2027 Tesla Model Y L First Test: Tesla’s Best-Riding SUV Comes With Big Compromises

The 2027 Tesla Model Y L was not designed for us Yankee Doodles. It answers a whole bunch of questions nobody asks much around here. Like, “Can my crossover be configured to optimize my comfort in the back seat, while our son drives us around with his kids riding in the way back?”

That’s why there’s a Ride & Handling Priority suspension setting for “Rear Comfort.” That’s why the middle-row seats offer no folding/sliding accommodation to allow graceful rear-seat entry and egress for teens/adults. In place of this seemingly de rigueur feature, Tesla fits fussy, motorized inboard armrests that lower to widen the passthrough space between seats.

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This seems an unusually elaborate solution from “the best part is no part” Tesla—a company that has already developed a perfectly useful fold/slide mechanism for its standard-wheelbase Model Y with third row. Ah, but those are developed for a bench seat, and for the customer calling the shots here, only captain’s thrones will do.

Comes One Way: Loaded

Of course, for now the only Model Y L you can get is the fully loaded Launch Series, so perhaps a more American spec that caters to owner drivers carrying three to five offspring in the back will arrive. For now, our editors—those who made the trip between the middle-row seats— were largely unimpressed with the third row’s spaciousness, sun load, and scant visibility out the sides.

Fewer of us got a chance to evaluate the optimized middle-row ride quality, but from the front seat, the slightly longer, retuned body seemed to deliver better ride quality on its 20-inch tires than either the base RWD model (on 18s) or the Performance variant (on 21s). Editorial operations director Mike Floyd went so far as to declare it perhaps the best suspended Tesla he’d driven.

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The numbers suggest that ride quality doesn’t hinder dynamics, with both braking from 60 mph and max-lateral grip eclipsing the Performance model’s on the same surfaces—albeit by just 1 foot and 0.01 g, respectively (at 121 feet and 0.84 g). But that’s impressive, given the L’s 263-pound weight penalty. And with 14 fewer horsepower, it nearly matched the M Y Performance model’s figure-eight performance: 25.3 seconds at 0.79 average g versus 25.1 at 0.80.

Straight-line performance is delivered in a much more grown-up, dignified manner, as demonstrated by the nearly 1-second gap in 0–60 and quarter-mile performance, between the L and Performance variants. The L hits those marks in 4.2 seconds and 12.2 seconds at 119.1 mph, so trust us: The Model Y L will never strike owners on either side of the Pacific as poky.

Not Involving

But then, neither are folks on either shore likely to wax poetic about its steering or brake feel. All three steering-feel levels struck us as varying degrees of mush, while the brake pedal’s resistance during the transition to friction braking feels unnatural. Of course, such sensations don’t figure in at all when utilizing Full Self Driving (Supervised).

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It’s in that pampered situation that one begins to appreciate the fancy (for a Tesla) interior trim combination of light leatherette, gray textiles, and black carpet and plastics, mostly with agreeable glosses and graining. One also notices how much better the view is out the larger, bulged-out rear window.

Of course, merely supervising the drive also affords the opportunity to notice design- and build-quality lapses like excessive road and wind noise, loud HVAC, creaks from the structure, and the fact that the door inner panels flex as the windows go up and down.

Color us eager to sample more mainstream variants of the Model Y L that will hopefully offer seven seatbelts and a 60/40-split folding/sliding middle row bench to ease third-row access. But in the meantime, the Hyundai Ioniq 9 Limited for similar money strikes us as a better-looking, roomier three-row option—which is why it’s our No. 1 ranked Electric 3-Row SUV.