Like many others in "front plate required" states, I've been back and forth about how I plan to handle the front plate mount. My initial gut was to just leave the front plate off altogether, but my wife's been hassled by the police for license plate issues on my previous car, so I've been "strongly urged"
to come up with a legal solution.
I really dislike the Tesla-supplied adhesive plate mount. It breaks up the unique front fascia- one of the sexier (IMO) features of the car, and it seems like it would be difficult to clean around. I've looked at a couple of the different louver-attach solutions, but I've had bad experiences with people wrecking my front plates before when "parallel parking by Braille", and I don't want to find out the hard way how resilient those louvers are. I'm not opposed to drilling into the car/bumper, so long as the holes aren't readily visible. This led me to the Sto 'n Sho SNS145 - it appears to be a long-time choice of the car show crowd, since it allows for easy removal of the plate and bracket for cleaning/display. I have no affiliation with this manufacturer/reseller, just liking what I got...
Pros
Finished look: I'm pretty happy with the finished product. It leaves the front fascia shape much more visible than the Tesla-supplied mount IMO. I'll probably add a plate frame for a more polished appearance. It looks a little crooked in the straight-on picture, but that's just because I was having trouble getting straight-on with my phone camera. It's pretty easy to align properly, and it is indeed mounted straight.
Installation ease: Two needle-point bolts go through the mounting plate into the skid plate on the bottom of the car just behind the bumper, and a spring-loaded pin with a pull-ring is used to install/remove the plate bracket as needed.
No interference with radar/ultrasonic: TACC/Autosteer and the parking sensors all still work great when the plate is installed.
Ease of cleaning: So long as the sprung pull-ring keeps working, removing the plate for cleaning/detailing should be brain-dead simple. They do mention it's important to lubricate the mechanism and slides occasionally, probably more so if you're driving on salted roads a lot.
Cons
Vertical clearance reduction: It technically reduces the air-dam vertical clearance by about a half inch, but I doubt this will be any problem at stock height. If I do something that clips the plate where it sits, I've probably got much bigger issues.
Ease of stealing the plate: I don't really care about this one either- if someone really wants to steal a license plate, getting under the car and looking at the pull-ring vs just yanking on an adhesive-mounted plate or unscrewing one mounted "normally" seem like about the same amount of effort.
Unknowns
Range effect: If the aero wheel caps are really worth a 5% range boost, I could see this plate bracket eating that up and maybe more. OTOH, I so rarely need anywhere close to my full range, it's not really a concern for me.
Resiliency of the skid-plate mount: I'm most worried about this for the "parallel parking by Braille" crowd. The skid plate is pretty thick burly plastic, but it is still plastic... If there are problems later, I can just attach a metal doubler to the back of the skid plate and attach the bolts into it.

I really dislike the Tesla-supplied adhesive plate mount. It breaks up the unique front fascia- one of the sexier (IMO) features of the car, and it seems like it would be difficult to clean around. I've looked at a couple of the different louver-attach solutions, but I've had bad experiences with people wrecking my front plates before when "parallel parking by Braille", and I don't want to find out the hard way how resilient those louvers are. I'm not opposed to drilling into the car/bumper, so long as the holes aren't readily visible. This led me to the Sto 'n Sho SNS145 - it appears to be a long-time choice of the car show crowd, since it allows for easy removal of the plate and bracket for cleaning/display. I have no affiliation with this manufacturer/reseller, just liking what I got...
Pros
Finished look: I'm pretty happy with the finished product. It leaves the front fascia shape much more visible than the Tesla-supplied mount IMO. I'll probably add a plate frame for a more polished appearance. It looks a little crooked in the straight-on picture, but that's just because I was having trouble getting straight-on with my phone camera. It's pretty easy to align properly, and it is indeed mounted straight.
Installation ease: Two needle-point bolts go through the mounting plate into the skid plate on the bottom of the car just behind the bumper, and a spring-loaded pin with a pull-ring is used to install/remove the plate bracket as needed.
No interference with radar/ultrasonic: TACC/Autosteer and the parking sensors all still work great when the plate is installed.
Ease of cleaning: So long as the sprung pull-ring keeps working, removing the plate for cleaning/detailing should be brain-dead simple. They do mention it's important to lubricate the mechanism and slides occasionally, probably more so if you're driving on salted roads a lot.
Cons
Vertical clearance reduction: It technically reduces the air-dam vertical clearance by about a half inch, but I doubt this will be any problem at stock height. If I do something that clips the plate where it sits, I've probably got much bigger issues.
Ease of stealing the plate: I don't really care about this one either- if someone really wants to steal a license plate, getting under the car and looking at the pull-ring vs just yanking on an adhesive-mounted plate or unscrewing one mounted "normally" seem like about the same amount of effort.
Unknowns
Range effect: If the aero wheel caps are really worth a 5% range boost, I could see this plate bracket eating that up and maybe more. OTOH, I so rarely need anywhere close to my full range, it's not really a concern for me.
Resiliency of the skid-plate mount: I'm most worried about this for the "parallel parking by Braille" crowd. The skid plate is pretty thick burly plastic, but it is still plastic... If there are problems later, I can just attach a metal doubler to the back of the skid plate and attach the bolts into it.





