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Consumer Reports: Tesla's Model X Is 'Fast and Flawed' (marketwatch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MarketWatch: Tesla Motors Inc. was dealt a blow earlier this week as Consumer Reports magazine called the Model X, its much-awaited and much-feted SUV, a "flawed" vehicle. Beyond a "brag-worthy magic, the all-wheel drive Model X 90D largely disappoints," the magazine said, citing rear doors prone to pausing and stopping, second-row seats that can't be folded, and limiting cargo capacity. Even its panoramic, helicopter-like windshield won cranky-sounding disapproval from Consumer Reports: It's not tinted enough to offset the brightness of a sunny day, it said. Overall "the ride is too firm and choppy for a $110,000 car," Consumer Reports said. Earlier this year, Consumer Reports released its 2016 Car Reliability Survey and found that, while the Tesla Model S has become more reliable, the Tesla Model X has proved to be unreliable overall.
I know nerds obsess over them, but Tesla builds shitty cars. Trim falling off, panel gap issues... as someone who purchases cars around $100k, these are just unacceptable. The Model S is fast but handles like a pig. It's not fun to drive unless you like stop light racing teens. Nor are they luxurious compared to a similarly priced Merc or Audi...
I'm not surprised, building cars is very, very difficult, a new entrant is bound to make really crappy cars for a long time while they figure their manufacturing line out.
That's actually fine for their original luxury market, there's a lot of wealthy people who are quite happy to pay for a fully electric car from an upstart manufacturer, even if it is unreliable.
The problem is they're trying to move into the general consumer market where it's not enough to be fully electric and cool, you also need to be extremely reliable. That's a much more difficult task.
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Then they poached too many EEs and Computer Engineers and from Silicon Valley and not enough Mechanical engineers from Toyota, Audi, BMW, et al.
You can nitpick his language, but he has a point - Consumer Reports "reliability" ratings blow. They count every problem equally - a power window going on the fritz has the same weight as the transmission falling out the bottom. Add to this that they do not consider the cost of the repair - a Chevy might have an alternator that is less reliable than a Honda, but also costs half as much to replace. Nowhere is that reflected in the rankings. When I'm buying a car I want to know what the total cost of ownership is, how likely it is to leave me stranded, and how much it will cost me to fix in the event that it breaks down - it does not answer any of those questions.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Every. Fucking. Day. Musk Tesla musk Tesla.
If you want to read about Kim Kardashian instead, there are plenty of other sites. But this site is for nerds, and Elon is the king of the nerds. He is building electric cars, solar panels, rockets, and trying to put people on Mars. He co-founded an institute to open source AI. He is like a real life Tony Stark. All the boy nerds want to be him. All the girl nerds want to sleep with him, and still would even if he only had one billion.
"Tesla cars are the most advanced and fun to drive. Go to a tesla store and see for yourself, test drives are free"
Probably you didn't figure it but you just made the parent's point: "most advanced and fun to drive" coupled to being expensive has proven time and again to be good enough for the luxury market, it's far from sufficient for the consumer one.
The same can be said about your "test drives" point: millionaires are served if their toy cars can manage the equivalent to a test drive once a month (go see how many miles have a second hand luxury car on its odometer) but consumer cars start to make sense only once you can reliably put 100K miles on them.
In the end, Mr Anonymous Coward, you don't own a Tesla and you are the kind of fanboy that most probably will queue for hours to own the next iShit that comes properly marketed to you. For Tesla to reach the masses, Musk will need to understand not all the people are like his west-coast millionaire early adopters.
Not to mention that going from from Internal Combustion to Electric is as much of a change as going from Steam-powered to Internal Combustion. Other than the suspension system and perhaps breaking system there are few components with known reliability Tesla could get "off the shelf." Pretty much everything had to be designed in-house with failure modes that no-one could even imagine without hundreds of thousand of real-world miles to do modeling with. Tesla is not only designing brand new technology but going from a boutique luxury market to a mass market producer at the same time. Only time will tell if Tesla Motor's become as legendary as its namesake or if it fizzles out and becomes a Case Study on the dangers of being overly bold and ambitious
I think you and the grandparent are talking about different things, he's mainly talking about the "premium" experience of a $100k car. I've heard others too say it falls short of high end Audis and BMWs, but really it sells to all those who want to "go green" but can't deal with the range of a Nissan Leaf, BMW i3 or Renault Zoe regardless of that. Once you get into Tesla Model 3 territory the customers aren't really obsessing over such details, they want as you say a cheap, reliable car and it's less about the finer details and nuances of the driving experience.
Do they have quality control/reliability issues, as in how often does the car need to be in the shop? From what I've heard certainly some, parts and repair time has also been an issue. But we're also hearing from early Model S customers, they have a lot more experience now than they had then so Model 3 might be decent. Not ever going to buy a Model X though, those doors are just begging for problems 3-5-10 years down the road. I think the Elon Musk drank a little too much "they said it can't be done, so I'm doing it" kool-aid there.
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...and yet if it got a glowing review it would be proof positive that Consumer Reports nailed it and has a great reputation for not accepting bribes, etc. Face it, it's just that they trashed your favorite car and now you have to reply by trashing CR.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
You think that's bad, take a look at the even more exclusive sports and super cars. Ferraris with plastics that melt and become sticky after a few years, spontanious combustion, McLarens with door sensors that only work half the time, Lotuses with giant panel gaps. For a lot of these cars price is not proportional to build quality or reliability. You're paying for an experience or an image. Being able to hear the engine note of a flat plane crank V8 is well worth the cost of entry for many people, for others it's entry in to the club of ownership. Having to take the car to the garage every third drive is just part of the supercar ownership experience. Many of these cars are so mechanically high strung that they require absolutely insane maintenance schedules anyway. It's not such a huge deal to replace a few interior parts or electronic doodads when you have to take it in for a whole goddamn engine out regular major service.
Many of these problems have lessened in recent years, the build quality of these cars in the 70's through the 90's was absolutely laughable. I'm not saying its acceptable, just that is how it is. Even the Viper's domestic competitor, the Corvette has had similar issues, even in recent years, see C7 Z06 heat soak issues.
OK, I don't post here much but read almost every day. I thought I would bite on this one, enough to change my password that I did not remember.
I don't know what is wrong with Consumer reports (I am a member), but after reading this post, I sat here wondering "hmm, when was the last time I was able to do something useful with one of their reviews?". I can't remember. I joined originally to compare appliances for my house, not sure what an alternative for that would be. For cars, I think you spend more time trying to interpret what their reviews "mean" than actually being able to use it in a purchasing decision, unless it is clear-cut and uncontested. Closest you will get to a car they consistently love, Lexus maybe? (what I was going to get if I did not go Tesla). But that is really boring if there is nothing they don't like about it.
They really liked the Model S at first, then they (now they) say it is unreliable. Based on that, I am not completely surprised about what they are saying about the Model X. I almost bought one, but my use case is better for a sedan and the doors scare me. Even Elon said he went overboard with the doors, just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD. Aside from that, I would prefer to let a model X owner chime in and offer their side of it. Or check the forums and ask.
I have owned a Tesla Model S 60D (fully loaded) for about 3 months now. Not sure what to actually say here that won't get me flamed, so I will just try to offer some helpful first-hand insight.
TL:DR - I have a Tesla and I am a regular guy, ask away.
For example, I am a little bothered by this negative post from the "Tesla builds shitty cars" guy, so I will pick that:
quote:
I know nerds obsess over them, but Tesla builds shitty cars. Trim falling off, panel gap issues... as someone who purchases cars around $100k, these are just unacceptable. The Model S is fast but handles like a pig. It's not fun to drive unless you like stop light racing teens. Nor are they luxurious compared to a similarly priced Merc or Audi...
My comments:
- The only thing in the paragraph that is even partially true might be the last statement. I have been in / owned cheaper cars that had better interior or features that I miss or wish my Tesla had / got right. Is it that bad? No, but people expect a car THAT expensive to perfect. I have sat in even more expensive cars, that also have this problem. I think it is more of a problem of expectations than any actual deterrent to buying or owning the car.
- There are people who have had problems with Tesla cars, lots of them. Maybe some of them think they are shitty as a result. I know I had trouble with this when I was researching if I should buy one or not (1-2 months of research I would say, two test drives, 5 or so trips to dealer) mostly because I had to filter through them for some real information. And to be fair, I have had it for only 3 months. Ask me again in 1-2 years or longer. I am asking myself all the time - would I dare to keep this car past the 8-year warranty?
- Fast but handles like a pig? It weighs 5,000+ lbs: so, you would expect that it would not accelerate well and would be too heavy to stay on the road because of things like that pesky F = ma. I could write pages on this, I am an engineer, but this is not a problem. Not only does it not have this problem, but it even exceeds the performance of much lighter cars that really SHOULD handily beat it. If you research why this is, it is because it is one of the things they got right, the short version is put all the weight at the bottom. I think the biggest limitation is actually the limit of my driving skills. I don't even own a "P" (performance) model, those one's that go 0-60 in 2.5/3.0 seconds or so (Yes, I did test drive it). Mine is a regular all-wheel drive with the smallest battery they currently sell. My 0-60 is 5.2 seconds. God bless those people who buy those $110K+, or the $150+ P100D, for me that would be at least $20-$
Regular doors work just as well, or even sliding ones. They're cheaper, simpler and more reliable. It should be a no brainer. Of course that assumes the gull wing doors were added to solve a practical problem. The reality is they were probably added to solve a marketing problem - a justification to jack the price up and free press.
Obviously there are major differences such as battery and motors. Teslas are supposedly very mechanically reliable from an automotive aspect. The faults in the X are mostly to do with the doors, trim and other teething troubles.
Lots of combustion vehicles have these faults too or even more serious issues. My Hyundai diesel's clutch pretty much exploded one day - it was repaired under warranty but apparently it was a common fault in that model.
In a hatchback, you put hinges on the rear seats so they fold forward. Folding seats were innovative 1914, over a hundred years ago, and they aren't any different just whether the engine is a flat 4, a V8, or electric. Tesla literally could have used the exact same seats from any 1970s station wagon.
They're a hundred years behind in basic utility features and "innovation" isn't an excuse.
Add to this that they do not consider the cost of the repair - a Chevy might have an alternator that is less reliable than a Honda, but also costs half as much to replace.
The problem is, the Chevy will probably break in 4-6 years but the Honda part will last for 20.
Also any calculation will only involve OEM parts, whilst Genuine Honda parts are extremely expensive, anyone with an ounce of intelligence will just by the same part from Bosch or whoever makes it avoiding the OEM tax. Add to that the fact you can get cheaper 3rd party parts for a Honda.
I've had Japanese and European cars, My parents owned Holdens (Chevy in Australia). The Japanese cars was the cheapest to repair, my Euro the most expensive... but both didn't break nearly as much as the Holdens, they didn't cost a bomb to fix like my BMW, but they needed to be fixed more often. As the old joke goes, 97% of Chevys are still on the road... only 3% made it home.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
All of what you say might or might not be true, but none of it is captured in the Consumer Reports data. I personally have found my Japanese cars to be more reliable, but also more expensive to fix. My shittiest car was a Chevy Blazer, and I replaced the transmission 3 times... but at the end of the day I had the car for well over 150k+ miles (the speedometer stopped working...) and each transmission rebuild cost only $600 dollars. I'm in a different phase of life now and appreciate the reliability more than the ease of repair, but it would still be good information to have. My latest fix on my Toyota involved a simple radiator swap and the entire AC unit had to be removed for access. This made a quick and cheap repair quite expensive.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Yes... Tesla's original awesomeness was like that of a talking horse, who amazes by the mere fact of talking. That it talks with a heavy accent and has a very limited vocabulary does not diminish the awe. Initially.
But then, slowly, it gets treated like any other talker, and the audience begins noticing the flaws. Tesla is entering this stage now.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.