Here’s What That ‘Oil Filter’ On A Model Y Actually Does

The internet is, unsurprisingly, mildly confused about something to do with electric cars. The Tesla Model Y, a vehicle famously devoid of an oil-slurping internal combustion engine, apparently has an oil filter. Electric cars have oil?! Cue the collective head scratching and the frantic searches for “Model Y dipstick location.” 

Does your silent, smug Tesla secretly yearn for the good old days of dino juice and a nice, thick 10W-30? Not quite, thankfully. This isn’t about engine oil, because, well, there’s no actual engine in the way your grandpa understood it. Still, there is a critical, hard-working fluid that needs keeping clean. That’s where this mysterious filter dutifully steps in.

This little canister is actually a gearbox filter, working tirelessly to keep the special oil in your electric drive unit(s) clean from nasty wear particles. Ultimately, with the Tesla Model Y being touted once again as the most American-made car, you just had to figure they’d keep some of that blue-blooded tradition alive with an oil and filter, right? However, it turns out that your Tesla isn’t secretly burning oil, though it is filtering some. So yes, even your futuristic chariot needs a special type of oil and a filter — which is just wonderfully, hilariously ironic in the end, isn’t it?

The component causing all this chatter in your Tesla Model Y — which is often mistakenly called an engine oil filter in less informed corners of the web – is more accurately a gearbox filter or drive unit oil filter. Its mission, should it choose to accept it (and it does), is to maintain the purity of the specialized fluid swishing around inside the electric drive unit’s gearbox. 

Before you ask if this is just a rebranded filter off of a Honda Accord, it’s not. The Tesla official part number for this guardian of gears is commonly 1618882-50-B, with the old part number being superseded. If you’ve got an all-wheel drive Model Y, congratulations, you have two of these filters — one for the front drive unit and one for the rear. Rear-wheel Drive models make do with just one. 

This filter services the reduction gearbox, which takes the electric motor’s insanely high RPMs and translates them into usable speed for the wheels, all while bathing the gears in a special lubricating fluid – sometimes called KAF1 by Tesla or specific Electric Driveline Fluids (EDFs) -– that lubricates, cools, and protects. It’s just another quirk of modern motoring — like new cars that don’t even have dipsticks anymore – your fancy electric car also has oil and a filter that eventually needs changing.

The real job of this oil filter in a Tesla is to act as a bouncer for the gearbox’s lubricating fluid, a role not entirely unlike its engine oil counterparts — though, good luck figuring out where those filters are even manufactured these days, as many oil filters are no longer made in America.

As this specialized oil circulates, doing its slippery dance around the gears and bearings, the filter is there to trap any party crashers. These tiny particles are the natural result of wear and tear from all those meshing gears doing their thing. Keeping this oil clean is super important because, without it, those unwelcome bits would just recirculate, causing more wear, and generally shortening the life of your very expensive drive unit. 

While specific maintenance recommendations for the gearbox fluid and this filter can vary by model and year, the consensus is they need changing, albeit much less frequently than your old gas guzzler’s engine oil. Curiously, Tesla’s owner’s manual for the 2020 to 2024 Model Y neglects to even mention the service, while its service manuals, however, do show techs how to perform it. 

Before you get any bright ideas, however, swapping this filter and fluid is generally not a simple driveway DIY, as it requires special tools and software integration. It’s another reminder that even though EVs slash a lot of traditional maintenance, they still have their own unique, and sometimes surprisingly familiar, needs.