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Comment by hnburnsy | Hacker News Reader

None of these car reviewers ever take into account build quality and customer issues. Example they all lashihly praised the EX90, but owners struggled for a year with software problems, then found out the LIDAR they paid for is never going to assist their driving and they need a new computer. Same with Rivian, all of today's reviews praise the R2, but ignore the troubles current owners have not just with the car but with getting service too.

Never buy a first year model and then keep an eye on owners forums before you buy.

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> None of these car reviewers ever take into account build quality and customer issues.

Because most car reviewers' job is to explain new releases. Most issues arise after time, which reviewers generally don't get. MKBHD has gone into quality issues at times: see for example Cybertruck [1] and Fisker Ocean [2]. In their Q&A videos, the couple that does Motormouth [3] due mention reliability when asked for recommendations.

There are sources for reliability assessments, like J. D. Power and Consumer Reports.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0cs8aIXgkc&t=8m

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xWXRk3yaSw

[3] https://www.youtube.com/user/Motormouthcanada/videos

Underrated comment.

Everyone commented on the battery life for my model 3 in winter (which is annoying but not a huge deal). The problems with the bushings, the easily cracked (2500$) roof glass, and the lack of spare parts (not as bad as Rivian) were drowned out.

Love the car, but wouldn't have bought it for the price I paid (used) if I had known.

The R2 looks great but like you said, never buy a first year model.

(Unless it is the Honda 0 Saloon)

Day 1 reviews, the ones that drives sales of any product, are flawed by definition. They take a narrow and superficial view of the product, a snapshot when what you need is a timelapse.

The winter tires that score great on day 1 but put a bit of wear on them and they turn to crap. The motherboard that scores the highest in the benchmarks at launch but later on burns your CPU, or gets a BIOS update that caps the performance, or gets no updates whatsoever. The car that shines at acceleration and feature list but breaks down often and is slow and expensive to fix.

Day 1 reviews certainly have some value but it’s higher for the reviewer than for the potential buyer. By the time the reviewer follows up after battle testing in time, if they even want to risk looking like they got it wrong the first time, the damage was done. And people aren’t that interested in reading about old stuff, those reviews don’t get the views.

i have that rule and the same exception for the 0. it feels like its "cyber" look done actually right with proper design (i dont let other inferior designs steal the word cyber). i would also add any decently good* ev minivan that is actually available to buy in the us.

*vw buzz fails the good test for no one pedal driving and the price for what you get is outta wack. though lots of the 1st gen ones are still sitting on car lots so maybe that could cross the exception barrier if they go for cheaper.

I would love to come in and buy a BYD with the exact same design flaws, but for 1/3 of the price. Sadly protectionism disallows me from doing that

Same here! American-made EVs ask for an incredibly heavy price tag and don’t deliver on the reliability of ICE or Hybrid cars a third of their price. It’s the primary thing stopping me from getting one as my next vehicle.

I’m trying to shop around to replace my wife’s aging crossover and I really can’t find anything more attractive than a Prius or another Kia Soul. If we could get electric cars from the CN market it’d be a no-brainer!

I’ve had software issues on an ID4 and iX, but I’ve never had reliability problems. The cars always have just worked with no maintenance. Same with my model Y, minus any issues!

Maybe it’s a “but when it happens you’re screwed” situation. I’m thinking of the story of BMW’s battery safety fuse (the one that trips in an accident to protect first responders and the people in the car) actually tripping when you hot the curb or a pothole harder. It requires a very expensive trip to the dealer. Some of my Tesla owning friends keep spending time in the shop getting something about the suspension fixed 2-3 times already.

I have no idea if Chinese EVs are consistently better, Volvo can be seen as one and I don’t think they excel at reliability lately.

P.S. Software issues are reliability issues. The software is a core part of the car and its value proposition, you can’t discount them as “just software issues, not reliability”.

> Some of my Tesla owning friends keep spending time in the shop getting something about the suspension fixed 2-3 times already.

They're pretty lucky from what I hear! A friend of mine just sold his Model S because he'd been waiting over 7 months for the shop to source a replacement part. Apparently he'd even resorted to begging Musk to look into it over X because Tesla wont even give him an ETA.

Volvo has had absolutely terrible software since Geely acquired them. I own a Volvo and like the brand, I still think the cars are beautiful and the engineering outside of the software is pretty good, but the software is an embarrassment. It's just so bad. Shockingly bad. The worst of all the automakers by far. I'm worried it will sink the brand, and am not looking forward to owning a car made by a defunct automaker. I hope Volvo cleans house in the software department.

I really wanted to like the iD4.

iD4 feels like they took every lesson of predictable UX design and then intentionally reversed it to make the most frustrating UI possible.

The window controls, touch buttons, screen, steering wheel controls, etc. They all seem designed to answer the question, "how could we make this unnecessarily difficult and distracting to use? How could we possibly cram in yet another State Machine for the user to keep (lose) track of?"

It also has the "try to kill the asthmatic by randomly switching off recirculate while driving through dense wood smoke" feature, naturally.

Considering how much money VW makes on EVs[0], I suppose I'm not surprised by this 'nudge' toward gas cars.

[0] https://www.motor1.com/news/758377/vw-making-less-money-sell...

One of the good things in the UK is seeing how quickly my neighbours swapped out their Tesla's for BYD's.

I'm not in the market at the moment so don't know what the UK protectionism position is on Chinese EV's, but has been interesting to watch how quick it's happening.

I work in design and we're talking to two Chinese EV companies launching in the UK this year, so the wall can't be that high for them.

Imo its not anti-China protectionism. Western models are cheaper in China, and Chinese models are more expensive in the EU & UK.

I think it's a combination of manufacturers wanting a higher profit, some adaptations & certification processes, dealer and service infrastructure necessary for selling in the West that just costs more.

I don't think Chinese manufacturers will be able to significantly undercut the competition while maintaining a desirable quality

I would have thought that to be the case too ... I know all about the exciting Xiaomi cars (e.g.) but I grew up in the era of the Chinese brand being "low quality". We're well beyond that now and have been for probably a decade. And don't get me wrong, I'm not a China cheerleader.

I give the example I mentioned. People local to me swapping out their model 3's for BYD. Maybe they just got to their end of their lease cycle and wanted to try something different, but I cannot believe they would have willingly chosen a significantly lower quality car (knowing some of them). And I believe the cost difference is marginal but the overall package just a bit better.

And you know people, they'll swap out anything for just a marginal saving. Doesn't have to be significant unless there's some network effects. And there really isn't with cars.

Anyway, I'm just yapping, but think the used Tesla market is going to get even more swamped than it already is. Not a bad thing because previously people looking for low cost cars were buying diesels - so I'm hopeful that'll transition to low cost EV's now ... but the game is up for Tesla automotive, but we've known that for some time.

I welcome the competition, but my two cents is that BYD or any other Chinese brand doesn't seem to be offering anything outside of the typicial price-performance calculus of existing brands.

I welcome competition, as it benefits everyone, even people who don't want to buy Chinese. It will also encourge building factories for EV components in Europe, which mean other suppliers might benefit from lower prices, and some of the savings will end up at the customer.

As for why your coworkers decided to go for non-Tesla EVs, you have to ask them, and ask them again a few years from now if it was worth it. In their defense, Tesla makes a very particular kind of car (in 2 slight variations), which many people might want to move away from.

Maybe they want a petrol range extender, maybe they want a more traditional SUV, or something smaller/bigger than Tesla.

The UK has a local car manufacturing industry (Nissan, Jaguar/Landrover), but not large enough to be able to lobby for protectionism. And in any case the UK has basically given up on having a coherent trade policy since Brexit.

I've seen quite a few BYDs and MG4s, and there are Jaecoo and Leapmotor dealers near me. I've been told that some NHS boards were using MGs as "pool" cars, but the only example I can find a reference for is Shetland. https://www.nhsshetland.scot/news/article/43/nhs-shetland-ro...

I don't think I've ever seen a Rivian. The R2 is supposed to be coming to the UK in 2027.

The UK has a lot of "garage" brands too (the Morgans, Caterhams, BAC, etc.), but as you said they don't have a lot of lobbying power, and the lobbying they do is on behalf of lengthening THEIR transition to new EV requirements.

That said, the UK's history of small auto manufacturers would make it potentially ideal for a few domestic producers to make little EVs, similar to the Caterham 7, or the Ariel Atom for the domestic market, but they will never be the mass produced Tesla or BYD competitor.

I watched one of those Out Of Spec videos on an earlier Rivian and it was full of praise and raving. Then there was a later video where they almost on the side mentioned when it came out of the factory it felt legitimately unsafe to drive on the highway and had already spent days at service including a total powertrain shutdown, essentially a lemon. These things happened already in the time before their first video yet were never mentioned. That entire YouTube review industry is more rotten and bought than the same show on Cable TV ever was..

That was the cyber truck. 4 motor replacements iirc.

I think Consumer Reports does large quality surveys of customers and includes that in their reviews.

Yep. Consumer Reports' "Find a Car" page has sorting options for Overall Score, Road Test Score, Predicted Reliability, and Predicted Owner Satisfaction. I think they're a tremendous pro-consumer non-profit, and that a $39/year membership more than pays for itself by way of better major purchases.

Rivian, by the way, is the lowest-ranked of 26 covered auto manufacturers in terms of predicted reliability, below Ram and Jeep. The top 3 are Toyota, Subaru, and Lexus.

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