The rumours of the Tesla Model Y receiving hospital-grade HEPA filters and Bioweapon Defense Mode were confirmed last week when the Model Y was officially announced in China.
The unique feature was until now only available on the flagship Model S and Model X vehicles. When talking about the additional filters on Twitter, CEO Elon Musk called the HEPA filters “giant”, and so big they couldn’t fit in the Model 3.
Model S & X also have an acid gas filter, an alkaline gas filter & a carbon monoxide detector that autoswitches car to recirc mode. We should prob tell people about this more. Filters are giant, so too big to fit in Model 3.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2018
Now the first picture of the HEPA filter from the made-in-China Model Y has emerged. From the image above you can see Musk wasn’t joking around as it takes up a large portion of the electric SUV’s frunk.
The good news is that according to reports from China, the size the storage space in the Model Y frunk has not been reduced. We can see this appears to the be the case from the image below.
The other good news is the placement of the filter also makes it look like it will be an easy replacement when needed.
Over the weekend we also saw the first image of the feature active on the Model Y in-car display.
Obviously the natural question everyone is going to ask it, retrofit? Based on the image above, and until we see more from what is underneath the filter, we believe it will be very difficult to retrofit existing Model Y’s. This is mostly due to the size and placement of the filter, and the existing equipment in the current Model Y frunk, as seen below.
