I bought a black Model 3 in 2021. The car was delivered with scratches on the top of the trunk, which they failed to polish out because it was under the paint somehow. This was during the Great Chip Shortage and we would have to wait for another one for at least 6 more months, and we needed the car at that time, so we took it. This car worked fine, but black cars are... you know... ungrateful. Everything shows, they're a nightmare to wash, and they scratch very easily. But okay, the car is pretty great. They never apologized or offered to take care of things in any other way.
In 2022, I bought a white Model 3 because I really needed a car, and they had one left over from an unfilled quarter quota, so they offered it to me. That one was has been pretty great. No complaints. Much easier to maintain, but also attracts highway insects like nothing else.
Back in 2020, I ordered a Model S Long Range. It arrived scratched (Model S arrives scratched after 2.5 years of waiting for order) and 2 years late, but I got it at the original price. They fixed the glaring scratches (it took another 2 weeks) and I asked if I can at least get some swag from the shop next door (a hoodie or sth) for the 2 year delay, borked delivery, and being a third time customer. Got a "nope". Ah well.
I should note that these aesthetics do not bother me much - I know Tesla cannot be expected to have the build quality of giants like Ford, VW, and others who have been around for 100+ years, but the lacksadaisical attitude towards all of it is what threw me off in the end.
So now, I have been driving the black Model S for 1000km and my feedback so far is: I am done with the Tesla kool aid.
I originally got the car because it scores safest in the size category, and I wanted my family to be in the safest possible vehicle if they were in any vehicle at all. But with this many downsides and so many other manufacturers catching up on the safety part, I find myself jaded and feeling ... robbed. Here are my impressions of the Model S:
Pros:
Cons:
Most of these issues are software based, and up until recently, Tesla vehicles were just robots with wheels that have excellent software. But this quality has gone down so much that it actively makes the car incredibly average. For this price tag, this to me is unacceptable. And I wish I had someone to talk to, I wish support existed, or that I could at least report a software bug right from the car (i.e. the damned wipers don't work well enough), but there is literally nothing. I reach out to the local salon and they are more clueless and helpless than I am - they have the same access to the same people (online forums) just speak worse English and have virtually zero contact with HQ.
How has this gone so downhill?
In 2022, I bought a white Model 3 because I really needed a car, and they had one left over from an unfilled quarter quota, so they offered it to me. That one was has been pretty great. No complaints. Much easier to maintain, but also attracts highway insects like nothing else.
Back in 2020, I ordered a Model S Long Range. It arrived scratched (Model S arrives scratched after 2.5 years of waiting for order) and 2 years late, but I got it at the original price. They fixed the glaring scratches (it took another 2 weeks) and I asked if I can at least get some swag from the shop next door (a hoodie or sth) for the 2 year delay, borked delivery, and being a third time customer. Got a "nope". Ah well.
I should note that these aesthetics do not bother me much - I know Tesla cannot be expected to have the build quality of giants like Ford, VW, and others who have been around for 100+ years, but the lacksadaisical attitude towards all of it is what threw me off in the end.
So now, I have been driving the black Model S for 1000km and my feedback so far is: I am done with the Tesla kool aid.
I originally got the car because it scores safest in the size category, and I wanted my family to be in the safest possible vehicle if they were in any vehicle at all. But with this many downsides and so many other manufacturers catching up on the safety part, I find myself jaded and feeling ... robbed. Here are my impressions of the Model S:
Pros:
- very comfortable seats (except neck, see Cons)
- display tilt is cool
- suspension settings are cool
- the size of the trunk is phenomenal
- the sound and active noise cancelation are both great
- car feels remarkably stable at high speeds, and high speeds really sneak up on you, it is very comfortable to glide at 210 kmh
Cons:
- the reaction time to reverse/fwd is severely impacted by a lack of stalk switcher, which makes emergency/twitchy situations much more dangerous than before as it now takes precision and removing the hand from the wheel to actually switch into / from reverse.
- no USS means full reliance on Camera. But since Camera is in such a bad shape (look through this forum), they just straight up removed that functionality for how broken and unsafe it is. This means that a $120k car has NO proximity sensors, NO park assist, and NO sentry detection in darkness or when lightly obscured.
- sentry videos are a joke. Not only does is the red-dot untargetable, i.e. you cannot ever click on it and get that location of the video, the scrubbing precision is null, but also without USS it does not trigger half the time when people are around it. The fact that the car is BT connected to my phone but cannot send sentry videos to it is another joke.
- no back pockets on the Model S seats, contrary to Model 3. Means my insurance papers and other docs have nowhere to be since the glovebox is too small for an A4 sized folder
- "FSD (beta) visualization" (not driving, just viz) is horrible - does not see people, other cars - driving or parked - buildings, etc. The only things it reliably identifies are trashcans.
- the neck has no support on the seats and the headrests are not adjustable. I really had to buy neck support pillows to feel comfortable.
- the pop-out handles are trashy. They make a very old school "bzzzzp" noise that just feels cheap rather than high tech
- the rain detection is much worse on the S than on the 3 - half the time when wipers are on Auto in heavy rain, I cannot see a thing, it triggers far too rarely
- the voice commands are abysmally horrible. In a world of chatgpt and whisper, how can I not tell the car to automate headlights, play a playlist on shuffle, navigate to some place while avoiding tolls, attempt autopark, or raise/lower suspension?
Most of these issues are software based, and up until recently, Tesla vehicles were just robots with wheels that have excellent software. But this quality has gone down so much that it actively makes the car incredibly average. For this price tag, this to me is unacceptable. And I wish I had someone to talk to, I wish support existed, or that I could at least report a software bug right from the car (i.e. the damned wipers don't work well enough), but there is literally nothing. I reach out to the local salon and they are more clueless and helpless than I am - they have the same access to the same people (online forums) just speak worse English and have virtually zero contact with HQ.
How has this gone so downhill?
