Slashdot Mirror

To people who didn't know better, they'd think that you actually have a Model 3. You don't - you're a consistent Tesla foe on this forum. You're just repeating FUD that you heard.

Going down the list:

1) There were two cases (out of hundreds of thousands of cars) of the bumper coming off. It wasn't due to being "in the rain", but rather driving quickly through standing water (the bumper was acting like a parachute, and Model 3 has crazy amounts of torque). These cases were half a year ago. No new cases have been reported since.

2) According to the Model 3 Owners Survey, conducted last August (when autowipers were brand new; they've gotten better since then), the ratings for autowipers were:

57,0%: They do their job just fine
25,5%: Very rarely don't wipe, or wipe too often - but it's not a problem
9,7%: Minor issues that probably should be fixed.
7,8%: Moderate to major issues

These are similar numbers to what you'd find for a review of any autowiper system - and this was the very first release.

3) You can make the water go into the trunk by applying RainX to your rear windshield, which makes the water slide off faster and over the rear gutter. But there is a rear gutter (it was enlarged last year regardless).

4) According to the Model 3 Owners Survey (again, last August, involving a lot of early vehicles) 76,5% were "very satisfied" with their exterior fit and finish, and 16,9% "mostly satisfied" (93,4% total). For interior fit and finish, the numbers were 80,2% and 17,0%, respectively (97,2%). Infotainment system satisfaction ("the screen") were 58,2% and 31,3%, respectively (89,5%). These are exceedingly high numbers.

And these exceedingly high numbers show. Since we're talking about Consumer Reports, wouldn't it be great if they had polled what people thought of their cars? Why, they did! And of all of the different models from all of the different manufacturers, Model 3 owners loved their cars the most. 92% satisfaction. Specifically, the question they were asked about was whether, after having owned the car, they would make the same purchase decision again. So IMHO it's rather odd for Consumer Reports to recommend against a car that their own survey found brought their owners the most joy, and ALSO got the lowest VSS (combined probability of injury score) in NHTSA history.

I do have two issues with CR's methodology, which I'll mention here.,

1) They're giving the impression that we're talking about recent Model 3s here. This is not true. This data was collected on Model 3s from early last year to the middle of last year. These are early-run vehicles that they're talking about. For example, they mentioned the "phantom click" issue. That only existed on some vehicles delivered from February to April 2018 in the 4000-15000 VIN range, due to a bad batch of displays from a supplier. The problem has not existed at all in any form for nearly a year. Yet it's something that CR cites. Note how low those VINs are; Tesla's VINs are now nearly 300k.

2) Specifically because of all of the anti-Tesla FUD, most Model 3 buyers went over their vehicles with a fine-toothed comb, in a way that buyers of other vehicles do not. There were even long "checklists" circulating around that many people used to make sure that their vehicles were flawless at delivery. Who does that for any other vehicle? Now, there's nothing wrong at all with doing this - diligence is great when buying a car. But it messes with self-reporting surveys like CR's. The more a person searches for any little issue

The big auto makers only starting doing so because Musk was eating their lunch. And for all the crying about Tesla missing production targets, they are still dominating the market. Other brands are starting to get wise to the fact that people want normal looking EVs with some range to them, and only now are we seeing some models like that hit the market. In numbers that are nowhere near Tesla's current production volume, I might add.

Am I a fan? Hell yes. I still ordered a Hyundai Kona EV instead of a Model 3, just thought it'd be a better car for me... but the waiting list for the Kona is longer than for the 3 now, due to the fact that they only make a handful of them.

Citation provided:https://evobsession.com/tesla-...

You had said that (1) energy density doubles every seven years, and (2) prices halve every seven years. That link provides information about claim (2). Can you provide any evidence for claim (1)? I haven't been able to find any myself yet, after 15 minutes on google.

Citation provided: https://evobsession.com/tesla-...

Most everything (for a long time) used/uses 18650 battery cells which are 18mm in diameter and 65mm in height. 21700 battery cells (AKA "2170") are 21mm in diameter, 70mm in height and only made specifically for electric vehicles.

TL;DR: image comparison.

Tesla makes overpriced niche junk. BAIC makes a better EV and has the sales to prove it. In one quarter BAIC accomplished more than Tesla has in 15 years.

The BAIC EC outsells the Teslas by a large margin and the Nissan Leaf continues to be the best selling EV in the world.

That's a pretty amazing news link you shared there.

Tesla's response seems to indicate that the company is unconcerned with what ought to be troubling test results.

Yeah, so unconcerned that they whipped out a fix in record time.

All this as the company, which is hemorrhaging cash, piles expensive features onto the car

There's some nice, neutral, even-handed reporting for you.

The car, which was originally slated for a minimum of 35 thousand dollars, is now more likely to first be released with features that bring it into the 70 to 80 thousand dollar range

"more likely to first be released"? The writer of that article seems to be blissfully unaware that the Model 3 has been shipping in quantity for months now and is in fact the most popular battery electric vehicle sold in the USA today. Why did you pick this as the reference to support your posting?

Tesla is selling their cars as fast as they can make them, and making them faster now. This posting on futurism.com does nothing to alter my opinion of Tesla or its future.

Yes, because as we all know, airplane autopilots are totally designed to replace a pilot, and that's why we don't have pilots anymore.

Meanwhile, it's not Tesla that's calling its cars "self-driving".

Tesla has not been calling AP "self-driving" - you're thinking of Mercedes, describing their awful Autopilot-wannabe. Tesla goes through huge lengths to point out that it's not self driving - to the point that they sell two separate packages, "Enhanced Autopilot" and "Full Self Driving", and the latter tells you that it is not available yet - so that it's physically impossible to think that your car is "full self driving", because either you didn't choose that option, or you didn't receive it.

Contrary to popular myth, AP accidents are rarely from "newbies who mistakenly thought their car was self driving". They're overwhelmingly from experienced users who've had AP for a long time. They get overconfindent in their car's abilities and stop paying attention, just doing things like using their cell phone and only stopping to occasionally grab the wheel so the car won't harass them. Newbies are generally paranoid and hypervigilant.

Musk has not clarified exactly what it was about eye tracking that he thought was not ready for prime time, but I hope it gets remedied and implemented (Model 3 already has the requisite driver-facing camera). If the driver's attention can be ensured, I think it's pretty indisputable that "vehicular sensors and constant attention" plus "human senses and reasoning" is going to be by far the safest option. But you need to ensure that the human is actually paying attention to the road. Requiring torque on the steering wheel is good (better than just a pressure sensor), but not enough.

IMHO.

I was assuming demand. GM, and to a greater extend, Ford, learned their lesson about pumping out cars just to meet production numbers. In fact, Ford nearly bankrupted themselves trying to maintain their status as #2 automaker by dumping large numbers of cheaper than reasonable fleet cars (Taurus at $12k for example, etc...) onto the market. There are several good books addressing Ford's recovery that get into this issue. I confirmed when I looked quickly into it. GM says they are not production limiting the Bolt, and they aren't just making compliance numbers to get credits for emissions and whatnot, they are limited by demand. This is from a very pro-EV source: http://evobsession.com/chevy-b...

I agree a lot of it is hype, but apparently hype worth putting down $1000 for. As noted here, the top selling electric vehicles are selling about 30,000 units per year. Four times that amount were pre-ordered and it hasn't even been a full day yet.

This specific product isn't available yet but their other products are, and people like what they see. This isn't like Google Glass, the demand is real.

It seems to me that if Apple gets into the car business, they'll do so by hiring the top automotive engineers and designers in the world. I know they can outbid anyone else for them.

Bzzt!

Tesla recently poached 150 folks from Apple. http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/02/09/elon-musk-has-raided-150-people-from-apple-for-tesla/

Apple is offering crazy money to get folks to jump the other way, but not having anywhere near that kind of success. http://evobsession.com/apple-trying-poach-tesla-engineers-250000-signing-bonuses/

Seriously, this guy has written about Tesla for a number of years. Yet, he has always been negative on them, and WRONG.

The global EV market will grow from 65,000 units in 2012 to 450,000 in 2020; and yet, pure evs nearly doubled in 2013 to 111K and on-track to double last years sales in 2014. Heck, at the end of 2015, Tesla ALONE will be producing 50K cars / year.
and here, he gripes about Tesla as being a large unknown, and not likely to hit its numbers.

Basically, Anderman is NOT about batteries, but just an industry troll, with lousy ability to make accurate predictions.