That said, it’s not perfect as a car.
Also, what a ridiculous answer to criticism about quality from Elon. Just nuts.
Tesla makes good cars but to hide problems like a six year old in the hopes that no one notices is just so dumb.
It’s not whether you make mistakes but how you handle them when you discover them.
Not disagreeing with the rest. I have not had notable build quality issues but I recognize that it is an issue generally.
The self driving part is a shameful disaster which I’ve stayed as far as possible. Didn’t pay for it and even the parts that come as standard are sometimes scary. Tho not as scary as some other implementations that don’t recognize cars stopped at red light in front of you and are happy to plough into them at full speed (looking at you Volvo).
If you assume consumers are rational, then yes.
But I think that's an incredibly naive stance to take. "Desires" will do a lot of heavily lifting to determine "best" since they will include a LOT of subjective measures such as susceptibility to marketing campaigns.
Besides, we all know the Miata is the best car. https://youtu.be/kp1kuo6xkbE?t=239
How are _you_ defining best?
I do not own one, because I do not agree. They may have one of the best selling cars (in a given category), which is admirable. But that doesn’t mean they are the best overall.
After driving one (Model 3) as a rental, I briefly considered getting one. But after thinking about it, I realized that was because I liked their (to me) gimmicks. Overall, the vehicle was not the best to me.
If it’s best overall then best selling seems to be a fair way of removing bias as it is the best for most people.
Unrelated to reliability, I'm also not a fan of everything being controlled from a touchscreen. My wife wants one after driving a rental, but I think she too has fallen for the gimmicks.
Every single rental from Avis had a non-OEM replacement front or side window. One of them was replaced so wrongly, you could feel the air leaking through even when it was closed.
Almost every single rental also had two or more budget tires on them which tend to be louder and less energy-saving.
One Tesla had its rear camera pointed downward way too much. Unfortunately, because this car was Vision-only and lacked ultrasonics, and Vision-only Park Assist is slightly better than absolutely fucking useless, backing it in was a 2002-esque shit show every time.
This isn't unusual for rental car companies. They do the barest minimum repairs on their cars while charging you 10x the price if the damage is your fault. Scam life.
The Teslas I rented on Turo, however, were in great shape, including the Tesla that made me want to buy my own Model 3 (which is still going great 90k miles later).
That said, when I financed our Model 3 in 2020, there really weren't any other EVs and the non-Tesla charging network was practically non-existent. It's a completely different world now. I've rented many non-Tesla EVs. All of them are much better driving experiences. I'm particularly fond of the Chevy Bolt for a simple, cheap, no-bullshit commuter EV and the Genesis GV90 or Volvo XC40 Recharge Twin for something plushier.
The Model 3 I rented, from Hertz, didn’t have any visible modifications. But it was missing the outer lower plastic on one of the mirrors. The person at the desk said that they see that a lot (from a car wash?). It didn’t cause any real issues but did cause a whistling noise. When I initially got it, the Autopilot was not working (which I didn’t notice until after leaving the rental place). I looked up the error displayed, but it was pretty vague and the manual said to clean the cameras, which had no effect. Luckily I found online in Reddit or another forum that the next thing to re-calibrate, which fixed it.
Overall, I will rent one again, because they certainly are fun, but they are not what I want for a main vehicle, at least yet.
sounds like standard fit issues from a tesla....
Tesla is behing VW in total sales, but the M3 and MY are the best selling EVs in Europe.
https://www.electromaps.com/en/blog/europes-best-selling-ele...
https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/04/24/these-are-the-top-5...
Tesla is about 15% of the European market, joint-second. In the (smaller) US market it is nearly 50%. I think it’s reasonable to describe it as very dominant in the US, but not in Europe. It would be reasonable to expect this to change as US manufacturers go electric and as foreign manufacturers go electric for their US-targeted models.
Getting into it was a downer. I disliked the interior or rather the lack of it so much. Driving it exceeded all my expectations though. At that point it was the best EV, and one of the best cars on the street. Revolutionary indeed.
So, I can see how it could be seen as the best car for many people. Me? I’ll take an E-Tron, or a Taycan over a Tesla any day. I myself drive a KIA, and I much prefer it over the comparable Model 3.
And that’s before taking reliability into consideration.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kia-canada-car-sales-1.706321...
They seem pretty available here in Sweden, a friend just got his EV6 GT delivered less than a month after purchase.