"'Electric SUVs as a vehicle category is the absolute bottom in terms of reliability," Consumer Reports director of vehicle testing Jake Fisher said Thursday during a presentation to the Detroit Automotive Press Association.
Among electric SUVs, Fisher said Ford Motor Co's Mustang Mach-E "is the only one with above-average reliability.'"
It's interesting to me that till recently, Fords stock price was $5/6 - last time I checked, Ford still produced the most popular trucks in the world by a long shot?
Tesla is probably a bit overvalued but not by much. You are not factoring in how much money printing is happening. A turd with a stock ticker would have a market cap at least into the tens of millions.
Ford with the F-150 Lightning and the Mach-E seems grossly undervalued and a huge buying opportunity. When rednecks find out what “instant full torque” means the Lightning will sell very well.
> Tesla is probably a bit overvalued but not by much.
Tesla's current market cap only makes sense if they're producing more vehicles than every other US manufacturer, combined. That's a little more than "but not by much".
I think their value went too high... But I think of them as an energy company. They sell the cars and the "gas stations" and the "oil wells" and all the retail spots.
They also do that without spend on advertising. Honestly, that's pretty impressive. Is it worth more than all other auto companies combined?
Will it last?
That's even worse. I'm struggling to think of any large energy company that ever had a tech-ish P/E ratio. There was Enron, I suppose, but that was because it was a fraud, and wasn't _really_ an energy company anyway. As a general rule, the energy industry doesn't have huge margins.
>When rednecks find out what “instant full torque” means the Lightning will sell very well.
The grid in rural areas suck, in general. The reliability is terrible and there may not be enough capacity for everyone to start charging their vehicles when they get home from work. Rural people also tend to drive many more miles (and sometimes much more energy intensive miles), and range can be a serious challenge. If they’re hauling, range is significantly diminished, and it’s not like you can throw a few extra batteries in the bed for when you’re out of juice. With a diesel, you can throw a 100gallon transfer tank in the bed for under $1000 and make it clear across the lower 48 without stopping (though that’s not normally what they’re for).
All that said, electric has promise. Longer vehicle lifetime and less maintenance is a huge plus.
You’re right, but I’d wager that 70+% of truck buyers have never used any considerable amount of the payload capacity and don’t tow anything that a crossover SUV couldn’t tow.
The reality is that most of the people buying trucks do it because they like trucks and perhaps think it's more practical. It's not for actual work use. The same way most people buying SUV's aren't actually doing any off-roading or towing as well.
> According to Edwards’ data, 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less.
A lot of people make this case that you can go X distance without stopping. But that's completely impractical. There are many laws that regulate the trucking industry. For example you can only drive 11 hours consecutively, and then you're required to spend at least 10 consecutive hours not driving. There are also more rules about having to take breaks after a certain number of hours, and limits on number of hours per week they can work.
So if you're following the law, you will end up having to stop anyway. And as charging tech improves that stop will get shorter and shorter until it's no longer a concern. And again, once people see the economics of it and see how much money is being saved, they'll gladly trade off a little bit more time waiting for charging if necessary.
Tesla's valuation is influenced by hordes of retail investors who believe that any day now, their Tesla vehicles will receive an update that will turn them into FSD robotaxis that will generate income for them while they sleep.
Ford doesn't have a funny meme man/CEO on Twitter making promises about their products to millions of retail investors that will never pan out. The dumb money just isn't there to drive up crazy valuations.
I mean, are we using tech to mean just software? Because if you look at how fast cars technological evolve, they’ve been a tech company for over 100 years. How is this different?
I think the expectation, at least in relation to the issues CR is citing in this article, is that Tesla’s issues with body assembly are fixable and something the whole company is keen to improve, whereas Ford is not politically or organizationally able to embrace more fundamental changes (electric, OTA updates, moving away from dealers and maintenance revenue.) And of course the expectation is that automakers who don’t move quickly in those directions will suffer.
Personally, I think Ford is able to make those changes and will be rescued if it doesn’t.
Ford is definitely embracing some of those fundamental changes. They're building billion dollar factories, and have been highlighting OTA updates as a key part of the Mach-E experience.
"Electric vehicle drive systems, or powertrains, are not the main source of problems, Fisher said. The issues reported by owners are with other features."
So they have some minor teething problems with body panels and such: I have a Model Y and overall it's been great, and my biggest complaint is highway noise. At speeds below perhaps 40 mph, it's far quieter than conventional cars. Preliminary data indicates the batteries last for a long time, and that long-term electric car durability is likely to be far higher than conventional cars.
I'm sure Tesla make amazing cars (I don't drive so no horse in this race) - but I still don't really understand why Tesla is a 1.3T company and Ford is a 77.4B company.
Tesla is more than an auto company, they demonstrate faster innovation, they are more capital efficient and scale faster than was thought possible.
Consider they are also selling solar, batteries, insurance, and likely in home robots, ride sharing, and energy trading down the line. They may also resell their tech and software down the line as well.
There is also the general over valuation of the market at work, which is not evenly distributed between companies. Too much money without enough places to go.
A lot of that "innovation" is just "move fast and break things". Tesla has pushed out and then reverted how many FSD betas in response to issues? It's not surprising that so many people are disconcerted by the concept of being an unwilling beta tester for Tesla (by virtue of sharing the road), a company that clearly has disturbingly little acceptance testing for the software they're releasing.
It's not that heat pumps won't work, it's about pump technology. This is actually the thermal management system, used for both heating and cooling. Sandy generally has great commentary on the auto industry. He's quite genuine
Every auto company misleads, at least Tesla is being a leader
The point about accident rates is in context of unwitting beta testers. There are many drivers on the road, many of who make the road unsafer. That fact should also be considered when discussing road safety. If FSD beta is better on average, then the roads are getting stepwise safer.
> Sandy generally has great commentary on the auto industry. He's quite genuine
I'm sure he does (I say that sincerely). But he's also the same Sandy who was very anti-Tesla until his wife got one and he put a whole lot of his investment portfolio in TSLA stock.
> There are many drivers on the road, many of who make the road unsafer.
Many of those drivers may make poor choices, etc. But we're not touting them as role models or desired behavior. FSD is meant to be better, and is still _actively_ trying to do things that are dangerous to drivers and pedestrians.
> If FSD beta is better on average, then the roads are getting stepwise safer.
The sheer amount of stupid decisions I've seen from FSD on YouTube etc. is shocking. The only thing more stupefying is watching people actively "allowing" it to do stupid things for "views", their own inattentiveness, or for some misguided notion that they're somehow "contributing" to "training" the car.
Like pro tip: When your car has run a red light at the same intersection the last three times, don't let it do it a fourth time just "to help the project". That's irresponsible, reckless and outright dangerous.
Tesla flat out refuses to release any statistics that would actually be able to prove, or disprove, an actual fair comparison of the safety of FSD/AP. Instead we get these cherry picked miles driven where AP is touted as being safer - on the (unspoken) subset of miles where it didn't disengage because it couldn't drive or the driver decided it was safer to disengage because of the AP's driving, versus "human drivers, all miles, all conditions".
There's (relatively) few accidents for human drivers on well-painted, well-maintained roads in the California sunshine. And similar for AP/FSD.
There's a lot more accidents for human drivers on poorly painted and maintained roads in a Pittsburgh winter. And there would be for AP/FSD too, if it wasn't disengaged a large majority of that driving.
But Tesla happily lumps the sum of driving of "Human drivers in California sun and Pittsburgh winter" and says that mile-for-mile, AP/FSD is better because it had fewer accidents, even though most of those miles were accumulated in the California sun. Anyone who completed high school statistics would know this wasn't a fair comparison, but Tesla has pushed it for years.
>It's also worth pointing out that Tesla's have a lower accident rate than the national average.
This is slightly misleading as the average vehicle is much older and with many fewer safety features. It would be more accurate to use a comparable vehicle.
> Their heat pumps [..] are first of their kinds. They were things the old players said would never work and are now trying to adopt.
Eh? The Nissan Leaf used a heat pump since the second (2013) version. And I don't think it was the first (though it may have been the first production one).
Ford has almost $100B debt and $46B in cash with net profit margin of 2.3%, gross profit margin 8% with revenue down year-over-year. Tesla has $14B debt with $16B cash 5.2%, gross profit margin per vehicle is 30% with revenue increasing >50% year-over-year. Tesla is priced for future expectations.
What future expectations? As it is priced right now, the only way that makes sense is if Tesla starts selling more than _every other automotive manufacturer, combined_.
That's insane, and not going to happen.
"So short the stock", people say.
And then Tesla fans act like shorting TSLA is something akin to a capital crime and at the very least should be forbidden by the exchanges or the SEC, from the reactions that come from it.
Not true. Tesla could also profit more per car than all others. They could achieve this simply by being non-union. Or they could achieve it by winning the autonomous vehicle wars. They could even achieve it by not being a car company (e.g. a battery or charging station or solar company). It's not as simple as adding up all the other car company valuations.
This is the 2nd jab at unions you take in this whole thread. It's a bit mind-boggling as if unions were the demise of automakers then Audi, Porsche, Volkswagen, Mercedes and so on would never have been profitable given Germany's union environment...
It's a cheap shot that you seem to like to reiterate. What's the source you have that unions are the most problematic issue to automakers' profitability?
What's magical about Tesla that its going to stay a non union shop?
If every other car company has to deal with unions then its only a matter of time until they are as well. The only way they can prevent that is to pay more than the other places but then their profits wouldn't stay high.
> What's magical about Tesla that its going to stay a non-union shop?
I guess Tesla thinks they can afford a package attractive enough to compete with unions and then not needing to pay the dues will tip the scale in favor of keeping the company union free.
Then they will keep the agility they need so they can switch to things like gigapress or other labor-saving processes and lay off/reassign a bunch of workers in order to continue their relentless cost-cutting and process simplification.
Tesla values agility - of course all employers say that in order to escape unions, but Tesla is one of the few companies that is actually agile, rather than just talking about needing to be agile. It's amazing how fast they change production processes, and being union free is a big part of that.
Not sure whether this will work out for Tesla or not, since workers value stability and job security.
Both are valid goals. I'm also interested to see how Tesla will compete against the flood of cheap EVs that will be coming from China. Doug Munro is convinced that they will dominate the US market:
The next 10-20 years are going to be very hard on autoworkers and all the supporting industries, from parts suppliers to their suppliers, and the entire vast supporting industry which is about 5% of US employment and the single biggest component of our manufacturing sector.
It's also not clear how we can keep a defense industry in this country without auto-manufacturing.
It's a lot of circular logic and wishful thinking. A lot of it boils down to something like:
- Tesla will "win" the race(either to self driving, or some magical EV adoption level, or the gigapress will let them sell cars for half the price of other mfgs) and then swallow 90%+ of the market. Other auto manufacturers will just disappear or something, and will live in Tesla's shadow forever.
- Tesla makes robotaxis and everyone on the planet will simultaneously want to own a Tesla as well as pay for rides in rented Teslas. Again this argument usually rests on the assumption that Tesla will do the impossible and no other manufacturer will ever keep up.
- Tesla is a (software, navigation, power, battery, robot, mapping, AI, etc) company. They will take all of their tech an monetize it. This of course will not require any overhead and Tesla will make 110% profit on every market they enter, which, of course, they will dominate and no other existing manufacturers will be able to compete.
If you call out a Tesla fan on this, they will cycle back and forth between some variation of those arguments until you give up. Generally the Tesla fan has quite a bit invested in Tesla(via stock or just $10k beta test fees), and they argue as if conceding the argument will destroy their investment and prevent humans from colonizing Mars.
I think it's worth mentioning that Tesla doesn't just compete against other auto manufacturers. They (currently anyway) compete against public transportation systems and well designed, walkable cities. They seem to be a better solution than, say, IC cars, but in the long run we may see the world moving away from personal vehicles, electric or not. If nothing else, as cars become more intelligent, they become smaller, lighter and cheaper. Tesla may not have much advantage when we're all whizzing around in self-driving mopeds or whatever the future provides us.
Unions have, and always will, take the excess profits of Ford/GM for themselves. Even if Ford is a better car company, its shareholders will never get to see the money from it.
Hi. Welcome to America. The laws/rules are different here. I have a feeling German unions aren’t run by literal mobsters, either.
Please learn the definition of “excess profits” before harassing me more.
Every company you mentioned is worth significantly less money than Tesla. And where does VW rank in revenue to market cap? A quick glance shows Apple makes about 80% more revenue than VW, and has a market cap 25x higher. The money isn’t going to shareholders.
> So they have some minor teething problems with body panels and such
The problem is that these are $60,000+ cars that don’t feel like a 60k car. You can get a Mercedes E class for that money and it feels like pure luxury when you sit inside. Every detail is just perfect.
A Tesla by comparison feels kinda cheap. Because the EV drivetrain is currently expensive and that’s what you’re paying for.
I don’t own a car but I like to rent lots of different drives. The difference in feel between a Tesla and a Merc or Beemer is stark. And not in Tesla’s favor at the moment.
A Tesla model 3 in Australia costs more than a brand new Lexus IS300 Luxury. I tested both (and the Tesla S, just for the hell of it), and despite really really wanting to own an EV and leave ICE behind forever, I left with the Lexus.
The quality difference is difficult to even put into words, even against the S. The Lexus feels like a $100k car, yet costs 3/4 of that. The Tesla S feels like a $50k car, and costs more than double that. The 3 felt worse than a Corolla in every single way other than performance, but if I wanted a fast vehicle that's built like crap I'd just go buy a used sports car and at least I'd be able to get parts for it and get it serviced/repaired without it taking months.
Right, but this article is discussing reliability. It seems like CR provide the closest thing to a scientific approach to comparing vehicle reliability via the diligence of their subscribers to participate in reliability surveys.
The article goes on to say that:
>Consumer Reports recommends the Tesla Model 3 sedan and rates its reliability as "average." But Fisher said the rest of Tesla's vehicles are below average.
The popular Model Y SUV, Tesla's best-selling vehicle, has problems with poorly fitting body panels, leaks and issues with its climate control, Fisher said.
The larger Model X SUV "still has problems with the falcon wing doors," Fisher said.
Here's CR's description of their methods, they include caveats re: new models and changes between model years:
>About Consumer Reports Annual Auto Reliability Surveys
The latest Consumer Reports Annual Auto Reliability Surveys, gathered information from the organization's members on more than 300,000 vehicles from model years 2000 to 2021. Members filled out online surveys in the spring and summer of 2021. CR’s reliability predictions are based on overall reliability for the past three model years, provided the vehicle has not been redesigned. One or two years of data will be used if the model was redesigned in 2021 or 2020. CR bases its reliability analysis on data gathered from CR members each year about problems they had with their vehicles in the past 12 months. CR’s team of statisticians and survey researchers, then analyzed trouble areas and created an overall reliability score for each model and year. Serious problem areas that can lead to expensive repairs are more heavily weighted. More information can be found at www.CR.org.
are as far as I know (which is not much) every (most?) cars which had wing doors had problems with them. Wing doors seem to generally be a bad idea as long as you don't put them on a "super expensive anyway super high maintenance" car (like some super-sport cars).
CR has two completely separate and independent scores for cars: the product rating and the reliability score. The product rating is a measure of the quality of the product as purchased and is done by CR itself. The reliability score IIRC is much later, done through customer surveys and long-term reliability tests.
It’s been awhile but I’ll never forget turning in a five year old Range Rover. The axil most have been mis aligned or something because the car vibrated so bad we were worried the thing would fall apart. This issue among the many other monthly 2k service visits is why I’d never by one again… contrast that with my two model x - 2017 had to replace the computer which was inconvenient but cost me 0, but did take two weeks to arrive . The driver window would not roll up unless I inched it carefully but was fixed in my office parking lot while at work and was never an issue again. Now my 2020 model x has the same window issue but no computer replacement needed. Before those my model s 2014 - had one recall check on the seat belt. Total service cost of a Tesla for my three cars over 7 years … 0… Range Rover, bmw and Benz all in the thousands many times over… it’s been 7 years so maybe those “high” brands improved? But for me I’ll probably never know
I elected to give my money to a company that is rapidly accelerating the transition to electric vehicles. Traded all of our Toyotas in for Teslas, wouldn’t look back. What would I tell my kids? “I was waiting for perfect fit and finish, sorry about the climate change.”
Our 2021 Y is flawless, and have no problems doing work myself on our older S and X. Your Lexus will burn petroleum forever, and Toyota has no interest in moving to EVs rapidly (and there is evidence they are actively lobbying against moving to EVs).
I’m referring more to the parent’s BMW/Mercedes/Range Rover. I totally get why people would put up with Tesla’s teething problems. I don’t get why people put up with shoddiness from other car brands, unless they’re so rich that they can afford to buy a new car every couple years.
Assuming your Toyotas were hybrids, your carbon footprint would almost certainly have been smaller if you had just continued to drive them instead of buying multiple brand new cars.
Those actions wouldn't provide capital and margins to Tesla, and whomever bought them from the used vehicle marketplace is likely receiving the lower emissions benefit of one of the vehicles that was a hybrid (the other was a pickup truck).
The economy runs regardless; those with capital must vote with their fiat. Sitting out leads other capital to make decisions that might be suboptimal. Think in terms of systems.
Consume the right products that spins up a flywheel to create and deploy products that destroys demand for things that harm the environment. EVs and stationary storage gets humanity off of petroleum for mobility and fossil fuels for electricity. The more battery demand and manufacturing capacity spun up, the faster the transition occurs.
Telling people not to buy cars or electricity will get you laughed out of the room.
No one is telling people not to buy cars or electricity, they're telling people not to buy new cars just to look cool/feel condescendingly smug when they already have perfectly good ones at home.
Perfect reliability isn't the only reason why people buy luxury cars. Also, lots of leasing. So you stay inside the warranty period. Economics aside, you can lease a BMW for 3 years that, in my opinion, is WAY more fun and interesting than nearly any Lexus.
It depends who you ask, I guess. If you ask Elon, he might consider this low rating as proof of impartialness. You and others may disagree. Such are the consequences of a potential conflict of interest. Not a great situation all around.
“The Ford Foundation is not connected to the Ford Motor Company. The Ford Foundation and Ford Motor Company are two separate and legally unrelated entities whose operations are completely independent and have been for more than 50 years. There is not any financial authority, decision making nor funding relationship between the two organizations.”
Please try and have a foundation named Microsoft or Apple, see how fast you keep its doors open. No way in hell Ford would allow its name to be slapped on an unrelated foundation.
> Please try and have a foundation named Microsoft or Apple, see how fast you keep its doors open. No way in hell Ford would allow its name to be slapped on an unrelated foundation.
Largely because it'd be a jerk move and PR nightmare to obligate a rename given Henry Ford founded it, but if the two organizations are entirely distinct without even sharing common leaders or finances today, it's safe to say the risk doesn't exist.
Let's tone the conspiracies down a notch. CR also had the Ford foundation's involvement back when Tesla outscored every other car in CR's ranks.
Of course it derives from Edsel Ford's fortune, but that does not imply that the foundation advances the interests of Ford the company. Per the foundations history[1], it fully divested its stake in Ford the company by 1974.
You are under the mistaken impression that this is the Ford company foundation. It was chartered from the personal wealth of the ford family, so it has a relationship to the Ford motor car company that is closer to the relationship between the gates foundation and Microsoft to use that example, and not a "Microsoft foundation".
Do they refer to the battery pack climate control or the climate control inside the cabin of the car? I am living in Israel - a country with a warm climate, so I am a bit weary of EV's that need to cool the battery pack, in order to keep going. Does anyone know how well they keep the battery pack alive in warmer climate zones? (i start to see some teslas, here and there, but I have no idea how well the battery pack stays alive, when it's 40C in the shade)
Is it possible, that they don't have the power to cool the cabin, when they need to cool the battery pack as well?
> The larger Model X SUV "still has problems with the falcon wing doors," Fisher said.
This is the least-surprising thing I've read all year. Adding a second hinge to a door is asking for trouble. Not to mention having to weather-seal a door seam on the roof.
I've owned a Tesla model S for about seven years. I really enjoy the feeling of driving it, but I don't think I'd buy a Tesla again given the experience of owning it.
In that time I've dealt with:
Several "opportunities" to go "full self driving". This specific vehicle is running up on a decade, there is no way it'll materialize for this car.
Weird sensor bugs - doors refusing to open, or more scary, opening while driving.
Center console and driver gauges crashing - screens locking up and going blank and service tells me, 'try deleting some of your navigation history?'
Updates sometimes failing, leaving the car sending notices that it's trying to update and can't, over and over.
Windows that don't seal, or seal too high (making it difficult to open the door).
Being told the built in 3G modem will have to be scrapped and replaced at my expense, requiring a whole new entertainment unit (including a new screen).
Worse battery life than expected, despite being a cautious driver who babies that battery pack.
Odd software bugs - it regularly double sends garage door commands, thinks the wrong key is in the vehicle (resetting the drivers seat to the wrong profile), fails to make and maintain Bluetooth, makes bad navigation assumptions (no, I'm not trying to drive to Prague from Seattle), back up camera locking up/freezing/delayed.
Tons of fit and finish issues.
When I first had the car, I was treated like royalty by their service team. These days they often brush aside concerns ("there's a recall for my vehicle", "oh? Yes. We'll contact you when we can service it." Months pass. "I never heard from you, is my vehicle still recalled?" "Yes, but you didn't schedule service. You should have scheduled.")
Supercharger network is great... When you can use it. I've had several instances where the hardware didn't work, the speeds weren't correct, or people were idling with full batteries, blocking my use.
So, all in all, I love this car and I hate this car, and it's just obnoxious and frustrating enough to warrant looking elsewhere. The things that make Tesla unique are fading as other manufacturers catch up, and frankly, I trust those other manufacturers to assemble a better car.
I don't own a Tesla, but here's my pet peeve as a passenger:
When the driver opens their door, the driver's seat starts moving backward.
If you are sitting behind the driver, and have longer-than-average legs, this means your legs are now getting actively crushed by a motor.
If it's your first time in a Tesla, you are probably now panicking trying to figure out how to open the damn door, which inexplicably operates differently than every other car door in existence.
Not a pleasant experience. I've now learned to quickly and loudly remind the driver not to exit until I do when in this situation.
Not only is it not on by default in Teslas but it's actually quite a bit of work to setup.
Most cars it's just a toggle. In Teslas you have to setup a new profile and manually set the steering wheel and seat to the exit position. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94l43ILKRsA
The current to move the seat with someone sitting on it is likely not all that different from the stall current as it starts pushing into someone's knees, particularly given it's likely geared down a significant amount so it can move slowly.
This is a completely optional feature. In fact it's off by default, you have to opt into Easy Entry and set up the exactly where you want the seat to go to. Many cars have this feature and it's 100% on the driver to make sure you set the depth to a reasonable level and to make sure you're not putting someone 6'3 behind you in the passenger seat when you know you have this feature enabled.
For me the one killer feature of Tesla that isn’t brought up often enough is the UI display and that they actually keep the car updated and push out improvements. Similarly to how you see other manufacturers being able to assemble a better car (for now IMO), I trust Tesla on the software front because I’ll be damned if I’m buying a car with a crappy stock Android OS or similar until proven otherwise.
> people were idling with full batteries, blocking my use
How? If you’re at full and the Supercharger is at high capacity they start paying idle fees. I mean I guess someone can sit there for no reason but that’s a surprising story to me.
> How? If you’re at full and the Supercharger is at high capacity they start paying idle fees. I mean I guess someone can sit there for no reason but that’s a surprising story to me.
Because the idle fee is less than some parking garages cost? Or less than the convenience cost of moving the car?
It's only 50c/minute if the supercharger is not fully occupied when you park.
If you're in some of the bigger cities, you can easily be approaching $30/hr for prime parking. And the idle fee is only for the period in excess of the active charging.
Yes. Also the fee kicks in after a 5 minute grace period. You’re looking at $55/hour easy. Wouldn’t be surprised to see escalating idle fees in the future ($1/minute the first 15, $2/minute next and so on)
and that they actually keep the car updated and push out improvements
...also known as fixes for stuff that should've been caught before you were sold it. The whole "update culture" that has permeated into everything is a horrible abomination. It justifies leaving flaws unfixed before release, under the premise that "we can always fix it later", and indeed that's what appears to have happened --- except, in a lot of cases, it never gets fixed.
But these aren’t just bug fixes which, unlike other manufacturers Tesla does fix over the air, they are new apps, games, and other features. I don’t expect a product to ship with every possible feature and never be updated. Do you not update your OS on your laptop?
I think this is a distinction between traditional software and safety critical software. The minimum viable quality is much lower for the former. The expectation in the latter is that it has gone through rigorous quality checks to reduce uncertainty. This is distinct from the ability to be updated, as both types should have the capacity for updates.
> Being told the built in 3G modem will have to be scrapped and replaced at my expense
This is exactly why I don't like to buy devices that are coupled to unnecessary electronic components or batteries. For instance, a high-end speaker or headphone can last decades. Make it connected and battery powered, it'll be in a landfill within a couple of years. Environmental disasters in the making.
I am curious how much Tesla fans are impressed by Tesla-specific qualities of their vehicles vs, say, the exhilaration of driving an electric car. For many, Tesla was the first EV they have ever driven. I can understand thinking that your car is superior after associating it with the EV experience. For what it's worth, I don't own a Tesla, but I do drive an EV and it is the best vehicle I've ever driven.
My current daily driver is a Model 3. I think Teslas are a great gateway to the world of electric vehicles because they get people interested in the concept and introduce them to how driving an EV can be. I don't plan on my next daily driver being a Tesla due to Tesla's QC and fit & finish issues, but I am absolutely looking at other EVs like the BMW i4, Polestar 2, and even the Toyota bZ4X/Subaru Solterra.
I’ve also seen lots of posts from people who’d never owned a new car before and so of course the Model 3 is amazing. It is a great car, but not without flaws.
I say- it’s like they hooked a computer to a car. At first I thought “oh man, look! They hooked a computer to a car! Think of all the cool things you can do!”
A few months later I had learned how to reboot the drivers side door latch because of a software failure, somewhere… and I thought “oh yeah, right. It’s like they hooked a computer to a car.”
doors refusing to open, or more scary, opening while driving.
I guess that's what happens when you have an entirely "software defined" car --- software bugs, because they're more common than hardware ones, can cause far more problems. Do Teslas have the two-stage latch that I thought was a mandatory safety feature?
After sitting through hundreds of pre-flight briefings on planes, that explain how to exit in an emergency (and given some briefings myself), I'm surprised that Tesla does a sloppy job of showing people how to open the doors of their car, when it is on fire.
Spoiler alert: the normal door handles don't open the doors.
Plot twist: the back doors have a completely different (and concealed) opening mechanism than the front doors.
Surprise ending: you have to teach the backseat people how to unlatch their doors, after you just trial-and-errored your way out the front door(s).
> Worse battery life than expected, despite being a cautious driver who babies that battery pack.
Can you elaborate on this? To me, this is 90% of importance of owning an electric car. If the range is significantly worse than expected, then the customer is being taken advantage of, since that's where most of the manufacturing cost lies.
I don't know, but it seems like range estimates assume the best case. Things like driving style, climate control, local vs highway, wind, elevation changes, extra weight in the vehicle, the age of the battery, charging habits... These all can affect range, sometimes significantly.
Range anxiety is, in my opinion, the #1 issue with EVs right now. It will be helped by bigger batteries and more convenient charging.
I wonder if, just like there are portable FM transmitters that you can plug your iPod to and tune the car radio to, if there'll be portable 3G "base stations" that your car can connect to, and on the other side the base station would have a 4G/whatever antenna to talk to the infrastructure.
This is not surprising. Tesla is notorious for pushing QC on to the purchaser and fixing all the faults after the fact. Everyone I know who owns a Tesla has had some sort of problem that they had to get fixed almost immediately after purchasing.
Yeah not telling anyone was the biggest mistake. The vast majority of Tesla buyers would be fine with being told that they'll get this retrofitted in a few weeks with a service appointment vs delaying their car delivery a few weeks or months. All they had to was tell them up front. At least Tesla is going to retrofit these.
A lot of companies are having problems with the chip shortage and they have to make some tradeoffs like this. At least Tesla is fixing it post delivery. Others are just removing key features, for example BMW is removing touch screens from many of their cars and as far as I know there's no retrofit program to add it back. Tesla's biggest issue with this stuff is the lack of communication ahead of time.
Yes. Tesla is notorious for initial quality problems. To the point they are the only major automaker who doesn’t voluntarily report the numbers. In states where they are obligated to they rank a distant last.
Yes. They have made it standard practice to push poorly QC'd cars to purchasers in the hopes that they don't notice everything that's wrong with them and just accept the deliveries.
Had an opportunity to drive one recently (2020 Model S). Felt very high-tech. If you love speed and acceleration in a straight line they’re wonderful. But the sort of “fit and finish” and general comfort was… not what I would expect from a car costing $40,000+
The real risk for Tesla is probably other manufacturers catching them on range. Once you have EVs in the same price range, with roughly the same capacity Tesla starts looking like any other car with a bunch of gizmos instead of comforts.
Apparently the infra bill just passed has funding to build out charger network… and a clause that even Tesla could benefit from if they opened their supercharger stations to a certain amount of nonTesla vehicles
I love Tesla but what this tells us is that it’s incredibly hard to build a car.
As much as I love Elon and Tesla, it’s glaringly obvious that the other car companies have developed so much QC systems by now that they will absolutely take over the market and will crush Tesla.
So I will remain an admirer of Elon and Tesla but I won’t be buying one nor will I purchase shares in the company.
I've been researching Consumer Reports survey methods, and it doesn't appear they do anything to verify whether they're talking to an actual car owner or not. Can anyone corroborate this?
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 231 ms ] threadAmong electric SUVs, Fisher said Ford Motor Co's Mustang Mach-E "is the only one with above-average reliability.'"
It's interesting to me that till recently, Fords stock price was $5/6 - last time I checked, Ford still produced the most popular trucks in the world by a long shot?
Telsa is valued as a 'tech company', and so has magic unlimited upside unicorns attached to its stock. Rivian too.
Ford with the F-150 Lightning and the Mach-E seems grossly undervalued and a huge buying opportunity. When rednecks find out what “instant full torque” means the Lightning will sell very well.
Tesla's current market cap only makes sense if they're producing more vehicles than every other US manufacturer, combined. That's a little more than "but not by much".
They also do that without spend on advertising. Honestly, that's pretty impressive. Is it worth more than all other auto companies combined? Will it last?
No idea.
Tesla is basically in all the high capital with low margin businesses (cars, electricity, solar, batteries).
The grid in rural areas suck, in general. The reliability is terrible and there may not be enough capacity for everyone to start charging their vehicles when they get home from work. Rural people also tend to drive many more miles (and sometimes much more energy intensive miles), and range can be a serious challenge. If they’re hauling, range is significantly diminished, and it’s not like you can throw a few extra batteries in the bed for when you’re out of juice. With a diesel, you can throw a 100gallon transfer tank in the bed for under $1000 and make it clear across the lower 48 without stopping (though that’s not normally what they’re for).
All that said, electric has promise. Longer vehicle lifetime and less maintenance is a huge plus.
> According to Edwards’ data, 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...
So if you're following the law, you will end up having to stop anyway. And as charging tech improves that stop will get shorter and shorter until it's no longer a concern. And again, once people see the economics of it and see how much money is being saved, they'll gladly trade off a little bit more time waiting for charging if necessary.
Google up 'hold my beer'. You'll see.
Ford doesn't have a funny meme man/CEO on Twitter making promises about their products to millions of retail investors that will never pan out. The dumb money just isn't there to drive up crazy valuations.
Personally, I think Ford is able to make those changes and will be rescued if it doesn’t.
So they have some minor teething problems with body panels and such: I have a Model Y and overall it's been great, and my biggest complaint is highway noise. At speeds below perhaps 40 mph, it's far quieter than conventional cars. Preliminary data indicates the batteries last for a long time, and that long-term electric car durability is likely to be far higher than conventional cars.
Overall, the article is a reminder of the problem with rankings: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/14/the-order-of-t...
Consider they are also selling solar, batteries, insurance, and likely in home robots, ride sharing, and energy trading down the line. They may also resell their tech and software down the line as well.
There is also the general over valuation of the market at work, which is not evenly distributed between companies. Too much money without enough places to go.
https://youtube.com/c/MunroLive
Their heat pumps and giga press are first of their kinds. They were things the old players said would never work and are now trying to adopt.
It's also worth pointing out that Tesla's have a lower accident rate than the national average.
I can't find anything that says other manufacturers said "heat pumps won't work".
> It's also worth pointing out that Tesla's have a lower accident rate than the national average.
What does this have to do with innovation? Many of the vehicles on the road have lower accident rates than the national average.
Tesla is also notorious for vehicle accident and safety stats being misleading, and doubly so when its around the topic of AP/FSD.
It's not that heat pumps won't work, it's about pump technology. This is actually the thermal management system, used for both heating and cooling. Sandy generally has great commentary on the auto industry. He's quite genuine
Every auto company misleads, at least Tesla is being a leader
The point about accident rates is in context of unwitting beta testers. There are many drivers on the road, many of who make the road unsafer. That fact should also be considered when discussing road safety. If FSD beta is better on average, then the roads are getting stepwise safer.
I'm sure he does (I say that sincerely). But he's also the same Sandy who was very anti-Tesla until his wife got one and he put a whole lot of his investment portfolio in TSLA stock.
> There are many drivers on the road, many of who make the road unsafer.
Many of those drivers may make poor choices, etc. But we're not touting them as role models or desired behavior. FSD is meant to be better, and is still _actively_ trying to do things that are dangerous to drivers and pedestrians.
> If FSD beta is better on average, then the roads are getting stepwise safer.
The sheer amount of stupid decisions I've seen from FSD on YouTube etc. is shocking. The only thing more stupefying is watching people actively "allowing" it to do stupid things for "views", their own inattentiveness, or for some misguided notion that they're somehow "contributing" to "training" the car.
Like pro tip: When your car has run a red light at the same intersection the last three times, don't let it do it a fourth time just "to help the project". That's irresponsible, reckless and outright dangerous.
Tesla flat out refuses to release any statistics that would actually be able to prove, or disprove, an actual fair comparison of the safety of FSD/AP. Instead we get these cherry picked miles driven where AP is touted as being safer - on the (unspoken) subset of miles where it didn't disengage because it couldn't drive or the driver decided it was safer to disengage because of the AP's driving, versus "human drivers, all miles, all conditions".
There's (relatively) few accidents for human drivers on well-painted, well-maintained roads in the California sunshine. And similar for AP/FSD.
There's a lot more accidents for human drivers on poorly painted and maintained roads in a Pittsburgh winter. And there would be for AP/FSD too, if it wasn't disengaged a large majority of that driving.
But Tesla happily lumps the sum of driving of "Human drivers in California sun and Pittsburgh winter" and says that mile-for-mile, AP/FSD is better because it had fewer accidents, even though most of those miles were accumulated in the California sun. Anyone who completed high school statistics would know this wasn't a fair comparison, but Tesla has pushed it for years.
This is slightly misleading as the average vehicle is much older and with many fewer safety features. It would be more accurate to use a comparable vehicle.
Eh? The Nissan Leaf used a heat pump since the second (2013) version. And I don't think it was the first (though it may have been the first production one).
Generally very low margin.
> batteries
Generally extremely low margin.
> insurance
Low margin
> and likely in home robots, ride sharing, and energy trading down the line.
Speculative.
What future expectations? As it is priced right now, the only way that makes sense is if Tesla starts selling more than _every other automotive manufacturer, combined_.
That's insane, and not going to happen.
"So short the stock", people say.
And then Tesla fans act like shorting TSLA is something akin to a capital crime and at the very least should be forbidden by the exchanges or the SEC, from the reactions that come from it.
It's a cheap shot that you seem to like to reiterate. What's the source you have that unions are the most problematic issue to automakers' profitability?
If every other car company has to deal with unions then its only a matter of time until they are as well. The only way they can prevent that is to pay more than the other places but then their profits wouldn't stay high.
I guess Tesla thinks they can afford a package attractive enough to compete with unions and then not needing to pay the dues will tip the scale in favor of keeping the company union free.
Then they will keep the agility they need so they can switch to things like gigapress or other labor-saving processes and lay off/reassign a bunch of workers in order to continue their relentless cost-cutting and process simplification.
Tesla values agility - of course all employers say that in order to escape unions, but Tesla is one of the few companies that is actually agile, rather than just talking about needing to be agile. It's amazing how fast they change production processes, and being union free is a big part of that.
Not sure whether this will work out for Tesla or not, since workers value stability and job security.
Both are valid goals. I'm also interested to see how Tesla will compete against the flood of cheap EVs that will be coming from China. Doug Munro is convinced that they will dominate the US market:
https://teslanorth.com/2021/11/07/china-evs-coming-for-u-s-a...
The next 10-20 years are going to be very hard on autoworkers and all the supporting industries, from parts suppliers to their suppliers, and the entire vast supporting industry which is about 5% of US employment and the single biggest component of our manufacturing sector.
It's also not clear how we can keep a defense industry in this country without auto-manufacturing.
- Tesla will "win" the race(either to self driving, or some magical EV adoption level, or the gigapress will let them sell cars for half the price of other mfgs) and then swallow 90%+ of the market. Other auto manufacturers will just disappear or something, and will live in Tesla's shadow forever.
- Tesla makes robotaxis and everyone on the planet will simultaneously want to own a Tesla as well as pay for rides in rented Teslas. Again this argument usually rests on the assumption that Tesla will do the impossible and no other manufacturer will ever keep up.
- Tesla is a (software, navigation, power, battery, robot, mapping, AI, etc) company. They will take all of their tech an monetize it. This of course will not require any overhead and Tesla will make 110% profit on every market they enter, which, of course, they will dominate and no other existing manufacturers will be able to compete.
If you call out a Tesla fan on this, they will cycle back and forth between some variation of those arguments until you give up. Generally the Tesla fan has quite a bit invested in Tesla(via stock or just $10k beta test fees), and they argue as if conceding the argument will destroy their investment and prevent humans from colonizing Mars.
I think it's worth mentioning that Tesla doesn't just compete against other auto manufacturers. They (currently anyway) compete against public transportation systems and well designed, walkable cities. They seem to be a better solution than, say, IC cars, but in the long run we may see the world moving away from personal vehicles, electric or not. If nothing else, as cars become more intelligent, they become smaller, lighter and cheaper. Tesla may not have much advantage when we're all whizzing around in self-driving mopeds or whatever the future provides us.
Please learn the definition of “excess profits” before harassing me more.
Every company you mentioned is worth significantly less money than Tesla. And where does VW rank in revenue to market cap? A quick glance shows Apple makes about 80% more revenue than VW, and has a market cap 25x higher. The money isn’t going to shareholders.
The problem is that these are $60,000+ cars that don’t feel like a 60k car. You can get a Mercedes E class for that money and it feels like pure luxury when you sit inside. Every detail is just perfect.
A Tesla by comparison feels kinda cheap. Because the EV drivetrain is currently expensive and that’s what you’re paying for.
I don’t own a car but I like to rent lots of different drives. The difference in feel between a Tesla and a Merc or Beemer is stark. And not in Tesla’s favor at the moment.
The quality difference is difficult to even put into words, even against the S. The Lexus feels like a $100k car, yet costs 3/4 of that. The Tesla S feels like a $50k car, and costs more than double that. The 3 felt worse than a Corolla in every single way other than performance, but if I wanted a fast vehicle that's built like crap I'd just go buy a used sports car and at least I'd be able to get parts for it and get it serviced/repaired without it taking months.
The article goes on to say that:
>Consumer Reports recommends the Tesla Model 3 sedan and rates its reliability as "average." But Fisher said the rest of Tesla's vehicles are below average.
The popular Model Y SUV, Tesla's best-selling vehicle, has problems with poorly fitting body panels, leaks and issues with its climate control, Fisher said.
The larger Model X SUV "still has problems with the falcon wing doors," Fisher said.
>About Consumer Reports Annual Auto Reliability Surveys The latest Consumer Reports Annual Auto Reliability Surveys, gathered information from the organization's members on more than 300,000 vehicles from model years 2000 to 2021. Members filled out online surveys in the spring and summer of 2021. CR’s reliability predictions are based on overall reliability for the past three model years, provided the vehicle has not been redesigned. One or two years of data will be used if the model was redesigned in 2021 or 2020. CR bases its reliability analysis on data gathered from CR members each year about problems they had with their vehicles in the past 12 months. CR’s team of statisticians and survey researchers, then analyzed trouble areas and created an overall reliability score for each model and year. Serious problem areas that can lead to expensive repairs are more heavily weighted. More information can be found at www.CR.org.
"wing doors"
are as far as I know (which is not much) every (most?) cars which had wing doors had problems with them. Wing doors seem to generally be a bad idea as long as you don't put them on a "super expensive anyway super high maintenance" car (like some super-sport cars).
Our 2021 Y is flawless, and have no problems doing work myself on our older S and X. Your Lexus will burn petroleum forever, and Toyota has no interest in moving to EVs rapidly (and there is evidence they are actively lobbying against moving to EVs).
The economy runs regardless; those with capital must vote with their fiat. Sitting out leads other capital to make decisions that might be suboptimal. Think in terms of systems.
Telling people not to buy cars or electricity will get you laughed out of the room.
But by all means explain to me how strip mining the planet is saving it.
Their whole reputation and name stands suggests that they would strongly consider any such incident as a serious breach of trust ...
“The Ford Foundation is not connected to the Ford Motor Company. The Ford Foundation and Ford Motor Company are two separate and legally unrelated entities whose operations are completely independent and have been for more than 50 years. There is not any financial authority, decision making nor funding relationship between the two organizations.”
Largely because it'd be a jerk move and PR nightmare to obligate a rename given Henry Ford founded it, but if the two organizations are entirely distinct without even sharing common leaders or finances today, it's safe to say the risk doesn't exist.
Let's tone the conspiracies down a notch. CR also had the Ford foundation's involvement back when Tesla outscored every other car in CR's ranks.
[1]: https://www.fordfoundation.org/our-work-around-the-world/chi...
It has no bearing considering CR's untarnished reputation around conflicts.
Source: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1001954916569579520
Do they refer to the battery pack climate control or the climate control inside the cabin of the car? I am living in Israel - a country with a warm climate, so I am a bit weary of EV's that need to cool the battery pack, in order to keep going. Does anyone know how well they keep the battery pack alive in warmer climate zones? (i start to see some teslas, here and there, but I have no idea how well the battery pack stays alive, when it's 40C in the shade)
Is it possible, that they don't have the power to cool the cabin, when they need to cool the battery pack as well?
This is the least-surprising thing I've read all year. Adding a second hinge to a door is asking for trouble. Not to mention having to weather-seal a door seam on the roof.
In that time I've dealt with:
Several "opportunities" to go "full self driving". This specific vehicle is running up on a decade, there is no way it'll materialize for this car.
Weird sensor bugs - doors refusing to open, or more scary, opening while driving.
Center console and driver gauges crashing - screens locking up and going blank and service tells me, 'try deleting some of your navigation history?'
Updates sometimes failing, leaving the car sending notices that it's trying to update and can't, over and over.
Windows that don't seal, or seal too high (making it difficult to open the door).
Being told the built in 3G modem will have to be scrapped and replaced at my expense, requiring a whole new entertainment unit (including a new screen).
Worse battery life than expected, despite being a cautious driver who babies that battery pack.
Odd software bugs - it regularly double sends garage door commands, thinks the wrong key is in the vehicle (resetting the drivers seat to the wrong profile), fails to make and maintain Bluetooth, makes bad navigation assumptions (no, I'm not trying to drive to Prague from Seattle), back up camera locking up/freezing/delayed.
Tons of fit and finish issues.
When I first had the car, I was treated like royalty by their service team. These days they often brush aside concerns ("there's a recall for my vehicle", "oh? Yes. We'll contact you when we can service it." Months pass. "I never heard from you, is my vehicle still recalled?" "Yes, but you didn't schedule service. You should have scheduled.")
Supercharger network is great... When you can use it. I've had several instances where the hardware didn't work, the speeds weren't correct, or people were idling with full batteries, blocking my use.
So, all in all, I love this car and I hate this car, and it's just obnoxious and frustrating enough to warrant looking elsewhere. The things that make Tesla unique are fading as other manufacturers catch up, and frankly, I trust those other manufacturers to assemble a better car.
When the driver opens their door, the driver's seat starts moving backward.
If you are sitting behind the driver, and have longer-than-average legs, this means your legs are now getting actively crushed by a motor.
If it's your first time in a Tesla, you are probably now panicking trying to figure out how to open the damn door, which inexplicably operates differently than every other car door in existence.
Not a pleasant experience. I've now learned to quickly and loudly remind the driver not to exit until I do when in this situation.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-57908134
Most cars it's just a toggle. In Teslas you have to setup a new profile and manually set the steering wheel and seat to the exit position. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94l43ILKRsA
The seats in my 6 year old winter beater BMW will stop moving if they encounter resistance.
It's a two-door car so the seats move often too to accommodate my dog traveling in the back seats, I'd consider it a basic safety feature.
Edit: Just tested it again, the moment it encounters resistance it reverses direction for a second then stops
The amount of force it took is fairly low too, yet I've never had this failsafe accidentally trigger.
You'd think this stuff is table stakes for a mechanically advantaged system that can move hundreds of pounds effortlessly.
In the case of automatic car windows everything from ambient temps to battery voltage is used to detect if there's an obstacle present.
And I think what makes it kind of unacceptable is you can get off the shelf modules that integrate anti-pinch features:
https://www.continental-automotive.com/en-gl/Passenger-Cars/...
It wreaks of NIH syndrome or just trying to shave off some cost.
A quick search shows Teslas even have rear seat occupancy sensors, so that alone should disable the movement if there's a person detected in the back.
> people were idling with full batteries, blocking my use
How? If you’re at full and the Supercharger is at high capacity they start paying idle fees. I mean I guess someone can sit there for no reason but that’s a surprising story to me.
Because the idle fee is less than some parking garages cost? Or less than the convenience cost of moving the car?
It's only 50c/minute if the supercharger is not fully occupied when you park.
If you're in some of the bigger cities, you can easily be approaching $30/hr for prime parking. And the idle fee is only for the period in excess of the active charging.
Tesla also just massively increased charging prices: https://carbuzz.com/news/tesla-supercharging-costs-have-quad...
...also known as fixes for stuff that should've been caught before you were sold it. The whole "update culture" that has permeated into everything is a horrible abomination. It justifies leaving flaws unfixed before release, under the premise that "we can always fix it later", and indeed that's what appears to have happened --- except, in a lot of cases, it never gets fixed.
This is exactly why I don't like to buy devices that are coupled to unnecessary electronic components or batteries. For instance, a high-end speaker or headphone can last decades. Make it connected and battery powered, it'll be in a landfill within a couple of years. Environmental disasters in the making.
I am curious how much Tesla fans are impressed by Tesla-specific qualities of their vehicles vs, say, the exhilaration of driving an electric car. For many, Tesla was the first EV they have ever driven. I can understand thinking that your car is superior after associating it with the EV experience. For what it's worth, I don't own a Tesla, but I do drive an EV and it is the best vehicle I've ever driven.
A few months later I had learned how to reboot the drivers side door latch because of a software failure, somewhere… and I thought “oh yeah, right. It’s like they hooked a computer to a car.”
I guess that's what happens when you have an entirely "software defined" car --- software bugs, because they're more common than hardware ones, can cause far more problems. Do Teslas have the two-stage latch that I thought was a mandatory safety feature?
Spoiler alert: the normal door handles don't open the doors.
Plot twist: the back doors have a completely different (and concealed) opening mechanism than the front doors.
Surprise ending: you have to teach the backseat people how to unlatch their doors, after you just trial-and-errored your way out the front door(s).
Can you elaborate on this? To me, this is 90% of importance of owning an electric car. If the range is significantly worse than expected, then the customer is being taken advantage of, since that's where most of the manufacturing cost lies.
Range anxiety is, in my opinion, the #1 issue with EVs right now. It will be helped by bigger batteries and more convenient charging.
https://www.audiusa.com/us/web/en/inside-audi/innovation/aud...
https://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17401
It could maybe be done by replacing the antenna with some kind of direct output that emulated a 3G tower perhaps, big job though.
Having previously worked in safety critical spaces in aerospace and automotive, this lackadaisical attitude to QC is a bit foreign to me.
https://nitter.net/omacs/status/1459593051538481153
I think the recommendation is to take a pages long checklist with you when taking delivery.
A lot of companies are having problems with the chip shortage and they have to make some tradeoffs like this. At least Tesla is fixing it post delivery. Others are just removing key features, for example BMW is removing touch screens from many of their cars and as far as I know there's no retrofit program to add it back. Tesla's biggest issue with this stuff is the lack of communication ahead of time.
The real risk for Tesla is probably other manufacturers catching them on range. Once you have EVs in the same price range, with roughly the same capacity Tesla starts looking like any other car with a bunch of gizmos instead of comforts.
That's particularly damning considering the cheapest Model S is something like $95,000 today.
EV6 has vehicle-to-load, faster charging speeds due to 800V system.
And doesn’t look like a pregnant frog from the front/rear.
Y has 3rd row for your little minions though.
As much as I love Elon and Tesla, it’s glaringly obvious that the other car companies have developed so much QC systems by now that they will absolutely take over the market and will crush Tesla.
So I will remain an admirer of Elon and Tesla but I won’t be buying one nor will I purchase shares in the company.
It will never be mass market in the same way as Ford or Honda, quality is a culture that takes a lot of time and effort to establish.