Have you ever been in a presentation in which something entirely secondary drove your attention more than the main one? You are probably thinking of an attractive or weird host or something of the sort, but we had that feeling with the latest video of the Munro & Associates Tesla Model Y teardown process. And it relates to the electric CUV's windshield.
With most of the body components already removed, Sandy Munro was explaining the role of the PDC, short for Power Distribution Center. It is the part that helped eliminate the standard alternator in this electric vehicle. But check out the windshield: why does it have that weird shape?
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You would imagine its base would be straight, parallel to the frunk line, but part of it goes below that line, more on the right side of the car. With that, the windshield does not have a rectangular shape but looks more like an uneven pentagon.
What is the reason for the windshield to be like this? Considering the image below, it seems it was designed to allow the windshield wipers to retract well below the frunk lid. Won’t that make more water get under the frunk as well?
Another thing that makes us think about this weird windshield is that it will have to be different for RHD and LHD cars. The Model Y has a bigger windshield wiper on the left side and a smaller one on the right.
In a vehicle with a conventional windshield, it would be necessary to put the bigger one on the right side for RHD countries, but that would involve just the wiper motors and the wipers themselves.
Gallery: Sandy Munro Model Y Teardown
In the Model Y’s case, the windshield will have to extend further under the frunk lid on the opposite side. In other words, it will have to be more prominent on the left side of the car rather than on the right one, as it is on the current LHD Model Y.
If that need of different windshields for LHD and RHD markets is confirmed, Tesla will lose the advantage of an interchangeable windshield for all situations. That may also have an impact on the windshield price: it is more complex and will have a lower production scale. That means it will cost more.
Munro did not say a word about the windshield on the video above. He talked about the PDC, about how nice it would be if Tesla adopted a 48V system instead of the 12V the Model Y currently uses, and he also mentioned the ADAS V3, which you know more as HW 3.0.
We believe other members of his team will take care of disassembling these pieces of equipment and giving us more information on them. We hope that Munro also makes a video to discuss the sidenote that became the central aspect of this article – for good reasons.