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.

Comments

1.0 Problems

[locater16]

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".

Re:1.0 Problems

[whoever57]

The boot (trunk in US English) lets water in when you open it after its been raining too. It's pretty bad, all the water on the rear window rolls down into the opening.

Many other cars suffer from this problem.

Also the only way to control the wipers is via the touchscreen.

False. There is a button at the end of the left stalk.

I will agree that the auto-wiper function needs work. IMHO, good and bad performance seems to be related to crosswind.

The screen crashes some times.

Never happened on my Model 3. I think there are some Model 3s with hardware issues that cause the crashes. Most people don't see any crashes, but a very small number of people see lots of crashes (my impression from the forums).

As TFA notes there are still a lot of fit and finish and especially paint issues too.

Again, not on my Model 3. I think the fit and finish issues were mostly on early Model 3s and now people are more critical. Take a look at the creases on other cars as you drive: you will see many cars where the creases don't line up properly.

Re:1.0 Problems

[viperidaenz]

Many other cars have a channel around the inside of the boot lid that catches the water that runs off the lid when you open it, draining it out under the car or over the rear bumper so you don't flood inside the boot.

Re:1.0 Problems

[Rei]

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

Re:1.0 Problems

[Rei]

Also, for serious EV news that apparently has flown entirely under the radar for most people today...

Der Zellkonflikt mit den Zulieferern

Short summary: VW wants to emulate Tesla and build Gigafactories (in conjunction with SK Innovation, which would be playing the role that Panasonic does with Tesla). However, they're being held hostage by their current supplier (LG), who is threatening to cut off all battery shipments to them (immediately) unless they drop their Gigafactory plans. VW is trying to find a way out of this mess, as they see the Gigafactory approach as being essential to ensuring a sufficient supply of cells at a low enough price to meet their target price points and be competitive.

Re:1.0 Problems

[im_thatoneguy]

Many other cars have a channel around the inside of the boot lid that catches the water that runs off the lid when you open it,

So does the Model 3. But it's hip to ceramic coat their entire model 3 aka put on a full body hydrophobic coating. What happens is the water runs off so fast that it shoots several inches across the gap into the trunk (boot) and across the channel.

A stock Model 3 doesn't have this issue because the water doesn't evil kenivel the gap at highspeed.

Re:1.0 Problems

[drinkypoo]

Many other cars have a channel around the inside of the boot lid that catches the water that runs off the lid when you open it,

My 1998 Audi A8 has the same problem, and that was a flagship vehicle built by an experienced automaker. The gutter is small and easily catches crap which affects its operation, so if you're not garaging the vehicle, you can easily get a bunch of water in the trunk. My 1982 MBZ 300SD is much better. Tesla is in good company here.

Re:1.0 Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to be careful using names (words really) like Evel Knievel on /. The younger generation won't know who you're talking about. They'll just stare at you with Bambi eyes and blink nervously. Come to think of it, they probably don't even know what Bambi is...and no, Bambi was not a stripper.

Re: 1.0 Problems

[misnohmer]

Nope, it's a permanent beta problem. Elon is very proud how they "improve" their cars every 2 weeks. They are using agile software development model but applied to the hardware+software product, i.e. ship minimum viable product asap, fix and add new features as you go. They've been making the Model S 7 years now, still has problems whenever they decide to upgrade hardware, and with over the air updates you always have to check what broke this time, though some things get fixed or added. They've had the only viable EV on the market, plus I consider myself an early adopter, so I am a customer, but mature product Teslas are not. I got my wife into one 2 years ago, she is not an early adopter, so for example she didn't read the release notes one morning which stated somewhere in there that in their wisdom Tesla decided to auto-unfold mirrors as soon as the car starts moving. So when my wife folded the mirrors manually, as she did many times in the past, and started backing up, crack, the mirror unfolded and broke off on a wall. Yes, they fixed it on next release, but too late for my wife's mirror - there goes $600, just another cost of driving a beta car Then there are features which Tesla sells but delivers to future cars only. One good example was the highly touted P85D which was supposed to produce 691hp. It didn't at first, but Tesla assured owners a software update is coming. Eventually they delivered a car which can produce that power, but it took 3 redesigns of the battery so only available for new cars. The original owners got an excuse "your motors can produce that power, and the car can handle it, but with your battery the most you will see is 463hp, which is about 50hp more than the non performance car you could have bought for $25K less". They offered a retrofit to 500hp for an additional $5K, but to get the advertised power it would require an upgrade to a brand new P100D, which would cost roughly $80K. They sold cars in 2014/2015 with "blind spot warning" which was supposed to come via software upgrade, turns out Elon was smoking something when he decided it can be done using nothing but parking sensors (who knew when going down the highway parking sensors don't work, eh?), so they quietly removed the feature from the website. Current cars, 4 years later have better blind spot monitoring, but that requires 8 cameras and a powerful computer (simple, reliable radar based solution is too boring for Elon), so again, they delivered but only to new cars. Anyone heard of Full Self Driving sold in 2016 through 2018? It does absolutely nothing today, and chances are it never will for those who bought the cars back then. Oh, but the car can play fart noises through the speakers on demand - a breakthrough feature on one of the recent over the air updates. Welcome to agile development for cars.

Manufacturing Is Hard

[labnet]

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.

I fear poor support long term

[zippo01]

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.

Premium handbuilt item are premium

[sphealey]

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 follow the CR recommendations?

[Ecuador]

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?

Re:Intake manifold

[toadlife]

This specially applies to most cars with transversally placed V6 engines.

Yep. In order to save $300 on labor, I replaced the spark plugs on my 2004 Hyundai Sonata, which involved taking the intake manifold off, which involved taking a bunch of other pieces around manifold off.

I did it, but it was a nightmare and in the end I wished I'd spent the $300.

Consumer Report Gods

[maxrate]

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.