Consumer Reports Restores 'Recommended' Ratings to Both Tesla's Model 3 and Model S (cnn.com) 50
"Consumer Reports has restored its coveted 'recommended' rating to the Tesla Model S and Model 3, because Tesla has made its cars more reliable," reports CNN:
"The Tesla Model 3 struggled last year as the company made frequent design changes and ramped up production to meet demand," said Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at CR. "But as the production stabilized, we have seen improvements to the reliability of the Model 3 and S that now allow us to recommend both models."
Although Consumer Reports says the Models S and 3 need fewer repairs, it did have some bad news for Tesla, too: The Model X SUV continues to rank among the magazine's least reliable.
The Model S had lost its recommended status last year, CNN notes. And while initially giving Tesla's Model 3 a "recommended" rating in 2018, further reliability survey data from more Tesla owners had prompted Consumer Reports to remove it from its recommended list in February of this year.
The new ratings are just part of a good month for Tesla. Since reporting an unexpected profit last month, Tesla's stock price has shot up more than 40%.
Although Consumer Reports says the Models S and 3 need fewer repairs, it did have some bad news for Tesla, too: The Model X SUV continues to rank among the magazine's least reliable.
The Model S had lost its recommended status last year, CNN notes. And while initially giving Tesla's Model 3 a "recommended" rating in 2018, further reliability survey data from more Tesla owners had prompted Consumer Reports to remove it from its recommended list in February of this year.
The new ratings are just part of a good month for Tesla. Since reporting an unexpected profit last month, Tesla's stock price has shot up more than 40%.
Re:No surprise on the civilian tank / housewife tr (Score:4, Insightful)
What the fuck are you babbling about?
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"I think it is a rant about the Model X's relative lack of reliability and being expensive to repair. BAReFO0t also does not like the Model X's aesthetics, and thinks anyone that bought one lost out in the gene pool."
So only oldsters with 5 digit uid like you can understand his rants and us young whippersnappers with 6 digit uids will never have a chance?
I am not sure (Score:3)
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that anyone who is purchasing a Tesla is paying any attention to Consumer Reports.
My spouse did not look at CR before she bought her's.
She bought a Tesla to park it in the driveway so she could impress all her friends. To accomplish that, it doesn't even need to move.
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We bought a Model X and its quite literally the best car we've ever owned.
Re:I am not sure (Score:4, Insightful)
>"We bought a Model X and its quite literally the best car we've ever owned."
Every car I have purchased has been the best car I have ever owned. I don't think that says too much. As we get older, we can afford better models, and all car technology improves each year making them generally more reliable, more comfortable, more convenient, and safer.
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The Tesla is orders of magnitude better. Fundamentally.
Model 3 RWD uses a 280 HP motor ( AWD uses two motors each 240 HP). Yet it is four times less expensive per mile compared to cars of similar power. BMW X3 240 HP, 25 MPG highway, is 15 to 18 cents a mile. Model 3 is 3 cents a mile (12 c/kWh, 4 miles/kWh). This is not evolutionary improvement, it is revolutionary
Re:I am not sure (Score:4, Insightful)
I am aware of all the advantages of an electric car, which is why I do want to own one (performance, quiet, low maintenance, charge-at-home, good tech,etc). But I am not ready yet, and the neither is the pricing. Yet it is getting closer all the time. The Tesla S would be on my list, but it would need to drop yet another $25K in price first. The Model 3 is of zero interest to me, based on the class of car I already have, plus I hate the design/looks, and especially the horrible non-dashboard.
But it will happen... it would be nice to have some additional good choices when the time comes.
As far as performance, I already have 340+hp in a very comfortable, fast, nimble, really nice looking car (that is a lot lighter than a Tesla S, and has 340 mile range in about 3 minutes of fill-time). And even the Tesla S would have trouble keeping up with my motorcycle... so my perspectives might be different in this regard to most.
But it will happen... and I am looking forward to it!
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If you don't like Tesla's stylings, you can look at IPace or ETron. But their charging network is not as well developed and as painless as Tesla's in the USA. Buy an Audi, buy this Ford Mach-E whatever. Just get rid of the gas car and stop s
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Every morning the car will be heated/cooled to 70 deg at 7AM, from today. No luxury gas car can have these features.
Luxury cars do have this feature, remote ignition. This is certainly not recommended in an enclosed garage but for people that buy luxury vehicles they will have climate controlled garages. If for some reason people with ICE powered luxury vehicles demand such a feature this can be done with a climate control system that plugs into a wall (or electric car charger port) and/or uses a battery pack (as a range extended electric, a "light" hybrid, or something in between).
Sure, I would admit that few luxury v
Re: I am not sure (Score:2)
What the fuck?
Just because someone buys a BMW 3 doesn't mean they live in some mansion with a climate controlled garage. What a silly assumption.
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What the fuck?
Just because someone buys a BMW 3 doesn't mean they live in some mansion with a climate controlled garage. What a silly assumption.
Where do you live? I live in the US Midwest, where the winters are cold and the garages are often heated. Now, "heated" doesn't mean it's kept at 72 F, only that there is often a heater that runs off of propane or natural gas that keeps it above freezing. It seems to me that a good guess on the temperature in the garage is to take the age of the car owner in years and use that as the first guess on the thermostat setting in degrees F.
Around here it is quite common for garages to have heat, again mostly t
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It was just 10 years ago they were laughing at EVs as golf carts, "they dont go fast, they dont go far, and if you drive it people would think you are gay". Now gay is not pejorative anymore, BEVs smoke ICEV costing several times more, they go far enough.
Now he is arguing ICEV can play catch up in a small subset of features, under some circumstances, when people pay for it.
No answer to running the proximity sensor for eight hours for security
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That is the level of difference between ICEV and BEV.
It's a free country, if you want to drive ICEV, go ahead. You will have years of enjoyment ahead. The resale prices of luxury ICEV are plummeting, so pretty good
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> You will have very good selection of excellent cars are very low prices for a long time.
This is true. I could have bought a Model X (the sedans can't get up here). Instead I got a loaded Honda Pilot so I have $60K to spend on gas and repairs. And its replacement. Plus more seating. I just got back from taking six boys up to the mountains for snow camping.
The pickup could easily win my attention.
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Re: I am not sure (Score:2)
And your motorcycle would have a problem keeping up with a Boeing 737-800.
You might be astonished to find that when you make ridiculous comparisons that rely upon the most fleeting of relationships such as "well they are both used for transporting people" that you sound a bit like an idiot.
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The assertion was "You have not owned a Tesla, so you see it as just another incremental improvement" then he talks about performance and says "This is not evolutionary improvement, it is revolutionary!" And I pointed out that TO ME, it is not a revolutionary improvement in performance because I already have more performance than the listed example ICE vehicles. I then pointed out my perspective is different because I also know about performance from a motorcycle point of view- which leaves cars way behin
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The 300 HP+ cars are over 100K in luxury trims and over 60K in muscle car trims. In BEV side, they will be priced at 25K or even 20K eventually. Right now the battery prices are high, around 120$ to 140$ / kWh. Prices are dropping at 15% a year. Just a matter of time before you have 4000 lb 300 HP cars priced at 25K. And they will cost 3 or 4 cents a mile to drive. The 300 HP ICE car would cost 20 to 24 cents a mile and be priced above 100K
It is not a
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30 minutes for every 200 miles.
You might be shocked, but V3 superchargers can do 200 miles in 15 minutes. A low battery can get up to 100 miles in just 4-5 minutes.
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You might be shocked, but V3 superchargers can do 200 miles in 15 minutes.
Why does it have to risk shocking me? Did they cheap out on the insulation materials or something? Sounds like they're pushing things a little too far if I might get shocked just because someone decided it'd be neat to charge up my car a little faster...
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"It can run the A/c or the heater while parked in the garage. No carbon monoxide poisoning. "
Wot? You can't even use it to kill yourself? Not even by accident?
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Lucky you, because most of my newer vehicles were the worst cars I purchased. Perhaps cause the last two new ones were Nissans.
Trading up to a Tesla is different (Score:2)
>Every car I have purchased has been the best car I have ever owned.
For me trading up to a Tesla was qualitatively different from trading up to a new internal-combustion engine car. When I bought a new Volvo, it was very nice but I didn't say "only Swedish cars for me from now on". Now that I have driven my Tesla Model 3, it's only electric cars for me from now on. I'm willing to consider non-Tesla EV's, but I expect it will take some years for other manufacturers to catch up to Tesla.
(I am in the prim
Consumer Reports doesn't accept advertising. (Score:2)
I absolutely pay attention to Consumer Reports. They are the only review site that doesn't accept advertising and actually go out and buy the cars they test anonymously. The car companies hand pick the cars they send to all of the other review sites, and buy advertisements from them, so essentially no review will ever say much bad about a car. They might say this one handles better than that one, but they will never say 'This car is garbage' Consumer Reports will and does report exactly what they find.
I
Good. (Score:2)
This means that unlike other car manufacturers, they are actually improving the design of the car instead of simply churning out revisions in "next year's model" and making the two models hopelessly incompatible.
Re:Good. (Score:4, Informative)
Other manufacturers do sometimes make improvements, but they also make mistakes... For example the Duramax 6.6 went to the Bosch CP4 injection pump in 2011 in order to improve emissions or performance or something, but it turned out to be fragile so they dropped it in 2015 in favor of a Denso pump. They also have had a tendency to break cranks, so they went to a heavier crank with superior metallurgy and larger journals in 2017. Ford used to get their light duty diesels from Navistar (nee International) and Navistar made them two lemons in a row (6.0 and 6.4) so Ford threw up their hands and made their own 6.7 V8 which is reportedly quite good.
The stuff that pisses me off is the facelifting which has gotten totally out of control. If it looks new then people believe it is new so they buy it. But it makes it hard to find body parts — especially front bumper covers, headlights and such, which are commonly damaged.
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But it makes it hard to find body parts — especially front bumper covers, headlights and such, which are commonly damaged.
I think this is a good thing. If it is expensive and logistically difficult to repair body components, maybe people will take more care to avoid driving their vehicles into other vehicles / pedestrians / buildings and the like.
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But it makes it hard to find body parts — especially front bumper covers, headlights and such, which are commonly damaged.
I think this is a good thing. If it is expensive and logistically difficult to repair body components, maybe people will take more care to avoid driving their vehicles into other vehicles / pedestrians / buildings and the like.
Yeah, because in 120+ years of cars, people haven't already figured out they need to take more care and avoid driving their cars into other things. So now they will?
Breaking News. For most of those 120+ years, car makers have made incompatible changes to things like body panels, bumpers, and other things from one year to the next. Precisely because they know you won't have any choice except to buy the parts from the dealers; for a little while anyway.
Re: Good. (Score:2)
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Not only doesn't it work that way, but what if someone pulls a hit-and-run on your parked vehicle? Will you still think it's a good thing?
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"Not only doesn't it work that way, but what if someone pulls a hit-and-run on your parked vehicle? Will you still think it's a good thing?"
Just Google Tesla-Cam, each car has a lot of them.
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My model 3 is 18 months old. Yesterday it got an update to precondition the cabin for morning commute, predicting my destination based on my first appointment in the calendar and checking the traffic and have the route planned ahead. And it changed the behavior of regenerative braking and added true one pedal driving.
Easing off the accelerator slows down the car as though you have applied brakes, but converts the momentum to battery charge
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Easing off the accelerator slows down the car as though you have applied brakes, but converts the momentum to battery charge. But Tesla would not use regen below 5 mph. The reason? Brake rotors will develop rust. Applying friction brakes below 5 mph polishes the rotor. Earlier it was my responsibility to apply the friction brakes. Now it is automatic. No need to touch the brakes unless you need to stop urgently in an emergency!
Telsa won't engage the regen braking below 5mph because it doesn't work at slow speeds. This has nothing to do with keeping the brake rotors polished, only an inherent limitation in regenerative braking.
I worked on a car for a solar car competition wile at university and one thing made clear about the regen braking was that it will not bring the car to a complete stop. I never drove the car during the competition, I was far too tall to fit in the cramped cabin with the "hatch" closed, but I instead worked
Re: Good. (Score:2)
You are talking like taking 4 years to solve a fuel pump reliability issue is a good thing. Or any of the myriad of problems that Ford had over a decade with their diesels blowing rear main seals and vomiting all the oil out of the engine.
That got so bad that a guy at the parts counter at a ford dealership here in town made the joke "everyone that buys a 6L diesel Ford should get a free puppy with the truck, so they have a friend to walk home with"
If it takes you multiple years to fix these major problems,
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You are talking like taking 4 years to solve a fuel pump reliability issue is a good thing.
It's a mechanical pump. The problems didn't appear right away. It took a couple years for the problem to even show up in more than a handful of vehicles.
Or any of the myriad of problems that Ford had over a decade with their diesels blowing rear main seals and vomiting all the oil out of the engine.
Ford has a long history of selling crappy diesels. The smart money was always on Cummins. Some people swapped Cummins engines into their Fords when their original engines blew up, which IMO produces the best truck with the best engine. Ford's transmissions are usually pretty decent (though they generally have inadequate cooling, but that's easy and surprisi
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Supposedly the Bosch had "optimizations" to get it $200 cheaper (to GM) than the old one. A buddy of mine spent $6500 to replace his, by time a diesel tech was available three weeks later. Apparently the pump is in the bottom of the V and you have to take the whole damn thing apart to get at it.
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So, just churning out revisions of this year's model is better?
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"So, just churning out revisions of this year's model is better?"
You'd prefer to wait a year for security updates?
'Normal' cars are also called back millions of times a year to get 'improvements' that can't wait for the next model.
Re: Good. (Score:2)
As many of the improvements are software that also gets deployed to previously sold units, yes.
When is the last time a Ford gave you a free software update that added features, improved braking, and improved performance?
Happens all the time with Tesla.
Thanks Rei (Score:2)
Thanks Rei. Just shorted Tesla. Next quarter earnings will be a disaster. I give them 5 more years.
The Problem with Consumer Reports Car Reports (Score:2)
The number of problems for a new car, is largely irrelevant. Annoying, yes. Fit and finish, interior components, etc. What is important is reliability of core function.
> Drive systems
> Safety Systems
> Heating/Cooling
Can the vehicle safely provide transport from point A to point B and back to point A, which maintaining a comfortable habitat, heat/AC.
a) A > B > A
b) AC
All the other items should be lumped into one weighted category. "Cosmetics and Amenities". So if the paint or fit and finish