https://jalopnik.com/the-tesla-model-3s-superbottle-easter-e...
I keep hearing people talk about fit and finish problems with Tesla vehicles, but I simply don't see it. I was so paranoid when I took delivery of mine that I literally brought a measuring tape. They've long since fixed the body panel problems and it manifested itself more with older Model S/X and the very first batch of Model 3s. This "problem" is pretty much gone, and this argument is like beating a dead horse.
Disclaimer: own a Model 3 and have since Nov 2018
"But, when next to the car, I was stunned. Not only was the paint without any discernible flaw, but the various panels formed a body of precision that was beyond reproach. Gaps from hood to fenders, doors to frame, and all the others appeared to be perfectly even, equal side-to-side, and completely parallel. Gaps of 3.5 to 4.5mm are considered word-class. This Model 3 measured up."
https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/a28008116/tesla-model-...
Overall Tesla's customer satisfaction is really, really high. Most owners are extremely satisfied with their cars, even if they have a few warts. They really are the Apple of the automotive world.
That's because most of the owners have new cars.
Wait until they need to have their car serviced by Tesla or until their batteries degrade and are subject to a forced OTA "upgrade" that removes capacity i.e. Model S.
https://electrek.co/2019/10/04/tesla-software-updat-battery-...
"But Tesla is a luxury model that competes with Porsche and should make me feel fancy and be super nice etc etc" ...eh kinda, but not really, IMO. The S model does but future models are aimed at a more down-market segment and are going mainstream.
That is, by far, the most extensive and reliable source we have on this topic but please point to any other study that might say the contrary.
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-tesla-model-3-survey...
Personally I doubt most customers notice or care, but it’s an obvious thing to criticize.
Judging a Tesla by the panel gaps is reminiscent of the Blackberry execs judging early iPhones by battery life (ironically). The game has changed.
Or, in other words:
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
I test drove it 3 times. Hated it the first time in 2018. Late 2019, I used auto-pilot on 880 and 101. I was sold. There isn't a car available now that can drive on Autopilot with that confidence. I don't let it drive on auto over 30mph, and under it is where it really shines, takes the edge off of bumper to bumper traffic. I bought it.
I took delivery on the last day of year, was a little pissed off at Tesla, that they left me with little choice if there were any issues with it. I got home, saw no issues and felt relieved. I now love the car. The Audio is turned on the moment I open the door. The temperature is set to my liking and I glide with one finger press. There are no keys, and my car knows I go to work in the morning, so the directions are set. I get on the freeway, usually bumper to bumper, set autopilot, chill out and listen to radio. I think I am a much happier person now.
I also wish it would not refuse to unlock about 10% of the time. I may just get the fob.
I also started using sentry mode even in my garage, which helps tremendously, because it seems like the root cause is the car going to sleep.
Edit: And the new fob is awesome. Different tech from the old one as you've probably heard, with different security/convenience tradeoffs. (With the old one being more secure, but to an insane level, and the new one being ever so slightly less secure but still very good in my admittedly fuzzy understanding of it). No issues whatsoever since getting that.
High end Volvo’s are a good example of old-school quality — gorgeous interiors, beautiful trim. But they’re still predominantly internal combustion engine era designs. The height of it from a luxury finish standpoint. But, Tesla’s different.
Maybe it’s that petro cars reached a peak, and the only way to really differentiate has come down to “door sound” and body panel alignment measured in nanometers.
Also, the condition of the body and the interior matter more to the vehicle’s resale value than the condition of the rest of the car - again they are indicators of the quality and care taken with the rest of the car.
If they can’t manage tolerances measured in millimeters, how can they manage manufacturing and assembly tolerances measured in the thousandths of a millimeter?
Yes.
Internal combustion engines require intense tolerances. If your cylinder head is 1mm out of spec you're going to have serious problems.
But if the wire winding bundle for the electric motor is 5mm out of spec? You'll be fine.
The areas in a Tesla where tolerances are actually important- the batteries and PCBs- are subject to completely different engineering practices. Nobody's going to get cross trained from fitting door panels to placing SMCs... which is done by a robot anyway.
Do you (literally) kick the tires of a car before you buy it?
If the doors are misaligned it either means the chassis is deformed, or at best the hinges are misaligned.
That doesn't bode well to what happens in a crash, or if it rains. Are the seals oversized to account for slop? what happens when they get old?
If I'm dropping $100k on a new car, I want to make bloody sure its built well. That doesn't mean that people won't buy them, far from it.
Look, I get it, Tesla is new and shiny. But lets not over-rate them. They have parts that are very well built. but the software, chassis and interior are not part of that.
This is implicitly saying that what matters is not even the specific car you are buying, but the image of the company and their entire lineup being electric.
This cuts in the opposite direction for me - it is a significant reason why I wouldn't buy a Tesla (other than the price). The company is so tied to Elon that if some sort of scandal happened to him, it would instantly taint owners of the cars.
No one else could get away with Tesla quality at luxury pricing, but they sell vehicles.
Imagine if they did, what their sales would be.
For many drivers other issues take precedence.
I personally hate cars but still have to drive, like the environment, want less pollution and hate car maintenance even though I can do it.
When other car's can recognize stop lights the panel spacing might be a factor.
* Nissan Leaf: 31k
* Kia Soule EV: 33k
* Chevrolet Bolt: 38k
You can argue forever about technicalities, but $33K is not an apples-to-apples comparison. In fact, I would say if you are comparing brand new 2020 cars, $50K+ for the model 3 is more realistic, and you should take into account the discounts other cars have.
https://www.cars.com/for-sale/searchresults.action/?mdId=362...
The Bolt is the best value for money EV in the world at the moment. It's untouchable in price for range.
I don’t think of the money spent as buying luxury. What it’s buying are the other amazing aspects of the car. Performance, range, efficiency, connectivity, updates, safety, etc. which may have some overlap with features of luxury cars, but it’s better to think of it as a next generation car where you are paying for that new tech, and any luxury touches you may get, while not measuring up to a teak wood console in some other car, are bonuses. Instead of the teak wood and alligator leather cigar holder or whatever, you are getting AWD that beats the pants off Subaru, Audi quattro, or anyone else, and all the other amazing things Tesla gives you.
You may be thinking of the originally proposed SR/SR+ half leather and half linen or whatever they were talking about. They scrapped that.
So, plastic.
Sure, you can make crap leatherette material that is way too hot and sticky and feels like cheap vinyl, but that's not what this is.
Tesla doesn’t advertise.
Guess who does? The car companies that you seem to think have a better price/value offering. Hmm, so yes, the power of marketing is incredible indeed.
As long as it is functionally sound, I don't think minor cosmetic issues will materially impact public opinion. The general public is unaware of body panel alignment as a concept.
The worst fit and finish I ever saw was my sister's 1980 Dodge Aspen.
I’d add my impression was that the mechanical reliability and price were the key factors.
It would also be important for us to agree on what truly is minor cosmetics versus total negligence or awful design and material quality.
I was _very_ skeptical of people talking about fit and finish. I was assuming its people trash talking.
However, I have now seen it with my own eyes.
Just guessing, I don't own a car.
I wonder what the demographics are exactly of people who buy Model 3's, is it their first $40k+ vehicle?
One thing is abundantly clear, the people who are super excited about "new" tech in Teslas aren't following motor news. People seem to have no clue whatsoever that a lot of the tech you can get in a Tesla exists in other cars as well. Tesla is definitely at the top of the pack, but they're not ahead of the pack.
It looks exactly like when Apple announce a "new" feature, and all the Android owners moan and bitch that their phones have had this feature for years, yet all the apple owners are super happy about their new iPhone with this new cool feature that they've never seen before.
They "shouldn't" be happy, but due to marketing warping people's perceptions, they are. I suspect something like that might apply to Teslas and the people who buy them. If you've never owned or driven a BMW 3-series or similar, and then switched to a Tesla Model 3, I perfectly understand why you think your Tesla is the best car you've ever had.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/Tesla-teardown-...
That is exactly my point, yet their announcements always make it to the tech press, because they are the darling of the tech world.
> Meanwhile, every other legacy car company pays millions a year in paid ads
When was the last time you saw an ad for a Mercedes S-class, Audi A8 or BMW 7-series?
I'm betting never, because those companies don't really advertise their most advanced cars to a mass market. And when they advertise them, they highlight the luxury and sophistication, and shut up about all the tech. So people generally don't know about all the stuff they have, and those cars are loaded.
> Sure, there are some cars with a few things.
I don't think you know what the state of the art is among the other car companies. Mercedes launched automatic lane changes before Tesla did, for example. Audi had stop&go cruise control before Tesla even launched Model S. BMW has had night vision pedestrian detection for years, Teslas don't have that. You can't even get a HUD on any Tesla, yet pretty much every other car brand offers that as an option on some of their models.
> No electric car until this year
That's a bit unfair considering the other car makers haven't really put out any electric cars with the same looks and features as their existing gas cars before now.
> 6 years ahead, some specifics:
1) Yeah, I already read the article that this post was about, not just the HN comments.
2) There are zero specifics in that article, it talks about a single thing, and that is that the core processing unit of Teslas are way ahead of the competition. Cool, but not exactly informative or specific.
I'm not in the US but people in my region comment how all US vehicles have poor panel quality. I've spoken to paint shop employees and garage mechanics who say the panels of US cars have gaps that are embarrassingly large. In the mind of a buyer that makes you question overall quality.
And never buy a white car either they rust because the panels don't get warm enough to drive out moisture.
One had body panels that were mostly plastic, and lasted 18 years. The other is five years old. Neither shows any sign of rust.
The worry with things like gaps between panels isn't just cosmetic - it's that the process control to achieve "reliably waterproof even after 15 years" is harder than "visibly perfect"
There was a time when a sunroof was a liability on a car as they so often developed leaks. People who can remember this time aren't looking to return to it :)
In the 90s there were a myriad of pragmatic sports cars built, with the focus on performance over fine details.
Door gaps has been a funny development, it's important aesthetically of course, but I think unfairly it has become a shorthand for a car's overall build quality.
No one understands what’s actually inside a car and what physically distinguishes a good car from a bad one, so they latch onto the one parameter they can actually see and touch and understand: body panel alignment and paint quality.
Or is your argument more that if they can't fix the 'easy' things then that is an indication of more systemic problems with the integrity of the car
Nevertheless buyers don't seem to care that much about this.
Is this a recent thing or do you mean the $20k+ as budget in this context? The last budget (cheap manual) Kia I sat in felt like a tin can deathtrap.
That being said, your info is out of date. The fit and finish isn't an issue anymore.
Sure when making cars at 5k a week or more, there's some mistakes. A friend had a piece of trim misaligned. Tesla came out, on site, and fixed it. He's pretty happy.
This seems like a proverbial "reality distortion field" to me. The Tesla model 3 came out about 7 years after the Nissan Leaf, didn't it? And given a reasonable budget, it's arguably still not an example of a car "you can buy".
Yes, there were Teslas before the model 3, but there were also electric cars from other manufacturers for many years.
The modern Leaf fixes these problems by being as expensive as a Model 3, and its still slower.
To get to 226 miles of range with the Leaf puts you at $38k. To also get intelligent cruise (standard on the SR+ Model 3 at 40k), you will need another couple thousand dollars on the Leaf.
The tax break and dealer negotiation do make the Leaf cheaper, but the list price alone really doesn't.
Most new car companies are small affairs that hand-build fairly simple cars at luxury prices from their garage. They get away with it because they offer something unique. So does Tesla, only they try to do it at scale.
So model 3 might be a luxury car, but the cost to own is clearly lower than any of the luxury cars you mention, except the BMW i3.
Over 200k miles How much will you spend on brake pads? Brake Discs? Gas? How about the scheduled 40 Oil changes?
How about things outside of the regular maintenance? Belts? Catalytic converts? Timing chain? Engine mounts? Head gaskets? Spark plugs? Clutch?
How many miles will you burn driving to/from gas stations?
How much of your time worth finding, using, and returning from gas stations? Do you really want to visit a smelly gas station covered with signs about the cancer it causes (in California anyways)?
Sure a Tesla over 200k miles will burn a fair amount of power around 50,000 kwh (75 kwh per 300 miles or so). But the other consumables are few. Sure wipers, tires (replacement and rotation), cabin filters, windshield fluid, etc. But generally the electric motors have few parts, are extremely reliable, and don't require any regularly scheduled maintenance.
I've had 2 Subarus and a low end Acura Integra. And most maintenance I've had (except tires/and wipers) was for something that didn't exist on an electric car. Timing chains, spark plugs, oil changes, head gasket, catalytic converter, engine mounts, clutch, etc.
Also ignoring the federal, state, PG&E, and similar incentives?
Even ignoring all the above I think the Tesla is still cheaper to own.
AAA claims that the average car costs $0.592 per mile. For above mentioned 200,000 miles that's $118k. Not sure there's a more "average" car than a camry. No oil changes, brake changes, gas, engine mounts, timing chain, belts, etc is going to significantly decrease that number for the Tesla. Sure electricity isn't free, but it is way cheaper than gas. There's a target I visit often in my town that allows 2 hours of free charging per visit, and where I work charging cost $10 per month. I could easily spend less than $200 per year for the Telsa electricity. Since June 2019 I've spent a total of $30.00 (5 visits) at superchargers despite numerous road trips to Stanford, Reno, SF, Napa, Tahoe, Downieville, etc.
Additionally it's looking like Tesla's last a fair bit longer than the equivalent ICE car. So at 200k miles you could just keep the model 3, or sell it for a non-trivial amount of money. Already hearing reports of Model S's making it to 1M km and the taxi service is switching to model 3's. Should have an ideal how well the model 3 does near 1M km soon.
Speaking of resale value: https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/18/tesla-model-3-has-least...
So the $40k model 3 lost 5.5% after 1 year ($2,200). Presumably the camry is worse than the honda fit (#5 on the list). So it lost at least $3,000 in value in the first year. Amusingly the worst depreciation numbers are many of the Tesla competition (BMW, Audi, Jaguar, and Volvo).
So yes, I think keeping a Tesla for 200k miles will be cheaper than a Camry. More fun to drive, safer, and cheaper. Doubly so if you count wasting an hour or two on weekend for an oil change.... 40 times.
Having had ICE cars over 10 years old and over 100k miles I can say first hand that the maintenance costs can add up quickly.
I’m not. Those are all reasons the Model 3 is still an entry-level luxury car, as is the price.
Perhaps ironically, Kia has really upped their game in the past few years, to the point where I'd argue they aren't a good example for this comparison.
It feels like car technology stopped when the generation of those born in the 40's retired. Ever since then, younger generations have been focussed on the internet, computers and phones, and the car has become a tool like a pencil - it works well enough, and new models only see incremental changes.
The fact that the CAN bus is not wireless is rather a feature in terms of safety.
On the one hand - and thank God; routing car controls over networks by default sounds like a tremendously bad idea.
On the other hand - while a lucky accident in case of cars, modern electronic devices also don't have these, but for different reasons. When was the last time you could make your phone call people and send text messages over wireless connection, via an API built into the phone? Last time I remember being able to easily do it was in the feature phone era.
Modern hardware is increasingly controllable through hidden, restricted, undocumented APIs, or public APIs that require installing third-party software, go through third-party servers, and involve signing some contract or accepting some ToS. That same API-providing-software then proceeds to exfiltrate any and all data it can get its hands on. I do not want any of that in a car.
Is it ironic that this post was posted using tcp/ip dating from much before 1986.
Yes, it would be nice if it was open sourced or documented outside obd2 interpreters. (Though much of it is documented for an industry insider paying fees) or if it openly supported higher bandwidth.
No reason why a 20'x8' low voltage system needs wireless, especially given that similar systems often exist < 1' a way.
What kind of "car technology" are you talking about? It sounds like you're talking about traditional tech, not tech that increases the ability of the driver on the road.
Every single GM, but who is counting. And I bet other manufacturers as well.
Go to a tesla showroom, Look at the doors of the model three. Note that they don't line up.
Look at the paint job, notice that there are bumps and chips, especailly on the edges of the doors. This is on a _demo_ car, stuck in a showroom. these should be perfect.
Even a budget Kia has better build quality than this.
Its not the isolated parts of a car that makes it good, its the whole package. (yes that works both ways. )