Tesla ships first midnight cherry red Model Ys to customers

If you spot a Tesla on the road, it’s likely to be one of five colours. Last year two other colours were announced for the European market. 

Now it seems the darker Midnight Cherry Red coloured Tesla Model Y has been spotted on the back of a truck by Esther Kokkelman on Twitter.

According to Esther, these appear to be the first customer deliveries of Model Ys from the GigaBerlin factory to be delivered to customers. 

The transporter truck in the photo is seen to be carrying three Model Ys, one of which has upgraded black induction wheels.

This is good news as Tesla has plans to offer this multi-layered unique paint like the Midnight Cherry Red in vehicles made in Tesla’s other factories like GigaShanghai and Fremont over the in the near future.

These paint colours have special multiple-layered paint coats that change with the light. 

“From bright highlights to dark tones, our multi-coat paint adds a new dimension that subtly changes with curvature as you walk around your Tesla,” Tesla says on its website:

The Midnight Cherry Red paint is unique but it does come at a significant price. On the configurator, the Midnight Cherry Red appears to be the most expensive paint colour offered on the Model Y, coming in at an additional €3,200.

Previously, Tesla has shown the other unique colour it offers in Europe, known as Quicksilver. Many EVs with this paint were shown off across Europe in November so four months later, vehicles with the second new paint are also on their way to customers. 

That’s a sign of production ramping right up at the Berlin plant. The plant reached the 4,000 weekly EV production milestone last month.

Only last week, Tesla bought new paint for its premium Tesla Model S and Model X vehicles in the US at the Fremont factory. It’s called the new “ultra-red” colour available on these flagship EVs.

This time around, it’s in between the previous multi-coat red and the European-produced Midnight Cherry Red. 

The Driven’s take: Tesla is known to do things differently when it comes to how it manufactures its vehicles compared to legacy automotive companies. One of these key differences is the limited amount of colours a customer can choose. 

Now Tesla is starting to expand its colours at various facilities, we are likely to see more colour options on even Australian roads in the coming years.