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Consumer Reports No Longer Recommends the Tesla Model 3 (cnn.com)
Consumer Reports is pulling its recommendation of the Tesla Model 3, citing reliability issues with the car. "Tesla buyers are more likely to be satisfied with their car than customers of any other brand, according to Consumer Reports," reports CNN. "Yet the publication says many customers reported problems with the Model 3, including loose body trim and glass defects." From the report: "Consumers expect their cars to last -- and not be in the repair shop. That's why reliability is so important," said Jake Fisher, senior director of automotive testing at Consumer Reports.
Tesla pointed to its overall customer satisfaction rating from Consumer Reports and said it has corrected many of the problems found in the survey.
"We take feedback from our customers very seriously and quickly implement improvements any time we hear about issues," said the company statement. It said the survey was conducted from July through September, "so the vast majority of these issues have already been corrected through design and manufacturing improvements, and we are already seeing a significant improvement in our field data." Last May, the product testing website failed to give the Model 3 a recommendation due to issues with braking, but ultimately reversed its decision after Tesla released a firmware update improving the car's breaking distance by nearly 20 feet.
As usual with any product, beware version 1.0
Any number of problems tend to crop up, I'm going on memory but I'm fairly certain this happened with other Tesla Models when they were first introduced as well. Those problems were sorted out over time, but buyer beware for being an "early adopter".
A 20 foot improvement... I sure hope it goes at least 528000000 feet before it breaks.
I design and have engineers and programmers develop for me and mass manufacturing reliable systems is really hard. The 80:20 rule means there will always be an issue you don't pick up in pilot runs. The other car manufacturers have had decades refining designs and production systems. I'm actually surprised Tesla have had few problems as they have had.
but.. providing they survive, they will learn just like all the other car companies have, and fix their quality issues... it's a balancing act between capital expenditure (in tooling, engineering, prototyping, testing) and profitability.
46137
Jeeps come to mind. I'm on my third one now (still have two) and happy with them. They do what I want my vehicles to do, and I've put a lot of trouble free miles on them.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
For any product I know well, it's obvious to me that CR doesn't. Maybe they're good with washer/dryers and refrigerators, IDK.
But I do vividly remember them knocking points off a VW car in the 1970's because it didn't have separate left and right turn signal indicators. The only thing that told me was that CR drivers found it difficult to remember which direction they intended to turn.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I fear long term, support will be poor and parts hard or impossible to get. I have heard several reports or refusal to sell parts to unverified persons or people with blocked VINs, (the vehicle was salvage). They are also very technology driven, which in the past has shown does not age well. Hey look at my Tesla with a 10 year old LCD screen! Give me a knob to turn or button to press. Nothing worse then touch screens.
Actually you could be surprised how many relatively trivial repair jobs could require removing the intake manifold since the components are being packaged more tightly with each generation. This specially applies to most cars with transversally placed V6 engines. Most people for example get a sticker shock when they find out how much it costs to change the spark plugs on the rear bank on such engines.
Since the beginning of Tesla experienced transportation people have observed that it has always been possible to carefully build premium automobiles (and buggies, and chariots, and oxcarts) and sell them at low volume for a premium price at a decent profit to the founders. The difficulty comes when the seller fills its premium market and tries to expand to volume. Daimler-Benz and Cadillac managed to do that successfully; 10,000 competitors from 1895 forward did not. And Tesla? Still to be seen.
Do people actually follow the Consumer Reports recommendations? Just curious.
Personally, the one thing I liked about CR was the "Consumerist" blog their subsidiary ran, but after they unceremoniously closed it down nothing else about CR seems of value. Hence the curiosity, does the public take them into account in buying something like a car?
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I have a Model 3 - picked it up June 2018. I'm in Canada, only thing wrong with the car is cold battery issue and had some issues with the charging port freezing. Brought it into Telsa, they fixed it in 2 hours. Wife drives almost exactly 100 miles daily, we are saving a LOT in fuel. I believe our electrical bill at the house has gone up by about $100 a month vs the $500+ in fuel we were spending on her previous ride. The car steering is tight, accelerates amazingly, refreshing interior, a pleasure to drive. Definitely worth the minor (very minor) trouble we have experienced with it. Already 18,000 miles on the car, feels the same since day one. Can't say the same about my Chevy Tahoe. 2016, 38,000 miles stupid issues all over the place. Cold battery a big deal? No it does not affect my wifes 100 mile commute. When cold, doesn't accelerate as quickly (still plenty better than most cars) and takes longer to charge. I score the car an easy 9 outta 10. Thinking about a model X now too.
When your automated assembly line fails and you rely on out-of-process-import-workers-from-another-line-and-final-assembly-in-tents technology, you are going to run into quality problems.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
People seem to think that starting any business should be as easy as opening a lemon aide stand. However starting something like a new car company isn't remotely easy even if you have tons of cash and an army of engineers and technicians who know exactly what they are doing. It takes decades to learn the little tricks and trade secrets needed to ensure your product is as good as the competition. This is why we can't build another Saturn V rocket despite the fact that we still have one we can take apart and we still have the original blue prints. In reality, it would be cheaper and easier just to design a brand new moon rocket than to try to make another Saturn V. Also, I am sorry libertarians but this is a major problem with your fantasy of a completely free market. Once a car company takes out its competition it will be almost impossible for someone else to come in and compete. The remaining car company will then be a monopoly and will be free to screw over consumers any way they want. Sometimes it is good when the big scary government orders a company to break into smaller ones.
Who cares about upgrades ... I can adjust all of the controls in my Honda by touch, without taking my eyes off the damn road.
I know, I know, one more year and you won't need to drive them anymore.
The popout screen on the Model 3 is just garish to me, but when they have a HUD instead I might well reconsider. The screen-based UI for cars will seem just "so 2010's" once a real car UI is developed.
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OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
For all the flak news outlets throw Tesla's way every now and then, the evidence from actual owners on my own small part of the world has never expressed any level of unhappiness with the Model 3 or Model S.
Also
This too is wrong. A single tap on the left stalk button starts the wipers. Holding the button down turns the wipers on with the washer fluid spray.
Tesla is by no means a perfect company (or the Model 3 a perfect car), but teveryone realizes that much of the over-the-top FUD here comes from short-sellers, right?
I look at CR for information, but don't put much faith in their "recommendations."
They like to rate things they don't understand. I recall a review of bicycles (no clue what made one better than another), and lawn mowers (rated by intuition, apparently never tried them to see what worked better.) Cars should be an exception, given CR's focus, which makes their ongoing treatment of Tesla even more... concerning.
I've seen nothing to suggest Tesla is worse than any other high end car. They're expensive but they also have good features, like performance, longevity, and a company that doesn't seem to see customers merely as wealthy prey. Very few German cars in Tesla's league have any appeal besides the mere fact of owning them, and cost as much or more to buy and much, much more to own. Japanese cars are better than European in pretty much every way, but don't outshine Tesla either.
It doesn't matter that the statistics show their batteries "hold up well". The reason you'll see serious depreciation is the realization that IF the battery fails on you, you're going to be out about $18,000 to buy a replacement, out of warranty.
Don't get me wrong... I'm a Tesla owner myself, right now. (Used 2014 Model S here.) I like the cars a lot. But the idea they'll run far longer than a comparable ICE vehicle without any major repair costs? That's just not realistic. I can get even a big block V8 engine completely rebuilt, and possibly even with some upgraded internals while I'm at it, for under HALF the cost of replacing a Tesla S battery pack. And as others pointed out -- you have the whole computer system/touch-screen assembly in the dash that's not very likely to hold up for over 10 years or so. (Most first generation Apple iPads are developing various screen issues like lines down the middle or dark spots, if they didn't just fail outright -- and that was regarded as a pretty good quality touchscreen. I don't see evidence a Model S or 3 screen is going to do much better? Many of them already have issues with yellow borders forming around the edges of the display, because the glue inside starts failing.)
I think that Tesla will replace the screens at a not too outrageous cost. I see a posting that shows a cost of ~ $1k (although the screen cannot be replaced by itself on older cars).
As for batteries: there is a Model S that has done 400,000 miles. It's had two battery replacements, both paid for by Tesla. The first battery lasted 194,000 miles and failed because of abuse (consistently charging to 95 - 100%).
I see an opportunity for an aftermarket warranty. That's what insurance is best at: providing cover for expensive but rare events.
Most ICE vehicles are scrapped after 200,000 miles, so battery replacement at this time isn't really an issue when comparing to ICE vehicles. What's better: spend money on a new battery, or scrap the vehicle?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
2019 Nissan Executive - confiscated by the police indefinitely. Had to get a new one in the meantime.
They might offer reasonably priced screen replacement, but the older vehicles are still going to be out the cost of a whole new computer assembly AND screen. (There's a known issue where the soldered-on flash storage on the older Teslas fails from too many read/write cycles after a while. And Tesla themselves pushed a lot of those flash chips close to the edge when they logged far too much data to them, until more recent firmware updates backed off on that.)
And I know all about the "Tesloop" Tesla S used for taxi service that logged 400,000+ miles. But the fact remains, that vehicle is probably an outlier that Tesla has been overly generous about doing warranty work on, because it makes for such good P.R. for them. (I can assure you, I run into folks on the Facebook Tesla forums every week who are struggling with failing battery packs that Tesla refuses to replace as warranty repairs.) If anything, service has gotten much WORSE with all the Model 3 sales going on. The service centers are over-booked and looking for any reason to turn someone away.
Honestly? It seems to me like there's a great business opportunity for shops who can take apart the Tesla battery packs and replace only the defective groups of cells in one that are failing. Most battery pack "failures" involve conditions where between 1 and 3 groups of individual cells are holding far less charge than the ones around them, creating an "unbalanced" battery pack. I imagine the biggest challenge is in getting the exact replacement cells needed?