The Tesla Model Y: Three Trims, 542 Kilometres, and a Manufacturer That Won't Tell You the Horsepower — Rated 7.2/10

Tesla does not assign model years, so there is no 2026 Model Y in the sense other manufacturers mean it. What exists is the car Tesla's Canadian site is selling today, in its facelifted form, and that is what this review covers.

Three trims are offered here. The rear-drive Model Y opens at $49,990, the all-wheel-drive Model Y Premium — which is the trim Tesla previously called Long Range All-Wheel Drive — costs $64,990, and the Model Y Performance $74,990. Unlike Ford, Ram or Toyota, Tesla does not include freight in those numbers: a $2,500 freight and pre-delivery charge is added at checkout, along with a $100 federal air-conditioning tax, a provincial tire levy and, in Ontario, a $22 OMVIC fee. A $49,990 Model Y is closer to $52,600 before tax.

Range is the headline strength and the figures are unusually well corroborated. Tesla quotes 463 kilometres for the rear-drive car, 542 for the Premium and 494 for the Performance, and Natural Resources Canada's independent ratings match all three exactly — a rare case of manufacturer and regulator agreeing to the kilometre. Acceleration runs from 7.2 seconds to 100 km/h in the base car down to 3.5 in the Performance, and peak charging is 175 kilowatts on the rear-drive trim and 250 on the other two, through Tesla's own NACS connector.

Then there is what Tesla does not publish. There is no battery capacity anywhere on the Canadian site, no horsepower figure and no torque figure for any trim. For a review built on manufacturer specifications, that is a conspicuous hole, and it is worth naming plainly: a buyer cannot learn from Tesla how much energy the car stores or how much power it makes. Natural Resources Canada fills part of the gap, listing motor outputs of 220, 296 and 380 kilowatts — roughly 295, 397 and 510 horsepower — but those are the regulator's numbers, not the manufacturer's.

One correction is also required. Tesla's own Canadian specification table prints a 0-to-100 time of 13.5 seconds for the Model Y Performance. That is a typographical error — the configurator, the underlying data and every other Tesla source say 3.5 seconds — and this desk notes it only so readers who spot it are not misled.

The interior is defined by a 16-inch centre screen, with an 8-inch rear display added on the Premium and Performance. Cargo space is generous at 2,118 to 2,138 litres. Canadian buyers should note the seating: every trim sold here is a five-seater, and the third-row option available in the United States is not offered in Canada at any price.

Driver assistance divides into what comes free and what does not. Autopilot is standard and includes traffic-aware cruise control, automatic emergency braking, lane departure avoidance, forward collision warning and blind-spot monitoring. Above it sits Full Self-Driving (Supervised) at $11,000 outright or $99 a month, with Enhanced Autopilot at $7,800 in between. The naming matters: Tesla's Canadian branding includes the word Supervised, and the system requires an attentive driver.

The commercial achievement behind the car is genuine. The Model Y became the first battery-electric vehicle ever to finish a year as the world's best-selling car of any kind, in 2023, and repeated it in 2024 at roughly 1.09 million units, with cumulative deliveries now past four million. Its standing in 2025 is disputed between Tesla and independent trackers, so this desk makes no claim about that year.

A 7.2/10 from the Torbrook Rating Agency reflects a genuinely efficient, well-ranged electric car sold with unusually little published information about what is inside it. The specifications above are Tesla's, except where noted; the score is ours.