This is the world's best-selling car - we go on a road trip to find out why

If you think you've noticed a lot of Tesla Model Ys on the road, that's because us Brits just can't get enough of them. We bought almost 33,000 of them in 2024 alone. And that's getting on for double the sales of the next best-selling EV, the Audi Q4 e-tron.

Globally, Tesla's battery-powered sort-of-SUV now sells in the millions. And I've often wondered why.

It's quite expensive, comfortably over the £40,000 "luxury car tax" bracket, and I don't think it's actually very attractive.

Residual values aren't very strong, there aren't many dealerships in the UK, and we're starting to become increasingly disenchanted with the political leanings of the brand's CEO.

Just what is the appeal of this car, then? I thought I'd find out by borrowing one for a few weeks and going on a couple of road trips.

The first thing you learn is that living with a Tesla is made so much easier thanks to the firm's "Supercharger" network. It's not as if the country's littered with them, but they're very strategically placed.

You start to learn where these are and how popular they are when you install the Tesla app and log in.

Lots of cars have accompanying apps now, but the Tesla system is so space-age the app becomes an integral part of the car. There's no key, for example, that's all done on the app.

You want to unlock it? There's a button on the app for that. Turn the lights on? That's in the app. Set the car to defrost itself on an icy morning? In the app.

If you fancy remotely asking your car to conduct a brief sound, light, and motion performance, there's a setting in the app to start that - and you can even "summon" the car to come to you. I kid you not.

The app makes a Tesla feel like you're going to be at the start of a sensory overload but, when you wave your smartphone at the door pillar to unlock it, and you finally slip into the Model Y's comfortable driver's seat, you're met with the world's most minimalist interior.

There are physical buttons in here, if you know where to look, but not really for anything you'd traditionally expect to press.

The gear selector is on a stalk you'd normally expect your wiper controls to be on, and there is an indicator stalk in the current Model Y, but it also controls the wipers.

There are two little dials on the steering wheel that do all sorts of things, and a button to open the door with.

Mercifully, there are physical buttons to control the windows and the horn is a physical control but, alarmingly, I never did work out how to turn on the hazard lights.

As we've come to expect nowadays, all the controls are in a central display. It's the only display in the car, the driver doesn't get one, and it's massive. It's 15.4-inches of everything a driver needs to rely on, from the speed you're driving at to pranking your passengers with a whoopee cushion. I kid you not.

Here's the thing, though. I've just spent the best part of three weeks in a Model Y and it's by far the least angry I've been to have to rely on a touch screen for literally everything.

Tesla has made it work better than any other manufacturer, because it has a simple interface, it's brilliantly thought out, and everything you need is much easier to get to.

Don't get me wrong, it's still an absolutely idiotic way to control things while you're driving, and I wish it would stop, but if you have to use one, use Tesla's.

My weeks in the Model Y were split into three distinct journey types. The bulk of it was what my mother would call "pottering". Running ourselves and friends and family from place to place, getting my wife to work, shopping trips, that sort of thing.

But I also had two road trips in mind. One of which was a solo cruise up to the Pennines and back from my home in the south of Derbyshire, and the other was a weekend away in the Lake District. So, yes, that's two trips clocking up nearly 800 miles in an electric car.

If this had been planned in any other electric car, I'd have been a bit nervous about such an endeavour, but the nice people at Tesla had been kind enough to send me a Model Y Long Range which, on paper at least, can manage 373 miles between charges.

The other factor calming my nerves was the aforementioned Supercharger network. It made both trips a doddle to plan and, spoiler alert: A doddle to conduct.

My Pennines jaunt saw me leaving Ashbourne after work one afternoon and heading up the A1 to a hotel at Scotch Corner, which had a bank of Superchargers.

I arrived, fumbled with the incredibly heavy cable in a snowy car park, sat in the bar waiting for it to top back up, watching the miles climb back up again on the app.

Superchargers are aptly named, some of them can pump out 350kw of power. I never managed to put more than 100kw into the Model Y, despite it having an on-board pre-conditioning system and the promise of up to 220kw charging capacity. But I was never waiting around for long, put it that way.

An early start saw me taking a pleasant road up towards Alston, and then driving through the rest of Cumbria on gorgeous, twisty roads including the breath-taking Hartside Pass.

This isn't really a natural territory for the Model Y. It's obviously quite heavy, the steering lacks feel, and the ride is so firm it's bordering on uncomfortable.

But the car was surprisingly sure-footed, the brakes were fantastic, and while the Long Range version is far from fast, it has plenty of grunt for overtaking.

Firm suspension aside, though, it's wonderfully comfortable, obviously very refined, and the sound system is top notch. So its cabin was a lovely place in which to soak up the scenery.

After a quick lunch stop in the surprisingly forgettable town of Windermere, with plenty of battery left, I started the slow amble through the rest of the Lake District to the next Supercharger.

The one I picked was at a hotel in Penrith, not far off the M6, and it was a perfect stop-off; nice and quiet with just myself and some fellow Tesla drivers providing the only activity.

Tesla's massive screen has no Android Auto or Apple Car Play, but it uses a Google Maps-based navigation system. And this is overlaid with battery stats, so you know roughly how much juice you'll have when you arrive at the charger.

This is such a valuable piece of information. I knew, for example, I'd have plenty left if I stopped at Penrith, but if I'd trotted on to Keele Services I might have been pushing my luck.

Although I didn't manage to milk the full 250kw I was promised from the Penrith chargers, it wasn't a long stop at all. I just sat and watched the expected arrival range clock up to a level I was comfortable with and set off again. No tapping in or out, just plug in, unplug, and off you go again.

The second Lake District expedition was every bit as easy and pleasant. We stopped off at the Preston Supercharger again, because it was just so easy, and all we needed was 10 or 15 minutes each way to keep the numbers in the right direction and comfortably make it back home.

We even had enough battery to sit in a traffic jam on the M6 for half an hour with the heating going and my wife filling the boredom with one of the many games built in to the infotainment system.

Away from the Supercharger network, relying on public charging systems elsewhere, life with an electric car still presents a few too many challenges for my liking. Least of all the costs of public charging.

The infrastructure has improved massively, and it continues to improve, but if you can't charge an electric car at home, I get why you might be hesitant about buying one.

My time with a Tesla left me thinking that, if every electric car charging station worked as well as the Supercharger network, we'd be left with absolutely no arguments against battery-electric vehicles. They're just a game-changer.

It also left me with mixed thoughts about the Model Y. There's so much to like about it, so I get why it's popular. The gadget geek in me loves all the tech that's baked in, even the really daft, pointless stuff, but the firm ride, the slightly clumsy indicators, the numb steering, the annoying door handles, and the reliance on that touch screen left a bitter taste.

Would I buy one though? Could I live with one full time? Actually, I could, yes. I did feel a pang of disappointment when it was collected.

I can't say it's the best electric car I've tested, but there's just so much it does well, and some of its quirks actually grow on you so much that you start to wonder why other manufacturers haven't caught up yet.

My qualms with its looks, its ride, and hopefully a few other foibles are set to be ironed out in a new version, due to land in the UK fairly soon.

It's very much a heavy facelift, rather than a complete rethink, but if it's even just a little bit better than the current Model Y then it's going to be a very appealing car indeed.