Autopilot, Aircon, and Asphalt: The Tesla Model Y 2025
It’s summer in Manila and the heat radiating off the asphalt is enough to fry an egg. I’m inching my way southwards on C5—a groaning cement truck on my left and an endless river of puttering motorcycles on my right. It sounds like the quintessential Philippine driving experience, but at this particular moment, my overwhelming feeling is that of gratitude…along with just a tinge of survivor guilt. I’m sitting in a 2025 Tesla Model Y with the autopilot negotiating the road, the seat ventilation cranked all the way up, and YouTube playing on the screen.
I’ve been sitting this way for 30 minutes, and honestly I could probably do another 90.
The politics of its CEO notwithstanding, Tesla’s newest SUV is an outstanding vehicle. The original Model Y was the best-selling car in the world in 2023—out-stripping the legacy gas-powered cars like the Toyota RAV4 and Honda CRV—and this much-anticipated refresh improves on it in a number of ways. The previous generation’s bulbous front fascia has been thoroughly revised with a single minimalistic light bar that stretches across the entire width of the hood. The front treatment is, in fact, so minimalistic that there’s no Tesla logo anywhere on it. The only branding is on the rear: it features the fully-spelled out “TESLA” brand underneath another full-width light bar. Unlike the front though, the rear brake light is recessed in such a way that it casts a red cyberpunk glow on the embossed brand letters. It’s a fascinating design choice. Although pedestrians may not recognize your car as a Tesla when you come up, they definitely will when you drive off.
This minimalism continues with the interiors. There are two screens in total, but only one is where you expect it to be. The dashboard is dominated by a single 15” screen that controls the entire vehicle … and when I say “entire vehicle,” I do mean it. Everything from the drive selector to the glovebox is controlled from this primary screen, and there’s no instrument cluster or heads-up display in front of the driver. The only other screen in the Model Y is located behind the center console, facing the rear passengers. From here, kids can watch Youtube or Netflix, or play some built-in games like Fallout Shelter, or (probably the most common use case) control the rear air conditioning.
Here in the Philippines, the “Launch Edition” 2025 Tesla Model Y began shipping in late April, with a starting price of 2.4M pesos for the rear-wheel drive version. With some upgrades – all-wheel-drive, bigger tires, premium upholstery – that price tag goes up to 3.2M pesos and change.
But it’s the tech that really brings it all together. In bumper-to-bumper traffic, you can press a button and the Model Y will take over for you, nudging the car forwards without your input. It’ll maintain a polite following distance, obey the speed limits, and stick to your lane. It’s far from “full self-driving,” but it goes a long way towards eliminating the most mind-numbing part of the Metro Manila commute.
Meanwhile, you can kick back and entertain yourself with its built-in internet connectivity. The center screen gives you access to a full internet browser and all the standard services: Youtube, Netflix, Facebook, and God help me, even Google Meet. (My personal favorite? TradingView, so I can watch my net worth fall off a cliff in real-time.)
At your destination, the Model Y can park itself automatically; all you need to do is point at the slot you want to occupy. In a large open lot, you can even call the car to come and pick you up, which is useful when carrying heavy groceries or if the weather is uncooperative. It’s a trick worthy of high-tech spy movies, but given that the vast majority of urban parking in the Philippines is underground and impenetrable by GPS, it’ll probably only see limited use here.
There’s currently only one official Tesla dealer in the country—beside Uptown Mall in BGC—but the main reason these things aren’t flying off the shelves is its all-electric drive train. While every Tesla comes with a free wall charger that you can install in your garage, you actually have to have a garage in order to make use of it. If you’re one of the millions living in condominiums and apartment buildings, you’ll have to survive on public chargers in malls and gas stations. That said, there are now over 900 such stations nationwide, with a government-mandated target of 8,000 by 2028, so it’s not as infeasible as it used to be.
Even with less than 1,000km on my Model Y, I’ve already developed some fascinating dependencies. As soon as traffic starts slowing down, I turn on autopilot. When I arrive at the office parking building, I use autopark. I expect the car to be temperature-controlled before I unlock it. I expect it to keep my dogs safe and comfortable in the backseat while I look for the service station restroom. And with each monthly over-the-air software update, I expect it to get a little bit better at all of those things.
All evidence to the contrary, I don’t believe I’m the most entitled car owner in all of Metro Manila, but somehow, Tesla appears to have just built the perfect car for me.
Photos: Tesla