I’m a little confused by the over-exuberant Tesla love and all the raves about the technology. I. just. don’t. get. it.
Don’t get me wrong—I’ve had my 2023 7-seat Long Range Model Y for about seven months now, and there are definitely some good things about it. Some are even great! But my list of disappointments is much longer, and since this is supposedly a car based on cutting-edge technology, most of my gripes are… well, technology-related.
It reminds me of Apple fanboys (and yes, I’m an Apple person myself, but even I can admit they have serious flaws that can’t be ignored just because there’s a half-eaten fruit on the logo). Same with Tesla. Why do people overlook the obvious issues and refuse to even consider a different vehicle?
We bought ours for four specific reasons: the unattainable 300-mile range, the torque, the price point, and the third row. If something else checked those boxes—and had the NACS charging port—we’d probably be driving something else.
I’m not here to completely trash the car. It’s fine, and it’ll make a great first car for my kids when they’re learning to drive. But it’s by no means AMAZING in all caps with four question marks. Maybe the things that matter to me just don’t matter to other people, or maybe I’m just not smart enough for “smart” technology (more on that later).
The Good Stuff (Yes, There Is Some)
The Torque: This is a family car that doesn’t drive like one. When you’re not in “chill mode” trying to preserve battery life, it’s genuinely fun. (For me is almost never at this point)
The Charging Infrastructure: The Supercharger network is pretty great. Sure, it’d be nice if they were faster, but this technology has limits.
Driving Control Technology: This car will be perfect for teenagers. With the speed limits and lane departure warnings, I can see it keeping younger, inexperienced drivers safe. I’ve pretty much decided this will become my kids’ car.
Regenerative Braking: I love trying to drive without touching the brakes. You can make a game of it—though apparently I’m easily entertained.
Size: For a smaller vehicle (which I prefer), it has a surprising amount of space inside, even with the third row up. It’s like a large small car. With the seats folded down, I fit 20 bags of mulch without doing anything crazy. The biggest miss here was not making it a hatchback—that silly rear window design wastes so much cargo space.
The Not-So-Good Stuff (Buckle Up, This List Is Longer)
No LiDAR, Radar, or Thermal/Night Vision: This is my biggest disappointment. The car literally can’t see in the dark—specifically people and animals. I have no idea how it’s supposed to drive autonomously without these technologies. It’s like asking someone to drive blindfolded and expecting them to do better than someone who can actually see.
The False Range Problem: The battery should only be used between 80%-20%, which already limits your actual range. Use anything in the car like heat or AC, and that range drops further. For road trips, this means stopping every two hours, and the charging slows down as the battery gets fuller, so you really need to stop at 80-85%. Real-world range should be estimated at maybe 120-175 miles, not the advertised 300+.
The Torque Paradox: Here’s where it gets frustrating. While Sport mode is genuinely fun, I can never actually use it because of the range issue. I have to drive in Chill mode for the best efficiency. But in Chill mode, you get very limited acceleration even when you stomp on it—like when you need a burst to pass or merge safely.
You’d think a “smart” car would know when you’re mashing the pedal and need an override, right? It’s still probably faster than a minivan, but not by much. Similarly, you’d think a smart car would know which direction you’re turning the wheel and help correct the understeer (when the car doesn’t turn as much as you want it to and continues more straight than intended), but apparently not.
Charge Time: While faster than competitors, it still takes considerable time, especially if you’re not on a Supercharger.
Full Self-Driving (FSD): Based on my experience, I have serious concerns about this technology actually being able to safely drive without a human driver. More worryingly, I think it could be dangerous by giving drivers a false sense of security—it can work pretty well right up until it doesn’t. The hardware just isn’t there to make this work reliably. It can’t sense my 35-pound dog when she’s near the vehicle (that’s toddler-sized, people), it doesn’t seem to know exact distances when parking, and it once just stopped for no reason on a rural road. Fun times.
Cameras & Sensors: Park assist seems to never be available, and there’s almost always one camera having some sort of fault. Again, it can’t sense things like kids or pets. How can technology that relies entirely on vision be reliable when it can’t see any better than I can? If I can’t see in the rain, it can’t see in the rain or dark. Without night vision, radar, etc., how is it really better than human eyes?
Touch Screen Everything: While I like the center screen, I find this method of controlling everything annoying and unsafe. The more I think about it, the more I believe this was pure cost-cutting disguised as “innovation.” It’s much cheaper to eliminate all physical controls and throw everything into a menu—fewer wires, fewer parts, less assembly time. Just call it “the future” and charge a premium.
I ended up putting as many controls as possible in my lower control bar. The backup camera view showing up in the center when you change lanes to the left is annoying, but you could get used to it. The question is: why should you have to?
Voice Commands: Siri never worked as advertised 20 years ago, and we’ve made very little progress since. How many times can I say “Open Glove Box” before I give up? I guess it really is that expensive to put an actual latch on a glovebox. Might as well make it an aftermarket upgrade like everything else.
Aftermarket Dependency: This is both good and bad—lots of options available, but it’s sad that aftermarket modifications are required to reach a reasonable level of functionality. Some of this screams poor design choices.
Auto Wipers: My 2016 Audi has better rain sensors. So much for “advanced tech.”
Lane Control Technology: While I believe this will save my life someday, it’s currently a daily battle between me and the car over which part of the lane I want to occupy. I live in a rural area with narrow roads, and I prefer staying on the outside part of the lane. The car constantly thinks I’m going off the road and steers me back closer to oncoming vehicles. Same thing happens when there’s debris on the side of the road that I need to go around—it wants to steer me back toward the obstacle. You’d think the technology would learn the driver’s preferences, but apparently that’s asking too much.
Safety Alert Volume: While these safety features will probably help me eventually, right now they’re constantly fighting me—and I’m not even an aggressive driver. I don’t want to turn them off because I’d never remember to turn them back on. The warning sound volume is really loud, too. Joe Mode helps by reducing non-critical alert volumes by about 50%, but it doesn’t affect the safety warnings like lane departure—which is exactly what I need quieter.
Highway Following Issues: It’s great if you don’t want or need to change lanes. But once you do change lanes, it slows down abruptly (thanks to regenerative braking kicking in), which could actually be dangerous. This makes the feature unusable on most trips. Apparently you need to pay extra for Full FSD to get what seems like a basic lane-change feature.
European Cup Holders: They’re too small for almost any drink sold in the US. Why? Did someone in California forget that Americans like Big Gulps?
Glass Roof: I actually really liked this at first, until I read that the AC doesn’t work as well because of it and I should get a sun shade. So now I need an aftermarket sun shade for my premium glass roof. Makes sense.
Road Noise: It’s surprisingly loud inside, which is disappointing given that there’s no internal combustion engine to blame.
Service Difficulties: If you don’t live near a service center, good luck. It’s like having a really expensive pet that only one vet in the state can treat.
Energy Consumption: It uses a lot of power to charge and nearly doubled our electric bill with normal (or less than normal) driving while charging at home 90% of the time. People who say “it hardly uses any power” either don’t charge at home or their monthly usage was already astronomical.
Comfort Issues: It’s not particularly comfortable. Beyond the road noise, the seats get hot and sweaty, (I believe theysince released vented seats in the Model-Y refresh, which should help) and it can be difficult for people to get in and out and latch the seatbelts. The third row is nice to have but can’t be used by larger people or kids except for really short trips.
The “Smart Technology” Problem
This brings me to my biggest philosophical issue with Tesla (and “smart phones” while we’re at it): if you need to be smart to use something, it’s not actually smart technology—it’s technology for smart people, which makes it stupid technology by definition.
Smart technology should help people like me, who are unfortunately not as clever as I’d like to be (even though I consider myself fairly tech-savvy). So before anyone starts with “you just don’t know how to use it”—well, duh. But I shouldn’t have to get a computer science degree to operate my car.
The Bottom Line
Look, I like the car. It’s perfectly fine, and it serves our needs. But let’s stop pretending it’s perfect just because it has a Tesla badge. It’s a good electric vehicle with some innovative features and some frustrating shortcomings—just like every other car ever made.
Maybe I’m missing something, or maybe the Tesla fanboy goggles work better than I thought. Either way, I’ll keep driving mine, complaining about the things that annoy me, and looking forward to the day my kids inherit it and can deal with figuring out how to open the glove box with voice commands.
What’s your experience been? Am I being too harsh, or do you share some of these frustrations? Let me know in the comments—assuming the touch screen interface lets you find them.
Even that's Odd 
Leave a comment