Consumer Reports' Tesla Model S has more than its share of problems | Hacker News Reader

Consumer Reports' Tesla Model S has more than its share of problems

consumerreports.org

35 pointsdror34 comments

Tesla have only been making an entire car for a few years, and they've only made a few tens of thousands of them.

Anyone who buys one has to reasonably expect a few teething problems here and there. Early adopters of Version 1.0, etc.

What matters is how Telsa deals with these problems, and if customer satisfaction is severely impacted. From all reports, they're doing a good job and owners are not yet unhappy.

I see absolutely no problem here, and nothing to worry about. They're obviously learning and growing, and things will improve as time goes on.

Besides a few possible 50,000+ mile examples, Tesla Model Ses are all in warranty right now.

Once they're out of warranty, it's possible that customer satisfaction will go right out the window unless Tesla subsidize the cost of repairs further.

Tesla seem cognizant of this issue in that they both offered a better-than-standard warranty for their market segment and are proactive about updating cars to revised parts (as opposed to other manufacturers, who often force consumers to harass dealers about service bulletins they've noticed and want fixed).

However, I'd still worry a bit. Systemic issues could result in increased depreciation and a tarnished reputation, which would be a double-whammy for Tesla thanks to their aggressive buy-back lease program.

Plus with a complete vendor service lock-in, Tesla are in complete control of service prices and availability. This is a tricky game to play. Right now, Teslas are relatively expensive and owners probably won't have problems paying dealer service prices, but as Tesla move downmarket they'll have to strike a balance between making a profit and preserving their reputation, and there aren't any third-party mechanics for budget-conscious consumers to seek out.

I admit that I don't drive BMWs or other high-end cars but I must say that this sentence caught my eye: "The maintenance service, done at the same time, includes topping off fluids, cabin filter replacement, key fob batteries, and a tire rotation. All told, we paid $636.90 with tax."

I'm probably not the market for (current) Teslas--too cheap when it comes to cars--but that seems like... a lot. My Toyota SUV, which is not a particularly LOW-end car, covered pretty much all service for 2 years. Again, understand I'm not Tesla's current market.

That sounds about right for dealer maintenance on a luxury car. In reality they probably put less than $10 of fluids in the car, replaced batteries for a couple bucks, popped in a new air filter for $20, and spent 15 minutes moving the tires between axles. You're really just paying for the dealership's time to do those things.

Another reality check to print out and file away for the next time I'm tempted to buy one of those German sport-luxury car things :-) I do like them. I just like lots of other things more for that amount of money.

From what I understand about BMW's getting out of the shop for less than <1000$ is a pittance... (at least once that warranty is over)

~700$ for routine maintenance seems like a lot. But they did do a shitload of work on the car (like replacing the entire rear passenger seating) for free.

If you do those things on a BMW as its first owner, or as a CPO owner, they are no charge.

you paid up front for that until 50k or 4 yrs.

>Tesla have only been making an entire car for a few years, and they've only made a few tens of thousands of them.

This is one thing that really worries me. Being connected to the auto industry the development of a new power train components is normally 6-10 years. The idea that you could roll out even something as simple a rear differential without 5 years of testing is pretty scary. I know computer modelling is pretty decent, but once you have models, you need to test your models. The automakers tried in the 90's to build completely without prototyping and it went over like a ton of bricks.

> Anyone who buys one has to reasonably expect a few teething problems here and there. Early adopters of Version 1.0, etc.

Maybe applying "hey, it'll get debugged eventually" paradigms to multi-tonne death machines isn't the right way to go.

That isn't fair.

There are two separate classes of functions of a car: it's "multi-tonne death machine" functions (gas, break, crash safety, etc) and it's "(luxury) automobile" functions (doors opening, screen, etc). The later is what is mostly going wrong and needing debugging.

Pretty sure a car hitting normal freeway debris and having its battery module burst into flames falls into the prior category.

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/model-s-fire

You might want to look into the thousands of gas-powered vehicles that "burst into flames" from collisions each year

"normal" freeway debris

"burst into flames"

You have a future writing for Mills & Boon.

Unexpected behavior in "luxury" functions can cause distraction of the driver, which interferes with a critical "multi-tonne death machine" function.

Somewhere between, say, the EV version of an ignition switch failure and a knob coming off on the radio (although I'm guessing the Tesla doesn't have knobs), there are things that render a car inoperable to the point where it has to be towed. And I'd consider those pretty significant flaws in any car I purchased even if they didn't reach the "OMG, I could have died" level.

I misinterpreted the title. I read it like: "Consumer Reports: Tesla Model S has more than its share of problems" I didn't see the apostrophe and that changes the meaning from what I initially thought.

>Bear in mind that the experiences with our test cars are purely anecdotal and never factor into our reliability ratings. After all, it's a sample size of one.

It's partially due to the incorrect syntax, should be "Consumer Reports's"

I doubt that there's a single professional editor or author of a guide to English usage or style who would agree that it should be "Consumer Reports's".

Here's a discussion about the topic: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=29285

Edit: Actually, it's not just an issue about the proper noun ending in "s", but the proper noun ("Consumer Reports") is actually using a plural noun, reports. For the case of making a plural possessive, most would agree that you just add an apostrophe without an additional "s" (s' rather than s's).

It's not incorrect syntax; indeed, while the preferred method of showing possessives where the possessing noun ends in an "s" is is a stylistic issue that is subject to much debate, most of the rules that I can find suggested now would find "Consumer Reports'" to be the correct form, not "Consumer Reports's".

[1] Eg, this source ( http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/apostro.asp ) reports several rules that are in use for singular and proper nouns (see Rule 1c): 1. Add just an apostrophe after the "s" for any word endign in "s" 2. Add an apostrophe and an "s" to a common noun ending in "s", but just an apostropher to a proper noun ending in "s". 3. Write the word as we speak it. Further, in Rule 2a: regular nouns that form plurals with "-s" or "-es" just get an apostrophe (no extra "s").

Consumer Reports is a proper noun formed from the plural form of a common noun that is pluralized by adding an "s", so all those (except perhaps "write as you speak", and then only if you'd say "Consumer Reportses" for the possessive form) support adding a bare apostrophe rather than apostrophe plus s.

For a better treatment, I turned to The Chicago Manual of Style (sixteenth edition), used by the vast majority of publishers of American English books. It says in Section 7.19 to omit the s "...when the name of a place or an organization or a publication (or the last element in the name) is a plural form ending in s, such as the United States, even though the entity is singular."

And cites these as examples:

the United States' role in international law

Highland Hills' late mayor

Callaway Gardens' former curator

the National Academy of Sciences' new policy

Tesla has had some serious drive-train problems [1] (which it appears Consumer Reports did not experience) but they seem to have fixed the problem [2].

1) http://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-s/2013/long-term-road-tes...

2) http://transportevolved.com/2014/08/11/tesla-model-s-drivetr...

Title bait; Watch the video, the problems are all minor issues that were fixed & the owner is given a replacement car while they're fixed.

The point of the article was really that Consumer Reports will be releasing a new reliability report on the fall. The Tesla's reliability rating may or may not fall, depending on the survey results provided by actual owners. CR does not include its own experiences in the reliability report, though these experiences do factor into CR's ratings and recommendations.

Does anybody know how much the severity of the problem factors into the ratings?

When doing research for my last car (a prius), a lot of the prius owners claimed that a recent reliability drop in CR Prius ratings corresponded with Toyota introducing the "Entune" radio / app system.

At least for me, I'm much less concerned about an app crashing than I am about the car leaving me stranded because of, say, a coolant leak.

On the Consumer Reports survey, respondents are asked to self-report the perceived severity of a failure along with the amount of time they were left without the car.

I'm not sure about the algorithm used to turn these inputs into the simplistic CR circle-ratings, but I suspect that safety and total-inoperability issues are weighted heavily.

Regardless of how the results are compiled, it's obvious that cars which already have a perfect score are susceptible to "fall off" due to moderate annoyances.

How is the charing port not opening a minor issue? Or, the door handles getting stuck.

Both of those render the car inoperable. They got lucky in that the door handles were fixed with an OTA update. The port required a service appointment.

Compared to my three cars (Lexus RX, Jeep Wrangler, VW GTI), the Model S sounds like a complete dud. Which is a shame because it's a sexy car and I'd love to own one someday.

I've had my share of issues on my Lexus is250 (radio knobs breaking, new valves because they stuck, rough idle when braking hard) - all were covered under warranty though which is the main point.

Issues like this usually pop up early in a car's life, I think the more interesting what happens to the Model S at 100k, 200k, 300k etc.. long term is still a huge unknown.

Luckily the mechanics of electric cars are _much_ simpler than internal composition engines.

The idea of "drive it till the trans falls out" shouldn't exist here. It is mildly annoying that the entire thing is basically driven by a computer. Because we all know around here that code is 100% reliable and never goes wrong :/...

(and by code I mean software switches for everything and no manual mechanisms... like a latch for the charge port, etc etc).

Oh, I've had issues with my cars. The Lexus required a new radio at 40k miles (warrantied). The GTI a new throttle sensor at 40k (warrantied) and SRS sensor at 50k (warrantied).

But none of them caused the car to be undriveable. And all happened after several years of driving, not several months.

Anyway, as I hinted at above, I'm hopeful Tesla is successful. I wanted a Roadster back in '08. I want an S now. And I'm sure when they release their 3-series competitor, it'll be on the short list to replace the Lexus.

Honestly, I'd be more worried about the fact that the center console screen going out is what completely prevented them from opening the charging point. So daily usage of the car is entirely reliant on a touch screen interface with no physical fallback at all? That's frightening to me.

my favorite example of taking the idea to far, having the moon roof controls there. I find the touch screen to be the obnoxious part of an otherwise very interesting car.

Just because you can do something does not mean you should.

I'm willing to bet that compared to the first vehicles ever built by Lexus (Toyota), Jeep or VW it's head and shoulders better and more reliable.

If you're not interested in being an early adopter of new tech from a relatively new/young company, no problems, just wait.

Plenty of people obviously are adopting, despite your personal reservations.

Irrelevant. I was calling the previous poster out for his Tesla nut-swinging. Problems that render a new car inoperative are not "minor", loaner car or not.

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