I'm working on the next phase of upgrading my Plaid's interior...gloss carbon trim and a gloss carbon/leather steering wheel. Let's face it, the stock interior sucks, so hopefully this will spruce it up a bit. I'll post pics as the upgrades are added.
I bought this car because it's very fast and has a usable rear seat. I traded my 2017 GT-R which didn't have enough space in the back for what I needed. The exterior is pretty good, handling and brakes are fine for street use, some of the tech is good (and some is really annoying), but the interior is really bad. Of my current cars (2022 X5M and 2017F-Type SVR are the others) the Plaid is a distant 3rd in interior quality, and pretty much every comparable car for sale has a better interior. In fact, of all of the cars that I've had over the last 25 years, only one was worse, a 2002 Chevy Silverado, which ironically I also upgraded with dash trim and a new steering wheel. Funny thing, though, the steering wheel replacement didn't go well and the horn kept going off when I hit bumps while driving around town. Anyway...
My Plaid came with the wood (
) and since it's not a 1970s Cadillac Sedan de Ville, the first thing I did was to get a carbon wrap. That helped, but some areas don't look right and it's just not the same as the real thing. My original yoke was peeling, so I had it replaced under warranty. I honestly hate the yoke, and tried to get them to replace it with a wheel, but they wouldn't. So I ordered a wheel from Tesla, but they're back-ordered 3 months. So I'm going aftermarket. So between the wheel and the trim, Tesla missed out on $2K of my hard-earned money. But hopefully after this I won't be embarrassed to have people in my car any more.
It seems the easy fix for Tesla's margin contraction is to actually sell the things people want. Luxury items are high-margin. Porsche makes a killing by offering endless options for interior upgrades. It also helps prop up the value of their cars. I know many people who like Tesla as a brand, but won't buy the cars because of the interiors. Even if Tesla offered a couple of different trims, including gloss carbon, piano black, and some leather upgrades, they'd sell well. Just think, a full leather option for $5K. It would get checked every time. Tesla should fire whoever designs their interiors and bring in someone who knows what they're doing for the next round.
Tsportline offers some really nice upgrades, but they're extremely expensive (would be about 1/3 the value of the car) and require the car to be shipped to them (for me that's on the opposite side of the country) for an unspecified period of time. So that's not an option in a quickly depreciating car.
Regardless, looking forward to what I'm hoping will be a nice upgrade in my daily driver.
I bought this car because it's very fast and has a usable rear seat. I traded my 2017 GT-R which didn't have enough space in the back for what I needed. The exterior is pretty good, handling and brakes are fine for street use, some of the tech is good (and some is really annoying), but the interior is really bad. Of my current cars (2022 X5M and 2017F-Type SVR are the others) the Plaid is a distant 3rd in interior quality, and pretty much every comparable car for sale has a better interior. In fact, of all of the cars that I've had over the last 25 years, only one was worse, a 2002 Chevy Silverado, which ironically I also upgraded with dash trim and a new steering wheel. Funny thing, though, the steering wheel replacement didn't go well and the horn kept going off when I hit bumps while driving around town. Anyway...
My Plaid came with the wood (
) and since it's not a 1970s Cadillac Sedan de Ville, the first thing I did was to get a carbon wrap. That helped, but some areas don't look right and it's just not the same as the real thing. My original yoke was peeling, so I had it replaced under warranty. I honestly hate the yoke, and tried to get them to replace it with a wheel, but they wouldn't. So I ordered a wheel from Tesla, but they're back-ordered 3 months. So I'm going aftermarket. So between the wheel and the trim, Tesla missed out on $2K of my hard-earned money. But hopefully after this I won't be embarrassed to have people in my car any more.It seems the easy fix for Tesla's margin contraction is to actually sell the things people want. Luxury items are high-margin. Porsche makes a killing by offering endless options for interior upgrades. It also helps prop up the value of their cars. I know many people who like Tesla as a brand, but won't buy the cars because of the interiors. Even if Tesla offered a couple of different trims, including gloss carbon, piano black, and some leather upgrades, they'd sell well. Just think, a full leather option for $5K. It would get checked every time. Tesla should fire whoever designs their interiors and bring in someone who knows what they're doing for the next round.
Tsportline offers some really nice upgrades, but they're extremely expensive (would be about 1/3 the value of the car) and require the car to be shipped to them (for me that's on the opposite side of the country) for an unspecified period of time. So that's not an option in a quickly depreciating car.
Regardless, looking forward to what I'm hoping will be a nice upgrade in my daily driver.
