2021 Tesla Model Y review: Nearly great, critically flawed
cnet.com
cnet.com
The rest of the car, however, does not. It is the least reliable car I have ever known. I am currently tracking ten faults, and waiting for my fifth service, which could only be booked with nearly a month to wait.
The most serious faults involve the car sometimes failing to start without a hard reboot first (!), and then a constant stream of non-sensical errors while driving, which cause it to beep loudly with no way to stop it.
Dear reader, do not make my mistake, do not buy a Tesla. But not for the usual anti-Tesla propaganda reasons. Autopilot works great. Even the weird "falcon wing" doors are actually very good. It's just that the quality is awful and service is both overbooked and doesn't actually fix things.
I've never regretted a car purchase more.
PS. Does anyone in the bay area want to buy a Model X? ;)
I have a 2017 Model X that I bought new. The EV part is great, its everything else that sucks. Since I've had it, I've taken it for service for the following:
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 just out of warranty, and Tesla initially wanted $1k to fix, but eventually fixed for free after I complained.
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. Ironically, I'll probably unload the Tesla for another EV only if/when Tesla opens superchargers up to other EVs.
How much of a loss would you take if you sold your Model X right now? They are not very available new, so I assume you would not loose too much money. Mine has actually gained a bit in value over the last 18 months or so..
I owned a 2016 Model X, and I got the dreaded half-shaft shudder after only 5k miles. When I took it in to the SC for evaluation, the tech driving the car blurted, "Oh yeah, there it is! This happens with all the Model Xs" when moderately accelerating uphill and the car shuddered quite a bit.
Fast-forward 20 minutes, I'm sitting at the desk with the SC rep, and they say, "Yes there was a shudder, but that's normal." That was the 11th -- and final -- issue I had with that car. I traded it in for a Jaguar I-PACE shortly after and never looked back.
Your behavior changed when you got an iPhone and you moved on with your life. Same thing here.
But even if range really isn't a problem, a PHEV makes more sense to me because they are cheaper and make better use of our limited battery supply. A PHEV with 50 miles range will be just about as efficient as a BEV for the vast majority of driving, but it gets by with a much smaller battery pack. We have the battery supply to make nearly every new car a PHEV, but we could only make a small fraction of them BEVs.
TL;DR less range anxiety, more "getting stranded because of unreliable chargers" anxiety
PS: I should add, having 3 small-ish children is definitely the major factor here, were I alone I couldn't care less that I had to wait a few hours for trickle charging, might as well get some work done
PPS: speaking of glitches, the Q4 e-tron lane keep assist is incredibly panicky and has constant mini freakouts whenever something strange happens to the road (e.g. lanes splitting on the motorway, passing parked cars on narrow roads, etc.) -- thankfully it's just annoying (slight jerk and vibration of the steering wheel) and not actually dangerous
I've owned (well, leased) two EVs. Range was definitely something to be closely monitored at all times and trips planned around it, which I classify as an "issue" since I had to worry about it so much.
> Model X ranked dead-last among all cars for reliability, scoring a 5 out of 100.
https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Tesla-ranks-almost-dead-...
• for defects that could cause injury/death, the manufacturer has tried unsuccessfully to fix the problem twice
• for any other defects, the manufacturer has tried unsuccessfully to fix the problem 4 times
• the vehicle has been 'in the shop' for a total of 30 days (need not be consecutive)
We had a VW that qualified for lemon law relief, and VW was forced to purchase the car back from us, including sales tax. There was a minimal amount that was not refunded, to reflect the month or so that we got to use the car before it started acting up.
1: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/when-can-you-use-calif...
But they keep piling up, up to ten now.
One friend has received his Model 3 back twice now with the problem not fixed at all. He's resigned to just living with the problem until the service backlogs are lower.
It has been interesting to see how tolerance for these quality issues has waned as the shine of the Tesla brand has started to wear off.
Tesla has expanded outside that market, and to a person who is looking for a more or less reasonable car, that matches other cars in the price bracket, you're likely to hear nothing but good things about Tesla from the usual sources.
And then you get one, and realize that they're failing basic quality control things that literally every other auto maker worked out 20 years or more ago, and their software has all the stability of beta smartphone software.
None of this is new. It's just that anyone who said anything of the sort, or pointed out that you can't have 10x the sales on 1x the service centers, or such, got shouted down as a Tesla-shorting big oil shill for an awfully long time. Now, people who don't really care about Elon or The Plan are discovering that a Tesla is a bit of a crapshoot. Some are fine. Some are lemons. And God help you if you get a lemon, because the service experience (remember, according to the True Believers, dealerships are the spawn of Satan) is horrid.
Its possible to love something for its good qualities and accept the bad.
"With historic reliability concerns but an intensely loyal following, Tesla took the top spot for overall owner satisfaction among the 27 brands mentioned in survey responses."[0]
[0]https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisf...
I don't think anyone claims otherwise on the older models. The problem is twofold:
1. They promised "Full Self Driving" and delivered ordinary driver assistance.
2. The vision-based approach just plain does not work.
No. Vision is the one and only future for self driving.
Source: Been closely following this scene for years and own a Comma 2 (Open Pilot).
Clever, but probably not what you think you're arguing for...
Silicon Valley has a regular, predictable, very tedious pair of arrogances when it comes to things like this.
1. "We are as gods in the synthetic world of the internet, because we know Code. Therefore we must be like gods in the external, physical world!" It's perpetually on display, and Tesla is an amazing case study here. After deriding those dinosaur, idiot, legacy automakers for their horridly slow, glacial, obsolete factories that mixed humans with robots on the assembly line, instead of being purely robot based and running at sonic velocities... the Model 3 and such are produced on something that's virtually indistinguishable from those "dinosaur" lines. GM, Honda, Toyota... they've all been trying for the "lights out dreadnaught" car factory since the 80s, and have all concluded that it simply doesn't work. It's cheaper, faster, and more reliable to have humans in the loop, and run the line at their pace, than to solve the problems that increasingly look like "full general purpose AI."
2. "A human visual system is just a couple shitty cameras and a neural network. How hard can it be?" The answer is, "Exceedingly hard." The human visual system works at a far better angular resolution in the core than Tesla's system does (the Tesla "narrow" camera has a 4x worse angular resolution than the human eye core, and the human eye is really good at scanning that high resolution core and merging details), and the neural network behind it is an awful lot more complex than anything our computers can emulate. My three year old makes fun of the "green moons" and "red moons" in the sky after showing him the video of a Tesla confusing a low moon for a yellow light, because he can tell the difference between the moon and a traffic light. And I guarantee his visual processing system is capable of an awful lot more than a Tesla, in practical real world situations. I don't trust him to drive anything faster than his Power Wheels, but... well, neither do I trust a Tesla to do that.
A multi-sensor fusion based system has some hope of working with current technology. Vision only? Not a chance.
All we really need is better adaptive cruise control which is what Autopilot and Open pilot is. IMO it works flawlessly, takes the stress out of driving. It's really a solved problem at this point. I'd say 3/4 of all the miles I've driven on my Rav4 have been on Open Pilot.
Uhhhhhhhhhh
Is that not the point? The best car you have had, with issues.
I have a Honda Fit. It is getting on to fifteen years old now. No issues ever except for wear.
But Honda know a lot about making cars. Tesla tried to disrupt the entire process. This is where hubris gets you
Can you clarify why disrupting the process is hubris? There has been many historical examples of outsiders coming in and improving old processes in many fields. Why is it hubris to disrupt the car manufacturing processes?
2. I can comppletely retool car making,
* from base principals
* because I am very smart (see 1.)
That is hubris
Does not always fail. Usually does. Betting on hubris to fail is probably a good strategy (I reckon - I do not know)
Tesla did disrupt the entire process and where they are now is 5 years ahead of every single major manufacturer in EVs, including Honda. Honda, Toyota, VW, GM are in for an ocean of pain as we transition to EVs and China floods the market with cheap, quality offerings. Their complacency is exactly the wrong kind of hubris and they will be luck to end the decade as major manufacturers.
I got a new X in 2019 and so far it’s had no issues at all.
I certainly salute you for your tenacity with the brand. After I unloaded my 2016 Model X, you couldn't convince me to touch another one of those cars with a 10-foot pole.
Or you could just Tweet that anyone critical of your car is a big oil funded Tesla-shorting planet hating shill.
One gets you most of the other, for an awful lot less actual effort.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125229...
Incidentally, it really bothers me that you play the racism card so easily and casually without evidence. Please stop doing that.
We live in a racist world. You either accept it or be blind to many of the problems of the world.
We have a secondary ICEV and we both hate it and mock it. It is actually one the best ICEVs in its class, but fundamentally, all ICEVs are irredeemably terrible. It needs replacing soon and I've been through every single EV out there considering alternatives, but in the end we have to replace it with a Model Y.
Teslas are not flawless cars, but they are, simply, the best cars.
I have a six year old Corolla. No issues at all. We put gas in it and have tire rotations and regular oil changes.
My Corolla is like my AirPod Pros. It just works, every time, consistently. Personally, I just want a car that has no hassles and is dependable above all else. I’d like a cold A/C on hot days and a good heater on cold days.
I guess my point is - I’d love to drive an electric car and not have to go to the gas pump. But I’m not willing to deal with all the myriad issues I so often hear about from Tesla owners. I’m not interested in paying a premium for some auto maker to alpha, beta, and pre-prod test their product before getting it to modern manufacturing and reliability standards.
One is the cheapest car made by a major manufacturer, and the cheapest trim model. I have no complaints about how it drives, I actually enjoy it. But on very hot days, the AC has trouble keeping up, and an electronic display has been only intermittently functional for some time. Naturally, being a special electronic display, it costs some $600 to replace, so I haven't bothered. On very long drives (5+ hours), it does wear me out more than the second car.
The other is a crossover. It is slightly more comfortable than the hatchback. The AC is definitely powerful enough, even on hot days. It is much more pleasant to drive on long trips, I think primarily due to the lanekeeping and automatic cruise control. My only real complaint is too many controls are on the touchscreen - basically any AC controls other than temperature and fan speed.
When I ask other EV owners, it seems like all they can say are "it's really quiet" and "it has amazing acceleration." But my cars are already very quiet (sometimes I am not sure if they are on) and I never need any more acceleration than I have - I avoid accelerating hard in general, since it wastes gas and I'm sure also battery. And given the problems I do have with my cars, it seems like the average EV is going to be worse - if I don't like touchscreen controls, surely buying a Tesla is not going to make me happy. So what is the factor EVs have that just blows ICEZs away for the average Joe? I just don't get it.
EDIT: I guess another one they frequently mention is "not having to go to the gas station", but a five minute trip once a week isn't really causing me much hardship, especially if I'm going in to buy lottery tickets anyway.
I look at a Tesla as a lower functioning, and obvs from all the comments, much less reliable machine. People love them! Guffaws.
(I have nothing against EVs as a technology: when I can buy a 450 mile range, 10 minute refuel, as reliable as my Prioids and Tundra EV, for a similar price, I will.)
"With historic reliability concerns but an intensely loyal following, Tesla took the top spot for overall owner satisfaction among the 27 brands mentioned in survey responses."[0]
[0]https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisf...
I’m not defending Tesla here, but let’s not pretend the established manufacturers don’t run into safety issues when it comes to the clever software under the hood.
Pffffrt. By what metrics you would measure that aside, it does feel like you've never been into high quality cars. A Mercedes Class S is a veritable massive step up compared to a Tesla, for similar prices. Recent EVs like the Ioniq 5 are very much matching the Teslas in everything
Hands down the best car I have ever had and I have owned Audis, BMWs and other high end cars.
Whenever I have to drive a non Tesla me and my wife just can’t stop laughing at how ridiculous they are…it’s like operating steam engines
Sucks that others had problems with it but everyone I know including ourselves couldn’t be more happy with their Tesla
This is my experience talking to everyone I know with a Tesla. Not saying the complaints aren't real, but the internet really does bring out the selection bias when it comes to people having issues with their purchase. If you look at Consumer Reports for most satisfied car purchases, all of the Teslas make the top 10.
https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Tesla-ranks-almost-dead-...
They tend to go on about noise, vibration, the awful smell of gas stations, and a variety of other common and tedious complaints. Ok, yes, we get it, you're smug and have to prove to everyone else how amazing your purchase was, but must you write the 500th version of the same article?
Or you can just accept that every vehicle is different, every vehicle has different quirks, wants to be driven/ridden differently, listen to what it tells you, and go from there. Yes, you can flog an Insight around a twisty road on the paddle shifters, but... that's not what the car wants, and it's not very rewarding to try and make it drive like something it isn't.
An EV isn't an ICE isn't a PHEV isn't a hybrid isn't a rotary isn't a...
Even among theoretically identical vehicles, they often enough aren't, after enough miles. I drove buses for a while, and they tended to be purchased in lots - two of this, four of that, etc. Even among the "sister buses," they were different. Some were smoother, some seemed to have more power, some were wired differently. Know the quirks of each bus and you were going to have a fine time. Miss that 947 really benefited from turning off the AC compressor off a stoplight, and you would struggle to keep a schedule on the weekend. But man, that was a sweet cruising evening route bus. On the campus circulators, 926 and 927 were best run in first gear - they were big four cylinders (something like an 8L 4-cylinder) that were really prone to shifting into 2nd, and then getting stuck lugging along barely above idle instead of shifting down to 1st if you were on a bit of a grade. Keep them in first, it was fine on those routes (first was a pretty tall gear on them).
And it goes on. Instead of whining about what a vehicle isn't, enjoy it for what it is, listen to it, drive it how it wants to be driven, and you'll have a good time. It's just not good for clicks.
I just read an article about Fisker following the "Apple model" where they stay lean and outsource all production. Uh, yeah that's great for a $1,000 phone but when I drop 50x that on a rolling death machine I expect quality to be controlled from end to end and kept in house.
[1] https://www.stateofflux.co.uk/ideas-insights/case-studies/to...
they had spent extra 20k euros to improve it
for instance: they added custom roof sealing, because it was getting too loud inside when driving on the highways
and then they (tastefully) refitted it with custom-made carbon elements on the inside and the outside
tuned/improved Teslas are not that uncommon if you know some owners
Just as an observation I don't think the new money buying these cars understands or has ever sat in an actual nice car at the same price point. It's reminiscent of bay area housing. Crap quality, outrageously expensive, and with plenty of people with no other life experiences willing to defend it at a moment's notice.
"I don't think the new money buying these cars understands or has ever sat in an actual nice car at the same price point."
I'm not sure why you would turn your nose up at people who have different preferences. I guarantee you that there are Tesla buyers who also own other expensive cars at similar price ranges.
I will agree the powertrain and tech (not the god awful screen) are the best in the market at the moment. Maybe it’s just me, but a vehicle needs to cover the basics before anything fancy such as the acceleration will sell it.
for them it was all about getting a cool toy and all the fun that comes with it, rather than getting a car
... and a scarily large number of people who think this is a reasonable proposition.
So does my $1K Open Pilot on a significantly cheaper Rav 4. Also you don't have to put hands on wheel. If you have to put your hands on wheel for adaptive cruise control you might as well just drive the car.
That's what's so weird to me. I own an old 2012 Hyundai Accent, bought used at ~12k, and over the last five years I've only taken it for:
- Checkup and oil change - Wheel change - Battery change
But then I see all these examples of Tesla owners having to fix issue after issue after issue and saying "it's not so bad I just lost an afternoon each time going for an apt"
I feel like all I ever hear from outside the Tesla owner bubble is quality issues, complaints, weird problems I've never experienced. When I talk to other Tesla owners, they also are confused by this phenomena, because the vast majority I've talked to have the same experience as me; complete joy in the product, very few if any complaints at all. Especially relative to any other car I have owned or is available on the market today, I wouldn't recommend buying anything else.
When people talk about annoying Tesla fanboys, this is the core of problem. On the one hand you have the public perception of Tesla cars, based on reviews like this one. Then you have actual experience from the *majority* of owners being the exact opposite. Tesla certainly has issues, but so does GM, Ford, and every other auto maker. Reviewers rarely shout these issues in the headlines. But with Tesla it's always different.
What are we do to about this instead? Why is every review of Tesla highlighting the flaws, whereas every review of non-EV cars highlight the positives? How come Tesla owners don't get to write about their positive experiences without being called fanboys or shills?
I've now got 94,000 miles on a 2018 Model 3 long range. It's more fun than the BMW in every way. Handles better, accelerates faster, it's much quieter inside. The sound system is much better than the HKs in the BMW. It's more comfortable. I can drive for 4 hours straight with no discomfort.
I don't have autopilot cuz my insurance guy wouldn't give me a discount if I bought it. Once he does, I'll add it.
Regarding service: It's on the 3rd set of tires and I replaced the cracked windshield.
That's it.
you mean FSD
you have autopilot by default
I'm sure the drivers behind you were thrilled to learn it didn't bother you when your car decided to randomly brake.
>Why is every review of Tesla highlighting the flaws, whereas every review of non-EV cars highlight the positives?
Amongst other things, because other constructors aren't taking every opportunity to jerk themselves about how you're the pretended best in the world when they're just a mediocre constructor selling overpriced cars with bad build quality and lying on having level 5 autopilot at every occasion.
> How come Tesla owners don't get to write about their positive experiences without being called fanboys or shills?
Because ultimately, your feelings about the car gets overshadowed by the fact that Tesla is at the bottom of every single reliability study. They're worse than Jeeps, ffs. That's a new record.
Autopilot has been great -- probably over half my miles driven. Still a work-in-progress for city streets but FSD improvements have been pretty impressive from what I've observed on YouTube.
Service has been pretty great too actually -- the appointment booking process I just went through to get new tires felt like the future since it's completely through the app. My only wish is that they had better loaner availability in CA. In TX the availability does seem better though since I moved here.
Super impressed with the range, performance, the modernity of the interfaces and thoughtfulness of features. Feels like the future.
Sort of shocked by the build quality including a latch that got stuck and wouldn't allow the door to close. Managed to get it wedged open with a tool on hand, but could see it being a showstopper / tow truck moment for many.
The quality / bs issues seem fixable so it's hard not to still feel optimistic about the platform on a whole, but one would hope between the record debt / demand / and liquidity of that org at the moment that they are briskly addressing.
However, big caveat: I absolutely do not use Autopilot, nor do I ever plan to. I bought the car because I love to drive it -- the way it handles, the way it accelerates, etc. The only "automatic" feature I've used is literally the cruise control, i.e. maintaining a set speed on the highway. That's the farthest I trust it to do anything automatically.
Being tangentially involved in the field of machine vision / machine learning, I understand the limitations of the current technology, and am appalled at how brazenly Tesla is rolling out this half-baked functionality to users, and marketing it as if full self-driving is just around the corner, when in fact it has a long, long way to go.
There's a video review in the article which includes many examples of phantom breaking.
So people who've bought recent no-radar Teslas are having a different experience than those with older models.
I got my Model Y in June.
Yes, sometimes it has phantom braking. For reference, on a 9 hour drive to LV from my house, it happened maybe 5 times, and they were all fixed with a mild press of the accelerator. If this is a deal breaker for you, don’t get a Tesla. If the failed promise of FSD is a deal breaker for you, don’t get a Tesla (I don’t have it and don’t want it).
Other than the minor issues (for me) of occasional phantom braking and broken FSD promises, the car has been amazing. Build quality was perfect, it has run incredibly well, and it is simply a joy to drive.
My friend ordered his a week after I took him on a ride, and he doesn’t think he will ever own a car that’s not a Tesla (I disagree with him, because competition will be a thing at some point, but he’s directionally correct).
Many of my other friends have made their deposit and are just waiting for their number to come up.
Rather than read reviews, talk to people who own the model you are planning to purchase (same model and similar “model year”). Then take the car on a test drive. You will probably know at that point if it’s for you or not.
For me, that is incorrect. I would not consider it dangerous at all.
For me, it was more like lifting off the accelerator for a split second if I were in full control.
One time that my car did brake aggressively was when an 18-wheeler was gradually easing into my lane (not on Vegas drive). It was probably a slight over-reaction, but probably one that would have saved my life if the truck had veered into my lane (likely dodging something or sleeping truck driver).
I have heard of people getting the aggressive braking phantom brake experience, but I haven’t. It’s also trivially easy to address just by pressing the accelerator — the driver is supposed to be paying attention.
Fwiw, this is a deal breaker for a Tesla for one friend of mine. She has motion sickness that is frighteningly easy to trigger (autopilot or even just me driving, and I’m not an aggressive driver). She’s a bit of a motion sickness snowflake, and she readily admits as much.
Predictions seem to be the following:
1. Driving into the shadows of 18-wheelers.
2. Driving into the shadows of overpasses.
3. Driving on roads that are reflective and have weird patterns on them. I don’t know how to describe this. My buddy and I consistently experience this a time or three going up the mountain towards Tehachapi between Bakersfield and Barstow. My guess is that this problem is or should be solvable by machine learning (same phantom braking at same time of day at the same place with driver override).
My biggest complaint about autopilot is that it aggressively turns the brights on at night. I’m not sure if it is outside of legal or reasonable use of brights, but I just find it easier to take full control — I try to be a friendly driver.
One last thing that I didn’t mention in my original post — using autopilot in stop-and-go traffic is an absolute dream. It takes a ton of hassle and stress out of that type of driving.
I'm in the latter camp. The idea that the car might randomly override my inputs in error at any time is downright frightening to me. Blows my mind to see someone so casual about it, simply because they've yet to have a more extreme incident, especially given that others have.
I think where people come down on this is owed to something fundamental in their nature/wiring.
I don’t recall ever saying anything like this happened.
My discussion about phantom braking is when autopilot is on. There is no input from me unless I have to or choose to take over.
If you don’t want any of the automatic features (autopilot, lane assist, FSD, etc.), they are all trivially easy to turn off or not use.
Seriously, just go drive one. The way you talk about a Tesla, as though it will just yoink control at any moment from someone who wants full control, is about as far as you can get from the reality.
The idea of “tolerating” undesired behavior in a driver assist process in a car seems… pretty normal? That’s why settings exist — you don’t have to tolerate anything that passes your own tolerance threshold.
I don’t know how many folks you know in real life who actually drive teslas, but the narrative that you describe and the narrative that the people I know who own and drive teslas are about as far apart as it can get. [1]
[1] There is a caveat that folks who bought new models right after they were released had a lot of build issues. That’s pretty unforgivable from the Tesla side, imho. That said, it’s a known issue. Let other people guinea pig the new models. Tesla eventually gets it very right.
Seems odd to have to disable features based, not on one's preferences, but on one's tolerance for errors, especially given that--even without full autopilot enabled--some of those features would be considered active safety features.
"This feature can help keep you safe, but it also might make mistakes, so tap here if you don't want to roll the dice".
In any case, my main point was around the fact that people have such a wide tolerance for errors. I think it's interesting and I was suggesting that it's something more intrinsic to the individual, which I believe is one reason people's opinions on Tesla seem to be "polarized". You'll probably never see those errors as a big deal. I'll probably never see them as not a big deal.
>I don’t know how many folks you know in real life who actually drive teslas, but the narrative that you describe...
I know a few. I don't really talk about their cars with them. And, in any case, it seems like their experiences would vary based on which models/years/updates they've experienced, which features they use and, of course, their tolerance for errors and other problems.
In general, I never really considered that I have a Tesla "narrative". If I owned one I might care enough to have one. My only concern is that the company is too cavalier about safety issues, to include the name "Autopilot" itself, which seems to want the cachet of what the term implies without the responsibility that comes with people trusting it.
Your creative narrative here is… interesting.
Best of luck moving forward.
Yeah, I think what's bizarre here is that your own narrative is so important to you that you can't stomach even the mildest critism of Tesla without feeling personally attacked, or even imagine anyone not having a Tesla "narrative".
So, of course, the fact that you charge people with having a narrative is in itself bizzare. Then, you casually make these odd statements like, "I don't know if you know anyone in real life who has a Tesla", as if it's a unicorn vs. a fairly common motor vehicle.
It's very much a marketing-fueled "us vs. them" worldview you seem to have there around a car. Tesla ownership is clearly an important part of your identity, which may also help explain why you're motoring around with "Autopilot" on and not a care in the world that the vehicle is making errors and braking when it shouldn't.
Best of luck with that. Seriously.
"looking at the Autopilot status and navigation prompts means having to gaze well down toward the bottom of that display. That means taking your eyes a long way from the road. A simple gauge cluster or heads-up display would solve the issue, but none are available, a curious omission on a car costing this much."
Hard to comment on the phantom braking without experiencing it myself though.
It will be interesting to see how the EV space evolves once there are mass amounts of competitor vehicles available/on the road.
Specifically interesting to see how it affects valuations for these companies.
I suspect Tesla's growth rate will slow considerably once there are comparably priced options from mainstream brands. E.g. F-150 vs Cybertruck. Or even a car from Apple, though that's many years out.
How obvious does the inevitability have to be to start denting valuations?
There's still the self driving story, but it does not appear they've made material progress on the hardest 20% of it. Most brands will have autonomous highway driving without much issue, and that's where 80% of the value is anyway. And likely Google will beat them to the punch on the taxi side.
I'm in Texas, and there are stereotype supporting large number of truck owners around. Of the ones I've spoken to about Cybertruck, not one of them are interested in the body. People like how their Fords/Dodge/Chevy trucks look, so taking the design so far away from the norm just seems like an odd decision. Worse than the original Prius design.
The second generation is the well-known streamlined shape: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2008_Toyota_Prius_(N...
(I think the shape was probably not a mistake on Toyota's part. A lot of people were buying them partly because they wanted other people to know they had them, and the shape indicated this very clearly.)
But, that is why they have SUV's and minivans I thought. It is only now sort of sinking in that pickups are no longer used much as work vehicles. Yes I agree about the excessive length keeping the crew cab and long bed. In fact I think the current F150 is already too big. So that's why I miss the old 2-door style with the long bed. I mean what is next, a Miata-like sportster with 3 rows of bench seats?
That is essentially what most CUVs are wishing they were these days. Outside of a Porsche Macan - most don’t really make it work.
I agree overall fit and finish trails the luxury brands, but looking at what 70k gets you from audi is a joke compared to tesla. Clearly the other manufacturers are quite a ways behind in both battery tech and autopilot tech. If I had a 100k to spend on a car, I might pick the Porsche electric, but certainly everything else seems to fall far short of a Model 3 in that price range and I'm not aware of anything catching up soon.
They are well ahead in many respects, and clearly have the edge for now. But it's inevitable that the market will be flooded with roughly equivalent EVs in the next few years.
Ford was dominant in ICE for awhile too. Being a leader affords you additional margin and runway, but very hard to believe it will be lasting.
Look at the Rivian and F-150 for comparable cars. I believe the range may be slightly less, but keep in mind, Tesla still buys most of its batteries from Panasonic. They aren't super proprietary tech that's fully manufacture in-house, though I'm sure they had a hand in the design etc.
Lucid has more range than a Tesla I believe, though is more expensive. EV is in some ways easier than ICE, due to fewer moving parts. But certainly a totally different skill/tech. There are many more new EV startups than there were for ICE at least.
I do agree that self driving can be a strong differentiator if it improves more. In some ways improving it's capabilities makes it more dangerous until it passes the "no need to pay attention" threshold. E.g. the better it is the less humans will pay attention, so there needs to be close to zero critical faults for people to safely rely on it.
From the examples I've seen, the self driving seems very far off from this level when city driving. But not speaking from personal experience. And highway seems like a mostly easy and contained problem, that is unlikely to be a differentiator for long. Most new cars have auto-follow and lanekeeping already which gives you 90% of the benefit in the highway context.
I could be wrong, but I didn’t see any mention of taking their car in for repair or service. I’m a pretty big Tesla quality control skeptic — seeing the after-delivery issues people have with panel gaps and other issues stops me from buying an otherwise exciting car. But the safety system being defective is something that would prompt me to take the car in for service immediately. Did they not do that?
I honestly find this review quite frustrating. It seems like such a glaring flaw there would be an entire article dedicated to interviews with owners, a conversation transcript with Tesla service, and maybe even a note about how responsive Tesla is about fixing the problem. Instead, it seems like they found the issue, decided that it was acceptable enough to not get fixed, and published.
I can see this being fair, but it doesn’t strike me as the most honest unless every shipping car has the same problem.
> unless every shipping car has the same problem
Seems close enough.
I will say, the Tesla needed to have the "brake warning" moved to 'late' from 'medium' to not making annoying alerts from time to time, which is something my Golf did also, but even more rarely. I only had the Golf for about 30k miles because I somewhat-unexpectedly bought the Telsa 3, which is now up over 53k miles.
I've had a Model 3 for 2 years now. Best effing car ever (I owned 3 prior to it). Haven't had a single issue that wasn't my fault. Service is super convenient, informative and fast. The lack of clutter, instant and sustained torque in addition to unreal handling, makes every other car, in its class or above (test driven cars twice the price), feel like a toy and pure junk.
So abso-lutely buy a Tesla if you've been on the fence.
I'm quite tired of those companies always aiming for rich customers. If Musk was really for the environment, he would try to make those cars affordable.
I guess Tesla doesn't have the production capacity to make a high production cheaper car yet?
If anything, other manufacturers are trying to get out of that market segment because regulation is making it too unprofitable to be in (eg. mandatory safety features, CO2 emissions rates for ICEs), a lot of A segment is not getting refreshed in EU/is being discontinued. You will probably see small "expensive" cars like Electric Mini and Smart cars.
It’s not a civic.
Tesla are a luxury brand, and they know it, I think they’d have trouble competing in the more mass market/practical space. They’ll probably move there eventually, but I’m not surprised they’re sticking with their more luxury niche for now, they’re probably not yet capable of keeping costs as low as traditional car makers, while keeping quality high. They’re basically still learning how to build cars at scale.
plenty of good cheap Ev... coming from China:
1- Ora Cat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14XESFFx46M
2- Leapmotor T03
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkOqIEUAlw4
There was a recent Sandy Munro video, where he basically stated that because the Chinese started on the EV bandwagon much earlier (due to executive fiat) They simply have more options...not because they are any more genius, but simply because they had the time and the drive to actually work on the damn thing.
He was called to consult on various cars, and by seeing the progress of their operations, he can see that the Chinese have strengthened their supply lines, removed a lot of the kinks and ramped up production and are getting good with design and fit/finish quality.
If you want cheap EV, look to China
It’s had a couple issues, but nothing major - best car I’ve owned by far.
Unless they actually made you tired.
I'm curious: Is the reason cost, availability or ideology?
In theory cameras should work fine, given that humans are pretty good at driving by just using our eyes. Of course vision will never be theoretically better than radar/laser. But should be good enough in the long run, and cheaper/more flexible.
My question is, what level of resolution and processing power is necessary to interpret inputs accurately though?
Just anecdotally, seems like autopilot is many years away from being close to autonomous. Self driving is an 80-20 kind of problem... The 20% of hard stuff seems completely unsolved by Tesla, judging by YouTube videos, reviews etc. Personally I think Google will beat them to the punch by many years
And they also don't have 16+ years, minimum, of 24/7 "non-machine learning" to augment their judgment.
Do they simply input video clips of common scenarios and what the correct output should be? Is it just a single neural net, or are there rules hard coded in? Multiple neural nets handling different things?
I assume there are many approaches to automated driving that are effectively dead ends. But would be interesting if just having enough video clips/correct corresponding behavior was enough to build a fully functioning model.
Seems crazily low resolution to me and also somewhat amazing they can do what they can with that (which I think doesn't matter much as it's still scary if they can't avoid obvious concrete obstacles or do the opposite brake ing op says)
https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1412597377228226562 https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/bgqekv/what_is...
If it costs 10k more per car to support radar for example, then it's likely not worth it. If the cost difference is marginal, then I agree, may as well use whatever sensors are best.
One other thing I'll throw out there - many comments here seem to chalk up the possibility of phantom braking to the fact that Tesla has moved entirely to a computer vision system in the latest model Y, and that the lack of supplemental radar couldn't possibly be effective. Subaru's Eyesight system is 100% based on computer vision (unless you are reversing), I've driven 45k miles with it using adaptive cruise control and the always-on automatic emergency braking. I've experienced a phantom alert once or twice (the car momentarily thinks it sees an obstacle, both times thick smoke from a manhole in front of the car) but I've never experienced anything like the "phantom braking" he describes.
I know I'm talking about a different manufacturer, but I think it's misinformed to say that computer vision alone can't pull this off when other manufacturers clearly have been for years.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
"A $70,000 car that can't even do cruise control is inexcusable and so, for now at least, I must recommend against the Model Y."
They are SO desirable and yet so flawed.
It’s really nice not having to contemplate ownership of one.
I have occasionally had phantom braking, and I think the collision warning system is a little frenetic, but phantom braking beats the hell out of phantom acceleration (Ford?), or you know, not braking when it really should (most other late model cars on the road today, and also many new cars currently for sale). I consider it an annoyance but not a safety concern unless there’s some jagweed tailgating me. If you are an appropriately responsive driver with your hands on the wheel and feet ready to engage the pedals, you can trivially override the braking. Only if you tune out does it become a problem. Was the author not safely piloting his vehicle?
The real reason I can tell this is a hit piece is that anyone reviewing the Model Y knows that it’s nearly perfect in every way, maybe a little too expensive, maybe a little cheapish materials in certain areas, but the real massive failure is that the suspension is borderline intolerable on routine city streets. Still thinking about trading it in for that reason alone.
Elon, if you or anyone at Tesla read this, please for the love of all that is good give me an option for variable suspension modes. I got the black turbine wheel upgrade that CNET rightfully said to pass on because, while the look absolutely amazing, I feel like I’ve become one with the asphalt in a bad way. I can’t use the cup holders because my coffees shoot out of the little sip holes at every minor bump. Maybe it’s just me coming from a soggy bottomed LX.