I can't remember where I heard this but it stuck with me: Teslas are the new American muscle car - fast in a straight line, but otherwise poor build quality and lacking the attention to drivers' experience you get from European brands.
I had a MINI. That was a build quality disaster. Major engine issues after only three years. I now have a Silverado 1500 LTZ. It has obvious build quality issues. Interior isn’t as good as it used to be. Gearbox has a banging sound. My Teslas seem so much better than either of those or most other cars I interact with really. I sat in my friends Toyota Camry the other day. The interior seemed so much cheaper, the sound quality so much worse, the cabin was so much more loud than my humble Model 3. What about my car has poor build quality that I am oblivious to?
Tesla panel gaps and quality are fine. They had some early issues, but the damn things are basically body panels hung off of almost entirely cast chunks of metal. There is not a lot of room for wiggle. If anything, they're so we'll integrated that they're hard to repair after a crash.
I’ve had several Teslas and even currently have their supposed disaster of a truck and have not encountered this alleged build quality issue. My car before that, a Honda Civic, spent much more time in the shop purely on account that it needed oil changes and expensive scheduled maintenances once or twice a year.
Your hydraulic brake systems need to be flushed every couple years to prevent corrosion, even if you don’t use them.
The main example is the panel gaps on Tesla body. They can be offset by a "large" amount compared to other car brands, but it doesn't harm anything and you have to look for it to be noticeable.
So do Tesla's have a bad build quality? Yes, if you define it by tolerances, but no if you define it by "Does it feel low quality". And the debate online is largely with people talking past each other with differing definitions of what build quality actually means.
> They can be offset by a "large" amount compared to other car brands
The funny thing is that whenever I get into a Tesla, the interior just feels kinda cheap and of low-quality/low-effort design. That's not saying anything about their build quality, though.
Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, Audi, Honda, Toyota, Accura, Lexus....
I'm not actually sure any EV could capture what people like about muscle cars, but you're definitely not going to get it from some futuristic transport blob that just happens to have a low 0-60 time. The Tesla roadster might have captured some of the sports car magic, but it's telling they don't make that any more (for now). I don't know if they could do the same thing for muscle cars at all.
Maybe more importantly, either of the above had an appealing visual style (to some!) and had their own community around them. Teslas are pretty visually boring, you can't really modify them, but I suppose they have a community of their own who debates which version of software drives the car for you better.