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2021 Tesla Model Y review: Nearly great, critically flawed

cnet.com

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Re: 2021 Tesla Model Y review: Nearly great, critically flawed

#11

Post by adam_arthur »

While it's pretty obvious that many manufacturers are coming out with their own EVs, there seems to be something of a bubble that isn't paying attention or totally ignores this.

It will be interesting to see how the EV space evolves once there are mass amounts of competitor vehicles available/on the road.

Specifically interesting to see how it affects valuations for these companies.

I suspect Tesla's growth rate will slow considerably once there are comparably priced options from mainstream brands. E.g. F-150 vs Cybertruck. Or even a car from Apple, though that's many years out.

How obvious does the inevitability have to be to start denting valuations?

There's still the self driving story, but it does not appear they've made material progress on the hardest 20% of it. Most brands will have autonomous highway driving without much issue, and that's where 80% of the value is anyway. And likely Google will beat them to the punch on the taxi side.

Re: 2021 Tesla Model Y review: Nearly great, critically flawed

#13

Post by wpietri »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #4

I've owned a Model X for a year. It dates from before they removed radar, so autopilot still works very well. The rest of the car, however, does not. It is the least reliable car I have ever known. I am currently tracking ten faults, and waiting for my fifth service, which could only be booked with nearly a month to wait. The most serious faults involve the car sometimes failing to start without a hard reboot first (…

Yeah, "move fast and break things" is a much better ethos for low-stakes software than high-stakes hardware.

Re: 2021 Tesla Model Y review: Nearly great, critically flawed

#14

Post by PragmaticPulp »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #4

I've owned a Model X for a year. It dates from before they removed radar, so autopilot still works very well. The rest of the car, however, does not. It is the least reliable car I have ever known. I am currently tracking ten faults, and waiting for my fifth service, which could only be booked with nearly a month to wait. The most serious faults involve the car sometimes failing to start without a hard reboot first (…

Had a lot of friends buy Teslas in the past few years. Exact same story: Faults everywhere, long waits, poor service (albeit super friendly and with a smile).

One friend has received his Model 3 back twice now with the problem not fixed at all. He's resigned to just living with the problem until the service backlogs are lower.

It has been interesting to see how tolerance for these quality issues has waned as the shine of the Tesla brand has started to wear off.

Re: 2021 Tesla Model Y review: Nearly great, critically flawed

#15

Post by Jare »

Shank wrote: post #8

> I can't conclusively say that it's because of the missing radar, but I can say that our Model Y is bad at detecting obstructions ahead. Really, really bad. The big issue is false positives, a problem that has become known as "phantom braking" among Tesla owners. Basically, the car often gets confused and thinks there's an obstacle ahead and engages the automatic emergency braking system. You get an instant, unwante…

The flaw was not unique to their car, or new at all. They describe how owners have already nicknamed the issue, so

> unless every shipping car has the same problem

Seems close enough.

Re: 2021 Tesla Model Y review: Nearly great, critically flawed

#16

Post by drewg123 »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #4

I've owned a Model X for a year. It dates from before they removed radar, so autopilot still works very well. The rest of the car, however, does not. It is the least reliable car I have ever known. I am currently tracking ten faults, and waiting for my fifth service, which could only be booked with nearly a month to wait. The most serious faults involve the car sometimes failing to start without a hard reboot first (…

[ slightly edited version of a reply i made a week ago on the CR article]:

I have a 2017 Model X that I bought new. The EV part is great, its everything else that sucks. Since I've had it, I've taken it for service for the following:

o Arrived w/o Tow pkg (Tesla "forgot" it, was installed via service center appt)

o falcon wing doors improperly adjusted, leading to wind noise and water intrusion

o Loud wind noise and fogging passenger side windows: Due to improperly installed "triangle" window on passenger door

o Worn half shafts caused shudder under acceleration, replaced at ~20k miles

o fogging drivers side A pillar camera after rain, leading to "navigate on autopilot unavailable"

o Drove in "low" mode to preserve half shafts, caused excessive tire wear. Wore inner rear tires down to a puncture around 30k miles. Replaced tires and had car re-aligned to run in "low" mode.

o Half shafts replaced again at 38k miles

o Upper control arms shot around 39k miles, car just out of warranty, and Tesla initially wanted $1k to fix, but eventually fixed for free after I complained.

All in all, I'm thinking to get a different car since I need a car that works. I don't want a non-Tesla EV since the charging options for non-Tesla EVs suck. I'm currently looking at PHEVs. Ironically, I'll probably unload the Tesla for another EV only if/when Tesla opens superchargers up to other EVs.

How much of a loss would you take if you sold your Model X right now? They are not very available new, so I assume you would not loose too much money. Mine has actually gained a bit in value over the last 18 months or so..

Re: 2021 Tesla Model Y review: Nearly great, critically flawed

#17

Post by dylan604 »

ushakov wrote: post #10
LeoPanthera wrote: post #4

I've owned a Model X for a year. It dates from before they removed radar, so autopilot still works very well. The rest of the car, however, does not. It is the least reliable car I have ever known. I am currently tracking ten faults, and waiting for my fifth service, which could only be booked with nearly a month to wait. The most serious faults involve the car sometimes failing to start without a hard reboot first (…

i know someone who has a fully-charged model 3 they had spent extra 20k euros to improve it for instance: they added custom roof sealing, because it was getting too loud inside when driving on the highways and then they (tastefully) refitted it with custom-made carbon elements on the inside and the outside tuned/improved Teslas are not that uncommon if you know some owners

Other than the noise sealing, that doesn't really say much negative about the car though (but that could be personal preference). That just says the person you know has plenty of money to customize the interior of the car in ways the manufacture doesn't offer.

Re: 2021 Tesla Model Y review: Nearly great, critically flawed

#18

Post by FireBeyond »

ushakov wrote: post #10
LeoPanthera wrote: post #4

I've owned a Model X for a year. It dates from before they removed radar, so autopilot still works very well. The rest of the car, however, does not. It is the least reliable car I have ever known. I am currently tracking ten faults, and waiting for my fifth service, which could only be booked with nearly a month to wait. The most serious faults involve the car sometimes failing to start without a hard reboot first (…

i know someone who has a fully-charged model 3 they had spent extra 20k euros to improve it for instance: they added custom roof sealing, because it was getting too loud inside when driving on the highways and then they (tastefully) refitted it with custom-made carbon elements on the inside and the outside tuned/improved Teslas are not that uncommon if you know some owners

There are people who will charge between 3 and 5 thousand for you to have your factory-new Tesla delivered to them so they can fix panel gaps and a laundry list of the most common complaints before they deliver the car to you...

... and a scarily large number of people who think this is a reasonable proposition.

Re: 2021 Tesla Model Y review: Nearly great, critically flawed

#19

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

tpmx wrote: post #3

Tl;dr: The critical flaw is random braking in the mandatory crash avoidance system because they replaced radar with cameras + computer vision which has a lot of false positives in their current production software release. I'm curious: Is the reason cost, availability or ideology?

I think what happened is they had a bunch of orders they couldn’t deliver because they couldn’t get shipments of the radar part in 2020. So, they decided to go vision-only for autopilot and now they’re scrambling to get to parity.

Re: 2021 Tesla Model Y review: Nearly great, critically flawed

#20

Post by aresant »

Rented my first Tesla from turo recently

Super impressed with the range, performance, the modernity of the interfaces and thoughtfulness of features. Feels like the future.

Sort of shocked by the build quality including a latch that got stuck and wouldn't allow the door to close. Managed to get it wedged open with a tool on hand, but could see it being a showstopper / tow truck moment for many.

The quality / bs issues seem fixable so it's hard not to still feel optimistic about the platform on a whole, but one would hope between the record debt / demand / and liquidity of that org at the moment that they are briskly addressing.

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