By Gareth Butterfield 
I glanced at the clock on the Tesla Model Y’s huge central screen, and it was 8.30am. Battery remaining: 99%. I was about to set off from the lovely Celtic Manor Resort near Newport with a big day ahead of me.
I’d chosen to stay in this part of South Wales for a few reasons. Firstly, it’s a very lovely hotel, and it has a Tesla Supercharger bank. It’s also a gateway to some absolutely spectacular scenery and driving roads. And I’d borrowed the new Tesla Model Y Performance to go and enjoy them in.
Teslas aren’t usually considered to be drivers’ cars, least of all the bigger, more functional, family-sized Model Y, but it has 460bhp, a 0-60 time of 3.3 seconds, and there have been tweaks to the bushing, damping, and the active suspension.
So it might not have been the traditional chariot for a blast through the Brecon Beacons, not in the way a Porsche 911 presents an obvious case for itself, but at least the numbers stack up.
Before you get to the better roads, from the Celtic Manor Resort, you have to thread your way along some dreary trunk roads, then a few increasingly interesting towns and villages. The Model Y handles this sort of daily grind motoring very well. It’s comfortable, quiet, and fantastically effortless to drive.
It does take a while to get used to the Tesla quirks. The 16″ touchscreen basically hides away controls for everything these days, even windscreen wiper settings, but as frustrating as that can be sometimes, it does make a better job of it than most manufacturers.
There’s still no Android Auto or Apple CarPlay either, but you do get an excellent rendition of Google Maps, and the Telsa app is a lesson in how to interact remotely with your car and all its functions and parameters. It’s basically the best system on the market.
The surprisingly uninspiring town of Merthyr Tydfil is the last concrete outpost before Wales finally surrenders its secrets and you melt into the pretty bits, with the Brecon Beacons fanning out ahead of you. The roads here are absolutely gorgeous and, if you know where to look, it can be heaven for a keen driver.
Taking the Model Y Performance by the scruff of its neck on these twisty mountain roads sounds less of a leap into the unknown than you might think. Yes, it’s heavy, but with all-wheel-drive and that new suspension setup, it feels remarkably sure-footed.
There’s plenty of power in the brakes, the steering is accurate if a little numb, and that huge surge of torque is always ready to propel you out of a corner. For all its bulk, it feels very secure and almost inspires confidence. The sculpted sports seats also have more adjustment in this model, so you’re just left to enjoy the scenery and the car in relative harmony with one another.
A common quirk of Google Maps is it has a tendency to take you down some reasonably inhospitable roads. And the Model Y handles these surprisingly well. Another benefit of the work Tesla has carried out on the driving dynamics is improved damping, and overall the suspension just feels more intelligent. Its adaptive system smooths out the narrow, rutted lanes very well.
And then there’s the efficiency. This doesn’t get talked about enough in electric car evaluations, but on the way down to South Wales, from my home in Derbyshire, the Model Y struggled to top 3.0 miles per kWh, and that’s not very good.
However, in deepest darkest Wales it really came into its own. Even on the twisty, steep mountain roads I was hitting averages above 4.0 miles per kWh. And that improved again as I left the natural playground of the Black Mountains and headed towards Hay-on-Wye for a brief spot of lunch.
It meant I still had plenty of battery power to get me home again, which was impressive, because that was still a fair way away.
One of Tesla’s cleverest attributes is its prediction system. I knew, if I’d taken the scenic route home through Shropshire, I’d arrive at my driveway with 10% remaining. And I also knew, if I’d avoided the main roads, I’d probably see that increase a bit.
The trouble is, regardless of how many miles I do in EVs, I can’t seem to shake off the range anxiety. And 10% just didn’t feel like a wide enough margin. A few detours or a traffic jam would have made the trip back rather nerve-wracking. So I set a destination for a Supercharger stop at Shifnal, near Telford and hit the road again.
Thanks to the sheer speed of the Superchargers, by the time I’d popped in to the services for a wee it had gained plenty of miles, and my new prediction would see me arriving at home with at least 40% left. Much more comfortable.
It’s a fairly pleasant journey back from Telford to Ashbourne, but by no means fast. And it was 5pm when I finally popped it into Park and called it a day.
So I hit the road at 8.30am, drove fairly briskly all morning, stopped for a sandwich in the Wye Valley, took the long way home, and locked the car up at 5pm. It’s as near as dammit a full working day. And there was no reason why the Tesla Model Y Performance wouldn’t have happily done it in one charge, if I hadn’t bottled it in Shropshire.
I ended up covering nearly 300 miles and, I know what you’re going to say, that’s a fair way short of the 360-mile claimed range, but it was a pretty cold day, I wasn’t hanging about for some of it, and I wasn’t holding back on the heating, either.
A long day at the wheel gives you plenty of time to reflect on your chosen steed and, while I could have obviously chosen a more appropriate set of wheels for a stint in the Brecon Beacons, the Model Y Performance was comfortable, fast and actually rather fun. It took every nook and cranny in its stride, never missed a beat, and got me home safely, not feeling anything like I’d just put in a long shift.
As family cars go, it’s faster than it really needs to be, but I love the fact performance versions exist because they make any journey that little bit more thrilling. And, on those Welsh mountain roads, that’s a tall order.
