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Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

driving.co.uk

171–180 of 231 posts

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#171

Everytime Tesla is mentioned here the deluge of hate is overwhelming. I genuinely don't understand it. Here comes a company that is actually doing something fundamentally transformative and good for the planet and its inhabitants instead just another in the countless line of garbage apps that at best are a solution looking for a problem and at worst actively contributing to the destruction of our species (Facebook).…

There is no doubt in my mind that EVs are way better off because of the pushes Tesla has done. It's also very clear that Tesla wouldn't be where it is today without Musk.

The same can be said of SpaceX.

But when you mix in the weird shit he says, off kilter predictions about where Tesla will be, petty public bickering with public figures, his stupid stance on COVID, and just general oddity... he's just a difficult figure to appreciate without some cynicism. A lot of people have trouble with successful people in general, but you add in all the weird crap and it's easy to see why Musk is such a divisive person.

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#172
post #147
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm stuggling to come up with another meaning of complex that doesn't infer that something would be harder to use.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/complex I was using adjective definition 1. You are assuming adjective definition 2.

That is what I like to explore in UI design. Can you have a large number of features, a complex set of features, that are easy to use? Can you optimize for the common 80% while making the remaining 20% usable? I think of complex pieces of software I use and most of it would not be things I classify as “hard to use”

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#173

I agree with others that the survey is a bit suspect, but I do believe it is possible that Dodges don't have a lot of problems. Look at the cars they sell! They haven't changed their cars much in at least ten years. That is not a knock on them, Americans like Chargers and Challengers. If you are making the same car for ten years or more I hope you get very good at it.

The Tesla S was introduced eight years ago.

That is a long time, but the Charger (and the Challenger is essentially a two door Charger) was introduced 14 years ago. More to the point, the Tesla S was revolutionary in 2012, the Charger was old fashioned in 2012.

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#174
One thing that worries me about Tesla, is all the electronics.

Modern consumer grade electronics, are not known for lasting very long. And by long, I mean on the scale of 20 to 30 years.

Often, circuit boards deteriorate. Either the solder goes bad, or some resistor, or what not fails.

This is one reason why I prefer old style appliances, with minimal electronics. And I refuse to buy a smart refrigerator, because when that circuit board goes bad, then your refrigerator is now a huge paperweight.

With an expensive Tesla Model 3, that can cost upwards of $50,000 USD, then the risk of an expensive paperweight here, is very real. And Elon is not in the business of repairing old Tesla cars, since it does nothing to boost his stock price.

And with all critical instrumentation now being virtual, and displayed to you on the center monitor, then, you now have a very high risk of cascading failures.

A better design, would have been to keep separate, the critical instruments needed to drive the vehicle, like the speedometer, battery charge meter, etc., from the infotainment system used to provide auxiliary support, like the GPS mapping, music, video, internet, browser, Netflix, etc. And especially the AutoPilot program, should definitely be kept separate.

Or maybe, the people who can easily afford to spend $50k to $80k on an experimental car, doesn’t concern themselves with such frivolous things. And they buy themselves a new car every 5 years, so to them, everything I mentioned above is all irrelevant.

And a lot of people who bought the $80k Model S, did so just to drive in the car pool lane. Once that privilege is revoked, then, its importance will diminish.

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#175
post #14
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.

Tell us about some of these, beyond Autopilot. Because this is a common refrain from Tesla owners, some of whom believe that only Tesla has adaptive blind spot sensors, or that only Tesla will keep you in your lane actively (and not just do the pinball bumper drift sensor), and so on.

What other new and untested technologies is Tesla deploying today?

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#176
post #90
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla has the most complex infotainment system in the industry. More complex software generally has more issues and complaints. People are going to have more issues and encounter more problems when using Microsoft Word versus Notepad. Word would therefore perform worse in a survey like this. That doesn't mean Notepad is a better piece of software or that Word users would want to switch to Notepad given the option. So…

"Tesla has the most complex infotainment system in the industry." ... which is a major design flaw.

Anyone I’ve shown my car to has been able to figure it out quite easily. I don’t understand what’s complex if you have used a touchscreen you should understand how to use it. I don’t do a lot of fiddling around with my radio I only skip between a few things so once they are saved as favorites I’m good.

I mean I get how people might not know how to open the glovebox but it was one of the first things I was shown when I picked up my car. Once again I almost never have to open it.

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#177

Everytime Tesla is mentioned here the deluge of hate is overwhelming. I genuinely don't understand it. Here comes a company that is actually doing something fundamentally transformative and good for the planet and its inhabitants instead just another in the countless line of garbage apps that at best are a solution looking for a problem and at worst actively contributing to the destruction of our species (Facebook).…

I will not argue that Tesla is doing things differently. I have one gripe with the absolute truth suggested by "good for the planet and its inhabitants" that so many EV manufacturers ride on. Are electric cars good for the planet? Nope. Are they less bad than gas cars? Maybe. It's like saying that Diet coke is good for you because it replaces normal coke that is bad for you. That's an erroneous and arguably dangerous…

I understand your reasoning but this is a perfect example of the saying "Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good". I agree that there are better solutions in terms of environmental cost for mobility but given the constraints of human behavior and urgent need for massive immediate reduction of carbon emissions, EV's are currently our best shot.

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#178

Here's another source (consumer reports) that backs up the idea that Teslas are on the less reliable end: https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-makes-big-leap-consume... My thoughts are that Tesla is a newer company, they are trying things that others aren't, and third, reliability never seemed to be a top goal for them.

I think it's more that reliability only really comes with maturity as a car company. In the same way that the reliability of a code base increases with maturity. A car is like a code base in that no one person ever fully understands the entire thing.

I've seen plenty of code bases become less reliable over time. I once took over a project that had been going on for 10+ years. Reliability was terrible. The first thing I did was stop all changes, and only allow critical blockers to be fixed. That eventually made it stable enough to be useful.

Reliability takes more that time. It takes competence and attention to detail.

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#179
post #44

" ...as the Elon Musk-founded firm reportedly wouldn’t allow its customers to be surveyed in 15 of America’s 50 states... " Sigh. This again? Tesla has joined the list of producers of quality products like Oracle?

In the other thread, this was phrased as Tesla not allowing those states to release the information of people who bought a car to third-parties because privacy. I'm sure if you wanted to take the survey in one of those states you can just reach out to JD Power yourself, they can't scrape your information though.

That's a privilege reserved for Tesla if you complain about them publicly, or if you do something they don't like, so they can tell the press that you "were warned about hands on the steering wheel", even if that happened 14 minutes before the accident that happened.

Or if you find references to new models or features, so they can lock you out of the car's firmware, after downgrading it, and disable diagnostic ports.

Re: Tesla worst for reliability in American driver survey

#180
post #66

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...

> are thousands in maintenance monthly

Yeah, I'm going to be skeptical (based on my ownership of multiple Audis and a Jaguar) that you were paying "thousands a month" (i.e. at least $24,000/yr) maintaining a two year old premium vehicle.

Electric cars have more "mechanical" reliability due to the inherent simplicity of the electric motor, but this hyperbole just further encourages the perception of the "Tesla Fanboy" / RDF.

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