2025 Tesla Model Y Arrives With A Slippery New Look

The Tesla Model Y ended 2024 as Britain’s – and indeed the world’s – best-selling electric car, and it’s starting 2025 with a fairly significant facelift.

The changes, which have been debuted in China first but will surely follow for the rest of the world before too long, are most noticeable at the front and rear, with the whole car looking slightly less like a computer mouse now.

Up front, there’s now a slender lightbar spanning the width of the car, quite clearly inspired by the one on the front of the Cybertruck. Similarly, there’s now a full-width rear lightbar that uses reflections to expand the glow of an otherwise slim light. The revised front contributes to a reduced drag coefficient, although we don’t by how much.

On the inside, it’s all still very Tesla-ish. That means even fewer physical controls than before, with gear selection now handled by swiping up and down on the central screen. Having already experienced this setup on a Model 3, the only advice we can offer to any other manufacturers thinking of trying something similar is please don’t.

Tesla’s Chinese site details the specs for two initial versions, both equipped with the long-range-spec battery, the only one available on the current car in the UK. Exact powertrain specs haven’t been detailed, but there’s a single-motor, rear-wheel drive version that’ll hit 62mph in 5.9 seconds, and a dual-motor, all-wheel drive one that knocks that down to 4.3 seconds. Both top out at 125mph.

Spec the smaller 19-inch wheels, and you’ll get a quoted range of 368 miles in the single-motor car, and 447 miles in the dual-motor – although it’s important to note that these are figures calculated using China’s testing method, which will likely differ from the WLTP system used in Europe.

As for pricing, we only have that for China too: 263,500 yuan for the RWD car, and 303,500 yuan for the AWD one, both in First Edition guise. That translates to around £29,200 and £33,600, respectively, but we’d expect both of those numbers to go up for the UK, where the outgoing car starts at £46,990.