2026 Tesla Model Y L review: Australian first drive

Tesla customers shopping for a larger vehicle than a Model Y in Australia have been out of luck since the Model X left local showrooms in 2020… until now.

Meet the Tesla Model Y L Premium AWD, a stretched version of Tesla’s best-seller that fits six seats across three rows.

It has the length of a Toyota Kluger, with a taller roof line to unlock more space inside for occupants, but its similar coupe-like styling and small aerodynamic tweaks lend it the longest range in the Model Y line-up at a claimed 681km.

Is it the more spacious Tesla SUV the brand has long needed, or is it a compromised ‘halfway house’ that is not practical enough to properly cater to big families?

Drive was one of a handful of media outlets invited to have an early drive of the Model Y L before deliveries commence in the coming months.

The Tesla Model Y L is sold only in dual-motor, all-wheel-drive Premium Long Range guise, priced from $74,900 plus on-road costs – $6000 more than an equivalent Long Range AWD five-seater, and $16,000 more than the cheapest RWD five-seater.

However, you’re not short-changed on performance or range for that money. This version is capable of zero to 100km/h in five seconds flat, and has a claimed 681km of driving range in European WLTP testing – longer than nearly every other Tesla on sale in Australia.

The Model Y L becomes the cheapest electric car on sale in Australia with more than five seats, ahead of the Volkswagen ID. Buzz Pro LWB people mover ($80,990 plus on-roads), Denza D9 people mover ($85,990), Mercedes-Benz EQB250+ SUV ($90,000), and Kia EV9 SUV (from $97,000).

All of those cars are seven-seaters (albeit tight in the third row in the case of the EQB) – a layout the Tesla does not offer, as the gap between its second-row seats is how passengers access the third row.

Model Y L buyers get a long list of equipment for the money, which helps justify the price premium.

Additions over a five-seat Model Y Long Range include unique 19-inch wheels, adaptive suspension (previously exclusive to the Performance), second-row captain’s chairs with power adjustment/folding, heating, and ventilation, power second-row armrests, and heated power-folding third-row seats.

It also scores unique front seats with adjustable under-thigh extensions, an 18-speaker sound system (up from 15 speakers), ventilation for the wireless phone chargers (now 50 watts on the driver’s side), and in a Tesla Australia first, vehicle-to-load tech to power external electrical devices.

Features shared with five-seat versions include matrix LED headlights, a 16-inch touchscreen with navigation and music/video streaming, an 8.0-inch rear touchscreen, power-adjustable heated and ventilated front seats, leather-look upholstery, and a glass roof.

There’s also dual-zone climate control, ambient interior lighting, a hands-free power tailgate, keyless entry through the phone app, and a suite of advanced safety features.

The big news inside the Model Y L is, unsurprisingly, behind the front seats (though there have been changes there too, which I’ll get to shortly).

Open the rear doors and you’ll find a pair of captain’s chairs, with power adjustment, power folding, heating, ventilation, ISOFIX and top-tether anchors for child seats, and even power-operated inside armrests that pop out from the seats.

The pews themselves are comfortable and supportive – certainly more so than a regular Model Y’s five-seat bench – but they can only be adjusted for fore/aft, and backrest angle, so taller passengers will find them lacking in under-thigh support. Legroom is very generous, however.

The armrests, while a neat touch, are quite small and mounted towards the front of the seat, so they don’t support the elbows of long-armed occupants all that well.

An 8.0-inch rear touchscreen is borrowed from the regular Model Y, with controls for the fan speed and direction, and cabin audio, plus the ability to play games and stream videos. Two USB-C ports sit below the screen, plus two retractable cupholders.

In most three-row SUVs, the second row folds and tumbles forward, or just tilts, to access the rear-most seats.

The Model Y L’s second-row captain’s chairs fold flat (electrically), but the single-piece backrests mean they can’t slide far forward without hitting the front seats, and there’s no way to tilt the bases out of the way. Trying to climb over them is not particularly graceful.

The easiest way to access the third row is by clambering over the second-row seats and walking between them. It’s a tight squeeze, especially for adults – a byproduct of the narrow body by seven-seater standards – and not as easy as true seven-seat alternatives.

Once in the third row, you’ll find it is a space best reserved for teenagers or kids. It is possible to seat three six-foot (183cm) adults in a row – one up front, one in the second row, one in the third row – but anyone taller will struggle to fit under the sloping glass in the rear-most seats.

Under-thigh support is also limited in the third row, as the floor is high – there’s a step up to it from the second row – but it will work well for kids, teenagers, or shorter adults, as well as families looking to fit child seats in row two while retaining a passthrough to the third row.

The big miss, however, is the apparent lack of any UV tinting on the rear glass, unlike the panes above the other two rows of seats. On a 40-degree Australian summer’s day, we anticipate passengers in the rear-most seats will need to wear a hat. It’s a surprising omission, given the rear glass is new for the Model Y L.

The third row is very well equipped, however. It’s great to see airbags back there, as well as ISOFIX and top-tether anchors for child seats – surprisingly uncommon in three-row cars – plus air vents, cupholders, two USB-C ports, and even heating.

In short, the Model Y L is compromised as a three-row SUV, but fold down the seats – operated electrically in the second and third rows – and a massive load area is unlocked.

Tesla quotes 420 litres behind the third row, though we suspect that is measured to the glass, not the top of the seatbacks, as is the common standard. It is roomy enough for small suitcases and school bags, before you consider the expansive under-floor storage area that can fit another carry-on suitcase – and the generous under-bonnet storage, with a drain plug.

A power tailgate with a hands-free function (operated by detecting your smartphone in close proximity) is standard, plus storage cubbies on either side of the main load area.

The first row of the Model Y L is similar to the regular version, with few physical controls, a minimalist dashboard layout, and a 16-inch touchscreen housing most vehicle functions.

Exclusive to the six-seater are new front seats, which deliver good support and reasonable comfort on long drives, helped by the addition of extendable under-thigh cushions to its roster of 14-way driver/10-way passenger power adjustment, heating, and ventilation.

Option the L’s Zen Grey interior and Tesla will trim the door grabs and centre console in light grey synthetic leather material, which helps brighten the cabin, but we suspect will be prone to marks and stains over years of ownership with young kids.

Soft-touch materials are used in most places you touch, and perceived build quality is good. However, the synthetic leather finish on the sides of the centre console doesn’t feel as plush as in a regular Model Y.

Storage is excellent – with a deep box in the centre console, and roomy door pockets, though the glovebox is small – and it’s well equipped, with ambient lighting, a heated steering wheel, dual-zone climate control, and a USB-C port under the centre armrest.

The dual wireless phone chargers are now ventilated, with the driver’s side charger upgraded to a 50-watt output (the passenger’s charger remains 30W).

The gear selector on the screen takes some getting used to, but it’s helped by ‘Auto Shift’ software that monitors the car’s movements at low speeds – such as a three-point turn – and preloads gear shifts.

The Model Y L launches with the same display in all other Model Y variants for 2026, a 16-inch touchscreen that, as is the way with Tesla, hosts the vast majority of the vehicle’s functions, from complex settings to basics such as the air temperature.

It takes time to master the ins and outs of the system – the learning curve is steep – and we'd still like a few buttons and dials, but much like buying a new smartphone or laptop, after the first few days of ownership it all becomes second nature.

The software running on the display is not too difficult to navigate – key functions are never more than a tap or two away, not something that can be said for some Chinese EV rivals – and it is backed by a powerful processor that cuts response times.

A search function is on hand to make finding settings easier, plus voice control – now powered by Elon Musk’s Grok AI – and customisable shortcut buttons on the steering wheel. The software improves with time through over-the-air updates akin to your smartphone.

Android Auto and (for now) Apple CarPlay are absent, but Tesla fills the gap with music streaming through Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal, video streaming via YouTube, and FM and digital DAB radio bands.

The in-built navigation is powered by Google Maps, and offers a trip routing capability that will direct you past charging stations and accurately predict how much charge the car will have left on arrival.

There is no head-up display nor instrument cluster ahead of the driver, rather, it projects speed onto the central display. It takes some getting used to, but I’ve found it becomes easier the longer you spend in the car.

Tesla’s phone app is among the best in the industry, offering control of the car’s locks, lights and horn, remote location tracking, pre-heating or cooling of the cabin, and a phone-as-a-key function that lets you leave the fussy keycard that comes with the car at home.

The Tesla Model Y L is covered by a five-star ANCAP safety rating, newly expanded from the regular five-seat version.

It uses many of the five-seater’s crash tests, but additional documentation has been supplied by Tesla to ANCAP – as well as new whiplash and child-seat fit testing for the restyled seats conducted – to carry the rating across.

As a result, the scores of 91 per cent for adult occupant protection, 95 per cent for child occupant protection, 86 per cent for vulnerable road user protection, and 92 per cent for safety assist technology are retained.

The Model Y L ticks most of the boxes expected of a new car when it comes to safety technology.

The exception is the lack of a true top-down, 360-degree monitor view, which Tesla omits from its cars in favour of front, side, and rear camera feeds, and a 3D visualisation of what’s around the car.

There are also no ultrasonic parking sensors. Instead, the car uses cameras to judge the distance to obstacles. It is reliable in dry weather, but our previous testing of new Model Ys suggests the cameras are prone to confusion in the wet.

The other driver-assistance systems in the Model Y L’s arsenal – also powered by cameras – work well, without annoyance or aggressively cutting in on the driver to override what the car might deem an unsafe action.

Standard in the Model Y L is adaptive cruise control and lane-centring assist technology for highway use, which works well but, in the former’s case, can slow down too aggressively in corners.

Buyers can pay extra – $149/month or, until 31 March 2026, $10,100 outright – for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Supervised software, which allows the car to drive itself with minimal human input, but a human’s constant supervision.

It wasn’t fitted to this vehicle, but earlier testing of the technology has found it exceptionally capable in real-world scenarios, if prone to occasional mistakes.

The Tesla Model Y L is covered by the brand’s new five-year/unlimited-kilometre vehicle warranty, accompanied by a eight-year/192,000km warranty on the battery pack, which certifies that at least 70 per cent of the battery’s original capacity will be left after that period.

Tesla does not quote a traditional time- or distance-based servicing schedule for its cars, instead quoting “condition-based” maintenance, where the car tells you when it detects a problem that requires fixing.

The brand’s website does list a series of recommended service items, at least for regular Model Y examples:

• Every 10,000km, or if tread depth difference is 1.5mm or more: Rotate the tyres
• Every two years: Replace cabin filter (a new one costs $35)
• Every three years: Replace the HEPA filter and carbon filter
• Every four years: Check brake fluid health, and replace if needed

A number of these items can be inspected and carried out at your home or workplace by a mobile Tesla technician, rather than needing to visit a service centre.

If driving range is a priority, the six-seater is the Model Y to have. The brand claims 681km in European WLTP lab testing – up from a quoted 600km for the five-seat Model Y Long Range (a figure tested on larger 20-inch wheels).

It is partly thanks to better aerodynamics. Despite being larger, the longer roof line and new rear-end styling allow the Model Y L to have a lower coefficient of drag than its regular sibling, cutting a cleaner hole through the air.

The other half of the story is a larger battery pack. Tesla does not publish the battery capacity of its cars, but European homologation data – which is expected to match Australia – points to an 88.2kWh gross capacity.

About 85kWh of that is usable, according to Chinese owners who have plugged data loggers into their cars. It compares to 84.8kWh gross and about 82kWh usable in the five-seat Model Y Long Range, according to the same data sources.

On our brief initial drive, energy consumption mirrored earlier testing of the five-seat Long Range, ranging from as low as 13 kilowatt-hours per 100km around town, to 18kWh/100km or more in demanding driving, equating to real-world ranges of about 650km and 470km, respectively.

Broadly speaking, it’s about as efficient as a regular five-seat Model Y Long Range.

DC fast-charging is capped at the same 250kW as the regular Model Y Long Range, suggesting the 10 to 80 per cent recharge time will be similar or slightly slower than the five-seater, which Drive has previously tested at about 33 minutes.

AC charging is rated at 11kW, like all other Model Ys, but the L is the first Tesla sold in Australia to offer vehicle-to-load (V2L) technology, which allows the car’s battery to power external electrical devices and even other electric cars.

It can supply up to 3.3kW, and runs until the battery’s state of charge drops to 10 per cent. An official Tesla adapter, which was not available for Drive to test on this occasion, is required to enable V2L.

Much the same as a regular Model Y, which is no bad thing.

Given the forward section of the L is identical to a regular Model Y – including the width of the car, and the driving position – it’s just as approachable and easy to place on the road, and it never feels unwieldy in day-to-day driving.

Only when you come to park the car – or make a tight turn into a laneway or car park – is the longer bodywork and even broader turning circle (12.5m vs 12.1m) felt.

A broad suite of high-resolution parking cameras helps with that, as does much-improved rear visibility through the larger rear window – a sore point for regular Model Y owners. Forward visibility is as good as ever; the bonnet dropping away in front of you.

About 100kg of extra weight makes the Model Y L fractionally slower than its five-seat sibling, but a quoted 0–100km/h time of 5.0 seconds means it is no slouch.

It will snap occupants into the back of their seats when the accelerator pedal is floored, though in gentle driving it’s responsive to small inputs and not too difficult to modulate in traffic. Overtaking performance is excellent for a three-row SUV.

If you’ve driven a Tesla before, the Model Y L will be familiar.

The steering is ultra-quick, so it takes some adjustment, but once that’s happened it lends this massive SUV a surprising sense of agility at all speeds – if not quite as nimble as the five-seat version.

The brake pedal is stiff – which won’t be to all tastes – but it isn’t needed often, as the car will automatically slow to a stop when lifting off the accelerator pedal. There’s a choice of Standard and Reduced modes to vary how quickly that happens, and both are smoothly tuned.

A longer wheelbase helps the six-seater deliver a more supple ride. There is still a taut, sporty edge to the way it soaks up bumps, and particularly rough road surfaces can jostle occupants, but it deals with big bumps with ample comfort for a large family SUV.

Tesla has fitted adaptive suspension, with a choice of Balanced (a blend of comfort/handling for all passengers) and Rear Comfort (more plush) modes.

From the driver's seat, differences between them are only noticeable on a country road, where Rear Comfort does not feel quite as controlled and ‘glued to the road’ over wavy, undulating tarmac than Balanced, but it is a small difference.

The ride is not perfect. There's moderate noise from the suspension over sharp bumps – into which the wheels can clunk harshly – and mid-corner bumps can upset the car’s composure.

Also worth noting is a little too much wallow from the rear of the car over particularly poorly-surfaced country roads – such that carsickness-prone passengers should ensure they look ahead – but it is no deal-breaker.

Few customers are likely to seek out winding roads in their Model Y L, but the quick steering, decent grip from the Continental ‘eco’ tyres, and all-wheel drive mean this six-seater can be driven surprisingly quickly through corners, though the car's stability systems are quick to intrude.

Tyre roar and wind noise are well isolated, as with the regular version of the latest Model Y.

The Model Y L is rated to tow the same masses as the regular version, at 750kg unbraked and 1588kg braked (3500 pounds, if you’re wondering why it’s not a round number).

Tesla has increased the payload to cater for the additional seat (only by 52kg) to 563kg.

It means that whereas the regular Model Y can carry five 100kg adult passengers without breaching its gross vehicle mass – the maximum legal weight of the vehicle with occupants, cargo, and accessories – the L can’t quite carry six people of the same mass.

Still, 563kg is enough for six average male adults (at 87kg each), and two large suitcases in the boot.

The Tesla Model Y L may find its greatest appeal with buyers who don’t really need a third row of seats.

If you like the style, features, technology, and driving experience of the regular Model Y, but just want the luxury of more space – whether that’s a bigger boot with the seats folded, or for tall teenagers to stretch out in the second row – the L will hit the bullseye.

That it has the longest range of any Tesla SUV on sale, and is better equipped than a normal Model Y – with equipment that helps justify the $6000 price premium – are the cherries on top of a package that, in five-seat guise, is among the best electric family SUVs on sale.

If you’re after a true three-row family vehicle to replace a Toyota Kluger or Hyundai Santa Fe – with usable space for seven – the Model Y L falls a little short.

The third row is too tight, and access too clunky, for the convenience of one additional seat, in our view.

We feel a three-seat second-row bench that can tilt and tumble for easier third-row access under a flatter roof line would have made the proposition more appealing for big families looking to use every seat.

If that doesn’t sound like you, the Model Y L is a worthwhile addition to the Tesla line-up that offers a package its growing Chinese rivals can’t match.

Alex Misoyannis has been writing about cars since 2017, when he started his own website, Redline. He contributed for Drive in 2018, before joining CarAdvice in 2019, becoming a regular contributing journalist within the news team in 2020. Cars have played a central role throughout Alex’s life, from flicking through car magazines at a young age, to growing up around performance vehicles in a car-loving family. Highly Commended - Young Writer of the Year 2024 (Under 30) Rising Star Journalist, 2024 Winner Scoop of The Year - 2024 Winner

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