Is Range king?

[Jhodgesatmb]

At about 270,000 I suspect they will have found and fixed at least some of the early manufacturing problems, and possibly even some design issues, by the time they get to mine. Not that I wouldn’t trade places with someone with a 100,000 number to get a CT sooner (I am chomping at the bit like all of you), but at least there is something good about being slow to put in a reservation. My wife’s Model 3 is a 2019, and though there were many rumored glitches with early Model 3s, hers is great.

Advertisement

 

[Newton]

At about 270,000 I suspect they will have found and fixed at least some of the early manufacturing problems, and possibly even some design issues, by the time they get to mine. Not that I wouldn’t trade places with someone with a 100,000 number to get a CT sooner (I am chomping at the bit like all of you), but at least there is something good about being slow to put in a reservation. My wife’s Model 3 is a 2019, and though there were many rumored glitches with early Model 3s, hers is great.

yea another reason for getting the single motor, other than its all i can afford *sad violin, is hopeing any issues will be plenty gone by then.

 

[MEDICALJMP]

I’m in the 518K+ range trimotor. My guess is mine will show up in May 2025. All the bugs will be worked out and perhaps even a few improvements added. My swag is first CT comes off the line 4th quarter 2022. I want to save up the money to pay cash and that date will make it close to my goal. Besides, I’ve posted on other threads why they won’t be making them in 2021.

 

[jperkey]

I appreciate the details. I can say that your story is kind of shocking to me. I thought, prior to your original post, that Tesla was a real stand up company.

So it sounds Tesla didn't have the expertise locally get your vehicle fixed to your satisfaction.
Did they offer to bring in specialist (regional or national) to help resolve the problem?
Did they offer to send your vehicle back to the factory to have it reworked?
Did they offer any way to resolve your issues?

I kind of get the impression they gave up on you. I understand there will be issues with products (vehicles, appliances, etc.) but what concerns me it that you had to litigate to get them to resolve your issues. I'm not sure this is the kind of company I want to spend my money with. Thoughts?

 

[Jhodgesatmb]

I appreciate the details. I can say that your story is kind of shocking to me. I thought, prior to your original post, that Tesla was a real stand up company.

So it sounds Tesla didn't have the expertise locally get your vehicle fixed to your satisfaction.
Did they offer to bring in specialist (regional or national) to help resolve the problem?
Did they offer to send your vehicle back to the factory to have it reworked?
Did they offer any way to resolve your issues?

I kind of get the impression they gave up on you. I understand there will be issues with products (vehicles, appliances, etc.) but what concerns me it that you had to litigate to get them to resolve your issues. I'm not sure this is the kind of company I want to spend my money with. Thoughts?

Tesla is a young, small, automaker. They certainly aren’t perfect. I have had vehicles from several automakers in my lifetime and not a single one did any of the things you asked,,, so I believe we all take chances every time we buy a car. Will there be problems with the early cars? Yes. Will Tesla try to fix them? Yes. Will there be lemons? Yes. Will everyone get a lemon? No. Will most people have a good experience? Yes. Tesla loyalty is very high, and people don’t need to give their loyalty and their cash for crap. It is your choice what you do, but to levy unrealistic expectations on this purchase will likely only result in your being angry and perhaps blaming someone else for your anger. Maybe you should pull the plug now and go with a manufacturer that you believe will adhere to the standards you require.

 

[Fabville]

I appreciate the details. I can say that your story is kind of shocking to me. I thought, prior to your original post, that Tesla was a real stand up company.

So it sounds Tesla didn't have the expertise locally get your vehicle fixed to your satisfaction.
Did they offer to bring in specialist (regional or national) to help resolve the problem?
Did they offer to send your vehicle back to the factory to have it reworked?
Did they offer any way to resolve your issues?

I kind of get the impression they gave up on you. I understand there will be issues with products (vehicles, appliances, etc.) but what concerns me it that you had to litigate to get them to resolve your issues. I'm not sure this is the kind of company I want to spend my money with. Thoughts?

They were great about replacing the charge port, parts do fail. When there's a grey area such as alignment, that seems to be an Achilles heel for them. It's one thing to have misaligned trim pieces, but when body panels are significantly off that's quite another story in my opinion.

I'm not sure if Tesla was the one who made the first adjustments to the liftgate and FWD, or if they immediately took it to one of their "certified" body shops. For the second attempt, they asked if I'd be willing to take it straight to one of their body shops. I could not get the manager at the body shop to admit if they had previously worked on my vehicle or not, but they had it for at least 3 of the 4 re-alignment attempts. I was not impressed with their execution whatsoever.

I looked over my daughter's 2020 Model 3 she took deliver of late June, I see no issues with it. We didn't have to get another Model X, but wanted to. It really came down to human error and I feel an incompetent body shop they chose to partner with in our area that forced us to go the path of the Lemon Law. Of all the other Model X's I saw in parking lots, at supercharger stations, etc. I honestly think I only saw one that had worse body panel alignment than ours.

As others have mentioned, Tesla's not perfect, other manufacturers have Lemon's from time to time as well. In my opinion Tesla needs to tighten up their QA in some areas, improve training including certified body shops they partner, and make sure they have enough service centers/mobile service to support their growing customer base. The Model 3 seemed to have a lot of issues. I remember seeing several at my local service center with tape on them which identified paint flaws and/or alignment issues a couple years ago, but it seems they've made improvements on the Model 3, although I'm sure issues will still slip through.

I attached a few images of the alignment issues on our 2018. The calipers with the 8mm gap was after the first attempt. Bob Lutz has mentioned 3.5mm gaps our considered world class. Over 8mm is unacceptable if you ask me.

 

[Jhodgesatmb]

What I find telling in all this is that you keep buying Teslas. The alignment on your X sucked - no question. The CT won’t have super alignment issues because: (1) it’s exoskeleton will be bent and welded, and (2) it has simple shapes. It might take them a few thousand trucks to dial the door, hood, and tailgate alignment in, but I am confident about that.

 

[Newton]

What I find telling in all this is that you keep buying Teslas. The alignment on your X sucked - no question. The CT won’t have super alignment issues because: (1) it’s exoskeleton will be bent and welded, and (2) it has simple shapes. It might take them a few thousand trucks to dial the door, hood, and tailgate alignment in, but I am confident about that.

I wonder how long it took to fix issues tesla has had with the current run of cars.
But you make me think of another point.

We have known how to make unibody with panel cars for very long, it's the standard every1 does. they had growing issues with that, understandably.
But CT is a completely new design that dosnt have 50+ years of engineering behind it already (of course several things directly relate) but I just wonder what new issues will develop.
Hopefully they do tons of testing with near production lvl prototypes. To figure out issues before the consumer becomes the beta tester.

 

[Fabville]

What I find telling in all this is that you keep buying Teslas. The alignment on your X sucked - no question. The CT won’t have super alignment issues because: (1) it’s exoskeleton will be bent and welded, and (2) it has simple shapes. It might take them a few thousand trucks to dial the door, hood, and tailgate alignment in, but I am confident about that.

Yeah, overall we've been quite happy with our ownership. If the liftgate alignment had been corrected properly the first time, I had have no complaints and still happily own our 2018. I see no problems with my daughter's Model 3 and expect it to be a reliable car for several years for her.

 

[kev12345]

superchargers will play a big part. charging your truck at rv campgrounds will become the norm for those pulling travel trailers.

 

[jperkey]

Tesla is a young, small, automaker. They certainly aren’t perfect. I have had vehicles from several automakers in my lifetime and not a single one did any of the things you asked,,, so I believe we all take chances every time we buy a car. Will there be problems with the early cars? Yes. Will Tesla try to fix them? Yes. Will there be lemons? Yes. Will everyone get a lemon? No. Will most people have a good experience? Yes. Tesla loyalty is very high, and people don’t need to give their loyalty and their cash for crap. It is your choice what you do, but to levy unrealistic expectations on this purchase will likely only result in your being angry and perhaps blaming someone else for your anger. Maybe you should pull the plug now and go with a manufacturer that you believe will adhere to the standards you require.

I agree that Tesla is a young, small auto maker which would make me think they would be more eager to achieve the Holy Grail of [all] manufactures, CUSTOMER SATIFACTION. This shouldn't be too difficult due to their small (relative) volumes.

I spent most of my career in customer service and have had to have, on occasion, regional and national specialist flown in to assist with issues that could not be resolved locally. No one had to litigate, we all just knew it was the right thing to do.

The fact that the gentleman had to litigate to get his issues resolved is what is concerning to me.

 

[Jhodgesatmb]

I agree that Tesla is a young, small auto maker which would make me think they would be more eager to achieve the Holy Grail of [all] manufactures, CUSTOMER SATIFACTION. This shouldn't be too difficult due to their small (relative) volumes.

I spent most of my career in customer service and have had to have, on occasion, regional and national specialist flown in to assist with issues that could not be resolved locally. No one had to litigate, we all just knew it was the right thing to do.

The fact that the gentleman had to litigate to get his issues resolved is what is concerning to me.

Like I said, I have had to resort to threats of litigation with 2 major (MAJOR) manufacturers. I agree that it is sad. Some types of people simply don’t respond to anything else. I do not know the particulars of the situation or the person so I am keeping my comments general. Anything else and you have to be there. By the way I think that, from a customer’s perspective a holy grail might be customer satisfaction but I think that for most corporations it is a good quarterly report, which is based on sales. Mind you, I am not in sales or marketing or anything business related so I am an ignoramus with an opinion only, but I find it hard to believe that, for a company, the holy grail is customer satisfaction.

 

[jperkey]

Like I said, I have had to resort to threats of litigation with 2 major (MAJOR) manufacturers. I agree that it is sad. Some types of people simply don’t respond to anything else. I do not know the particulars of the situation or the person so I am keeping my comments general. Anything else and you have to be there. By the way I think that, from a customer’s perspective a holy grail might be customer satisfaction but I think that for most corporations it is a good quarterly report, which is based on sales. Mind you, I am not in sales or marketing or anything business related so I am an ignoramus with an opinion only, but I find it hard to believe that, for a company, the holy grail is customer satisfaction.

It (customer satisfaction) was always our highest goal. But then again I was in the service division. Happy customers are repeat customers. Word of mouth gets around, both positive and negative.
You are correct that the corporation lives and dies on the quarterly results but that is a subject for another day.

As you said, without being there it's hard to say exactly what happened. Let's hope for the best.

 

[Janfoux]

As some of you know I strongly believe that Range is king. My opinion is you should buy as much range as you can afford.

I agree about range is king. Actually I hope for a dual motor LR option to be able to have later on as it was introduced for Model 3 also, not right away. I wouln't care for the 3 motors if I could have the maximum available battery in my CT with 2 motors. This would have the longest possible range and (for me at least) the best price/performance ratio, in my opinion.

Any thoughts?

 

[Nestorddiaz]

I agree 100%! A close analogy for me is when you get a computer get as much RAM and computing power as possible.

I agree as well. Pretty common now a days still to want to upgrade your iphones to the newest one, computers, headphones and cameras even. I buy and resell iphones, people usually always have iphone plus models, why because they offer more they're worth it. Apple really wanted to stick with a smaller phone size, look back at the first iphone ITS SCREEN IS TINY! They were bound to give in at some point to make a bigger screen and eventually OLED like the samsungs.

This is brand new technology teslas coming out with GEN 1, of course they will get better. Even looking back at the gen 1 MS they're dated even now.