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Comment by otherme123 | Hacker News Reader

They are actually lacking. Their reliability is low (https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2024-us-vehi...), even comparing with ICEs, and as electric vehicles they should be naturally more reliable. They are also known to refuse to participate in quality studies (https://www.motorbiscuit.com/dumb-reason-tesla-ineligible-j-...). In 2023 they were at the bottom of the reliability list by JD Power (https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2023-us-init...).

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It depends on the segment and time range and market. MotorEasy conducted a survey in 2024 in the U.K. with 29,967 respondents. (https://www.whatcar.com/news/most-reliable-cars/n27337) The Tesla Model Y was the 9th (equal) most reliable car. However Teslas tend to fare poorly in the Consumer Reports survey in the U.S. I suspect one of the reasons for the discrepancy between this market and the U.S. is that the U.K. received Tesla shipments a lot later for new models - years, in fact. This gave Tesla time to iron out first-model issues. Another is potentially the location of manufacture. Most Teslas sold in the U.K. come from China and Germany. Most Teslas sold in the U.S. come from Fremont, California. There were widespread reports of strange manufacturing practises at the Fremont plan during the covid outbreak, like spray-painting cars in makeshift tents.

Interestingly, MotorEasy found that gas and hybrids were the most reliable. Diesel were the least reliable.

I'd chalk up the low diesel reliability to all the emission systems. Before all the Mercedes D's would run forever, million miles. Even the heavy truck engines could reach a million miles. Now the emission systems including EGR, SCR, and DPF, add injectors, plumbing and electronics. The EGR and DPF systems clog up with soot or burn up from regen

These studies don't really show a decent comparison between EV's, just car makers in general. We aren't trying to argue whether Tesla's are better than ICE car makers, but whether they're consistent or better against other EV's of other car makers.

However, if you look at the latest press release by JDPower (https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2025-us-vehi...) you'll see that Tesla now ranks right near the average. Significantly better than in previous years and ahead of other common car makers.

The dependability study could do with a segment purely on EV's, given that EV's as a whole are improving by roughly 33 PP100 per year.

Your link calls out Tesla in particular as “Note: Brand is not rank eligible because it does not meet study award criteria.”

You are citing a study that specifically excludes Tesla. And even then you’re bragging about Tesla being … average?

I used the same links as the commenter above, of which I cited a more recent study and shows that Tesla isn’t as bad as they perhaps used to be.

If they really wanted to exclude them they wouldn’t have included them all.

I cited the study, because it was the same study commented above where the most recent study wasn’t mentioned.

I’m not bragging at all, but they’re just not as bad of a car as some people are giving them a wrap for. Heck they had the same number of problem reported as Ford, does that mean Fords are bad cars? No.

What I'm saying is just that Tesla are not "excellent cars and are still ranked at the top compared to the rest of the market" as you said. The fact that they move from the bottom to average still don't support Tesla as excellent cars when compared to the rest of the market. Note that I'm not asserting that "Tesla are the worst cars".

That was my mistake in that I'd meant to compare them with other EV's, not ICEs.

> And even then you’re bragging about Tesla being … average?

If you think about issues this way, I think it's fully unproductive. No one was bragging. The fact you see this as either unthinking bragging or unthinking criticism makes it very hard to talk about what matters: the facts of the matter.

They absolutely were bragging when they said this:

> Tesla's are excellent cars and are still ranked at the top compared to the rest of the market.

The actual facts show otherwise, of course, so now he’s trying the squid ink approach of emitting a lot of verbiage trying to say that average and excellent mean the same thing, but that’s just a distraction from the fact that their first statement was based on brand loyalty, not data.

This is what I mean - my impression is you can't tell the difference between someone commenting on a product and someone boasting about something they made or did. The OP (as far as we know) is not in a position to brag about the general status of Tesla cars, unless they are a senior person at Tesla.

If I said "BMWs are excellent cars" would I be bragging?

I wasn't bragging, I can't brag about them because I don't own a Tesla nor serve to gain any validation or benefit if they do well or not.

A study has found that perhaps I was wrong in the eyes of a dependability study, but I still think they're an excellent car. I still think that if a Ford owner said that they think their Ford Ranger is an excellent car people wouldn't disagree because a dependability study put them as average.

> Tesla's are excellent cars and are still ranked at the top compared to the rest of the market.

> you'll see that Tesla now ranks right near the average. Significantly better than in previous years and ahead of other common car makers.

What I was referring to was in comparison to other EV's not all ICE's.

That was my mistake

>These studies don't really show a decent comparison between EV's, just car makers in general

Which is an absolutely asinine axis of comparison seeing as we live in a reality where different brands take different product lines seriously.

Isn’t Tesla Model S Plaid still ranked the fastest (maybe 1 or 2 $300k super cars are faster) while being the safest and have arguably the most advanced self drive available in the market?

I dislike Tesla as a brand; however, they're not particularly lacking considering their size and price point. JD Power's "ratings" are almost entirely based on surveys and are essentially worthless.

My Model Y is the most reliable car I've ever owned, except it eats tires quickly because it's so heavy. Just one anecdote of course.

I'll never buy another one as long as Elon Musk is associated with the company, but I'd be crazy to sell it now because it's paid for and it's a great car.

Bruh, JD Power is a joke, they said the Chevy Equinox is the most reliable compact SUV of 2024, look at any of their rankings, it’s all basically random, meaningless noise. I assume they just create hundreds of oveRlapping categories to make sure everyone has something they will pay the license fee to talk about in a commercial

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