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Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

driving.co.uk

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Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#61

Post by jfengel »

vayr wrote: post #23
frei wrote: post #4

>The J.D. Power US Initial Quality Study, which gauges problems encountered in the first three months of ownership. A very questionable definition of "reliability".

This video does a good job summarizing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkkiK4nplW0 JD Powers get maligned a lot, but they're an industry tool used by manufacturers to measure themselves against others. The survey has incentives to be accurate. The Initial Quality Survey is basically a measure of how happy a customer is with their new car. I think a luxury brand like Tesla does especially badly because customers are…

JD Powers get maligned a lot, but they're an industry tool

They sure are.

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#62

Post by jonathankoren »

chadash wrote: post #14
frei wrote: post #4

>The J.D. Power US Initial Quality Study, which gauges problems encountered in the first three months of ownership. A very questionable definition of "reliability".

I don't doubt that Tesla's are less reliable by other definitions, but I agree that this isn't a great measure. Tesla's have lots of new and untested technology. That's their appeal. If toyota wanted to be less conservative and start using blazing new technologies in their cars, I'm sure we'd see the same issues there. Teslas are notorious for software bugs that eventually get fixed. What i'm more interested in is wh…

> Tesla's have lots of new and untested technology. That's their appeal.

This saw gets trotted out whenever Tesla gets dinged for reliability. So let’s dig into it. What untested technologies are Tesla deploying and how does the affect reliability?

Well let’s review. The Model 3’s initial problems were metal panels not being installed correctly. A technology that has been successfully deployed on automobiles for over a century.

Now gaps are fixed, but they shouldn’t have been a problem at all. From what I understand the problem was caused by trying to have robots do final assembly and just lax quality controls, problems “legacy” manufacturers had solved decades ago.

Tesla’s iconic touch screens are delaminating [0] because Elon ordered screens to be installed that aren’t up to automotive grade standards. This is another unforced error.

And we haven’t even touched on the problems with the actual advanced technology, autopilot, which is once again oversold and underdelivers.

[0] https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-shows...

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#63

Post by windexh8er »

milkytron wrote: post #28

JD Power is clearly in bed with the traditional Detroit automakers. If you look at their history of rewards[0], you'll find that many times they choose the big three american companies vehicles over clearly superior import vehicles. They're vehicles on the page show one vehicle from each of the three big automakers in the US, one Chevy, one Ford, and a Dodge. There's also a Volvo in there that I'm sure fought some ba…

JD Power is akin to paid studies like an IDC "Study", or Gartner and Forrester "research". Or even better - Tolly "reports". And finally the complete sham that is NSS Labs. They're all pay for play - and using NSS as an example, they get paid on both sides. First the vendors pay the "lab fee" (source: I worked for a large security vendor and was involved in this process) to be included and for any reruns of the test if you don't like the results. The other half of it is charging customers for the "unbiased" reporting / research. It's a racket. Someone sent me a link to this JD report last month and I just responded with a rolling eye emoji. JD Power has declared GM/Chevy the winner for their entire existence if you watch any of their commercials. Clearly it works to an extent. And their loyal buying base oft references the "quality" represented from personal experience.

However, starting that conversation about the JD link got me looking. I started comparing reliability of Tesla to all other luxury brands in my subscription to Consumer Reports (they, at least, they buy what they test and have no brand influence or conflicting interest). While the Model X seems to fare the worst the Model S doesn't rank lower than comparable BMW, Mercedes, Audi, etc for the most part. In a lot of those direct comparisons Tesla has higher reliability, but still relatively poor given the cost of the product.

I fully agree with the parent comment here. Tesla likely told JD to go fly a kite and JD's enterprising sales folks went to Detroit and conjured up a nice fluff piece. Or, maybe this is a sign of Detroit starting sling mud because, too little too late. From my perspective I hope Detroit gets their act together quicker than they have been as I'd like more choice for EV. I don't own any Tesla products, but I likely will in the next 3-5 years if the current landscape of EV options doesn't significantly change. I like the idea of a lot of the concepts Tesla has brought to market, but as a consumer I don't really care what badge is on the vehicle anymore. It's unfortunate those who are competing are often lacking in many ways when compared to the current market leader.

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#64

Post by codazoda »

darth_avocado wrote: post #47

This survey is garbage. Survey design is an art. And unfortunately, this survey does not differentiate between a big problem like "brakes are shot" and a small one like "My spotify playlist doesn't show up like I want". Dig a bit deeper, for Tesla, > Infotainment is the source of more than a quarter of all problems Another thing to point out is that J.D. Power’s IQS does not differentiate between a problem that is th…

It's also useless in time frame. This is over the first few months of ownership. I've owned two of the cars that rank near the top of this list and it's problems after 5 years that I care about. That's when you start to pay out of pocket and the problems get big. Most cars, now, don't survive ten years, but I want a car that's reliable from year 5 to year 10.

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#65

Post by 0x62 »

spodek wrote: post #39

> the Elon Musk-founded firm Musk didn't found Tesla. From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tesla,_Inc . > Tesla was incorporated on July 1, 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. and that they, with a third employee, > connected with Elon Musk, who contributed US$6.5 million of the initial (Series A) US$7.5 million round of investment in February 2004

> A lawsuit settlement agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla in September 2009 allows all five (Eberhard, Tarpenning, Wright, Musk and Straubel) to call themselves co-founders

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#66

Post by taf2 »

2014 I got my tesla. I’ve had one issue and one recall... equivalent expensive luxury cars range rover,bmw, Benz of the past... by 2-3 year mark all are thousands in maintenance monthly. Tesla for me at least has been a game changer. Cost aside I don’t think about my car much except for the occasional thread like this...

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#67

Post by SkyPuncher »

hrolfgar wrote: post #5

It seems odd that Dodge has the top score here, with Toyota and Honda significantly below the industry average. This runs counter to my personal experience and general perceptions. I wonder if historically unreliable brands like Dodge are becoming more reliable than Japanese brands, or if this is related to how this survey is conducted?

Personally, I think this is a measure of the expectations for the brands. Dodge and Kia offer entry-level vehicles at a really good price point.

Most people aren't buying Dodge vehicles for their luxury interiors or refined ride qualities. They're getting cheap kid haulers or affordable muscle cars.

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#68

Post by jeffbee »

ALittleLight wrote: post #20

I drove a rental Tesla recently. We were parked in a long line waiting to board a ferry and I was playing chess on the main console. When the line started to move, I tried to too and car just wouldn't go or start. People stuck behind me started getting impatient and honking while I was trying to figure out what had happened, turning off and on again, pressing random buttons, accidentally popping the trunk, etc. It to…

I drive a Honda and it has this glitch where it will get into a state when it says "Depress brake to start" but what it wants is the opposite: it will NOT turn on if you are depressing the brake. This once caused a great deal of honking, at me, in traffic.

The purpose of my anecdote is that many carmakers are not great at software development.

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#69

Post by SkyPuncher »

jsmith12673 wrote: post #11

This survey is incredibly suspect ... as the author themself states, there's an inherent bias for non-american brands. I find it surprising the FCA and GM cars are topping the list, while being notoriously unreliable in the car community. Also worth noting that both Toyota and Ford have been ranked as worse than industry average. I'm not saying that Tesla(s) don't have quality issues, but this survey seems pretty mea…

> I find it surprising the FCA and GM cars are topping the list, while being notoriously unreliable in the car community.

I'm convinced that nearly every brand is notoriously unreliable in the car community. Toyota is the only brand that seems to escape that mark. Though, Toyota is generally labelled as "vanilla and reliable" so it doesn't get a lot of attention in the car community.

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#70

Post by FireBeyond »

darth_avocado wrote: post #47

This survey is garbage. Survey design is an art. And unfortunately, this survey does not differentiate between a big problem like "brakes are shot" and a small one like "My spotify playlist doesn't show up like I want". Dig a bit deeper, for Tesla, > Infotainment is the source of more than a quarter of all problems Another thing to point out is that J.D. Power’s IQS does not differentiate between a problem that is th…

And for several other manufacturers, the infotainment system is also the single largest source of problems, not "faulty brakes" or similar, so it's not like Tesla is being singled out here.

> design issue in which everything works as intended but the learning curve might be too steep.

It could be entirely argued that a design with a too steep learning curve, _especially when intended to be used in a moving vehicle_ is in actual fact a "design issue".

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