only exit. It routinely takes some of the most head-scratching routes to local destinations.

Consistently using the FSD disengage feature to report the problems to Tesla’s AI Team doesn’t seem to yield much of a result. It would be great if there were a “Learn” mode so that it could be less on Tesla to refine things, and the car would just learn automatically.

Cup Holders

This is a really trivial and nitpicky point of criticism, but boy, do these cupholders need to be larger. Many of my reusable water bottles do not fit in them, so I had to grab a $25 cup holder “adapter” from Amazon. It obstructs the center console from opening comfortably, but it is what it is. It fits standard cups, soft drink containers from fast food restaurants, and bottles of water, at least for the most part.

It would be nice if Tesla could think about something for the next Model Y refresh here, although I may be the only one to really complain about them.

Final Thoughts

I pay about $25 more a month than I did for my Bronco Sport for my Tesla. It was a no-brainer to switch. Like any car, it isn’t perfect, but my Tesla has more things right than any other car I’ve owned, and that makes it truly incredible.

Sometimes I am still baffled that this is my car. It feels crazy to drive something that is so far ahead of any other car I’ve driven. Three of my friends own Teslas now, all of us bought them at the same time last year, and all four of us don’t know if we’d ever consider going back.

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