9 ms·

Aren't these Problems that have been solved a long ago by other car companies?

foxyv 6y ago
Not really, older car companies just make the same cars over and over again with slightly changed designs. They have decades of iteration on their designs and any major changes always end up having problems. Even then they have iterated into cheap junk for the most part aside from a few automakers. Plus, anything software related on these cars is horrible stinking garbage. Check any car older than 5 years and there will be 1-2 recalls on them. Tesla is pretty much going through the same thing all automakers go through except it's "Tesla." Sure if they hired a few engineers out of retirement to consult they could have identified a few of these issues, but then they wouldn't have released before the balloon went up and the bulls gored them. Generally, this isn't Tesla's biggest problem. Delivery, support, and maintenance are the big ones they are losing out on. That's what's making this recall such a big issue for them. They didn't have enough dealers to make repairs or spare parts which is why they are dragging their heels on recalls. But they are catching up there as well in typical Tesla fashion. Sure they will piss off a few car owners, but people tend to be REALLY loyal to car brands. Just ask any Porsche owner who spends more time at the mechanic than on the road.
- carlmr 6y ago
  >They have decades of iteration on their designs and any major changes always end up having problems. Even new designs have better fit and finish. The old automakers do know more about manufacturing. Software is another issue though.
- rmah 6y ago
  Most cars made today are absurdly high quality compared to when I was a youth 40 years ago. A typical car made in the 1980's would be lump of rust and barely functional after 50,000 miles. Nearly any car made today is still almost like brand new after 50,000 miles. The production quality improvements made by the auto industry are, IMO, nothing short of amazing.
  - foxyv 6y ago
    > A typical car made in the 1980's would be lump of rust and barely functional after 50,000 miles. True, but 1980 was more than 40 years ago. The cars since the early 2000s have been trending towards cheaper parts, lower quality transmissions, and turbo charged low displacement engines. They are dialing most cars production costs down until they last just long enough for the warranty to run out. Most car manufacturer warranties don't even have more than 60k miles.
- fomine3 6y ago
  Do you talk about 80s?
samfisher83 6y ago
It takes time and effort and learning to do that.
cjdell 6y ago
Yes, but many car companies are 100 years older than Tesla. They'll probably be going through growing pains for years to come. Rapid expansion at the cost of quality. However, they clearly don't have a demand problem as people are willing to tolerate these issues, for now.
- Alupis 6y ago
  Tesla famously turned down help from Volkswagen and other major manufacturers. Instead, preferring to reinvent manufacturing, one poorly assembled $75,000 car at a time.
  - cjdell 6y ago
    No one's forcing you to buy one. Let them try other manufacturing techniques to see if it goes anywhere. Besides, the quality issues are mostly cosmetic, structurally the cars are very sound. Look at crash test data if you don't believe me.
    - Alupis 6y ago
      When you purchase a $75,000 car, there's a reasonable expectation basic, basic things like body panels will be aligned correctly[1][2][3]. You're not buying a prototype nor experimental vehicle - it's a full fledged production vehicle priced at an extreme premium. Some of Tesla's vehicles are priced to compete with Porsche, high end Mercedes, high end BMW's, Land Rover's, etc. The things all those car manufacturers have in common is quality fit-and-finish on their expensive vehicles. When your brand new vehicle has mis-aligned body panels - it does make you wonder what else is mis-aligned that you can't see... Body panels being mis-aligned isn't some new manufacturing technique Tesla is experimenting with - that's just plain shoddy workmanship and a total lack of quality control. You cannot just hand-wave those issues away, particularly at the price point Tesla has maneuvered into for even their less expensive offerings. [1] https://teslaownersonline.com/threads/pre-delivery-panel-gaps-what-to-do.16673/ https://teslaownersonline.com/threads/pre-delivery-panel-gap... [2] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/body-panel-alignment-and-gap-issues-still-persist.146769/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/body-panel-alignment... [3] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/panel-mis-alignment-and-or-gap-getting-worse.140027/page-3 https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/panel-mis-alignment-...
Jimmc414 6y ago
Before Tesla, the last successful American car company was Jeep in 1941. Tesla is catching up but obviously things take time.
- new_realist 6y ago
  Rivian will likely show Tesla how it's supposed to be done.
  - rblatz 6y ago
    I know a couple guys that went over to Rivian I hope they do well, but I’m just not at all excited about the company or it’s products. They may show up to the ball too late.
  - waiseristy 6y ago
    Rivian wants to emulate Tesla in many many ways. I think in order to break the mold, they gotta stop worshipping the mold
QuixoticQuibit 6y ago
Well if you listen to some Tesla fanatics including boss man Elon himself, traditional car companies carry too much baggage from their ICE platforms to transition to EVs successfully, so all this “experience” they have is a net drag. Meanwhile outside the Tesla/Musk bubble, traditional car companies do not have QC issues like Tesla’s and are even outselling Tesla in major EV markets like Europe. At least Musk is finally admitting to the QC issues.
- Schiendelman 6y ago
  I don't think it's useful to say traditional car companies are outselling Tesla in Europe; they're selling a differently positioned vehicle. It's like Android to Apple - $200 Android phones aren't "outselling" $1000 Apple phones in a lower income market.
- Isinlor 6y ago
  Tesla is competing on European market with 10% tariffs. Wait for cars made in Giga Berlin that will be exempted from tariffs.
  - rad_gruchalski 6y ago
    Tariffs have nothing to do with quality.
    - Isinlor 6y ago
      "and are even outselling Tesla in major EV markets like Europe." They are because among other things Tesla has 10% tariffs.
      - rad_gruchalski 6y ago
        I’m looking forward to European clients storming Tesla for German manufactured Teslas.
  - africanboy 6y ago
orev 6y ago
Iteration on actual real products and factories takes a long time. I think people who mostly deal with software forget that very easily.
ohdannyboy 6y ago
Car manufacturers learned these lessons incrementally over decades while their competitors were doing the same. Tesla finds themself being inexperienced in a market where the established players are really good. As an aside, car companies actually consult for others industries because they're so good at manufacturing. When I worked for a big defense/aerospace company I got a tour of their satellite assembly and they actually paid Honda to come in and improve their manufacturing pipeline. They claim the changes sped them up and lowered bugs found after manufacturing.
Shivetya 6y ago
Well you would think they were solved by the way people react to Tesla however just reviewing NHTSA records and enthusiast forums you will see manufacturers have all sorts of issues which includes fires and more. This does not excuse Tesla, I do own a model 3 from September 2018 and still find it a great car, but the idea that other manufacturers don't have problems is ludicrous. Ford had to issue a STOP SALE on Mach E because of issues. Tesla has introduced so many innovations from OTA which other manufacturers will have to adapt to as well remote vehicle services which for the most part you cannot get elsewhere. VW suffered a lot of issues on this, their software stack is apparently really a mess. https://fordauthority.com/2021/01/ford-issues-mustang-mach-e-stop-ship-to-address-quality-related-issue/ https://fordauthority.com/2021/01/ford-issues-mustang-mach-e...
Someone 6y ago
I think other car companies prioritize shipping cars over shipping good cars differently. It helps that they have money that allows them to delay shipping one of their models, if needed.
screye 6y ago
Not really. I worked in the production line of an automobile company as a mech engineer. When we release new cars, there are huge production line issues and inefficiencies. There are a huge number of little things that add up, and most of this wisdom is held by people who have been these companies for a life time. I am surprised that Tesla hasn't acqui-hired a smaller automobile company just for knowledge transfer.
- hasbot 6y ago
  To increase the likelihood of getting a reliable car, is it best to buy a model that hasn't been updated in a year or two?
  - screye 6y ago
    100%. The version-1 of a new car refresh always has some issue. Especially if it is an entirely new engine, transmission, that sort of thing. Now-a-days, they pretty much take parts from higher-end / niche cars, and put them in production vehicles. In such cases, a car that's a Frankenstein's monster of generally reliable parts will usually be reliable, even in a version 1. But if it is brand new, brand new...you might want to be cautious. Especially if it is a convertible or a car in a new segment that they didn't cater to before. Lastly, some sub-brands are too important to tarnish even in a version 1. Civic, Corolla, Rav4, Wrangler and similar bread-and-butter models go through significantly higher scrutiny and are generally safe to buy in any version.
brmgb 6y ago
Most definitely and everyone knew Tesla was going to suffer from the manufacturing side of things. They went at it with the wrong attitude while it's by far the hardest part of being a car company pushing large volume. Where I was wrong is that I thought the market would punish them heavily for that as customers for a car in this price range would care. I totally missed that the segment of rich people with enough disposable income to buy an average electric car as a statement was big enough to be viable. So, well played Tesla I guess.
- bredren 6y ago
  This was sort of how many felt about iPhone at its debut. Ridiculous pricing, can’t cut and paste text. But the customer satisfaction scores were off the charts. It was the right mix of things. I suspect this is what’s boosting Tesla. The overall experience is beyond what other companies are striving for.
  - MBCook 6y ago
    That’s not quite the same thing. Apple knew how to execute on hardware extremely well, the phone was basically perfect physically. What I mean is it didn’t have gaps on the side or the back falling off or some other issue like that. Software features, like cut and paste, can be added later. Indeed it was. But Tesla is getting fundamental build quality issues wrong.
    - skinnymuch 6y ago
      You have the luck of hindsight of the iPhone winning to be able to say that.
      - fomine3 6y ago
        We know roof can't be fixed by software update.
    - bredren 6y ago
      >But Tesla is getting fundamental build quality issues wrong. “Fundamental build quality” must be subjective because it is not getting in the way of orders. From the sound of the video, the problem seems to be variant, with paint problems one month then fixed the next. The examples I gave for iPhone are representative of customers overlooking obvious problems. The iPhone’s EDGE only internet, terrible screen resolution, low battery life. These were hardware (and sw) based limitations of mass production that customers overlooked and apple handles in later gens.
rmah 6y ago
Yes. I've heard from a few sources connected with the Tesla that Musk felt that engineers (both design and process) from existing US auto companies were "yesterdays news" who were not up to Tesla's standards. Turned out that there are huge number of issues when manufacturing an automobile. And that the knowledge to prevent or resolve a lot of those issues exist only in the heads of people who have gone through it before. The build quality of early Tesla's was... not great. And while my understanding is that it has improved quite a bit in recent years. That said, most people in the industry seem to feel that Tesla still has a ways to go before they are "world class" in build quality.

Not really, older car companies just make the same cars over and over again with slightly changed designs. They have decades of iteration on their designs and any major changes always end up having problems. Even then they have iterated into cheap junk for the most part aside from a few automakers. Plus, anything software related on these cars is horrible stinking garbage. Check any car older than 5 years and there will be 1-2 recalls on them. Tesla is pretty much going through the same thing all automakers go through except it's "Tesla." Sure if they hired a few engineers out of retirement to consult they could have identified a few of these issues, but then they wouldn't have released before the balloon went up and the bulls gored them. Generally, this isn't Tesla's biggest problem. Delivery, support, and maintenance are the big ones they are losing out on. That's what's making this recall such a big issue for them. They didn't have enough dealers to make repairs or spare parts which is why they are dragging their heels on recalls. But they are catching up there as well in typical Tesla fashion. Sure they will piss off a few car owners, but people tend to be REALLY loyal to car brands. Just ask any Porsche owner who spends more time at the mechanic than on the road.

carlmr 6y ago
>They have decades of iteration on their designs and any major changes always end up having problems. Even new designs have better fit and finish. The old automakers do know more about manufacturing. Software is another issue though.
rmah 6y ago
Most cars made today are absurdly high quality compared to when I was a youth 40 years ago. A typical car made in the 1980's would be lump of rust and barely functional after 50,000 miles. Nearly any car made today is still almost like brand new after 50,000 miles. The production quality improvements made by the auto industry are, IMO, nothing short of amazing.
- foxyv 6y ago
  > A typical car made in the 1980's would be lump of rust and barely functional after 50,000 miles. True, but 1980 was more than 40 years ago. The cars since the early 2000s have been trending towards cheaper parts, lower quality transmissions, and turbo charged low displacement engines. They are dialing most cars production costs down until they last just long enough for the warranty to run out. Most car manufacturer warranties don't even have more than 60k miles.
fomine3 6y ago
Do you talk about 80s?

samfisher83 6y ago

It takes time and effort and learning to do that.

cjdell 6y ago

Yes, but many car companies are 100 years older than Tesla. They'll probably be going through growing pains for years to come. Rapid expansion at the cost of quality. However, they clearly don't have a demand problem as people are willing to tolerate these issues, for now.

Alupis 6y ago
Tesla famously turned down help from Volkswagen and other major manufacturers. Instead, preferring to reinvent manufacturing, one poorly assembled $75,000 car at a time.
- cjdell 6y ago
  No one's forcing you to buy one. Let them try other manufacturing techniques to see if it goes anywhere. Besides, the quality issues are mostly cosmetic, structurally the cars are very sound. Look at crash test data if you don't believe me.
  - Alupis 6y ago
    When you purchase a $75,000 car, there's a reasonable expectation basic, basic things like body panels will be aligned correctly[1][2][3]. You're not buying a prototype nor experimental vehicle - it's a full fledged production vehicle priced at an extreme premium. Some of Tesla's vehicles are priced to compete with Porsche, high end Mercedes, high end BMW's, Land Rover's, etc. The things all those car manufacturers have in common is quality fit-and-finish on their expensive vehicles. When your brand new vehicle has mis-aligned body panels - it does make you wonder what else is mis-aligned that you can't see... Body panels being mis-aligned isn't some new manufacturing technique Tesla is experimenting with - that's just plain shoddy workmanship and a total lack of quality control. You cannot just hand-wave those issues away, particularly at the price point Tesla has maneuvered into for even their less expensive offerings. [1] https://teslaownersonline.com/threads/pre-delivery-panel-gaps-what-to-do.16673/ https://teslaownersonline.com/threads/pre-delivery-panel-gap... [2] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/body-panel-alignment-and-gap-issues-still-persist.146769/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/body-panel-alignment... [3] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/panel-mis-alignment-and-or-gap-getting-worse.140027/page-3 https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/panel-mis-alignment-...

Jimmc414 6y ago

Before Tesla, the last successful American car company was Jeep in 1941. Tesla is catching up but obviously things take time.

new_realist 6y ago
Rivian will likely show Tesla how it's supposed to be done.
- rblatz 6y ago
  I know a couple guys that went over to Rivian I hope they do well, but I’m just not at all excited about the company or it’s products. They may show up to the ball too late.
- waiseristy 6y ago
  Rivian wants to emulate Tesla in many many ways. I think in order to break the mold, they gotta stop worshipping the mold

QuixoticQuibit 6y ago

Well if you listen to some Tesla fanatics including boss man Elon himself, traditional car companies carry too much baggage from their ICE platforms to transition to EVs successfully, so all this “experience” they have is a net drag. Meanwhile outside the Tesla/Musk bubble, traditional car companies do not have QC issues like Tesla’s and are even outselling Tesla in major EV markets like Europe. At least Musk is finally admitting to the QC issues.

Schiendelman 6y ago
I don't think it's useful to say traditional car companies are outselling Tesla in Europe; they're selling a differently positioned vehicle. It's like Android to Apple - $200 Android phones aren't "outselling" $1000 Apple phones in a lower income market.
Isinlor 6y ago
Tesla is competing on European market with 10% tariffs. Wait for cars made in Giga Berlin that will be exempted from tariffs.
- rad_gruchalski 6y ago
  Tariffs have nothing to do with quality.
  - Isinlor 6y ago
    "and are even outselling Tesla in major EV markets like Europe." They are because among other things Tesla has 10% tariffs.
    - rad_gruchalski 6y ago
      I’m looking forward to European clients storming Tesla for German manufactured Teslas.
- africanboy 6y ago

orev 6y ago

Iteration on actual real products and factories takes a long time. I think people who mostly deal with software forget that very easily.

ohdannyboy 6y ago

Car manufacturers learned these lessons incrementally over decades while their competitors were doing the same. Tesla finds themself being inexperienced in a market where the established players are really good. As an aside, car companies actually consult for others industries because they're so good at manufacturing. When I worked for a big defense/aerospace company I got a tour of their satellite assembly and they actually paid Honda to come in and improve their manufacturing pipeline. They claim the changes sped them up and lowered bugs found after manufacturing.

Shivetya 6y ago

Well you would think they were solved by the way people react to Tesla however just reviewing NHTSA records and enthusiast forums you will see manufacturers have all sorts of issues which includes fires and more. This does not excuse Tesla, I do own a model 3 from September 2018 and still find it a great car, but the idea that other manufacturers don't have problems is ludicrous. Ford had to issue a STOP SALE on Mach E because of issues. Tesla has introduced so many innovations from OTA which other manufacturers will have to adapt to as well remote vehicle services which for the most part you cannot get elsewhere. VW suffered a lot of issues on this, their software stack is apparently really a mess. https://fordauthority.com/2021/01/ford-issues-mustang-mach-e-stop-ship-to-address-quality-related-issue/ https://fordauthority.com/2021/01/ford-issues-mustang-mach-e...

Someone 6y ago

I think other car companies prioritize shipping cars over shipping good cars differently. It helps that they have money that allows them to delay shipping one of their models, if needed.

screye 6y ago

Not really. I worked in the production line of an automobile company as a mech engineer. When we release new cars, there are huge production line issues and inefficiencies. There are a huge number of little things that add up, and most of this wisdom is held by people who have been these companies for a life time. I am surprised that Tesla hasn't acqui-hired a smaller automobile company just for knowledge transfer.

hasbot 6y ago
To increase the likelihood of getting a reliable car, is it best to buy a model that hasn't been updated in a year or two?
- screye 6y ago
  100%. The version-1 of a new car refresh always has some issue. Especially if it is an entirely new engine, transmission, that sort of thing. Now-a-days, they pretty much take parts from higher-end / niche cars, and put them in production vehicles. In such cases, a car that's a Frankenstein's monster of generally reliable parts will usually be reliable, even in a version 1. But if it is brand new, brand new...you might want to be cautious. Especially if it is a convertible or a car in a new segment that they didn't cater to before. Lastly, some sub-brands are too important to tarnish even in a version 1. Civic, Corolla, Rav4, Wrangler and similar bread-and-butter models go through significantly higher scrutiny and are generally safe to buy in any version.

brmgb 6y ago

Most definitely and everyone knew Tesla was going to suffer from the manufacturing side of things. They went at it with the wrong attitude while it's by far the hardest part of being a car company pushing large volume. Where I was wrong is that I thought the market would punish them heavily for that as customers for a car in this price range would care. I totally missed that the segment of rich people with enough disposable income to buy an average electric car as a statement was big enough to be viable. So, well played Tesla I guess.

bredren 6y ago
This was sort of how many felt about iPhone at its debut. Ridiculous pricing, can’t cut and paste text. But the customer satisfaction scores were off the charts. It was the right mix of things. I suspect this is what’s boosting Tesla. The overall experience is beyond what other companies are striving for.
- MBCook 6y ago
  That’s not quite the same thing. Apple knew how to execute on hardware extremely well, the phone was basically perfect physically. What I mean is it didn’t have gaps on the side or the back falling off or some other issue like that. Software features, like cut and paste, can be added later. Indeed it was. But Tesla is getting fundamental build quality issues wrong.
  - skinnymuch 6y ago
    You have the luck of hindsight of the iPhone winning to be able to say that.
    - fomine3 6y ago
      We know roof can't be fixed by software update.
  - bredren 6y ago
    >But Tesla is getting fundamental build quality issues wrong. “Fundamental build quality” must be subjective because it is not getting in the way of orders. From the sound of the video, the problem seems to be variant, with paint problems one month then fixed the next. The examples I gave for iPhone are representative of customers overlooking obvious problems. The iPhone’s EDGE only internet, terrible screen resolution, low battery life. These were hardware (and sw) based limitations of mass production that customers overlooked and apple handles in later gens.

rmah 6y ago

Yes. I've heard from a few sources connected with the Tesla that Musk felt that engineers (both design and process) from existing US auto companies were "yesterdays news" who were not up to Tesla's standards. Turned out that there are huge number of issues when manufacturing an automobile. And that the knowledge to prevent or resolve a lot of those issues exist only in the heads of people who have gone through it before. The build quality of early Tesla's was... not great. And while my understanding is that it has improved quite a bit in recent years. That said, most people in the industry seem to feel that Tesla still has a ways to go before they are "world class" in build quality.