I thought everything was "vegan leather"?!
I've heard conflicting things about that. Two or three Tesla salespeople have told me, in person, that the steering wheel is wrapped in faux ("vegan") leather; however, statements from Tesla corporate, and from Elon Musk, suggest that the steering wheel's wrappings are real animal-based leather. Mostly these statements have come in shareholder calls, where animal-rights groups have gotten in to press Tesla on the issue of leather in their cars. The last I've heard from these (from an event a few months ago), Tesla has offered faux leather alternatives as an "off-menu" option on some cars (presumably the S and X, but maybe not the 3), and is working on replacing animal leather with faux leather on all its steering wheels, but the standard offering is a steering wheel wrapped in animal leather. For years, though, Tesla's seats and other trim items have been faux leather; AFAIK, the steering wheel remains the only thing in current-production Teslas with animal leather. I recall one video of such an event where Musk also offered a caveat that Tesla vehicles use glues which may be animal-based.
I tend to accept what Musk has stated in shareholder calls over what random salespeople say. That said, it's possible that Tesla has made a change recently and without much fanfare.
If you're a vegetarian or a vegan who wants to eliminate leather from your car, AFAIK your only choice today is to go pretty down-scale. IIRC, the lowest-trim version of the Nissan Leaf lacks leather, but when I looked into this a few months ago, every other EV on the market (including every Leaf except the lowest-trim version) has at least a leather-wrapped steering wheel. Most have leather seats, too, at least on higher-trim versions. I haven't looked too closely at non-EVs recently, but a few years ago, leather-wrapped steering wheels were universal in all but the lowest-trim vehicles. It was definitely unavoidable in the 2017 Chevy Volt I leased about three years ago.
