Prepping the Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck

Tesla jobs keep showing up on wrap shop schedules: color changes, commercial fleet branding, and promo builds. On paper, they look incredibly easy. Smooth panels, almost no badges, very little trim.

In practice, that is exactly why they punish loose prep. On a clean body, a stripe that drifts at a door gap or a logo sitting over a flush handle is the first thing the customer sees. This guide covers how to pick the right GravBase Tesla template, and what it actually takes to get from a free download to a file your RIP software and installer will accept.

Start with the right model and year The year matters more on a Tesla than most people expect. Tesla refreshes styling inside a generation, so a template that is "close enough" will put your bumper graphics in the wrong place. For example, the Model 3 got new front and rear styling for 2024. That is why we explicitly separate the 2024 and 2025 Model 3 templates from earlier years.

Model 3 and Model Y: Big glass, less paint than you think From above, a massive percentage of the Model 3 and Model Y is glass. Most commercial layouts end up entirely on the doors, rear quarters, front fenders, and the hatch.

• Frameless door glass: The top edges of the doors are exposed when the glass drops. Leave enough bleed for the installer to wrap inside the door edge, or a hard cut will show.

• Flush door handles: Keep phone numbers, URLs, and logos far away from the handle area. Plan it as a relief cut, not a billboard.

Cybertruck: Flat planes, hard creases The Cybertruck changes the usual wrap logic. There are almost no compound curves, but every crease is a hard visual break. Typography that crosses a crease looks broken from most viewing angles. Keep each line of copy inside a single flat plane and use the creases as built-in borders.

Free SVG vs. Design-Ready: What your designer has to do The free GravBase template gives you an SVG vector file plus a 300 dpi JPG, drawn at 1:20 scale. It's an accurate base for concepts. But to take it to production, your designer still needs to set up the artboard, add bleed, mark panel seams, and export to the EPS format your RIP expects.

The Design-Ready PDF ($4.99) skips all of that. It includes a vector PDF, a fully editable EPS for your cutter and RIP software, and a 300 dpi JPG—with panel seams, door cuts, and trim breaks already separated and placed.

A simple rule: If your designer's setup time costs your shop more than $4.99, buy the Design-Ready file for production. Use the free file for quoting. Browse all Tesla wrap templates in the GravBase library today to stop guessing on panel gaps.