Most Tesla owners love their cars but that doesn’t mean everything is perfect. In a popular Quora thread, some Tesla Model S owners recently listed the biggest gripes that they had about their cars and they include things such as complaints about the cars’ fit, finish and quality. In short, it sounds like Tesla has some work to do still if it wants to be considered a top-notch car manufacturer.
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Here, for example, is an excerpt from a lengthy complaint from Christian Bull, who says that while Tesla owners love their cars now, Tesla could be in real trouble once other car manufacturers start offering real competition in the electric car market:
Sub par fit, finish and quality feel. American cars have a terrible reputation for fit and finish. Tesla lives up to this reputation. I also get the impression that Tesla initially had to source parts from second rate suppliers, and things feel a bit rickety and primitive. Things just don’t feel very solid. If Tesla intends to remain competitive in the premium/luxury market, they need to improve. I think they have, though. A 2015 Model S is a lot nicer than an early 2014, but they still have a ways to go. […]
A colleague of mine, who also has a Model S has also experienced many of the same problems. Still we agree, as do most Model S owners, that there’s no alternative. Nobody wants to go back to driving an ICE car.
Kirsten Oulton, meanwhile, cites the slow growth of the supercharger network in Canada and service center availability. And like Bull, she says the fit and finish leave a lot to be desired compared to other luxury cars on the market:
The leather, stitching and other materials on the Model S are not as good as a Maybach! Some people expect Tesla’s to be luxury vehicles, not understanding that they are actually performance vehicles. In addition, as a young car company, Teslas sometimes demonstrate utterly inexplicable design fails such as poorly-placed cupholders and a lack of lights in the visor mirrors. We expect these things to be corrected over time as the design team spends a bit less time focussing on the mind-blowing core technology and a bit more time listening to customer feedback, but they aren’t perfect today.
Tesla owner Peter Marreck writes that he now feels that he has to stick with Tesla simply because the experience of owning an electric car is so much better than any other car he could buy right now. This is the kind of gripe that Tesla should be happy to see:
I have yet to meet or hear of a Tesla owner that wants to go back to an ICE vehicle (and no OTA software updates, no touchscreen, no self-driving, and no electric motor, much less no instant torque). It would be like an iPhone owner wanting to go back to a Nokia. There is probably some self-selection going on there (in that people who buy Teslas are likely already “green-worldview-friendly”), but I really think that most anyone who drives one of these things for a little while will find it grows on them rather quickly (literally and figuratively).
Some other common complaints in the thread include lack of integration with CarPlay and Android, buggy door handles and poorly placed cup holders. Be sure to check out the full list of complaints at this link.
