I don't see why all the fanboys get their panties in a knot when people point this out. To everyone who actually knows anything about cars or manufacturing it's kind of a nothing-burger that everyone expects will slowly go away with time.
I don't see why all the fanboys get their panties in a knot when people point this out. To everyone who actually knows anything about cars or manufacturing it's kind of a nothing-burger that everyone expects will slowly go away with time.
I went along with a family member to a Model 3 test drive recently and it was surprising just how many little defects were there, considering the price of the car. While paint finish or panel fit isn't going to ruin a car overall, the fact the big easy-to-spot things are so clearly flawed does make one pause to consider how rigorous the QA is for the parts under the surface.
Your doctor doesn't take your oral history for fun, it's data. Now, just like a medical doctor we should weigh anecdotal data accordingly, but it's still data.
Here for example we can tell BMW/Audi reportedly sometimes make production errors. Tesla reportedly don't always make significant (to the commenter) production errors.
Sure, that's not terribly useful. It's still data.
/bugbear
The doctor takes your oral history to assess your health. Knowing that $x percent of family tree has high blood pressure means they can more accurately assess your risk of high blood pressure. For the population of “literally you”, your oral history is data. Now, if the next patient came in, and your doctor said “well, the last person in here has high blood pressure, you might have it to”, that’s an anecdote.
Similarly, telling somebody ~”My instance of $product worked great” isn’t really useful info for them. That’s a sample size of 1 out of a massive number.
Plus, Tesla has very high consumer satisfaction and low maintenance cost. Is that enough data for you?
Apropos of anything else, I'd not be so surprised that the cars Tesla probably hand picked for test drive events are the cream of the crop.
Toyota, GM, etc are sitting on mature product lines which are growing a few percentage a year. They can roll out a new assembly line and spend months fine tuning it before turning it up and shutting down the old one. Tesla has no previous assembly line to lean on.
It's pretty clear Tesla as a company values growth over delivering the best quality product.
The flip side of this is I've heard a fair number of people suggest that Tesla's service is good... stupid slow but eventually good.
Sure, I thought they had been pretty clear they felt reaching volume was critical to making BEV technology competitive (a larger revenue base over which to amortize development)
I hope it works better for them and their clients than it worked for Boeing and the 737 MAX operators and passengers...
It's so slow though that I don't think it can even be considered "good" anymore. Ok fine they eventually fix issues, but at the cost of you having a defective product for weeks/months?
I really want to buy a Model Y, but I just almost had to push back the closing date on buying a new house because it took longer to have somebody in their solar panel department send a single e-mail than it took for the bank to get me a mortgage. It took a lot of stress, over a dozen e-mails and about 3 hours on the phone before I was able to eventually speak to a human to resolve my issue. The whole experience has soured the brand for me, and from googling around my case is far from an outlier.
This luxury sports car business model. Expensive sports cars are very unreliable and delicate. But they are so expensive that providing very good custom service and repair after the sale is worth it.
They are trying to transform into a market where routine million car recalls kills the business and eats all profits. New cars are expected to work.
Are you being held against your will?
It's a good stock to ride the sucker wave on though.
O, please. I own both BMW and Tesla, and while BMW is more refined car, service and quality miles better with Tesla. BMW gets obscure error codes, and then dealership lazily tries to fix it for weeks (this year BMW spent 7 weeks at the shop, last year 3 weeks). Tesla needs service, technician comes and fixes it on your driveway!
You can buy an equally boring looking car to the Tesla 3, say a loaded Honda Accord, and avoid the finicky bullshit that comes with the BMW.
Unless the parts aren't in stock. Then technician comes and fixes it on your driveway, 2-3 months later!
Can you explain this, what compared unfavorably
I remain to be convinced, have at it ...
The Model 3 wins on acceleration, though, no question about it.
Tesla fundamentally disagrees with established ways of manufacturing cars and is still approaching it as a SV startup. They chase growth numbers, rush new models in production, will put home depot scrap in the cars just to keep the lines moving, and have no quality culture.
Company needs to go over very fundamental philosophy changes for issues like that go away. Just the time itself is not enough.
Japanese or Korean auto-markers turned around their quality over time, by heavily investing into that. Tesla shows no signs of that.
The argument that Tesla is not investing in improving quality is simply not true. Things like casting make far more exact parts and very repeatable. It also reduces 100s of parts, less variation, less manufacturing steps and thus mistakes.
They are investing in the most expensive paint shop you can buy in the market right now for their new factories and they just renovated the paint shop in Fremont (since then I have not heard of bad paint quality).
They defiantly need to do more but its unfair to say they are doing nothing.
Complaints about Tesla's fit and finish extend back to before they were mass producing vehicles, when they theoretically should have been able to hand fit them. So I really don't buy any argument about it being a problem with scaling up; they just seem incapable or disinterested in fixing this.
I'm not saying that makes it excusable but I think the scale is important, other major car manufacturers have been around 4-5x as long.
By the mid 90s the domestics had more or less closed the gap. They just didn't apply the techniques and processes to the product lines they didn't care about (i.e. economy cars, they were selling SUVs hand over fist after all). And if you look at MRSPs for foreign and domestic economy cars throughout the 90s the prices more or less reflect the respective OEM's level of investment in those product lines. If you wanted an economy car you bought a Civic. If you wanted a shitbox you bought an Escort for less money.
I completely disagree with that. I bought a Cadillac in 2012. Its build quality was lower than anything I've seen from BMW, Audi or Volvo. I'm talking about really inconsistent panel (internal and exterior) gaps and misc vehicle rattles. It's also worth mentioning the Cadillac was the most expensive vehicle of the group and very much a line that GM cared about. I have no idea how Ford is doing, but GM is still not comparable to German/Swedish/Korean manufacturers.
I would even argue ford's model of manufacturing turned the last remnats of workshop based work into the mass producing factory.
They've only been mass manufacturing for about 4 years now; previous models are low volume models with a lot of hand assembly.
Musk says that manufacturing is a couple of orders of magnitude harder than designing and building prototypes. He's learning these lessons the hard way. If you can survive the lesson, it's the best way to learn them. Little consolation to those who buy the lemons during the learning period, though.
This is also a tale about America. Tesla's Chinese factory gets first place on a similar survey to the JD Powers initial quality survey that Tesla America got last place in. America just doesn't have the deep well of manufacturing knowledge that a new company like Tesla can draw on.
This is what would worry me as a potential customer. That the manufacturer selling me their product considers such disasters acceptable in order to ship a few more units. It's not that often lately than manufacturers are willing to do this (think GM ignition key scandal, rather than VW pollution cheating).
Is this serious? America has been offshoring domestic auto manufacturing for a couple decades now. The people who worked in those factories didn’t just die, they’re mostly still available for hire. There is no metric in manufacturing knowledge where America lags that far behind other first world countries, let alone the rest of the world.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/opinion/america-military-...
[2] https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2018/05/22/americas-ind...
There's an episode of This America Life about it: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015
Tesla aren't starting from nothing, they're able to use all the existing knowledge about putting together a factory to build product.
Conversely, do _you_ really think that - evenly applying an adhesive to an incredibly smooth surface (repeatably) to bond it to a frame and have it undergo twisting, vibration, and extremes of heat and cold, aerodynamic effects / pressure, exposure to moisture, UV and atmospheric contaminants and retaining its adhesion for the expected life of the vehicle -
isn't advanced engineering?
All Tesla have to do is "buy the right glue", and then "make sure it gets put on correctly". That is a bit of production engineering but seriously it's not hard to lay down a bead of adhesive, place the glass in, and then check that it's been done.
>>> check that it's been done
Seems like they cut some corners here.
I'm not saying that attaching glass to metal is at the same level of complexity as semiconductor fab, but it's a far cry from using some Elmer's Glue to stick two pieces of construction paper together.
And yes, I'm pretty sure Tesla didn't create their own adhesive for the purpose, but I'm equally sure 3M doesn't have an off-the-shelf "Model Y Roof Adhesive, 500ml" product. Or perhaps they did, but the engineering constraints to develop it were those of normal passenger cars, sunroofs, etc., not taking into account the various forces acting upon a 4'x7' sheet of glass at highway speeds, or perhaps the temperatures or speeds of an industrial applicator robot (or conversely, the slowness of a human applicator).
To go back to your original assertion, no, it's not hard to lay down a bead of adhesive, place the glass in and check that it's been done. If in fact the failure mode was 'Failure to apply adhesive', well, that's a fairly egregious and easy to spot problem. If it's 'adhesive failed for unknown reasons after a short period of time', that's an altogether different problem.
Repeat this step with literally every weld, seal, screw, or other component. Then get it right for hundreds of thousands of cars regardless of the condition of the factory line and workers/robots.
de Havilland was making airplanes for 33 years when the famous Comet crash occurred.
Manufacturing is a learning process. There's a lot of engineering in every detail, and there will always be room for improvement.
I suspect there’s some sort of NIH thing going on.
Ever talked to somebody with little to no software experience who will tell you how easy it should be to just slap some code together to build a the next Google? It's like that.
I used to build test equipment for aerospace and safety critical equipment for coal mining. I'm well aware that even with rigorous control you're going to get some errors. But "the glass fell out because we glued it wrong" isn't a normal manufacturing error. It's a mistake that requires more than one process to fail.
Which is stupid in a world where you can drawn on 150+ years of manufacturing experience.
Sure, in IT and tech it might work, but those fields are relatively young.
Your logic suggests either a) they haven't bothered hiring people experienced in quality control for car manufacturing, or b) they have, and yet their cars are _still_ this badly made. Neither is a good look.
I don't know what the Tesla culture is like, but if it skews toward the tech "move fast and break things", just hiring experienced QA folks won't magically get everyone onboard to strict, controlled processes.
I drive a Subaru now. If I could get an EV version of my present car with comparable range, I'd buy it today and never look back. They say by 2035 they'll have electric versions of all their major models[1], so I guess... sometime in the next 15 years, for me?
[1] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30613610/subaru-crossover...
If they made a Crosstrek/Forester-type vehicle with 300-400 miles of all-electric range, kept the ground clearance, roof rack, and usual interiors, I've always imagined that those vehicles would sell like hotcakes. I know I'd be interested in immediately trading up, in a way that I probably won't be otherwise for a long time.
They do one thing - they make solidly reliable 4-wheel-drive cars - and they do it quite well. But I've never seen them be the first on any new thing the industry is doing, no matter how good it is.
Market share of new BEVs in Germany, January 2020 to September 2020:
Volkswagen-Audi-Porsche: 33%
Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi: 18%
Hyundai-Kia: 13%
Tesla: 12%
Mercedes: 9%
BMW: 8%
You don't have to wait, the competition is already outproducing and outselling Tesla in Europe. And all of these car companies have new BEV models in the pipeline that are going to further erode Tesla's marketshare, because Tesla has nothing in the pipeline for the European market over the next couple of years.
I think the list for Canada is even smaller, though I am not sure.
Here's hoping some more of those come to the States soon.
Producing cars in itself is not a new process from a manufacturing perspective, especially not the non EV parts. (like body work and structural work).
What kind of quality control does tesla have, when it is not able to reliably produce cars with the same finish and fit. Most manufacturers have been able to do this for atleast 30 years. it is not like the industry doesn't have solutions to tackle these issues at scale.
I don't think Tesla deserves a free pass with these issues, but I also think they should be expected.
Tesla gets held to a separate standard, and excuses get made for it, because people want it to succeed. I want it to succeed, too, but my definition of success includes making reliable cars. (And preferably sacking Elon Musk, but that's unrelated.)
Given there are a lot more of them made, seems like they are getting better.
(I am an owner of Model 3 and find it to be a joy of a car.)
Actually, Tesla nixed essentially their entire QA for the production line years ago because it was slowing down production.
I have a Model 3 so I'm not just some hater! Tesla's Customer Service is seriously bad.
They’ve been around a while now, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. I think at this point the obvious conclusion is that they just don’t care. Like, it’s not like Toyota locks their process engineers in a basement. If they wanted to hire experts it’s just a question of money.
This seems likely to go badly for them as competition heats up.
Really, Tesla would probably benefit enormously from Musk stepping back and becoming president or CEO-in-name-only.
Aren't these components that should be ok at least after 17 years of Tesla?
After watching Rich Rebuilds on YouTube I came to the conclusion they are just not very good cars.
People keep saying this but I always see way more critiques of Tesla and Elon than the opposite.
My opinion on the matter is people love pushing back on whatever appears popular. Whether or not it's just a few idiots on the internet with little to no real influence and transform into the powerful strawman others love taking down.
That's not true. Similar things happen with all car makers, but if you pick up your car from a car dealership, the dealer will quietly fix the cosmetic issues because they want to avoid a bad reputation.
Calling a blown off roof a cosmetic issue tells a lot about your expectations on car quality.
Technically, this is QC (quality control), not quality assurance.
It's a low cost design, not a great design.
I'm not a car guy and never even touched a tesla so I'm curious what's bad in them.
But I designed interior parts, so it's my own Engineering take. Tesla's were not competitive at all. The gaps between panels were so bad, you could stick your finger in it. That's not just an appearance issue, kids and adults will mess around with large gaps and put stuff inside.
And features in the interior were non existent. (Especially for a luxury car)
I guess meaning is relative so 2020 luxury means curves, a tablet and skateboard battery pack.
I guess that's inconvenient to mention?
b) You are commenting on an article that talks about a Tesla loosing its roof. That's a new one on me, and I'd thought I'd seen it all back when I was an auto mechanic.
But the thing is, I've never had any issues that rendered the car undriveable or unsafe, and service has always been a joy to work with. Every problem I've encountered has been addressed quickly and effectively with no hassle or charge. So, I'm willing to forgive some of the rough edges, and I suspect this is why they get such good customer satisfaction ratings despite the relatively high number of issues.
Back in the old days when I lived far away from a service center, they once drove hundreds of miles with a flatbed to come pick up my car, and dropped off a free loaner at my house while my car was in the shop, then came back and returned my car and picked up the loaner a few days later. (The loaner was also a nicer Tesla than the one I owned.) They really do go above and beyond to resolve issues as pleasantly and conveniently as possible.
I did test drive a 2013 S and I decided to wait until they matured at that point but now they seem to have gotten their act together in most cases.
They're actually on par with Audi here in Norway when it comes to customer satisfaction so it's not all bad [1]. Only Toyota, volvo and BMW beat them. They had a dip due to an overcrowded service department at the launch of the Model 3, but they hired a ton of people and trained them.
Now this roof falling off is one area they could improve greatly, factory Q&A. There should be a bumpy test track where they take all their vehicles for a control drive before shipping them to eliminate issues like that roof.
[1] https://www.tu.no/artikler/tesla-gjor-et-byks-i-kundetilfred...
I don't know about you, but my expectation for what is nominally a luxury car would be to have paint standards better than British Leyland in the 70s.
There is nothing about a Tesla that suggests they are trying to make it appear luxurious. Where are the expensive materials and ornamentation?
They are trying to make a futuristic car.
It's like how the Tacoma has been the turd of it's segment on paper for 20+yr but still flies off the shelves. Clearly the metric don't tell the whole story. In both cases there's an emotional value proposition that's doing a lot of heavy lifting.
And since I know in advance that this comment is gonna piss off a hell of a lot of people here (if I had to pick a demographic that will have both a Tacoma and a Tesla in their driveway HN would be about the perfect fit) I'll ask in advance if any of those people would like to tell me why I'm so wrong.
I must know more. What's wrong with the Tacoma?
Basically, Toyota has been too afraid to touch it (lest kill the golden goose) for approaching twenty years.
I haven't seen a Tesla interior so when you say "all controls" it's a bit concerning. I'm assuming you're talking only of non-driving related control...
Everything else is in the touch screen UI.
edit: I bit more than I originally thought, but not much. (gear selector, lights, and cruise control also have manual interfaces)
https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/JO/model_s_eu...
[0] https://www.motortrend.com/cars/subaru/outback/2020/2020-sub...
They do. You can control many things with voice in Tesla.
I don't know the comprehensive list of things you can use it for, but so far I used it to:
* Change temperature
* Play a specific song
* Set navigation to a new destination
I didn't put switching music tracks (next&previous)/adjusting volume on that list, because those can be easily performed using the scrollable button on the steering wheel.
It's like playing an old text adventure without the manual, so you don't know the verbs. It uses too much thinking to try to come up with different words while also trying to drive.
We can argue how far away that is etc, but that's the mission statement.
Yet they continue to manufacture cars with legacy, tactile steering wheels. Curious.
That's still required by federal (!) law, cf. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/393.209
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-geneva-motor-...
[0] https://www.motorbiscuit.com/why-is-mazda-removing-all-touch...
[1] https://jalopnik.com/honda-follows-mazda-by-ditching-some-to...
Then I read about red light is specifically used in car dashboard lighting and airplane cockpits because it helps with night vision. What I thought at first was just an ugly colour choice was actually a very subtle design decision to help while driving at night.
It always reminds me how complicated and multifaceted good design is. There are always trade offs to consider, but minimalism as a design trend often seems a little too willing to ignore those trade offs and will sacrifice traits like safety, efficiency and flexibility for the sake of cost and simplicity.
Given that there is a stream of not-red lights shining at me in the opposite lane, I've been skeptical of this claim since Nissan did it in the 300Z like 30 years ago. It's there to look cool, not be useful. There's a subtle design lesson in there as well, I'm just not sure what it is.
We were instructed to bring flashlights, but cover the lens with a red layer, to keep the pupils from closing too much, so we could both look at stars but read our star charts.
The headlights in the other lane don't disqualify the benefits of using red lighting inside the car.
I don't even have a Tesla, I have a 2013 Prius which has an array of buttons for everything instead. The only knobs are the miniscule (and hard to turn) volume and tune buttons on the radio. They made a token effort but placing indentations on the heater temp and fan speed buttons but after five years I still can't operate anything on the center console without taking my eyes off the road.
I love almost everything about my Prius but the person who designed the interior to look like a Starfleet shuttlecraft should be shot.
Touchscreens in cars are a disaster, in general. They're a bad technology for the use case. They're more so in a Tesla, because Tesla relies on them far more heavily than any other manufacturer, and gives users no alternative for most functions.
Cars should be designed to minimize touchscreen use, not maximize it.
My points was that designing the interior of a car like a cockpit becomes kinda pointless when the driver isn't doing much driving.
I don't think anyone believes that Tesla will have actual self-driving cars, which don't require constant driver attention, within the lifetime of the cars currently being produced.
But obviously Elon is the CEO and you are not, so if you are right then it will be his failure.
In fact, the reliance on a touch screen is why I've stricken Tesla off the list while shopping for an EV. I currently drive an old BMW and I love the interface. There are physical buttons for everything and there's no unnecessary fluffy stuff.
The most-modern vehicle I've driven whose interface I've liked was a Skoda Fabia.
On my dad's old land rover, you can literally operate the radio wearing blindfolds because everywhere is simply placed. It responds instantly, draws no power, and shut up when you aren't using it. His current car just gets in your way, even if it has more features.
Not a friend, just a former coworker I didn’t keep in contact with so I don’t have any way to follow up.
Touchscreens cut costs because you can ship the same hardware to all SKUs and change features in software. Buttons need to be added or replaced with fillers depending on the options that each car has.