Review of the Basenor Uberturbine wheel covers for the Tesla Model Y with 19" Gemini wheels

This is a Tesla Model Y with the 19"  Gemini wheels and in this video I'm going to review these wheel covers from Basenor. These wheel trims are in the  style of the 21" Uberturbine wheels that you get on the performance model. First off I'll just cover the packaging  because they are packaged particularly well. They're each in their individual boxes and then  they're also in two layers of padding as well. So a sort of a foam liner and a bubble wrap bag and then you also get in this bag a plasti

c tool, the self adhesive foam strip and you stick that around the  inner edge of the wheel trims and you also get some Tesla emblems and as you can see there are a lot, because you get four with the silver logo four with a black logo and four with a red logo. So you can choose which you prefer to  go in the middle of your wheel trim. So you can have that design, that design or that design. My personal preference is that design,  so I'm just going to stick this one on. I'm just going to warm the

adhesive up a little bit with the hot air gun  because it is a cold day today and get any moisture off there and that will  ensure that they stick very well first time and then drop that down in there, give that a good push and these also have  a plastic protective film on them as well. So yeah, there we go and then the next thing is to  stick some foam tape on each wheel and yeah these are cut. So you do  have four individual pieces there and then this just needs sticking around the  inside li

p there, which I'll do off camera. So as you can, see this tape is a little bit  longer than you need, so just stick it all around that outside lip, which I've done and  then just trim it with a pair of scissors. So it ends up like that. The purpose of this tape is to protect  the outside edge of the alloy wheel here, because the original Gemini wheel  trims sit within the lip of the alloy. So this outside edge is exposed. So if you  kerb your wheels, you damage the alloy. Whereas aftermarket wh

eel trims are that little  bit bigger and they go over that aluminium lip. So if you kerb your wheels you're  going to damage the wheel trim which is much cheaper and easier to replace  than getting your wheels refurbished. The Basenor website says that this tape reduces  noise. So I guess that they say that because it's going to stop any rattling of the plastic  wheel trim against the alloy there. Possibly it's to stop them whistling with the wind noise  going through across the side. I'm not s

ure. But anyway, all third party wheel trims follow the  same principle of sticking foam on the inside edge and Basenor also say that these  wheel trims have a 4% efficiency gain over the original Tesla Gemini wheel trim. So that's the whole purpose of a wheel trim, is  to improve the efficiency of the electric vehicle. So before I fit these, what I'm going  to do is take the vehicle out for a run with the original Gemini covers, record the  efficiency of the vehicle on a set circuit, then fit t

hese and then do the same  drive again to see if I can measure that. So I've reset both my trips and I'm  going to drive for about 45 minutes now. I'm not going to have the heating on  but I have preconditioned the car. I didn't want to run the heating just because  that might skew the results more than that 4%. Because as the day warms up the heating might  not be needed as much on the second trip. So I've turned the heating off but  I've got my heated steering wheel on and my heated seat and i

t's 7°C outside today. So this drive is going to be a mixture  of different road types. About half of it is going to be dual carriageways where  it will be at sort of 60 and 70 mph and the rest will be rural A and B roads, where  it's typically going to be sort of 50 mph and then I'll come back, fit the wheel trims and  then go out and repeat exactly the same drive, doing the same speeds and it's also  going to be in the same conditions. So it'll be a very interesting test to see  whether I can

see a difference in efficiency between the original Tesla Gemini wheel  covers and these new Basenor wheel covers. So that's that done. I've  driven 48 minutes, 36 miles. Reset trip A there, used 9 kWh of energy  with an average efficiency of 239 wh/mi. So now let's swap over these wheel trims. So the wheel trims just pull off like this. Just pull it off around each spoke. That came  off relatively easily and you can see there, the clips there, squeezing  either side of the spokes. Whereas the a

ftermarket wheel trims and  generally they all use the same principle, is they have a slightly different clip and  instead they're squeezing between the spokes. So in terms of quality, the Tesla wheel  trims are quite a soft pliable plastic. Whereas these and the majority of  aftermarket wheel trims are the same. They were much harder, more rigid plastic and if I weigh them, the Tesla one is 781 grams and the Basenor one is 909 grams. So when it comes to fitting, you've got  to line up the hole

there with the valve. Make sure that centre hub is snapped in  and there. They're really easy to fit. So how does that look, compared to the Gemini? Well they certainly make the  wheels look an awful lot bigger and also when you look at an angle, through those spokes you can hardly see  any of the silver alloy wheel behind. So I'll crack on and replace those other three. So that's them now fitted and  I think they look really good. So I'm going to go off and  repeat that drive again and see if I

can see a difference with the efficiency. So I've just got back from this drive and  unfortunately the conditions of this drive were slightly different to the previous drive. It was raining and as you probably know, driving on wet tarmac uses more  fuel than driving on dry tarmac and because the glass was misting up, I had to put the air conditioning  on three times during the drive. So let's have a look at what it did,  because if the efficiency is anywhere near the same as the first drive, I

would  say that is a win for the new wheel trims. So we go to trips and again 36 miles,  used 8 kWh with an average of 233 wh/mi. So on the first trip I averaged 4.18  mpkWh and on the second 4.29 mpkh. So even though the conditions were worse,  I saw an improvement in the efficiency, which I was very surprised  and that's nearly that 4%. So clearly these wheel trims are more  efficient than using the original Gemini ones. So what that equates to, is  you're going to get roughly 10-12 miles more

range from a  full battery in the Model Y. So what's my conclusion of  these Basenor wheel trims? Well the whole purpose of a wheel cover on an  electric vehicle is to improve the efficiency. Tesla owners are then changing their  wheel covers to improve the looks, but usually at the cost of efficiency. So when a product can do both better  than the original Tesla cover, then this is obviously a product to get and then with the added benefit  that you can choose what design logo you want in the

middle and you  haven't got to buy additional products and in the future if I get bored with this one, I could knock that one out because there are  holes at the back which will allow you to push the sticker back off and I could  change the emblem to another design. So Basenor did actually send me  these wheel trims free of charge in exchange for an unbiased review on the channel. But I think they look great  and they're staying on the car. Regular viewers of the channel will  know that I recent

ly fitted some other aftermarket wheel trims on this  car, which I'd purchased myself and unfortunately for me Basenor contacted  me only a week after I'd fitted those. But anyway, these are staying on  the car, mainly because that slight efficiency improvement, but also  because they look good of course. I'll put links to these in the video  description below where you can source them on Amazon UK and also Amazon  US and also to the Basenor website. So that will do for this video. If you found

it useful,  please do click the thumbs up. That really does help. Do subscribe to the channel and if you  want to know more about the Tesla Model Y, I'll also put a link to a playlist where you  can see other videos I've made on this car. Okie doke, I'll see you on the next one.