Tesla ranks almost dead-last on Consumer Reports reliability list
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But Tesla comes with crypto hype, a Twitter-addicted founder, and fanboy cult membership. If Consumer Reports had considered those factors the ratings would have turned out different.
My comment was sarcastic. I know several Tesla owners who seem very happy with their choice. Customer satisfaction seems higher than the CR rankings merit. Similarly I know people who love Jeeps, although that brand also gets low marks.
Tesla’s reliability and quality problems have been discussed in numerous forums, not just CR.
It’s possible that Tesla cars are actually top quality and reliable, and the company is the victim of a conspiracy with Consumer Reports paying a part to tear Tesla down. It’s also possible that Elon Musk can’t walk on water and starting up a car business from scratch is harder than it looks.
https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisf...
(You have to click on 'Tesla' to see the breakdown)
https://youtu.be/14ZYknJQ8F0?t=35
TLDR: the frameless window "tucks in" under the trim of the roof/roof pillar and car has to drop the window slightly before it releases the latch.
In case of failure of any of the stuff necessary for that to happen (and there are a lot of things necessary for that to happen), there is an emergency exit lever.
Which shatters the window.
The lever which shatters the window looks pretty much like what any reasonable person would think is an oddly-placed door lever - right at the base of the interior door handle.
The mind boggles.
To open a door, you normally pull a latch, oh here it is.
Then the car yells at you but it spends more time telling you about the risks of what you’re doing wrong, instead it should immediately show a little animation of what I should be doing instead.
That or make the latch 2 step.First step is normal operation, if that fails then continue pulling and it forces the manual opening.
/s
That makes me think worse of the design, not better, that it is so common but they chose to patch around it with a user nag instead of fixing the design.
This has been ~true of every frame-less window for decades; this isn't a new thing.
https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisf...
https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisf...
Maybe I just don't understand the American car consumer market, or may there is a difference in the magnitude of measurements.
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Also, I hear people in Europe preferring the Shanghai made cars over the Fremont made one (for having better fit and finish), may Fremont is just not fit for purpose?
The new Austin and Berlin Factories, plus the new mega-casting system, might finally give us some insight.
Seeing the battery and chip supply issues, I feel Tesla has snagged themselves another 3-5 years of lax workmanship before the alternatives simply catch upto them.
Tesla's true moat is charging infra, and that can't last long.
Dyson also earned the same two ratings for several of its stick vacuums in 2019:
https://www.consumerreports.org/stick-vacuums/dyson-stick-va...
Some brands just seem to command more loyalty from their customers than the quality of their products can justify.
Maybe for a lot of people reliability isn't a major concern?
People who get a new car every few years even if the old one runs fine just need their car to last until then.
People like me who stick with a car much longer [1] put reliability much higher on our requirements.
[1] I'm driving a 2006 Honda CR-V that I bought new and hope to keep driving for another 15+ years, albeit at some point I plan to get an EV for my around town daily driving keeping the CR-V for when I need more cargo or longer distance. Just waiting on that for an EV that I can keep for 20+ years without it costing a fortune over that time in battery repair/replacement. I really want the next car I buy to be the last car I buy.
You will live a long life for sure. :)
The plan would then be a PHEV sedan mostly used just on battery, the CR-V for when I need more cargo capacity, and either the CR-V or PHEV for those rare longer trips depending on how much stuff I need to carry.
A plus for that approach is that since the PHEV would not be used much in ICE mode I hopefully would get a very long lifetime out of the ICE side of it. If I go for a PHEV SUV instead of a PHEV sedan, then I'm even covered if the CR-V dies before me.
I have hope though that as EVs become more common battery repair/replacement will come down. In particular I'm hoping multiple manufacturers standardize on using the same cells in their batteries and make the individual cells replaceable so that battery repair becomes a standard thing you can have done at a typical independent car repair shop, rather than something you have to go to the dealer for and has to be done with parts from the car manufacturer.
Because when you buy expensive toys and show them to your friends you cannot admit that they are crap ? It happens all the time.
Anything that adds more steps to a process is not an improvement. Maybe there is something I am missing.
The other controls that are normally on sticks on the steering column would be annoying at first but I think I might get used to that.
I'm still not a fan. The UI is objectively terrible in many situations. That said, I can honestly say that it's not that big of a deal for me.
Lack of tactile feedback is a big deal though.
But, it's sort of moot. Interactions that require I be looking at the screen and carefully touching icons are typically the kinds of things I'd want to do while parked anyhow. Tinkering with settings, for example, or entering an address for navigation.
A lot of interactions you might do in a "normal" car are also reduced or eliminated. For example, I often need to adjust vents and turn knobs for climate control while driving in my "normal" car. Even though I can tell it to set the air temp to a specific value, it still needs intervention frequently to feel right.
In the Model 3, the climate control just works. If I set it to 70F, it feels like 70F. It's a thing I find myself never even thinking about.
> Lack of a dedicated on/off/volume knob for the soundsystem is such a dealbreaker for me.
The steering wheel has a scroll wheel that can control volume and pause audio. The sound system is never really off though. The car still emits warning sounds through the sound system, for example.
In practice, the scroll wheel thing has worked just fine for me. I've not tried to see what happens when the AM/FM radio is playing; I suspect "pausing" that would either do nothing or mute the audio.
Before getting used to it, the Model 3 seems comically devoid of controls, and it seems ridiculous. But with use, it start to feel totally normal. At least that's my experience.
For what it's worth, I was on the fence about Tesla for ages. I wouldn't have one now if I hadn't inherited it from a family member. I probably wouldn't buy one today, even after having grown to love the Model 3.
That said, I would jump at a much more economical version of the Model 3. One that's just an EV. It doesn't need a glass roof, heated leather seats, folding mirrors, robotic door handles, etc. It just needs to be like the cheapest Kia money can buy, except with a Tesla powertrain.
So from the entire pool of CR subscriber base who agree to reply to their annual survey and who self-report to own Teslas, this group both overwhelmingly chooses to report significant number of car issues AND chooses to report great satisfaction?
What is up with this group of people?
There is a reason that every single electric car made by anyone is sold far in advance, including non-Teslas where charging on road trips is still a sub par experience.
If somebody was serious about this as their primary motivator, they'd buy a much more reliable / affordable vehicle like the Bolt or Leaf.
what's more, the cognitive biases that lead someone to convince themselves they're satisfied with their purchase apply whether speaking to friends or a formal survey
Note I say it's a reasonable explanation, although I don't want to assert how accurate it is in regards to Tesla owners - someone should do the actual research.
Could be that the car is so good in so many other ways that people are willing to put up with a lot more minor problems. Things like the infamous misaligned panels might be annoying visually, but it doesn't affect your ability to drive the car.
Or it could be that the problems only really show up after a few years and most people voting up the Tesla are driving cars less than, say 3-5 years old.
Beyond that it seems to be one extremely unreliable model really dragging down the overall score. If all the other models are OK on reliability and great in every other respect then that can also explain the discrepancy.
Include the submission URL and your suggested disambiguated link.
I thought electric vehicles were more 'stable'? Or am I misunderstanding that? They're mostly solid state. What's unstable?
And why are SUVs even less stable?
o Arrived w/o Tow pkg (Tesla "forgot" it, was installed via service center appt)
o falcon wing doors improperly adjusted, leading to wind noise and water intrusion
o Loud wind noise and fogging passenger side windows: Due to improperly installed "triangle" window on passenger door
o Worn half shafts caused shudder under acceleration, replaced at ~20k miles
o fogging drivers side A pillar camera after rain, leading to "navigate on autopilot unavailable"
o Drove in "low" mode to preserve half shafts, caused excessive tire wear. Wore inner rear tires down to a puncture around 30k miles. Replaced tires and had car re-aligned to run in "low" mode.
o Half shafts replaced again at 38k miles
o Upper control arms shot around 39k miles, car out of warranty, and Tesla wants $1k to fix.
All in all, I'm thinking to get a different car since I need a car that works. I don't want a non-Tesla EV since the charging options for non-Tesla EVs suck. I'm currently looking at PHEVs.
I've said many times that my Kia has better quality feel than any Tesla I've been in.
If I was in the market for a new electric car, I'd definitely be considering the Kia EV6. Which supports the point I've made before that I seriously doubt Tesla can compete with other manufacturers' ability to spin up reliable and quality new models.
My advice: get out while you can and the prices are so high.
We are working from home so just drive a Model 3. Waiting on a Model Y and will sell the 3. Great cars though.
I have a ‘99 Isuzu Rodeo that I spent a weekend replacing a half-shaft two years ago.
But I feel it just earns them too much money from the people trying to show off the dancing falcon doors to scrap it.
In the non american world, where "trucks" are not a daily commuter, a sedan is not out of date. Nor is a hatchback, nor is a ferrari. The family wagon, truck and hybrid truck/suv have been an out of date style for the last 50 years in the developed world.
The Ford Bronco was introduced in 1965. The Jeep Cherokee arrived in 1974. I remember seeing a lot of them as a kid, though if I had to pinpoint the start of the SUV craze, it would probably be closer to 1990 when the Ford Explorer first came to market.
There is no commonly agreed-upon definition of an SUV, and usage of the term varies between countries. Thus, it is "a loose term that traditionally covers a broad range of vehicles with four-wheel drive."
As such I am happy to claim, given there is no formal definition of what is and what isnt an SUV; that they dont exist at all, if only wishing made it so.
If one wants to claim they do indeed exist - there are plenty of examples from the 1940s and 1950's. “Sport utility vehicle” appeared for the first time in 1974 in the brochure of the first-generation Cherokee. So by the measure of marketing material, they have not been around 50 years, they have been around 47 years.
And it's not a US thing - the Germans, French, and British are also more and more switching their focus to the SUV form-factor.
Even allowing for the massive definition creep that basically every car where the bonnet / windscreen angle is shallow being an SUV. No - around 30% would be my best guess.
I think Ford, that massive iconic US car brand, have discontinued all sedans in the US now, since they're so unpopular.
pretty sure members of ((the set "truck") + (the set "suv")) have existed for more than 50 years, because that union includes trucks
If I need an electric (most likely), and unless my finances improve sharply to include luxury models, I will probably be able to count my options on one hand.
Teslas currently have the advantage of the extra supercharge network, although in the Uk that is being opened to other electric cars which will level the playing field.
I've done about 20k miles in road trips in my Tesla, and I think I've plugged in to 1 charger that didn't work at all. I've suffered degraded speed at other chargers, primarily due to them being older chargers that share capacity between 2 chargers (so my speed was halved when somebody else plugged in to the mated charger).
The worst problem I've had with Tesla chargers is the locations. Sometimes finding them is hard (the one near Dulles in Reston took me forever to find for example), sometimes getting to them is hard (chargers in malls are a nightmare around the holidays).
I live in a large town, population about 60K, and the ChargePoint app shows these options near me right now. This includes ALL charging networks, but only J1772 plugs that fit my car:
16 "public" ports are in the area:
- 4 are actually inside an apartment complex
- 2 are at Whole Foods, but I know 1 has been broken for years.
- 2 are BEHIND car dealerships. That's not really public.
- 3 are at someone's house?
- 2 are at the gym, but 1 has been broken for years.
- 2 are at a high school. I don't spend time there.
- 1 is at the library, and it's always occupied or broken.
If I expand the search to other places I shop:
- 2 ports are at the mall, but 1 of them is broken, and because they're close to the entrance, they're often ICEd.
Thankfully, I drive a PHEV so I can charge at home overnight, and burn gas for long distances. To date, 75% of this car's miles were electric.
This will be a solved problem in the future though. Just growing pains.
Absolutely not true. This is one of those things Tesla diehards keep repeating as if it was 2015 still. You have commercial super-chargers widely available already that can charge a car 80% in 20 minutes: https://youtu.be/ZgeZikh88Wc?t=776
Things will expand for sure and I’m happy about it, but this looks like marketing to me.
You own and drive an EV I take it? What’s your experience been like?
In the USA, it is still 2015 basically. Everything I've seen on charging non-Tesla EVs in the USA makes it seem like its a total dumpster fire. One of the YT's I watch has experiences like this all the time: https://youtu.be/jGjUQuXozYc?t=862
At least Meijer has a small bourbon selection so I can try and find a bottle of Buffalo Trace from time to time.
What I am curious about is if fuel prices flatten or become cheaper, will people still keep flicking to electric vehicles?
From the article:
> The issue, Consumer Reports’ Fisher told CNBC, is that the company has the tendency to “add so much tech that is not necessary.” And while this makes for a product that varies wildly from year to year, it is part of the Tesla brand that enthusiasts adore.
From the linked Reuters article:
> Electric vehicle drive systems, or powertrains, are not the main source of problems, Fisher said. The issues reported by owners are with other features.
> Manufacturers "are using EVs as a technological test bed," Fisher said. "Those are the things that go wrong."
"Electric SUVs as a vehicle category is the absolute bottom in terms of reliability," Consumer Reports director of vehicle testing Jake Fisher said Thursday during a presentation to the Detroit Automotive Press Association.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/tesla-electric-suvs-get...
There's no reference at all to instability in the article.
I suspect a transcription error on the part of SFGate and Joshua Bote.
As a result, it makes sense that even though Tesla and Lincoln are the lowest-ranked in terms of reliability, they continue to fare well among its buyers and rank high on its customer satisfaction index — proof that buyers may value brand loyalty and innovation over stability.
I believe 'stability' here refers to "an overall pattern of reliability", and not describing road handling. If the author wanted to use another word, perhaps 'dependability' would better than 'stability'.
> Electric vehicle drive systems, or powertrains, are not the main source of problems, Fisher said. The issues reported by owners are with other features.
> Manufacturers "are using EVs as a technological test bed," Fisher said. "Those are the things that go wrong."
That's instability leading to poor reliability.
If it's about the predictability of a given vehicle's projected maintenance requirements, use unreliability.
If it's about the excessive technology leading to unreliability, maybe discuss complexity.
And if it's about a quality record of the manufacturer which changes markedly over time, discuss variability or inconsistency.
But I'd expect instability in discussion of vehicle-related matters to refer to road-handling, steering, or the like. If that's the case, then discuss uneven handling. And if it's not the case, then avoid confusion (or unjustified criticism) that might be caused.
If you've got to argue for or justify the language in a mass publication, it's poor language.
A "stable marriage", for example, is conceptually stable in the same way a plane or car is physically stable.
To then take that analogous usage form and re-apply it back to where the actual, original meaning makes more sense, is indeed confusing.
That said, until any other carmaker can get to the point where their EV has the tech and range, I won't buy anything else. They're just too much fun.
(All other similarities purely coincidental).
Also coupled with the potential sentence of Elizabeth Holmes
What you are saying seems more like a line out of a comic book than something that has matches reality in any way.
That's the reason why it's a systemic risk. When the financial value of something and the real value diverge so much...people rage will mount when inevitably the financial value collapses back to the real value.
People wanted Ballmer's head for keeping things together and allow the real value of Microsoft to catch up with the financial value which was so elevated at the height of the dot com bubble.
People have really strong emotions when it comes to their money, if they were raging at Ballmer because the MSFT stock stayed flat after a huge bubble (while all the other tech stock crashed and burned) , I can only imagine what will happen when Tesla implodes.
> certain area and can't "end"
The dream of Japan becoming a technological powerhouse essentially ended with the Japan stock market bust in the late 90s.
So yes, geographical areas characterized by irrational exhuberance can end, when things go south.
Tesla isn't going anywhere whether you like them or not and they aren't even staying in silicon valley. Saying they are a scam is nonsense and saying silicon valley will "end" is nonsense.
It's your 101 financial scam where the CEO aims to divorce his net worth from the real life impact of the company he is at the helm of.
Again he's doing so using your 101 deceit techniques such as empty promises, constant stock pumping, cult of personality and UsvThem mentality and creative accounting.
It's Enron all over again.
This seems like the same old pattern of being hyperbolic to get attention, then walking everything back or ignoring what you actually said once someone replies to you.
It's a scam. Tesla FSD/Autopilot or whatever they call it is the same thing as Theranos blood test.
On top of that you have some other 10-15 avenues of crime, including the creative accounting , the constant lying , the securities fraud, the violent threats to whistleblowers, the rampant drug usage on the factory floor..shall I continue?
This is an unsourced list you repeat out of frustration. A public company valued way above what people can explain with hard assets is not the definition of a scam.
Also you didn't explain why it would be the "end" of silicon valley even though they are already moving to austin.
Well that's just it, isn't it? Their book value is closer to 0.027 Trillion dollars. Beyond that is faith. The value of a thing is worth what someone's willing to pay for it, and that willingness changes.
https://www.google.com/finance/quote/TSLA:NASDAQ
You can debate the rest with other people, I'm talking about the current state of reality.
1.1T for a brand which represent 1/200th of the cars in the US.
Globally they are something like 1/1000th .
This is a scam.
Again, that's not what a scam is and it has nothing to do with the 'end' of silicon valley.
The free market has rules in place to punish fraudsters and promoters.
But because tesla is seen as "green" all those things are on hold for Musk.
Much like they were on hold for Holmes who was the golden girl who'd revolutionize our health.
> Again, that's not what a scam is and it has nothing to do with the 'end' of silicon valley.
Both Holmes and Musk would have never been funded on the East Coast.
They'd have been advised to check into a clinic to get rid of their drug habits, go to therapy to solve their personal issues and maybe they'd have gotten a 25k investment.
By the same token you'd have thought that Amazon was the best thing since sliced bread back in 1999
Then when it crashed 97% you'd have thought it was on its deathbed ready to be cannibalized by Barnes&Noble
Then when it reached new peaks after 2010 up to now...right back up there being the best thing since sliced bread.
In reality the analysis of the balance sheets through the years + Bezos letters to investors point out to a much more nuanced and steady climb, independent of stock price action. Amazon didn't need to look at stock price at all ,because it achieved its growth via internally produced FCF and the re-investment of it.
FCF which Tesla never produced and so they decided to create a cult to oversell overhyped equity to disciples/bigger fools who trade based on sentiment and without understanding any fundamentals.
Finally if you can't see any evidence in a carmaker with quality issues trading at 310 times earnings, then you won't accept any other evidence (which btw I provided)
The model Y is by all accounts the best vehicle they've made and so far doesn't have any of the problems seen with others.
FWIW ours arrived in perfect condition and hasn't needed service.
Enron sold products and services as well. Matter of fact they posted a record 100B revenues, back in the 90s which is even more impressive because even a billion was a lot of money back then.
Doesn't mean it wasn't a financial scam engineered by the CEO to enrich himself.