If you've ever wondered why Teslas don't have an opening sunroof, Tesla's answer is simple: owners stopped using them. In the latest episode of Jay Leno's Garage, Tesla vice president of vehicle engineering Lars Moravy and chief designer Franz von Holzhausen explained the decision while showing Leno the six-seat Model Y L, Not a Tesla App reported.
Leno brought it up himself, pointing out that his first Model S had a large opening sunroof. According to Tesla, owners tended to use the sunroof "when they maybe first get the car, but then not really." Leno compared it to a hot tub, saying, "It's like a hot tub afterwards." In other words, you use it every day for the first week, then forget it's there, the site reported.
The sunroof also came with downsides. Tesla described it as "a really complicated part that, you know, we see in service quite a bit." It is heavy, it takes a lot of parts to build, and if people aren't using it, it isn't worth the trouble, Not a Tesla App reported.
Instead of a moving panel, Tesla put that effort into its fixed glass roofs. The company said it improved the layers laminated into the glass to reflect heat and sunlight, and to block UVA and UVB rays "like the best sunscreen on the planet." Tesla also added a reflective silver coating to the roof and built antennas into the glass, so there is no antenna sticking out on top.
The Model Y L shows how far that work has come. Tesla says its roof glass reflects up to eight times more solar energy and lets up to 30% less solar heat into the cabin compared with 2024 and earlier Model Y vehicles. Along with HVAC upgrades, that helps the Model Y L gain about seven miles of real-world range in hot weather, the report said. In 2023, Tesla gave the Model S a new high-visibility glass roof that weighed less and let in five times more light, while keeping the same heat and UV protection. The lighter roof also lowered the car's center of gravity.
Future roofs could do more. Earlier this year, Tesla was granted a patent for a perforated glass roof built into the HVAC system. It uses two layers of glass with thousands of tiny holes in the inner layer, letting air from the climate system flow out through the roof while also absorbing road and wind noise, Not a Tesla App reported. Opening sunroofs probably aren't coming back. The useful comparison for owners is not a missing crank window in the roof, but how the current laminated glass performs in heat, UV protection, service visits and, on the Model Y L, those claimed hot-weather range gains.