I'd like to start off by saying that we LOVE OUR TESLAS. We are not Tesla haters by any means. We live and breathe them as daily drivers and at the track. With that said let's get to the meat of this argument.

As many of you might already know our tweet on 01/07/23 went a bit viral and is still trending. In September of last year we first noticed that the rear caliper had changed on the Performance Model Y to a Mando with a metal cover plate. This was a bit disconcerting considering we love the performance parts we "think" we are paying for when getting a "Performance Package." We immediately notified some of our brake pad vendors so that they could update their brake pad application list. Some time passed and we had hoped this was just a temporary change to the production line up due to supply chain shortages but then realized it seemed to be a more permanent change when we took delivery of our 2023 Performance Model Y at the end of December. 

We already have a 2020 MYLR and a 2022 MYP that belong to other members of the company and now have added a company owned 2023 MYP to further develop. We brought all 3 into the office to do some comparisons and a quick tear down. It was at this time that we opted to snap some photos, shoot some video, take some measurements, and reveal what is hiding behind the rear covers. Little did we know that not many people were aware of this downgrade and Tesla still markets it as a performance upgrade on their website.

For reference, the front calipers and rotors have always been identical on all trims of Y's so there's no "upgrade" there.  As shown below, the Long Range Silver Brembo is on the left and the Performance Red Brembo is on the right. They are identical minus the color.

Here you can see that both rotors are the same 25mm thickness:

The major upgrade for the Performance trim has always been the rear Brembo caliper and the 2mm thicker rotor with additional venting features. 

You don't even need to remove the caliper cover to see what rear system you have.  You can tell just by looking at the rotor itself. Please see below. Mando on the left and Brembo on the right.  If you look towards the center of the rotor you can see that there's an additional vent on the face side of the rotor associated with the Brembo caliper not to mention a larger frictional surface.

Below is a picture of the brake pad difference between the Rear Brembo calipers versus the Mando Rear Calipers.

We hope this provides a more comprehensive breakdown of what's going on with the changes, post 8/15/22, with the Model Y rear calipers.  Knowledge is power. Do we think that Tesla should swap out our rear brakes for the Brembos?  ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!