Tesla envy grips Germany’s giants

Re:Tesla envy grips Germany’s giants by J-dawg on Monday September 05, 2016 @05:58PM (#12432438)

Given what Tesla have achieved, and the engineering hurdles they have overcome, it's kinda strange that they neglected the interior so much. I would have though that this would be one of the easiest parts of a car to get right.

Hire some established car interior people from existing companies, and work with existing suppliers of luxury manufacturers. The interior is the one part of the car that doesn't need to try to be innovative, so they could have basically just copied their German rivals. Am I missing something about how hard this is?

Also, is it really that bad? I've never driven or ridden in a Tesla, but I've looked inside one in a showroom and thought it looked pretty nice inside.

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Re:Tesla envy grips Germany’s giants by henrikschroder on Monday September 05, 2016 @07:11PM (#12432708)

I think a lot of it is psychological and about branding and luxury signaling, but I also think that build quality is one of those things where you have to get everything right, it really is a case of the whole being larger than the sum of the parts, so you can't just subcontract out the parts and slap them together.

And at the end of the day, quality costs, and the price of the Model S is high enough already.

My soon 3yo Mercedes E-class doesn't squeak, rattle, flap, wobble, dinkle, pop or waffle anywhere. Nothing.

Meanwhile, the Tesla I test-drove felt much cheaper. It's nice enough, but it really feels like the cheapest entry-level German luxury cars, while it's priced like their highest-end cars. I've also seen reports that build quality is hit-and-miss, they start to squeak and rattle after a while if you're unlucky.

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