Tesla Model Y teardown: everything points to an air suspension to come

The Tesla Model Y teardown is revealing that the new electric SUV is ready to get an air suspension despite CEO Elon Musk saying that it won’t happen.

For Model S and Model X, Tesla developed a “Smart Air Suspension” option, which eventually became standard in both models.

It automatically adjusts the car’s height at different speeds and locations for efficiency and comfort.

When launching the Model 3 in 2017, CEO Elon Musk said that the new suspension would launch six months later with the dual motor version of the car.

But at the time, Tesla ran into a lot of problems ramping up Model 3 production, and a lot of versions of the car were delayed.

In 2018, a Tesla Model 3 with dual motor and air suspension was spotted on a racetrack during testing, but nothing came out of it.

Last summer, Musk confirmed that air suspension wasn’t in the plans for Model 3 “at the time.”

Now a year later, we have seen several new pieces of evidence pointing to Model 3 and Model Y getting ready for an air suspension in the last few months.

A new air suspension part for Model 3 leaked in an update to its parts catalog and an employee of a Tesla collision center posted an image of the 12-volt electrical architecture of the Model Y showing a system for an air suspension.

But despite this new information, Musk says that Tesla is only planning to offer an air suspension for Model S, Model X, and the Cybertruck – for which it is developing a brand new air suspension.

Now with the on-going teardown of the Model Y by car manufacturing expert Sandy Munro, we get even more evidence that Tesla has built the Model Y to have an air suspension.

Last week, Munro believed that he found where the air tank should be mounted and now in a new video, he looked into the suspension in more detail and pointed out several features that show it’s ready for an air suspension:

The manufacturing expert said this about the Model Y’ suspension:

I’m going take a look at this and say – you know what – maybe what we have here is a potential for moving away from a conventional rear suspension and moving toward something like an air or magnetic suspension system.”

However, the Model Y is currently only offered with coil suspension and if we are to believe Musk, Tesla has no plan to offer an air suspension for the new electric SUV.

Electrek’s Take

I am puzzled here. Normally, what Musk says goes when it comes to Tesla products.

Simply talking about an air suspension before it’s ready would affect sales. It could explain why he is saying that, but the way he is talking makes it sound like Model Y would never have one and Tesla is reserving the feature only for more premium vehicles.

Maybe Tesla was planning one at some point and therefore built the Model Y to be ready for both coil and air suspensions, but plans for the latter were later abandoned.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.