A week ago, we visited the Tesla showroom in West Palm Beach (not in the part of town that is being gold-plated by Stephen Ross, but in a shabby “functional” area that includes Ferrari and Mercedes dealers as well as endless strip malls) to look at the Tesla Y L. Our 11-year-old was immediately sold on both the front and rear screens. He particularly enjoyed being able to adjust the front right seat while sitting in the 2nd row. The power folding 2nd- and 3rd-row seats are kind of cool.
For transporting four people, the luggage capacity is nowhere near what a minivan offers, but is still substantial. With four people plus a dog, though, the 2nd row becomes tight. A 50 lb. Canine-American could perhaps sit between the two 2nd-row seats, but it is nothing like the comfort of being up on the minivan’s 2nd-row bench (ChatGPT says that the Odyssey is about 14″ wider on the 2nd-row bench, at hip level, vs. the Tesla Y (non-L) 2nd-row bench). I’ve always disliked the Tesla interiors, including the seats and especially the “vegan leather”, but the grandma that we brought along pronounced that the 2nd-row Tesla seat was more comfortable than her perch in the Honda Odyssey.
The car is substantially back-ordered. The folks who work in the West Palm Beach showroom, plainly not on commission since they weren’t interested in talking to us, said that they already had 700 customers who had ordered and were waiting. Delivery is now promised (sort of) for January. The Launch edition remains a bad choice for Floridians due to the 10% range penalty from dragging around a useless second motor. Our last snow was in 1977 so the AWD isn’t needed. Acceleration any faster than a 1981 Corvette (0-60 in 9.2 seconds) isn’t required when the roads are jammed (pretty much always, as soon as one gets south of the DJT airport). The staff at the showroom said that the Launch edition was “almost sold out” so perhaps there is hope for a “premium RWD Y L” (there already is a “premium RWD Y” at $4,000 less than the AWD Y and with 357 miles of range vs. 327; the Launch Y L AWD is at 332 miles so a Y L RWD with the same battery should perhaps hit 360 miles of range when brand new?).
We’re in a strange situation, I think, with the self-driving hardware. Tesla says that AI5 won’t be in cars for a while because they need the chips, which Samsung says they’re already fabbing, for “Optimus and our supercomputer clusters.” AI5 seems to have disappeared from the news even faster than Graham Platner, but I am pretty sure that if I (a) wait for the Y L RWD to become available, and (b) order a Y L RWD on the first day of availability that it will be delivered with HW4 exactly one day before Tesla switches all of the cars over to AI5.
I thought we recently understood that you were on track to purchase everyone in the family a renewable gasoline (mother earth will make more!) consuming Corvette ZR1X Minivan (with personal drivers where required)? Are you now considering purchasing a feeble electric car manufactured by a certified Right-wing Nazi Fascist for some crazy reason?
Have you looked at the VW ID Buzz? Lots of space, reasonable quality materials, and available at big discounts because VW totally missed the market and pricing.
Only down side is the range, but with fast charging and compatible with the Tesla charging network, the range should not be an issue.
Pavel: While the prospect of driving a vehicle that is entirely free of any Nazi affiliation (unlike Tesla, with its Nazi founder and CEO) is enticing, VW doesn’t seem to making rapid strides toward making self-driving available to consumers. They do have a partnership with Mobileye, but they seem to have decided to just leave the market to Tesla. I’ve talked to some Buzz owners here in Florida and they don’t like the vehicle, citing the limited range as the #1 problem.
I guess someone likes the ID Buzz because Edmunds shows dealers asking almost $60,000 for a 2025 with 10,000+ miles.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a69838431/volkswagen-id-buzz-2026-model-year-canceled/
philg: with a reported range of just over 200 miles on the highway, how many miles are the Buzz owners in Florida driving?
In Canada a new Buzz is about $65k CAD (~$47k USD) with the $21k CAD discount if you pay cash.
Exciting times as the Gasguzzlerspun finally becomes the Greenspun. Wonder if the new low price of $7/gallon in Calif* pushed him over to the green side.
Thanks, lion, but I think our brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters in Canada will keep pulling up sufficient bitumen sludge to keep gasoline-powered cars going indefinitely. Canadians just hate Mother Earth and produce more CO2 per capita than the (profligate) U.S. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita )
I would be delighted to buy a gas-powered self-driving Honda Odyssey instead of supporting the National Socialist (“Nazi”) party, but Tesla is the only option currently and one is forced into electric if one wants self-driving.
Phil,
I am very interested in the YL also. They seem to have improved it such that it is a lot closer in comfort and practicality to mainstream ICE vehicles. That said, the main and maybe the only reason I would buy it is for the FSD (I am getting up in age and a little assistance would be beneficial). The fact they seem to constantly issue software updates to improve their vehicles is a big plus, and who else offers “dog mode”. Any way, I am still shopping and a bit leery of first production runs.
All the stuff I see about FSD online seems to indicate it is very capable in its latest iteration. Does anybody have experience with it or know of those with experience, to say whether it is very useful or not? Is it an overriding reason to purchase a Tesla?
If you ordered a Y L right now you wouldn’t be getting first production run! It won’t be delivered until February 2027, probably. The same car has been made in China for quite a while (over a year). The parts are shared both with the Y and with the 3.
I’ve written about personal FSD experience.
https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2026/08/23/tesla-fsd-ergonomic-disaster-no-right-footrest-dead-pedal/
https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2026/05/14/tesla-full-self-driving-tackles-the-bikes-pedestrians-and-general-chaos-of-cambridge/
I think it would be able to handle almost any situation in Florida because the roads are generally fairly new/logical. It’s a much less challenging situation than what I saw the May 2026 software handle in Cambridge, MA.
I, for one, gonna boycott Tesla until they ship 7 seat YL (or even better – normal fucking SUV). I already have 3 teslas in the driveway, so upgrading from 5 seats to 6 sits is not enticing enough.
After a two month wait, a coworker just got notified by Lexus that they are starting the build of his GX 550. Should be ready in six months.
If you want a cheap and huge electric from a manufacturer who “totally missed the market and pricing” like Pavel said, check out the Chevrolet BrightDrop. They are being discounted from $80K down to about $40K (after being discontinued). But they are a cargo van, so a bit of modification will be necessary. Truly huge, though.
What’s up with all the waiting these days? It is not just cars, you see this for many other things as well. Need a plumber, electrician, or contractor? Good luck getting an appointment. Buying furniture? You may have to wait. Need a doctor’s appointment? Same thing.
I could go on and on. With all the illegal migrants, shouldn’t there be an abundance of workers, products, and services available on demand? Where is all that supposed extra capacity?
George: Weren’t the waits much worse after the federal government showered the already-prosperous with cash during and just after coronapanic? The panic-buying of boats, cars, computers, houses, etc. seems to be mostly over. Days of inventory for America’s car dealers went from 80 in 2019 to 30 days in 2021 (a historic low) and are now back to about 80 days. Even Porsche right now has 83 days of inventory (https://www.kbb.com/car-news/dealers-see-supply-of-new-cars-tighten/ ).
I just received a regular 7 seat Model Y while my kids are still little. I’ve been massively impressed in the improvements over my 2018 Model S and moreso my 2020 Ford. Feels like leaving the dark ages. The mobile app does everything near instant. Grok was so seamless taking my wife’s 93 year old grandmother to church and the grocery store she is getting one now too.
Wild how well the grok voice interface works.
South Florida Tesla driver here with AWD Model Y and Performance Model 3. We also had a Model 3 SR+ originally, which sold us on Tesla in general (that one was our test bench). I just wanted to say that AWD is not necessary in South Florida, but the handling in wet weather is far above that of a RWD model. I will be unlike to buy anything but AWD for my personal cars in the future (even with the slight range hit). That obvious caveat would be my fleet of Cybercabs… 😉
Bryce; thanks. Isn’t the range hit significant when you consider that the true range of an EV is from 80% down to 20%? Therefore, the loss of 10% EPA range costs about 1/7th of real-world range?