Consumer Reports: Tesla

There is much more to a car than owner perceived "reliability", for example total cost of ownership, safety, driver/driving experience, social costs, etc. Right now the, the Tesla model 3 is selling the daylights out of any toyota sedan in terms of dollar volume (at a 20% gross margin).

The BEV ship has sailed and Toyota has been left standing at the. dock.

 

Financially, it would make more sense to have bought the Prius and motorcycle used if fuel costs were the issue. Other reasons for lowering gas consumption could be centered more on feelings.

 

Hold up there turbo.

I completely agree that Toyota is watching the ship get smaller and smaller on the horizon, but you need to consider that for some people "perceived reliability" says much about which vehicle they are they are going to pick out of the litter.

TSLA needs to grapple that problem VERY quickly while they ARE selling more sedans than Toyota, and while they still have their star power.....besides.....sedans not selling very well at the moment.
Musk isn't an especially nice person, but he is pretty smart. (the comparisons to Edison are kinda spooky!)
That's why the Y is in its elephantine gestation period.
People in the 'real' world value cost, reliability, and safety in just about that order.

TSLA can't really do anything about cost right now except what they are doing - BUT - there's a direct correlation between cost and reliability, and you need a little time to let trends assert themselves.
(tick.....tick.....tick....)
Safety is safety - but remember, there are lots of conflicting arguments about that and the word "perceived" is more important HERE too....and there's a cost component there as well.
After all....$45,000 will also buy a full sized SUV or CUV with enough sensors do much collision avoidance and lane keeping, they're orders of magnitude easier to load baby seats into. AND there are still FUDsters that have the silly notion that you're safer in a Suburban-sized vehicle in collisions....science and statistics notwithstanding.
ANOTHER reason TSLA isn't banking on sedans for their future.

@ Social costs...
That's a one-percenter thing.
FOR single parents or young families two years out of college trying to decide on a new Corolla or a used Prius, or a retiree on a fixed income trying to make the same decision "social costs" will sometimes play a factor, but for now BEVs are now what PHEVs were about 5 years ago......and Priuses, ten years before that.
In other words....
SSDD
We even had dust-ups BACK THEN over CR reviews, collision safety, and.......reliability...all more or less attributed to FUD, more or less accurately.

 

Consumer Reports mails out the survey each year to their subscribers. That is the basis of the reliability ratings.

 

Exactly, and the tesla owners responded, hence the low ranking.
Remember, if tesla finds that owners used social media to complain tesla prohibits that owner from service or parts at a tesla service center, consumer reports is blind to tesla as to whom said what.

Facts Matter.

 

Hmmmm.

I'm suspicious about that.

IMHO....Tesla sets very low goals for itself where veracity and transparency are concerned, and they routinely fail even to meet THEM.

However (comma!) mail-ins to CR are not 'social media'.
Since they do not, because they CAN not, do product testing on Teslas like they do on washing machines they have to rely on owner reports.
Since Tesla owners have MANY MANY MANY more fanboy owners than more plebeian cars, I grade their grades on a curve - and there are many things that should be keeping Mr. Musk sleeping under his desk that do NOT involve production or earnings.

As far as "Facts"...
There are a lot of Tesla haters out there, and even our myopic news agencies would have made hay out of reports that Tesla was 'shorting' it's customers in parts and service that they should not need yet (because the 3 is a very young model.)

YMMV

 

Maybe not a truly representative sample of owners then? Possibly people who subscribe to the magazine are predisposed to favoring Toyotas, since that manufacturer is generally given high marks. I could see that, but I still trust their data more than I do JD Power's.

 

Considering the timing, the survey includes a large influx of new Tesla owners, with many of those being for earlier Model 3 deliveries from when Tesla was dealing with quality control. Will be interesting to see how they do next year.

Care to supply any evidence of that?

 

And I'm a *cheap* old codger ( well not that old yet ). So I'll happily drive my cheap used Prius v (wagon) for now...thank you. I do like Tesla but as of now they are substantially out of my price range ( because I am a cheap arse ).

 

Amazing to see you write that sentence, and then follow it with "Facts Matter."

Toyota is the king of reliability, no question.
Do the Teslas have lower, reliability? Yes, however, lower reliability isn't as dire as many make it out to be.
Are there not going to be Volvo's bought next year, because they scored even worse than Tesla?
Most of the reliability issues with Teslas are convenience items. Door handles on the S, trim on the X and so on.
These reliability issues, have not been bad enough to lower Tesla owner's satisfaction rating out of first place.

Does Tesla need to make their cars more reliable? Absolutely!
It is kind of the other manufacturers to give Tesla time to fix that before making a compelling competitive vehicle

 

what?
So - for the following theoretical example, Tesla will refuse to service?

Pat - owns a Model X. Goes to Tesla on line forums, bitches incessantly about their X, everything from degeaded on-screen features & their accessability, fit & finish, windshield ghosting, squeaking side view mirrors that loose memory settings, significant vibration on hard acceleration ... headliner detaching - lots of trips back & forth to service centers ... gripe gripe gripe.
Next visit - the service center will tell Pat;
"i don't care if your AC stopped"
"you bitched too much - GET OUT!! "

Link? because i didn't see that in the warranty exclusions.

.

 

Refuse service? I don't believe that for a second. Dumbest thing I ever heard. If they start refusing service to owners, they will get their A** sued off!

And what happens when the power goes out??? (bisco loves when I ask that.) And their cars are still too expensive. And not enough places to plug-in. I'm in greater LA County, and I have yet to see even ONE re-charge station. Where the hell are they?! All in Beverly Hills? And how long is the line/wait for a plug?!

When the day comes that a BEV can be re-charged wirelessly, by solar, I would consider one. They got to cut the cord! What happens when the power goes out?! And it would have to go at least 500 miles on a charge. Think George Jetson. Maybe Musk will make them fly in the future. Then we can sit in our front yards, and watch all the crashes in the sky...

The first Musk tunnel segment open in December, in Hawthorne, CA. It's only 2.5 miles? And the news people are already asking: How the heck do you get out of it in an emergency??? The tunnel to nowhere...

I'll stick with my little Prius, and the "Beast", a new Ford F-150 club cab.

 

You know that gas stations need electricity, do you?

 

folks, please don't feed the troll

 

When the power goes out the gas station closes. They can't pump gas and they can't run a cash register and they can't process credit cards.

Meanwhile cars with gas in them can drive until empty.
And BEVs with a charged battery can drive until it is drained.

But if you have solar or another method to generate electricity off grid (gas generator) you *could* charge your BEV yourself. But it is highly unlikely that you are going to make any gasoline at home.

Have you looked? They don't put them on street corners...but in places people park.
If you Google it I don't know how you could miss it.

Mike

 

Here in middle America, most gas stations do not generally close during a power loss, as sometimes happens when the weather gets a little bumpy.
Besides.
They have a LOT of bunkerage for back-up power.

 

But some do. After Sandy, finding gas was an issue for many. BEVs will be just as worse worth in such a situation, but these cases don't get declared state and federal emergencies for fun.

 

If power goes out here, I make my own (solar). That can't be done with gas. Even if it could, electricity is much cleaner to deal with than gasoline.

 

Well, facts certainly do matter, and googling doesn't turn up what it did, so crow is tasty.

 

Your statement :

Is false. I know a number of owners that have complained on social media and have not been prohibited from service or parts. If you know of a single case, please link to it?