Consumer Reports: Tesla's Model X Is 'Fast and Flawed' (marketwatch.com) 146
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MarketWatch: Tesla Motors Inc. was dealt a blow earlier this week as Consumer Reports magazine called the Model X, its much-awaited and much-feted SUV, a "flawed" vehicle. Beyond a "brag-worthy magic, the all-wheel drive Model X 90D largely disappoints," the magazine said, citing rear doors prone to pausing and stopping, second-row seats that can't be folded, and limiting cargo capacity. Even its panoramic, helicopter-like windshield won cranky-sounding disapproval from Consumer Reports: It's not tinted enough to offset the brightness of a sunny day, it said. Overall "the ride is too firm and choppy for a $110,000 car," Consumer Reports said. Earlier this year, Consumer Reports released its 2016 Car Reliability Survey and found that, while the Tesla Model S has become more reliable, the Tesla Model X has proved to be unreliable overall.
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(Score:5, Funny)
I came here to say just that, but noooooooooooo ....
You only think about yourself.
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Tesla builds shit cars (Score:1, Insightful)
I know nerds obsess over them, but Tesla builds shitty cars. Trim falling off, panel gap issues... as someone who purchases cars around $100k, these are just unacceptable. The Model S is fast but handles like a pig. It's not fun to drive unless you like stop light racing teens. Nor are they luxurious compared to a similarly priced Merc or Audi...
Re:Tesla builds shit cars (Score:5, Interesting)
I know nerds obsess over them, but Tesla builds shitty cars. Trim falling off, panel gap issues... as someone who purchases cars around $100k, these are just unacceptable. The Model S is fast but handles like a pig. It's not fun to drive unless you like stop light racing teens. Nor are they luxurious compared to a similarly priced Merc or Audi...
I'm not surprised, building cars is very, very difficult, a new entrant is bound to make really crappy cars for a long time while they figure their manufacturing line out.
That's actually fine for their original luxury market, there's a lot of wealthy people who are quite happy to pay for a fully electric car from an upstart manufacturer, even if it is unreliable.
The problem is they're trying to move into the general consumer market where it's not enough to be fully electric and cool, you also need to be extremely reliable. That's a much more difficult task.
Re:Tesla builds shit cars (Score:5, Insightful)
Then they poached too many EEs and Computer Engineers and from Silicon Valley and not enough Mechanical engineers from Toyota, Audi, BMW, et al.
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Good luck on poaching them from auto manufacturers. Auto companies know that their brands live or die based on what those engineers do, and will hold onto them even if their company is sinking.
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To be fair, Reno is kind of a shithole. I certainly wouldn't want to live there. It's so boring there that I heard people will shoot you just to watch you die.
Nobody wants to build a 500+ acre factory in a desirable city where the land is expensive.
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But it's a good earworm.
Reno (Score:2)
Not to mention that annoying train whistle in the middle of the night.
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No one wants to live in Detroit and salaries are garbage
That moment when you realize that the "big 3" NA automakers only have their headquarters in Detroit. With development, research, and manufacturing everywhere else. Within 200km there are 6 GM, 4 Ford, 4 Chrysler, 3 Toyota plants. Those pretty much span the breadth of what those companies make. A bit further out from 200km and then you start seeing the development plants, fabbing, and so on.
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Fire up any job search engine. R&D and development is all still centered around Detroit..
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"Around" Detroit is a safe thing to say. The suburbs around Detroit are very different from the center city.
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Advanced batteries isn't really an Electrical Engineering project. It's chemistry and material sciences.
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Advanced batteries isn't really an Electrical Engineering project. It's chemistry and material sciences.
Just so they don't hire anyone from Samsung to do their battery tech.
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Obviously there are major differences such as battery and motors. Teslas are supposedly very mechanically reliable from an automotive aspect. The faults in the X are mostly to do with the doors, trim and other teething troubles.
As well, I'm not terribly inclined to put too much stock into bad Consumer Reports reviews. I've bought more than one vehicle they didn't like, and the weren't anything like the CR hatchet job promised they would be. They've always been a little too nitpicky and sometimes the reviewer's personal likes comes into play. Minor things like trim are eaily corrected.
Lots of combustion vehicles have these faults too or even more serious issues. My Hyundai diesel's clutch pretty much exploded one day - it was repaired under warranty but apparently it was a common fault in that model.
But this is Slashdot, you know. I remember when a Tesla caught fire, and the EV deniers had an confirmation bias orgasm, pointing and saying "See? S
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That said, the adage "never buy version 1 of anything" applies to cars as much as it does to anything else. Buying a new model of vehicle is just a bad idea. It will launch with defects in its design, production / quality issues and software bugs which will be rectified in later
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Excellent point about Tesla's attitude. When Ford had a car (the Pinto) that had a catch-on-fire problem that could have been fixed with a stronger shield for the fuel compartment, they tried to sweep the problem under the rug rather than fix the cars. When Tesla had a car with a catch-on-fire problem that could be fixed with a stronger shield for the battery compartment, they immediately built a stronger shield and recalled all their cars to install it.
Of course, they did have the lesson of the Pinto to dr
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There are LOTS of things the Tesla have in common with combustion vehicles. Headlights, [...] tyres, [...]
Careful there - the Tesla has tires, not those tyres that certain petrol burning vehicles use to roll about on, and on the wrong side of the road to boot (or to trunk?)
Folding seats since 1914 (Score:3)
In a hatchback, you put hinges on the rear seats so they fold forward. Folding seats were innovative 1914, over a hundred years ago, and they aren't any different just whether the engine is a flat 4, a V8, or electric. Tesla literally could have used the exact same seats from any 1970s station wagon.
They're a hundred years behind in basic utility features and "innovation" isn't an excuse.
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. . . and perhaps breaking system
Having the system break is exactly the issue.
Re:Tesla builds shit cars (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you and the grandparent are talking about different things, he's mainly talking about the "premium" experience of a $100k car. I've heard others too say it falls short of high end Audis and BMWs, but really it sells to all those who want to "go green" but can't deal with the range of a Nissan Leaf, BMW i3 or Renault Zoe regardless of that. Once you get into Tesla Model 3 territory the customers aren't really obsessing over such details, they want as you say a cheap, reliable car and it's less about the finer details and nuances of the driving experience.
Do they have quality control/reliability issues, as in how often does the car need to be in the shop? From what I've heard certainly some, parts and repair time has also been an issue. But we're also hearing from early Model S customers, they have a lot more experience now than they had then so Model 3 might be decent. Not ever going to buy a Model X though, those doors are just begging for problems 3-5-10 years down the road. I think the Elon Musk drank a little too much "they said it can't be done, so I'm doing it" kool-aid there.
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It's the pano roof that really gets me. They want to have it on the Model 3 as well. How did they miss the issues with it not blocking sunlight? They every gave early buyers a free sunshade.
The parallels with the iPhone 4 antenna issues are striking.
Tesla durability problems (Score:2)
. . . I heard they leak oil and loose their compression . . .
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Anyway, both Model S and Model X are _fun_ to drive. The steering is extremely responsive, the acceleration is downright heady and curve handling is great
Re: Tesla builds shit cars (Score:2)
Teslas are becoming mainstream (Score:3)
Yes... Tesla's original awesomeness was like that of a talking horse, who amazes by the mere fact of talking. That it talks with a heavy accent and has a very limited vocabulary does not diminish the awe. Initially.
But then, slowly, it gets treated like any other talker, and the audience begins noticing the flaws. Tesla is entering this stage now.
Re: Tesla builds shit cars (Score:1)
My mom worked for a Dodge dealer for 15 years and processed various paperwork including service and recall shit. She said the dodge viper was the same way. Constant problems. Many had fuel pump issues. Guys would buy these $85k plus cars all the time, make it 4-5 miles down the road and the fuel pump shits out. Car gets towed back. For that kind of money you think the basic hardware would at least function. It's not like the fuel pump is a revolutionary new item.
Re: Tesla builds shit cars (Score:5, Insightful)
Many of these problems have lessened in recent years, the build quality of these cars in the 70's through the 90's was absolutely laughable. I'm not saying its acceptable, just that is how it is. Even the Viper's domestic competitor, the Corvette has had similar issues, even in recent years, see C7 Z06 heat soak issues.
Re: Tesla builds shit cars (Score:2)
A friend of mine used to have a TVR. He used to wave at it as he went past the garage (mechanic) as it was the only time he saw it. I wonder if the constant repair costs were more or less than the cost of off street parking in London?
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This is why if I were buying a supercar, ha ha ha, I would buy the R8. Audi knows how to build a car that doesn't immediately disassemble itself. Instead of one year, it takes five or six
Seriously though, I would imagine that Lamborghini reliabilty has skyrocketed in recent years...
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Even the v8 car is a supercar, albeit not by a lot. I would actually prefer to own the upcoming sports car version though, to be honest. You can use more of it
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About the same comment I was going to make. Somehow I think CR perhaps doesn't drive very many real expensive sports cars or perhaps even watched top gear... Having a "ride too firm and choppy" is basically every sports car ever. There is a reason you want tight suspension on a car that can go from 0-60 in 3 seconds. Poor build quality aside, which you point out many high end cars are not immune to, that type of car has different criteria for "value'". Reliability and comfort are definitely not even in the
Re: Tesla builds shit cars (Score:2)
To be fair, many high-end brands have teething issues with big changes. BMW's N54 engine (straight-6 twin turbo direct injection) had two high-pressure fuel pump recalls and a few VANOS firmware updates before it became reliable and turned into the amazing N55 (twin-scroll turbo) they are shipping in half their cars today.
Re: Tesla builds shit cars (Score:2)
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All American-made cars are complete trash in this way, compared to Japanese or European imports. Doesn't matter if it's a cheap and cheerful compact or a supercar.
My 16 year old GMC pickup laughs at your stupid comment.
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My 16 year old GMC pickup laughs at your stupid comment.
We've got a 2000 chevy astro. It's had an engine rebuilt (4.3 V6), it's had the transmission rebuilt (4L60E), fuel pump twice, no power locks work, all door mechanisms are failing, rear axle ate shit and had to be replaced, all body bushings are failing, had to have shitty plastic suspension parts like the idler arm replaced.
Now, to be fair, my 1992 Ford is out of comission... but everything works except the engine :)
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Must be a new thing. How does one race a stop light? In my experience, they only move a few inches due to wind.
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News flash: Street racers don't race streets. Drag racers don't race in drag. Hot rods are not rod-shaped.
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No, no, no. "Stop light racing teens" means you should obstruct the movement of fast-moving, low-mass teenagers. It's not great advice, to be honest, since kinetic energy is directly proportional to mass but proportional to the square of velocity. Better to try stopping heavy slow teens.
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Maybe the problem is their factory is in Fremont which is in the Bay Area. They should move to a more reasonably priced place like South Carolina and they could pay top dollar. In the Bay Area they are getting the ones who could not make it in Tech or service industries serving those in Tech. Quality is bound to be an issue when you are scraping the barrel
Re: Tesla builds shit cars (Score:1)
Re: Tesla builds shit cars (Score:2)
Nice try, Elon.
Re: Tesla builds shit cars (Score:4, Insightful)
"Tesla cars are the most advanced and fun to drive. Go to a tesla store and see for yourself, test drives are free"
Probably you didn't figure it but you just made the parent's point: "most advanced and fun to drive" coupled to being expensive has proven time and again to be good enough for the luxury market, it's far from sufficient for the consumer one.
The same can be said about your "test drives" point: millionaires are served if their toy cars can manage the equivalent to a test drive once a month (go see how many miles have a second hand luxury car on its odometer) but consumer cars start to make sense only once you can reliably put 100K miles on them.
In the end, Mr Anonymous Coward, you don't own a Tesla and you are the kind of fanboy that most probably will queue for hours to own the next iShit that comes properly marketed to you. For Tesla to reach the masses, Musk will need to understand not all the people are like his west-coast millionaire early adopters.
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They are fun to drive in a straight line but they corner like shit. Wooo lots of fun accelerating hard from light to light.
So like every other American car then...
But seriously if you wanted to tear up a racetrack, a car that many companies are starting to use as taxis is a frigging dumb choice and if you're having issues with the Tesla cornering on a normal road then you should probably have your license suspended.
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For Tesla to reach the masses, Musk will need to understand not all the people are like his west-coast millionaire early adopters.
It's almost like he understood that from the start with a plan to build a premium car and get the technology sorted and then bring down into the normal markets, kind of like he's doing with the Model 3.
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The same can be said about your "test drives" point: millionaires are served if their toy cars can manage the equivalent to a test drive once a month (go see how many miles have a second hand luxury car on its odometer) but consumer cars start to make sense only once you can reliably put 100K miles on them.
I have a Mercedes Benz E55 AMG. Cost out the door before taxes, 102 thousand dollars. Definitely qualifies as a luxury car... but it also qualifies as a performance car. 500hp/500tq is not a normal performance from a typical car.
That being said, my "luxury" and performance car has over 130k miles on it and is like brand new. Hell, I put 30k miles on it in the first three months of ownership. I don't do Bentleys but I imagine they are the same: rock solid and hard performing.
I suspect the types of cars you a
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They are helpful if they reviewed one of the thing you wanted, and then you compare it with others to consider. For something nobody has an opinion on, lik
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They'd be right. I was in a Ferrari Testarossa and it was awful. You'd have orthapedic problems just sitting in the seat if you were over 5'10. Getting in an out is impossible. Visibility sucks. The ride is harsh on anything but good asphalt. The interior features are minimal and flimsy.
I think the more recent supercars are all teched up with creature comforts, though.
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And getting out isn't impossible, it just requires lessons. The same lessons I learned on an '84 Corvette, I applied to the more modern super-cars (and race cars with a full-cage). But that's all irrelevant to the point that people buy a Ferrari for one of two reasons: To look like a rich jack-hole
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Consumer reports has been useless regarding cars for far more than ten years. I'm on 30+ years since they 'jumped the shark' for me. That was a review of the 84 'vette...
Everything is rated as an economy car. Corvette? Rated 'unacceptable' because it's not a economy car. No doubt it's ride is also 'too firm'. God knows what they'd say about yellow konis 'turned up to 11'*.
Seriously though. People are either CR or Top Gear. If you are CR just stay the fuck out of the fast lane.
* Not really, only one c
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Enthusiasts are not CR's Audience (Score:1)
CR's function is pretty simple - make sure Joe Average Consumer doesn't get ripped off. They aren't about highly detailed reviews, those are for hobbyist magazines dedicated to each market. CR is about finding a model of practically any sort of product that is "good enough" and not fatally flawed. That's it. If you expect more of them, then you aren't using them right.
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They've been critically flawed for longer than that.
I will never forgive them for nearly killing the digital speedometer. They gave a bad review to every car that had one, to the point that it became almost impossible to find a car with one for years.
I drive a plug-in hybrid. Literally nothing else on the dash is analog, the rest of it is LCD panels, but it still has an analog speedo. I've got a GPS that I use just so I know how fast I'm going without having to translate dial to number. If the Chevy Vol
Re:Who cares (Score:5, Interesting)
You can nitpick his language, but he has a point - Consumer Reports "reliability" ratings blow. They count every problem equally - a power window going on the fritz has the same weight as the transmission falling out the bottom. Add to this that they do not consider the cost of the repair - a Chevy might have an alternator that is less reliable than a Honda, but also costs half as much to replace. Nowhere is that reflected in the rankings. When I'm buying a car I want to know what the total cost of ownership is, how likely it is to leave me stranded, and how much it will cost me to fix in the event that it breaks down - it does not answer any of those questions.
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Add to this that they do not consider the cost of the repair - a Chevy might have an alternator that is less reliable than a Honda, but also costs half as much to replace.
The problem is, the Chevy will probably break in 4-6 years but the Honda part will last for 20.
Also any calculation will only involve OEM parts, whilst Genuine Honda parts are extremely expensive, anyone with an ounce of intelligence will just by the same part from Bosch or whoever makes it avoiding the OEM tax. Add to that the fact you can get cheaper 3rd party parts for a Honda.
I've had Japanese and European cars, My parents owned Holdens (Chevy in Australia). The Japanese cars was the cheapest to r
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All of what you say might or might not be true, but none of it is captured in the Consumer Reports data. I personally have found my Japanese cars to be more reliable, but also more expensive to fix. My shittiest car was a Chevy Blazer, and I replaced the transmission 3 times... but at the end of the day I had the car for well over 150k+ miles (the speedometer stopped working...) and each transmission rebuild cost only $600 dollars. I'm in a different phase of life now and appreciate the reliability more tha
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My latest fix on my Toyota involved a simple radiator swap and the entire AC unit had to be removed for access. This made a quick and cheap repair quite expensive.
The starter motor in my BM required the engine to be lifted. Replacing that cost 90 quid in parts, but 190 quid in labour (3.5 hours at 60 pounds an hour). Cars sometimes have these li
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Well, if they can't figure out a way to aggregate and present data from their thousands of survey respondents in such a way, they will continue to be useless to me. I'm not sure why they can't aggregate repair information - they already do it for maintenance costs. I suppose it would still be useful for people who trade in their car every 5 years.
Second This!!! (Score:1)
I gotta second this!
Last summer I was shopping for a Minivan. Consumer Reports gave the Toyota a better score than the Kia. I dug into that. Turns out the Toyota automatically brakes when it detects an eminent collision. The Kia just warns you. No mention anywhere of all Toyota's problems with unintended acceleration, their widely documented software faults, etc. No mention of Kia's surround-cameras that make parallel parking a breeze. (Real killer app that. Check it on youtube. It's even better in
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I don't know anything about Tesla's power windows - that was just an example. My point is that your stereo going on the blink is a much less serious problem than being stranded on the side of the road with a mechanical failure. I personally weigh the mechanical failure much more highly than the stereo, so a magazine without this shared value is just a notch above useless.
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I agree with your message but this line caught my eye
Add to this that they do not consider the cost of the repair - a Chevy might have an alternator that is less reliable than a Honda, but also costs half as much to replace.
I don't care how cheap it is to fix something if I am left stranded on a dark highway on a stormy night in the middle of nowhere. THAT is the point of reliability. Not that something is cheap to fix. The cost of failure is greater than merely the cost of repairs.
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I'd just like the data so that I can make my own decision. At one point in my life, my time was pretty worthless (monetarily speaking) and swapping out parts on my cheap, old Chevy with 150k+ was well worth the occasional tow. Now I would have zero patience for that crap.
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They count every problem equally
Completely wrong. First, the reliability ratings are broken down by category in the actual CR reports, even if news summaries for idiots condense them into "CU says not reliable". Yes, CR does provide an overall "predicted reliability", but anyone with an ounce of sense who cares about the distinction will look at the breakdown. Second, from their FAQ [consumerreports.org]:
Problems with the engine-major, cooling system, transmission-major, and driveline are more likely to take a car out of service and to be more expensive to repair than the other problem areas. Consequently, we weigh these areas more heavily in our calculations of Used Car Verdicts and Predicted Reliability. Problems such as broken trim and in-car electronics have a much smaller weight. Problems in any area can be an expense and a bother, though, so we report them all in the Reliability History charts.
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Thanks for the clarification. This was not always the case, and so I haven't bothered with their automotive recommendations for a long time. Maybe I'll give it a fresh look. I'd still like to see a repair cost metric figured into the ratings - that $1000 extended warranty is usually a rip-off, but if you are a BMW owner and need a $7500 transmission, you'll wish you had it.
Re: Who cares (Score:2)
If CR is basing its Tesla ratings on owner surveys then they're getting very different results than all the other ratings agencies. I'd wonder if the other ones are bought off except that all my friends who have Teslas cannot shut up about how perfect they are, without exception.
I think it's more likely that the Press reminds people that CR still exists when they get their hate on for Tesla and the people at CR can find narrow excuses to justify their complaints while massively benefitting from the exposur
New Tesla Model S60D owner here (Score:2)
OK, I don't post here much but read almost every day. I thought I would bite on this one, enough to change my password that I did not remember.
I don't know what is wrong with Consumer reports (I am a member), but after reading this post, I sat here wondering "hmm, when was the last time I was able to do something useful with one of their reviews?". I can't remember. I joined originally to compare appliances for my house, not sure what an alternative for that would be. For cars, I think you spend more ti
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Plenty of Anonymous Cowards will bash Tesla and say the cars are awful, but yet the named actual owners of the cars love them. Even the one's who've encountered problems with their vehicles. The vast majority of issues have been dealt with satisfactorily. The reliability and build quality issues are being eliminated. All this from a car company that's only 8 years old.
I look eagerly forward to joining the Tesla family of owners in the next year or so. It's been a long time since someone produced a
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So, yes to the people posting about the accidents. OK, so no-one is forcing you to buy one, you can remain perfectly safe in the gas car of your choice, right? Because they only explode rather than just burn.
Who are you trying to convince and what are you trying to convince them of?
I did do allot of research before making a purchase. I did see the articles and those news postings. And after very heavily researching it, I am/was satisfied it was safe for me and my wife and children. Actually, safety was
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What about the lacking crash safety?
What about it? "Witnesses said the car was speeding when it lost control and slammed into a tree." That could kill you in a gasoline vehicle, as well. Probably would, if it happened at a high enough speed. (Putting aside the stupidity of the idea that the car was speeding or lost control... the driver was speeding, and lost control.)
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The hazard of the lithium batteries caused major fires both inside the car and in the area around it which prevented first responders from reaching the occupants' corpses.
FTFY
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'The impact of the crash disintegrated the car, leaving a debris field over 150 yards long.' - that is a very, very high speed impact.
http://www-esv.nhtsa.dot.gov/P... [dot.gov] - is not clear as to numbers - perhaps around 10% of frontal impacts, and more high speed impacts - lead to fires in conventional vehicles.
Plus - you can't disconnect crash safety, and post crash performance. If I have a car that never catches fire, but always kills the occupants, it's not better than one that catches fire, and the occupants
Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Regular doors work just as well, or even sliding ones. They're cheaper, simpler and more reliable. It should be a no brainer. Of course that assumes the gull wing doors were added to solve a practical problem. The reality is they were probably added to solve a marketing problem - a justification to jack the price up and free press.
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The reality is they were probably added to solve a marketing problem - a justification to jack the price up and free press.
This! Gull wing doors are stupid and only add complexity, costs and inconvenience. More importantly it is a sign that Tesla are losing focus on the important things.
re: gull wing doors (Score:2)
I retrofitted the doors on my Hyundai Genesis Coupe to open "lambo style", similar to this, some years ago.
In theory, there are some practical advantages to the design, including ability to get in and out when you're parked in a tight space. (Many times in parking garages, I've found they painted the lines so narrowly spaced to maximize capacity that you can't get in or out without your door touching the car next to you. Vertical "scissor" or "lambo" doors would solve this problem.)
In reality though? I foun
My gripe with the Model X (Score:1)
I waited for years for the Model X. I drive the only SUV Hybrid (Ford Escape Hybrid -- no longer made) because I want the greenest car that can go off-road. I go off road for about 1% of my driving but I am a member of the 5% of SUV owners that do go off road.
I thought the Model X would be its replacement. No way as it turned out. No roof-rack -- not even as a custom mod -- so it can't carry a canoe or a kayak or whatever. On top of that the carriage just wouldn't make it on some of the roads I dri
Re:Let's stop with fucking musk (Score:4, Insightful)
Every. Fucking. Day. Musk Tesla musk Tesla.
If you want to read about Kim Kardashian instead, there are plenty of other sites. But this site is for nerds, and Elon is the king of the nerds. He is building electric cars, solar panels, rockets, and trying to put people on Mars. He co-founded an institute to open source AI. He is like a real life Tony Stark. All the boy nerds want to be him. All the girl nerds want to sleep with him, and still would even if he only had one billion.
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Jesus Christ... I guess Steve Jobs' corpse's cock decayed away too much for you to suck it anymore, so you started on Musk's?
Musk got rich being a middleman for online beanie baby auctions, and would be nosediving toward bankruptcy right now if it weren't for government subsidies. He doesn't "invent" shit, he steals old ideas and throws money at engineers to make them happen (and still more money at marketers to give his whole empire a trendy, luxury veneer. A ripoff of Jobs and Apple, I suppose). He talks
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"Musk's cult of personality - and the worship of tech "visionaries" in general - is just fucking pathetic"
Have you seen who's going to be handed control of the US Military in 2 months time?
I'll take Musk over Trump any fucking weekday and twice on weekends.
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Trump can't be president unless he sells off all of his businesses and cuts all ties with foreign powers. Both of those cases violate the constitution.
Trump doesn't care about the rules
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Jesus Christ... I guess Steve Jobs' corpse's cock decayed away too much for you to suck it anymore, so you started on Musk's?
Not at all. Most of us here would happily have a threesome. Alas one of the world changing parties is no longer with us.
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I think quite a few luxury SUV manufacturers might have an issue with that statement...
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"Tesla cars have a much larger cargo capacity than any other $110,000 car"
Three bags of groceries?
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Three bags of groceries?
(Ob 4 Yorkshiremen) "Luxury!" When Road & Track reviewed the Lotus Europa, they wrote that the front trunk had enough room to hold a few handkerchiefs and a small amount of sand.
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The trunk of my 1984 Volkswagen Jetta could carry two old vacuum tube mainframe Tektronix oscilloscopes. With room to spare. That was a trunk.
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God only knows what motivates the far Right. I think many of them don't like renewables and therefore dislike Solar City. And in that specific case, they may have a valid point. The SC operation seems kind of shady to me. SC gets the money. The homeowner gets probably expensive electricity and all the risk.
Why they dislike Tesla, Space-X, and the battery factory escapes me. Private businesses competing with other private businesses. In the case of Space-X, purportedly doing a better job than NASA. Wh