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.