Consumer Reports No Longer Recommends Tesla Model 3, Cites Reliability

Consumer Reports No Longer Recommends Tesla Model iii, Cites Reliability

This site may earn chapter commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

Tesla stock dipped slightly today (downward ~2 percent as of this writing) after Consumer Reports alleged it would no longer recommend the Model 3 based on client feedback almost reliability of the vehicle.

"When nosotros look at the Model 3 lot of the problems are the electronics," Jake Fisher, the senior director of automotive testing at Consumer Reports, told CNBC. "There are some issues replacing the (navigation/infotainment) screens, for case, only we've seen other issues in terms of the trim breaking and the glass."

Fisher noted that CR's reliability metrics are based on long-term reports from vehicle owners as well as its own evaluations and vehicle crash functioning. In this case, the feedback from owners has reflected general concerns nigh how well the Model three was assembled. Fisher also noted that fifty-fifty the test vehicle CR purchased (the company buys all of its cars) had a small stress fracture in one rear window.

When reached for annotate, a Tesla spokesperson said: "This new information from Consumer Reports comes from their almanac Possessor Satisfaction survey, which runs from July through September, so the vast majority of these issues have already been corrected through pattern and manufacturing improvements, and we are already seeing a significant improvement in our field information."

This is not entirely truthful. The standard vehicle survey runs through the middle of the year; CR says it sends out its asking for data in the spring and the annual written report dropped this past October. But in its written report today, the company also included boosted information:

For the past few years, CR has been going back to car owners who did not answer the initial survey to gather boosted information, and to include a greater number of the newest vehicles. These subsequently responses accept been incorporated into the ratings found in our annual Apr autos issue.

With the new information, CR'southward sample size of 2018 Model 3s near doubled, bringing the total number of Model 3s involved to more than than 500. These latest survey responses contained a relatively high number of reliability complaints.(Emphasis Added)

In other words, the vehicles existence surveyed in this latest update were not necessarily purchased in the earlier part of 2018. They may have been purchased significantly subsequently in the year. And that changes how we evaluate this information.

The mad scramble to bring Model 3 product upwards to the must-hit level of 5,000 vehicles per week was an incredible ordeal. Elon Musk'southward own bizarre behavior throughout much of 2018 is evidence of this, equally were his frank admissions that Tesla was in the center of "production hell" with the Model three. Early vehicle teardowns memorably acquired ane annotator to declare the car on-par with a 1990s Kia. Tesla had to tear up its own plans for a fully automatic manufacturing plant in favor of a huge tent in 1 of its parking lots. Information technology suffered fires and dealt with various other bottlenecks and problems in manufacturing. Throughout this entire process, the drumbeat focus was to boost production and send more vehicles.

Information technology is exceedingly difficult to simultaneously fix all of the huge problems causing y'all to miss your production window and to debug every modest upshot that might be causing some quality control issues after cars take actually shipped. Drinking glass existence slightly more prone to stress fracturing is the kind of consequence you lot might non even realize you had in the madcap scramble to kicking vehicles out the door.

If you consult the Bloomberg Tracker, the ugliest period of Tesla's ramp falls squarely into the July-September time frame that the Tesla spokesperson mentioned. The red line shows the cease of September. Simply this second information set up was collected after the first drove period ended (presumably in September, since the reliability report came out in belatedly Oct). Presumably, this means it reflects the reliability issues of a later prepare of vehicles, including some vehicles that were rolling off the mill later September.

There are besides many variables in play to draw conclusions nearly what Tesla's defect rate looks like. Clearly, it was the after reports information technology received that caused CR to withdraw its recommendation, but we don't know when those vehicles were manufactured or when Tesla introduced specific fixes to the bug they have, assuming it has done and then. Since we don't know how long it typically takes these issues to manifest, there'south no way to know if nosotros're seeing predictable manufacturing problems related to the company's effort to ramp production or sustained problems that accept persisted through the production ramp and go along to plague the car. This tin too happen — CR specifically notes that information technology continues to not recommend the Model Ten considering the Model Ten'due south falcon-wing doors continue to suffer from a relatively high rate of mechanical bug.

If Model iii reliability continues to improve every bit quickly every bit Tesla implies it has, those results should too be reflected in future surveys as Tesla reduces the vehicle's toll and more customers take possession of their cars. By the time CR does its side by side update in October, Tesla should be in a stronger position. If it doesn't, it'll tell united states that these issues have stuck effectually for longer than they should've, notwithstanding the company's aggressive improvement schedule.

Now Read: