I had a 2019 Honda Ridgeline and I really liked it. But we’d decided we needed a third row — for the occasional extra kid, or for piling everyone into one car when the grandparents came along. With two boys around 11 and 12, we started looking at hybrids as our first toe in the EV water.
The cars we seriously considered:
- The Hyundai Santa Fe (our leading contender)
- The VW ID. Buzz (ruled out — no 7-seat option, range too low)
- The Toyota Highlander hybrid
- The new VW Tiguan (we were hoping for a 3-row hybrid that never materialized)
The Santa Fe was going to be the pick — large enough without being unwieldy, surprisingly luxurious-feeling, and the shape reminded me of a Land Rover. I was going to have to make peace with the ugly headlights and the soft acceleration. I’d convinced myself I could.
Tesla wasn’t really on our list. The politics around the CEO were a problem — I’ll come back to that in another post — and our kids had ridden in their aunt and uncle’s Model Y and reported that the third row was practically nonexistent. We’d written it off. We also needed real room behind the seats for sports gear and luggage.
What Tipped It
Toward the end of the search, with the Santa Fe basically chosen, a friend bought a used Model 3 Performance. He made a point that landed: an EV has effectively one system that can fail. A hybrid has two, plus all the ICE maintenance that goes with it. That reframed the “smart, conservative middle path” choice as something different — maintenance overhead twice, complexity twice. I hate scheduled-maintenance bills already.
He took me out for a ride. The acceleration was a different category of experience compared to the pokey Santa Fe — and yes, the Model 3 Performance is a different animal from the Model Y, but the Y isn’t far behind, especially with the Acceleration Boost. To make up for losing the truck, I figured I’d add a tow hitch for my small aluminum trailer.
Revisiting the Third Row
I started looking at used three-row Model Xs and the 3-row Model Y. Maybe the kids’ “no space” verdict was user error. The Model X looked viable if we went older to stay in budget — my wife and one of the boys stopped to check one out on the way to a travel game, and they said it would work.
I still wanted to see the 7-seat Model Y in person. Driving home from a different travel game with the other son, I pulled into the Tesla showroom, and they happened to have a 7-seater on the floor. We climbed in and configured every which way. The verdict: all three rows are usable, but with caveats — not for long rides, not for tall people in the third row. Workable.
To actually make the third row functional, you have to slide the front seats forward (which costs front-passenger comfort), and you have to slide the second row all the way up to give the third row a fighting chance. The bigger problem is the roof. The Y’s sloped rear roofline kills third-row headroom. Why this car isn’t a wagon, I do not understand. They lie about the range anyway, so what would it have cost them to give up a tenth of a coefficient of drag and make the car genuinely useful?
The cargo space turned out to be surprisingly generous given the car’s overall footprint. The interior materials seemed fine — not great, fine. I convinced myself we could make it work. We were already mid-install on solar panels, which made the EV math sweeter, and the advertised 330-mile range looked sufficient for our usual road trips. (The “advertised” is doing some heavy lifting in that sentence — the real-world number on the highway is closer to 250, less in winter, and worse if you actually like driving 75. But I didn’t know that yet.)
The Impulse Buy
The very next night, I found a used 2023 7-seat Long Range on the Tesla app with 4,000 miles on it. I bought it. Right then. From my couch.
I am not normally an impulse buyer of cars. This was an impulse buy.
What I’d Tell Someone Considering the Same Thing
If you’re looking at a 7-seat Model Y, be realistic about that third row. It’s functional but limited — fine for kids on shorter trips, not for adults on long drives. Test it yourself with your actual people in the car; other families’ verdicts won’t necessarily map to yours.
And don’t underestimate the charging-at-home equation. We were already installing solar, which made the EV math work better than it otherwise would have. That’s not perfect either — I’ll get to that in a future post — but it’s a real factor.
This is the wagon version of the Model Y that should exist, and doesn’t:
Or honestly, any of these. Even the older mockups would have been better than the current car for a family of four with stuff:
Even that's Odd 
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