Tesla Model Y Project Juniper Rumor Roundup - Production Set to Begin Next Month

@DominicBRNKMN on X

Tesla’s Model Y refresh - codenamed Juniper - is the source of a lot of rumors. It is also one of the most hotly anticipated vehicle refreshes ever. Given that it’s been the best-selling vehicle globally for several years now, this should come as no surprise.

We’ve seen a lot of leaks of Juniper’s new front and rear lightbars. We’ve also made a wishlist of features we’d love to see for the Model Y refresh. It’s certainly going to be something special that will cause the Model Y to dominate sales charts globally.

We did some investigation into all the different things we’ve heard recently - and we’ll give you our take. We spent some time diving deep into some of the Chinese sources that reported all of these different details, so we’re hoping to get as close as possible to the truth.

Production Starting in January

LatePost, a media outlet from Shanghai, recently reported on the departure of Song Gang, director of Tesla’s Shanghai factory. This report said that the Model Y Juniper would go into production next month — January 2025.

This seems in line with previous news we’ve heard - namely that Giga Shanghai was reducing Model Y production capacity to run a prototype line of the Model Y. It seems that Giga Shanghai won’t need as much time to retool as with the Model 3 Highland, as Highland and Juniper likely share many similarities.

Additionally, this matches the same timeline for the Model 3 Highland’s launch, where Tesla launched it in China first and then later launched it in Europe and North America once Giga Shanghai worked out all the kinks in production. While the Highland 3 began shipping in October 2023, we feel like we can expect the first ship date for the Juniper Y to begin sometime in Q1.

Front and Rear Lightbar

This is one of the most credible rumors we’ve seen - and it makes sense. We’ve seen photos of the Model Y Juniper that’s covered up, and most of them have front and rear lightbars - or what looks like lightbars, anyway. We’re pretty sure the vehicle will arrive with lightbars on both ends, and it’ll be just as visually striking as the Cybertruck and Cybercab.

We love Tesla’s lean into the Cyber aesthetic, especially given the slick new style of the Cybercab that was shown off at this year’s We, Robot. Given the Model Y is more of a mass-market vehicle that needs to appeal to everyone, we’re sure that Tesla is going to strike a fine balance between futuristic and modern. It’ll definitely be a vehicle that turns heads.

❗️JUNIPER SPOTTED TESTING IN RAIN pic.twitter.com/odWwhlHICZ

— DennisCW | wen juniper (@DennisCW_) December 16, 2024

Performance Upgrades

We’ve also heard plenty of stuff on performance upgrades, which are also likely to be true. The Model 3 Highland saw a fairly big boost in performance, even for the Rear Wheel Drive and Long Range Variants. The Performance variant saw a ludicrous uplift, and we’re hoping to see the same pan out for Juniper.

4th Gen Motors

Some reports have mentioned that Tesla will introduce a fourth-gen motor with Juniper - but we think this is relatively unlikely. The Model 3 Highland and the Model Y Juniper are expected to share many parts, and the motors will likely be one of them. 

This similarity in parts helps Tesla scale and offer cheaper prices to customers around the world. Changing to a new motor would eliminate one of the biggest advantages provided by having Model 3 and Model Y production in the same facility.

We’d instead expect any motor improvements to launch quietly, similar to how Tesla normally does under-the-hood hardware changes. We’ll see a number updated on their site, and until the first vehicle ships with a new motor, we won’t even know it's there.

95kWh Battery

We’re not sure that any version of a Model Y will get a 95kWh battery. The Long Range variant currently ships with a 75kWh battery, with a range of approximately 310 miles. A 95kWh battery could potentially push that range closer to 350-375 miles, but we’d see diminishing returns from the additional weight.

Instead, we could potentially see Tesla using the new Cybercell or one of its new battery variants that it has been exploring - either the CATL 6M packs that we’ve heard about or one of the new and mysterious NC20 cells. We did mention that we don’t believe Tesla will shift to new motors, but Tesla has previously shipped the Model Y with 4680 cells, so we could potentially see them shipping the Juniper Y with a different battery other than the current 2170 packs in the Model 3.

However, Tesla is still focusing on scaling the Cybercell at Giga Texas for the Cybertruck, and they’ve previously mentioned that they don’t want to take away production from the Cybertruck’s line to use the cell in the Tesla Semi - which is still running on the older 2170 cell. As such, its likely the Juniper will ship using the same 2170 or LFP packs that the Model 3 Highland currently utilizes.

A Juniper concept from @DominicBRNKMN on X

@DominicBRNKMN on X

Bigger, Better, Tiltable Screen

Another set of reports mentioned that Juniper would receive a larger screen with a higher resolution and the ability to tilt — very similar to the Model S and Model X. Consider this one to unlikely. Tesla has previously said they want to simplify parts of the vehicle that people don’t use - and the Cybertruck, Tesla’s current flagship vehicle, shipped with the biggest display to date and didn’t include the ability to tilt the screen.

Using the same argument earlier on the parts compatibility between the Highland and Juniper, we fully expect the refreshed Model Y to arrive with the same screen as the Model 3 Highland, but we’d be happy to be surprised.

6 Seater Variant

LatePost’s report also mentioned that a 6-seat variant of the Model Y would begin production in late 2025. This lines up smoothly with Reuters’ report on the 6-seat variant, which could potentially be exclusive to China. Reuters mentioned that the 7-seat Model Y was fairly unpopular in China, as the third row was cramped, although Chinese families liked the idea of having at least 6 seats.

We’d expect this 6-seat variant to launch in late 2025, sometime after the expected Late Spring/Early Summer launch of the Juniper’s performance variant.

That’s everything we know about the Model Y Juniper so far. In short, production could start as early as next month, with front and rear lightbars, performance upgrades, and a 6-seat variant later down the line. We wouldn’t expect new generation motors, a different battery, or even a fancier screen.

Be sure to check out our full wishlist of features we’d love to see in Juniper.

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Tesla Introduces Year-End Energy Awards to the Tesla App – Are FSD Awards Next?

Alex Guichet

If you have a Tesla Powerwall or Tesla Solar installed, Tesla rolled out a new feature in the Tesla app that gives you a great overview of your past year with Tesla Energy. The feature highlights how you and your home benefited from Tesla Energy by displaying various statistics and giving you an award based on your system’s activity, but it looks like this may soon apply to more than just Tesla Energy.

Tesla Energy

Tesla calls this year-end-recap Tesla Recharged - kind of similar to Spotify’s Unwrapped annual recap. And that is really what it is - it’s a look back at how your Tesla Energy system performed over the course of 2024.

Recharged shows you how often you were Self-Powered, how much energy you saved, how much solar was generated, and how much your solar system offset your grid usage. It also lets you compare how many times you went off the grid in comparison to other users.

It’ll list the day of your longest outage and how many outages you had. It’ll also show the number of times your Tesla Powerwall went into Storm Watch - and the hours of protection you had. There’s also a lot more, including the total amount of energy stored, your month with the highest solar generation, the month with the most money saved, and when your average peak load times. It’s a lot of information presented in a neat package, and we’d love to see more of this type of stuff in the Tesla app.

Awards - Trophies

Not a Tesla App

The final item is the trophies. Your Tesla Energy archetype is listed - and going off-grid was called “the party trick,” according to Alex Guichet. The archetype he won was Trickster - but he didn’t say how many archetypes there are. In addition to Trickster, we’ve seen archetypes of Solar Punk, which is awarded to high levels of energy generation, and Team Player, given out to Virtual Power Plant leaders.

The trophy characterizes your use of Tesla’s Energy features, so let us know what trophies you got! We’d love to see all the unique archetypes.

These stats are so cool!! Here is ours! https://t.co/XfPF243ire pic.twitter.com/oJhjwyyfC3

— TeslaFamOnBoard - Jose Negron⚡️🚙🇵🇷 (@TeslaFamOnBoard) December 20, 2024

FSD Awards Coming?

Yun-Ta Tsai, a member of Tesla’s FSD Engineering Team, mentioned that Tesla should do this for FSD miles driven, too - and Alex agreed. There’s a good chance that we may get a Tesla FSD wrap-up next year.

We’d love to see the number of miles driven on FSD versus regular driving, and be able to compare how often you used it versus other users. It would be a really cool way to let the community compete on FSD miles.

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Tesla Is Adding 'Weather Radar' to Intel Vehicles [VIDEO]

Not a Tesla App

When the 2024 Tesla Holiday Update originally launched, they introduced awesome new features, but unfortunately, one of the most exciting, the weather radar, was only available for vehicles with the AMD Ryzen processor (MCU 3).

Intel-based vehicles didn’t receive the precipitation maps at all and instead only had access to the Weather at Destination feature. However, we’re excited to report that Tesla has now released a version of the weather radar overlay that’s compatible with Model 3 and Model Y Intel vehicles.

Intel Precipitation Maps

It sounds like Tesla needed to optimize the precipitation map for Intel vehicles, which feature a slower CPU. We received this news from a follower who reached out after finding his Intel-based Model 3 in Norway had the ability to see the new weather map with update 2024.44.25.3.

This update began rolling out just recently and was originally seen as a bugfix update. In the release notes for the update, Tesla lists all of the Holiday features again, making it easy to miss the new ‘Precipitation Map and Weather at Destination’ feature.

While we thought the radar overlay feature may be reduced in some fashion for Intel cars, this isn’t the case. This update brings the maps in their full capacity to Intel, with no reduction in features. The animated overlay, showcasing the last three hours of precipitation, is available in the same way as AMD vehicles.

The precipitation icon shows up at the far right side of the screen, right next to the Superchargers icon.

You’re also able to zoom out or swipe to view the radar anywhere you like or zoom in to be more precise. You can also use it while driving. However, the overlay is pretty distracting, so it can make it confusing if you’re trying to figure out where to go.

The last two key points for the new precipitation maps are that if you have Points of Interest (POIs) enabled, the precipitation overlay will hide them - except for Charging POIs. You’ll also need Premium Connectivity to take advantage of this feature - even if you’re connected to Wi-Fi via a hotspot.

If you’d like to see the weather radar in action or learn about all the smaller features Tesla added, be sure to check out our in-depth review of the new weather features.

Video

Here is a video of the weather radar feature running on an Intel Atom car.

In case you missed this, Tesla's Weather Radar feature is now available on Intel Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.

Detailshttps://t.co/3w2Z8OVXaC

Video below of the weather radar running on Intel: pic.twitter.com/kecXkoxueV

— Not a Tesla App (@NotATeslaApp) December 20, 2024

We’re excited to see this feature drop for Intel-based vehicles, as Tesla is still committed to supporting them and finding new ways to optimize features on the older hardware. We’re hoping some of the other features arrive on Intel as well, including the new Parked screen and updated full-screen Autopilot visualizations outside of North America.

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