The Model Y is Tesla's first car to use a heat pump instead of electric resistance for interior cabin heating. Some electric vehicles from other manufacturers, including the Nissan Leaf, Renault Zoe, BMW i3 EV, Jaguar I-Pace, Audi e-tron, and Kia Niro, had already implemented heat pumps. In cold weather, the Model Y heat pump can be up to 300% more efficient than other Tesla cars' use of electric resistance heating. Because of this, the Model Y should be more energy efficient than other Tesla cars in cold weather. Electric cars can lose 40% or more of their range in cold weather (at ambient temperatures below 20 °F (−7 °C)) when heating the interior cabin.
During his teardown of the Model Y, auto analyst Sandy Munro found a component that has been referred to as the "octovalve", which appears to be the next iteration of the superbottle component used in the Model 3. Musk has said that the new heat pump system/octovalve is one of the two most significant changes in the Model Y over the Model 3, the other being the new rear underbody casting. The octovalve supports the Model Y heat pump as part of the car's thermal management system.