I rented a Model 3 for a week and what stood out to me was how poorly built it was. The interior isn't even Hyundai level of quality, let alone Honda. It's also not particularly quiet at high speed as there was just so much wind and road noise. Ride quality is comparable to the average economy car, nothing really special there. My biggest surprise was that charging publicly is not that much cheaper than filling up an economy car.
Teslas are Crap (long, sorry)
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The first quarter is almost done and we can see where Tesla’s USA sales end up. There were some concerns about 4th quarter sales last year.
Most clowns here do rag on Tesla because they hate Musk. They don't admit it, but they didn't want to see Twitter actually have more than one viewpoint.
Odd but not atypical - opining on something they never owned, touched or deeply researched.
Other just don't like Li batteries.
Plus one of these days we will actually shop for some e-car. Not sure which yet even. We can afford one and it would be an awesome vehicle for the 12-18 mile one way trips we make around here. Easily charged. Never go to gas station.
Drawback, still need truck and long trip vehicle (criticism of electric cars)
Drawback, still need truck and long trip vehicle (criticism of electric cars)
It was 3, now 4 of my coworkers drive Teslas, and every one of them absolutely loves their Tesla.
Local use and reasonable length commutes are perfect for an EV. We still have an ICE vehicle and probably will for a long time.
An EV (a Tesla, specifically) is quite capable of long trips but an ICE vehicle is currently better. For anything less than 300 miles (if there is charging available at the destination) a Tesla would be quite convenient. You'd have to do a full charge before starting and again at the end, and one quick (ie partial) charge in the middle. You don't have to stand there waiting for your Tesla to charge. We organized our travel so there was a Supercharger near our destination and we left it there to charge. We were relaxing in our hotel room (with a cold beer) when our cellphone told us the car was now charged (to 90%) and we should walk over and pick it up. I don't like to let it sit with 100% charge. I suppose I could have topped it up to 100% just before leaving but that's getting a bit obsessive.
But an EV only makes sense if you can set up home charging.
JHZR2
Staff member
Maybe we didn’t ride in the same car. Maybe model 3 cars are different where you liven than I.
I recently rented a BMW X5 from sixt, drove it across Texas, and was amazed at some of the issues. It was extremely comfortable and powerful, but had a lot of road noise, poor MPGs, too many nested features hidden in a way that doesn’t make sense to someone who has owned BMWs for the last 22 years (me). Does that make BMW terrible too?!?
And I’m no eV supporter. I’m a hybrid ftw person. But I had none of the experiences.
I tried to find Tesla seats uncomfortable, in the three or four times I’ve rented them. I couldn’t.
I tried to find poor build quality. Maybe not everything is painted factory color behind every piece of trim. Otherwise I couldn’t readily make it out.
Ride was fine. Noise was fine. Sound system was decent.
So I’m just not getting it.
If you want to talk about the cost and speed if charging, I’ll agree 100%. The stupidity of having so many nested controls in a tablet? I’ll definitely stand by that.
But they aren’t as bad as Musk haters would try to make them…
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Of course public charging isn’t that cheap. The savings from an EV comes from home charging. Sorry to say but I question your judgement on the rest of it. I’ll call that subjective anyway. I’ll call the interior simple, but I don’t think it feels cheap and I’ve owned many luxury vehicles. It is below my GTI Autobahn interior quality wise, but that’s a premium car in the segment. I’m not a fan of any synthetic leather. I wish they did cloth instead.
I'm not even a Musk hater nor do I have brand loyalty for anyone, just calling out the quality issues as I see them. The build quality of a Y or 3 is noticeably worse than that of an X or S. I remember when I first sat in a friend's Y...I was quite shocked at how terrible the interior is. I'm not even talking about the fact that it's simple...just the materials used and how rattly everything is. It's quite literally the same materials used in an economy car.
But probably what was even worst was the road noise. Sure at low speeds you don't hear the growl of a motor, but at highway speeds there is an atrocious amount of wind and road noise. I would almost go as far to say that that it's not that much different than a typical ICE. I did notice this was the base model so there was no acoustic glass....but I've driven many ICE vehicles without it that was quieter. Something even like a Camry would beat it on road noise.
And as for panel gaps...I always thought it was just something snobby that car reviewers bring up. I honestly never really cared much for that as a metric but (edit) when I looked at the 3 from afar the gaps were definitely noticeable. I kept thinking the trunk wasn't properly closed due to how large the gaps were.
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When I picked up my Model 3 I was aware of concerns about Tesla build quality (variable panel gaps, orange peel pain, misaligned trim, etc). I was prepared not to take delivery if there were significant problems. So I went over the car much more carefully than any other new car I've ever bought. But I have to say the panel gaps are very even on mine, the paint is smooth, the trim lines up, etc.
There are no rattles after 2 1/2 years. The interior is a simple design but nicely fitted and is holding up well. It's nowhere near as nice as my former 2000 BMW 528i M-Sport which also had the interior appearance package. But that was/is a very attractive interior in a vehicle that would cost at least 50% more. I expect Tesla could install a pretty nice interior too for an extra ten or twenty thousand dollars.
At highway speeds the road noise doesn't seem much different from my Honda. I think my BMW was quieter. But then again both my current Accord and former BMW had very quiet engines so I don't think their engines contributed much to road noise anyway. The new Model 3 is said to be much quieter.
At low speeds the Tesla is very quiet. If anything there is a problem with sneaking up on pedestrians, and with cyclists riding side by side in front of us possibly because they don't hear us coming.
You say that but I never owned a Rolls Royce either but have driven a few of them over the years and worked on some of the older ones and know enough about vehicle engineering to know they are high quality cars, have wonderful fit and incredible finish using the finest of materials.
On the other side of that coin I have looked at Tesla cars and driven them and took a good look around at places most people would not even know to look at, they are not a very well built car.
The so called giga casting were/are too thin and the strut towers were cracking on all their models. Tesla's fix was to rivet nut a steel reinforcing plate on it, a band aid measure at best. Suspension control arms breaking due to making them out of plastic, plastic seats (vegan leather) on a 100K+ model S is unforgivable, the car is priced the same as an MB S class.
Comparing apples to apples, meaning just the body, suspension and interior, the Model S is a pretty shabby piece, the Tesla interiors are nothing more than a cost cutting exercise.
IMO posting defects like these is far from bashing. These are not defect from just one year or model they are from all models through 2022.
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/...adicts-own-repair-recommendations-220665.html
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
The problem is that they don't in the higher priced versions like the Performance or the S or X. The MYP is in a similar price bracket to my SRT, and the difference in the quality and materials selection of the interior appointments is pronounced.
Delivering a new vehicle with cracked castings is unforgivable. It's a failure of quality control. Either that part is well designed and needs to be made free of cracks, or (if it really is okay with large cracks) it's way overbuilt and needs to be redesigned.
As we've seen before, Tesla seems to be having problems with early production (the giga press under-bodies being a fairly recent innovation). My guess is that these problems will be resolved. The early Model 3s had numerous body flaws (variable and wide panel gaps, bad paint, poorly fitted tail lights, etc). They don't any more, or at least they didn't on mine.
Yes it would be nice to have higher quality carpets, real leather seats, and wood panels on my Model 3 and I would have paid a modest premium to get them. And I would have preferred more actual knobs and switches. But the core of the vehicle - the battery, power train and overall system integration is very good. And the price for a new base Model 3 was reasonable.
I recently toyed with the idea of buying a used Bentley as a "Sunday car" largely for the sumptuous fittings you describe. A used Bentley isn't even all that expensive. But finding out about repairs at fantastic cost or even non repairability at any cost (due to parts being no longer available) I decided to give them a wide berth.
I agree, it's not hard to see quality or the lack of it with a good eye. That goes for cars, fine watches, jewelry, as well as construction projects and homes, to name a few things.
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As someone who doesn't own a Tesla, Elon Musk is the man. Says it how it is.
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If I cross my eyes and stare long enough, will a dinosaur appear?
That’s enough. Political posts, off topic points. Lock time.
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