Tesla Model Y Is Even Greener Than You Might Think: Sandy Munro Explains

Surprisingly, it all relates to recycling, chrome, and paint.

By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo

May 2, 2020 at 7:56am ET

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Tesla wants to be seen as an environmentally responsible company. Its fans always speak about “the mission,” which would be promoting electric mobility. No other company does that more than Tesla, pushing other companies to follow its steps. Anyway, there’s more to being a green company than just electricity, as Sandy Munro demonstrated in the video above. He names three pieces of evidence for that: chrome, recycling, and paint.

Being the first example, chrome abolishing is the one that takes most of the video. Munro shows the Model Y is the last step towards eliminating chrome from Tesla cars. There is none of that finishing in the Model Y Performance Munro & Associates got. In none of the two electric SUVs units, to be fair. Yes, there is a second one: a blue Model Y, which can also be seen in the video above.

Munro mentions he is not into chrome himself. He also says that chrome is inherently toxic in its manufacturing and that eliminating it from parts makes recycling much more manageable. He then uses some parts of the Model Y to explain why the lack of chrome in them helps recycle these parts more easily.

Gallery: Sandy Munro Model Y Teardown

The engineer also names the use of door modules as something essential to promote recycling. That makes the door much more prone to disassembling, which is vital for people involved with this to chose to dismantle it. Anything that demands a lot of labor demotivates recycling, according to Munro.

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The last part of the video is about the lack of paint in sections where people do not see that. Munro says other companies do that, but not to the extent Tesla does.

When we mentioned this similarity between Tesla and Toyota with the Etios, the idea was to show how a premium car had a lot in common with an entry-level third-world car. Now we know Toyota is also environmentally responsible for skipping paint where no one sees it. The difference is that the Etios paint does not peel or chip easily.

We would love to say the Model Y ended these paint problems that the Model 3 had, but it apparently didn’t. Perhaps after Tesla gives Fremont the “world’s most advanced paint shop,” this will be just a bad memory. We’ll see.