While waiting on the delivery of my Model S, one of my first purchases was the Tesla all-weather mats for my Model S. The weather in New England can be brutal and I knew i’d need those soon.
When I took delivery of my Model S I was unimpressed with the factory mats and just put in the all-weather ones and lived with them for a year.
As spring arrived this year and the nasty weather was behind us it was time for a change.
Evannex Mats
Evannex offers a few different types of aftermarket mats custom designed to fit your Model S:
- Lloyd’s Luxe mats
- Rubbertite all-weather mats
- Ultimats
Before picking the mats you want, make sure you start at the selection page to indicate whether your Model S has all-wheel drive (AWD) or rear-wheel drive (RWD). Evannex just introduced mats for the AWD cars which is great to see for those fortunate people that purchased an AWD model.
I’ve been very happy with the Tesla all-weather mats so i’m not sure i’d look at others and the Ultimats seem more along the lines of an incremental improvement over the Tesla factory mats.
The Luxe mats are a completely different story, and while the highest priced of the group, they offer the largest upgrade to the factory mats and the most luxury.
Evannex has a nice comparison table if you’re interested in all the differences between the mat types.
Color Choices
Evannex offers the mats in what they call black, parchment, and grey. My factory mats and the all-weather ones were black, but I went with the parchment ones which match my tan interior.
The thinking on the color choice was that they’ll show less dirt/hair (they do) and will be a brighter/cooler look in the warmer months.
I’m famously terrible with color choices so the family weighed in a lot here and they love the look.
Luxe Mats Install
As you’d expect installing the mats is pretty simple. Evannex offers mats for every area in the Model S including the passenger area, the frunk, the trunk and the rear cargo well.
Evannex is just coming out with an updated mat for the Model D frunk area so make sure you get the right one.
Installing most of the mats is simply a matter of picking the right shape and putting it down.
The mats are meant to be installed directly on the surface, not on top of other mats/coverings.
My only issue with this process was the mat on the driver side. The all-weather mat Tesla had put in for me was secured with two hooks to prevent slipping of the mat in the important driver area. The Evannex mat has similar hooks on the driver side but the hook locations are in a different place. This required unscrewing the Tesla hooks and installing the Evannex hooks. I found installing the driver mat hooks oddly difficult and actually damaged a finger trying to get them to securely connect. I couldn’t find any trick to making these work well and they still don’t seem quite right but the carpet does sit well and looks good and most of the blood is off of it…
I found installing the driver mat hooks oddly difficult.
Later I was pointed to some instructions for installing those fasteners in the “instructions” tab of the mats page on the Evannex Site. I looked in the FAQ but somehow missed that. That technique may help this issue.
The only other odd thing I noticed is for the frunk the longer part that goes in what owners call the “microwave area” is a bit too long so you have to bend it up a bit:
This is a small thing and not very noticeable. My funk can get wet at times and I’m not sure its a good place for carpet so I ended up not using the mats in the frunk and the rear footwell but used them everywhere else.
Reactions
I decided not to tell anyone I had put the mats in and see if people noticed. I got all sorts of very positive reactions:
- “Fancy”
- “Luxurious”
- “Pretty”
- etc.
Everyone has loved the look and feel of the mats. The mats are really comfortable on the feet and feel good with or without shoes. I’ve been doing a lot of longer distance driving on the weekends recently and I found they actually reduced the pressure on my heel and helped me feel more comfortable on the drives.
Summary
A full set of the Evannex Luxe mats will set you back $600, and you’ll have to judge the value of that. They have a great feel, look and work well, and really upgrade the finish of the Model S.
I’ll still swap back to my all-weather ones come the Winter months, but for now i’m driving in comfort and style.
Tesla actually has two different sized all-weather frunk mats for non-D/RWD cars. My older VIN has a frunk 2″ deeper than newer RWD cars. Sounds like Evannex modeled theirs on the older size so it wouldn’t “fall short” in a car like mine.
Interesting! I didn’t know the frunk changed even on the RWD cars. Wonder why they changed it?
I forget what, but they moved something to the first responder area and because of that, the microwave area is two inches smaller.
Almost right. I should have searched before answering. They moved the DC-DC converter to behind the glove box, taking up some of the space in the microwave area. This was so first responders could cut completely through the A-pillar without concern of accidentally hitting the converter / one of its live wires.
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/24387-Tesla-Frunk-mat-doesn-t-fit/page2?p=509436&viewfull=1#post509436
Thanks!