This $12,000 Lift Kit Could Make Your Tesla An Off Road Champ

Screenshot: Pop Up Motor

If you’d told me that someone developed a lift kit for a Tesla Model Y or Model 3, and it jacked that damn battery a full five inches up in the air, I would have figured it had come from Texas or Georgia, or at least California. I never would have expected us weird Americans to get out-hillbillied by the Chinese. Jacking up SUVs and going mudding is our culture, but the engineers at Pu.Labo managed to figure it out before we could. Wow, we used to be a country. A real country.

2024 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 Bison | First Drive

Screenshot: Pop Up Motor

Sure, Mountain Pass Performance will give you a set of pucks for $500 that will get you one and three-quarters of an inch of lift. Sure it’s probably already capable of going farther off road than you ever would even think about, but what’s the fun in that? If something is worth doing, it’s worth over-doing. Let’s go straight to five inches with PU.Labo. Of course there’s not really a website to link to, but you can find an e-mail to request more information on the company’s YouTube page.

Screenshot: Pop Up Motor

How did they actually get five inches of lift? According to Inside EVs, the kit includes new subframes front and rear, a set of adjustable coilovers, new spindle gussets, and a full spate of new extended upper and lower control arms. If everything is engineered properly, this might actually be a pretty robust off-road setup. The team says they have engineered everything to work together after thousands of testing miles, including jumps, sand, and mud.

I’m not sure I’d take a Model 3 or Y to Moab any time soon, but maybe with some test miles of my own, I’d be confident enough. What do you think, would you give it a try?