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Tesla Model Y vs Model 3 casting comparison shows that legacy auto’s ‘soil-your-pants’ moment is at hand
Back in April 2018, automotive teardown expert Sandy Munro mentioned that if Tesla had contracted an experienced automaker to produce the early-production Model 3’s body, the electric car maker would have “wiped the floor with everybody.” This is because from the suspension down, the Model 3 was a stellar piece of engineering, despite its body having several issues.
Its electric motors were compact, powerful, and cost effective; its batteries are the best in the industry, and its driving dynamics give the impression that the vehicle was riding on rails. Munro noted that if Tesla had hit a home run with the Model 3’s “dinosaur technologies” like its welds and casts, even veteran auto giants like Toyota would appropriately be “crapping their pants.”
It has been nearly two years since Munro mentioned those words during an appearance at YouTube’s Autoline After Hours. Tesla has changed a lot since then, and the company has even released its latest vehicle, the Model Y crossover. Sharing 75% of the Model 3’s parts, the Model Y is designed as a mass-market electric vehicle, and one that can be even more disruptive as its sedan sibling.
Munro, for his part, has acquired and started a teardown of the all-electric crossover. And based on his findings thus far, it appears that Tesla’s “dinosaur technologies” have improved vastly since the Model 3. This is most evident in the rear casting utilized on the two vehicles.
One look at the Model Y and Model 3’s rear casts shows that the two vehicles are already worlds apart in terms of build quality and design. Munro noted that he did not like the Model 3’s rear casting at all, since it was also over-engineered, with about 100 parts utilized for its rear trunk.
In a way, the Model 3’s rear casting represented the hubris that Elon Musk has admitted to in the past, as it showed Tesla essentially trying to fix something that is not necessarily broken. The result of this was a lot of challenges for Tesla, and a lot of issues with the early-production Model 3’s rear casting.
The Model Y is an entirely different animal. The all-electric crossover features what could only be described as a giant rear casting that is the complete antithesis of the Model 3’s. It has few parts, its welds are consistent, and it features a trunk tub that is similar to those utilized by the world’s best automakers. It’s pretty much what the Model 3 could have been if Tesla was more experienced when they started building the all-electric sedan.
If the Model 3’s rear casting was an exercise in hubris, the Model Y’s rear cast is an exercise in humility. It showed that Tesla is flexible, and that it’s willing to learn, even if it meant abandoning its initial plans and starting from the ground up. Tesla evidently abandoned the early-production Model 3’s rear casting and trunk design. And it’s all the better for it.
A lot of this could be attributed to Elon Musk himself. Munro has noted in the past that he and the Tesla CEO had talked over the phone during his Model 3 teardown, where Musk explained the reasons behind some of the findings about the all-electric sedan. Munro’s firm later sent Tesla a pro bono list of over 200 suggestions that can improve the Model 3’s body.
These suggestions seem to have come to life in the Model Y. Granted, the teardown process for the all-electric crossover has only just begun. Still, several aspects of the vehicle, most notably its rear casting, shows that Tesla did learn from the Model 3, and it has become a much more mature automaker today. Other suggestions from the teardown expert were also applied to the Model Y’s other components, such as its wiring.
It should be noted that Tesla’s fast evolution is partly due to the company’s Silicon Valley startup roots. Startups are notorious for quick, drastic changes in direction, and workers at these companies are required to be tough and flexible. Tesla embodies this, making the company notoriously challenging to work for compared to conventional car companies like GM or Ford.
Yet despite this, Tesla has ranked consistently among the most attractive firms for engineering students. This is because in Tesla, conventional corporate bureaucracy is replaced with an open communication system that allows even interns to share their ideas with company executives. Some of the issues in the Model 3’s early production lines, for example, were addressed by interns, who were later hired full-time by Tesla.
The Model Y is a crossover, which means that it is competing in one of the fastest-growing segments in the auto industry today. With the Model Y, Tesla has the chance to make its biggest mark in the market yet. Fortunately, the electric car maker appears to have done its homework before it released its newest vehicle. One could even argue that Tesla released the Model Y at the perfect time. A mass-market all-electric vehicle that can disrupt the market of crossover SUVs requires a mature company, after all, and Tesla has only started to fit this bill recently.
Just two years ago, Munro mentioned that if the Model 3 had a properly-built body, veteran automakers like Toyota would be “crapping their pants” because of how outclassed they would be. With how the Model Y is turning out, it appears that legacy auto would be wise to keep some extra pairs of pants for the coming years, just in case.
Watch a deep dive into the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y’s rear casts in the video below.
Tesla has initiated Cybertruck deliveries in a new region for the first time, as the all-electric pickup has officially made its way to the United Arab Emirates, marking the newest territory to receive the polarizing truck.
Tesla launched orders for the Cybertruck in the Middle East back in September 2025, just months after the company confirmed that it planned to launch the pickup in the region, which happened in April.
I took a Tesla Cybertruck weekend Demo Drive – Here’s what I learned
By early October, Tesla launched the Cybertruck configurator in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, with pricing starting at around AED 404,900, or about $110,000 for the Dual Motor configuration.
This decision positioned the Gulf states as key early international markets, and Tesla was hoping to get the Cybertruck outside of North America for the first time, as it has still been tough to launch in other popular EV markets, like Europe and Asia.
By late 2025, Tesla had pushed delivery timelines slightly and aimed for an early 2026 delivery launch in the Middle East. The first official customer deliveries started this month, and a notable handover event occurred in Dubai’s Al Marmoom desert area, featuring a light and fire show.
Around 63 Cybertrucks made their way to customers during the event:
First @cybertruck deliveries in the UAE 🇦🇪 pic.twitter.com/sN2rAxppUA
— Tesla Europe & Middle East (@teslaeurope) January 22, 2026
As of this month, the Cybertruck still remains available for configuration on Tesla’s websites for the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Middle Eastern countries like Jordan and Israel. Deliveries are rolling out progressively, with the UAE leading as the first to see hands-on customer events.
In other markets, most notably Europe, there are still plenty of regulatory hurdles that Tesla is hoping to work through, but they may never be resolved. The issues come from the unique design features that conflict with the European Union’s (EU) stringent safety standards.
These standards include pedestrian protection regulations, which require vehicles to minimize injury risks in collisions. However, the Cybertruck features sharp edges and an ultra-hard stainless steel exoskeleton, and its rigid structure is seen as non-compliant with the EU’s list of preferred designs.
The vehicle’s gross weight is also above the 3.5-tonne threshold for standard vehicles, which has prompted Tesla to consider a more compact design. However, the company’s focus on autonomy and Robotaxi has likely pushed that out of the realm of possibility.
For now, Tesla will work with the governments that want it to succeed in their region, and the Middle East has been a great partner to the company with the launch of the Cybertruck.
Tesla has officially launched public Robotaxi rides in Austin, Texas, without a Safety Monitor in the vehicle, marking the first time the company has removed anyone from the vehicle other than the rider.
The Safety Monitor has been present in Tesla Robotaxis in Austin since its launch last June, maintaining safety for passengers and other vehicles, and was placed in the passenger’s seat.
Tesla planned to remove the Safety Monitor at the end of 2025, but it was not quite ready to do so. Now, in January, riders are officially reporting that they are able to hail a ride from a Model Y Robotaxi without anyone in the vehicle:
I am in a robotaxi without safety monitor pic.twitter.com/fzHu385oIb
— TSLA99T (@Tsla99T) January 22, 2026
Tesla started testing this internally late last year and had several employees show that they were riding in the vehicle without anyone else there to intervene in case of an emergency.
Tesla has now expanded that program to the public. It is not active in the entire fleet, but there are a “few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader robotaxi fleet with safety monitors,” Ashok Elluswamy said:
Robotaxi rides without any safety monitors are now publicly available in Austin.
Starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader robotaxi fleet with safety monitors, and the ratio will increase over time. https://t.co/ShMpZjefwB
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) January 22, 2026
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
The Robotaxi program also operates in the California Bay Area, where the fleet is much larger, but Safety Monitors are placed in the driver’s seat and utilize Full Self-Driving, so it is essentially the same as an Uber driver using a Tesla with FSD.
In Austin, the removal of Safety Monitors marks a substantial achievement for Tesla moving forward. Now that it has enough confidence to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis altogether, there are nearly unlimited options for the company in terms of expansion.
While it is hoping to launch the ride-hailing service in more cities across the U.S. this year, this is a much larger development than expansion, at least for now, as it is the first time it is performing driverless rides in Robotaxi anywhere in the world for the public to enjoy.
Tesla has scheduled its Earnings Call for Q4 and Full Year 2025 for next Wednesday, January 28, at 5:30 p.m. EST, and investors are already preparing to get some answers from executives regarding a wide variety of topics.
The company accepts several questions from retail investors through the platform Say, which then allows shareholders to vote on the best questions.
Tesla does not answer anything regarding future product releases, but they are willing to shed light on current timelines, progress of certain projects, and other plans.
There are five questions that range over a variety of topics, including SpaceX, Full Self-Driving, Robotaxi, and Optimus, which are currently in the lead to be asked and potentially answered by Elon Musk and other Tesla executives:
- You once said: Loyalty deserves loyalty. Will long-term Tesla shareholders still be prioritized if SpaceX does an IPO?
- Our Take – With a lot of speculation regarding an incoming SpaceX IPO, Tesla investors, especially long-term ones, should be able to benefit from an early opportunity to purchase shares. This has been discussed endlessly over the past year, and we must be getting close to it.
- When is FSD going to be 100% unsupervised?
- Our Take – Musk said today that this is essentially a solved problem, and it could be available in the U.S. by the end of this year.
- What is the current bottleneck to increase Robotaxi deployment & personal use unsupervised FSD? The safety/performance of the most recent models or people to monitor robots, robotaxis, in-car, or remotely? Or something else?
- Our Take – The bottleneck seems to be based on data, which Musk said Tesla needs 10 billion miles of data to achieve unsupervised FSD. Once that happens, regulatory issues will be what hold things up from moving forward.
- Regarding Optimus, could you share the current number of units deployed in Tesla factories and actively performing production tasks? What specific roles or operations are they handling, and how has their integration impacted factory efficiency or output?
- Our Take – Optimus is going to have a larger role in factories moving forward, and later this year, they will have larger responsibilities.
- Can you please tie purchased FSD to our owner accounts vs. locked to the car? This will help us enjoy it in any Tesla we drive/buy and reward us for hanging in so long, some of us since 2017.
- Our Take – This is a good one and should get us some additional information on the FSD transfer plans and Subscription-only model that Tesla will adopt soon.
Tesla will have its Earnings Call on Wednesday, January 28.
Tesla begins Cybertruck deliveries in a new region for the first time
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
