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The 10% is not as bad as it sounds, because the author fails to mention that these statistics are heavily in favour of expensive cars with a good dealership net

The 10% is not as bad as it sounds, because the author fails to mention that these statistics are heavily in favour of expensive cars with a good dealership network. And Tesla has no dealerships at all, as far as I know. When you own something like a BMW, you typically don't drive the car to the inspection yourself. Especially not if it's a leased or company car. Instead, you bring your car to the dealership (or they will pick it up), they inspect the car, fix any issues they encounter and only then bring in an official inspector for the actual inspection. This way, the inspector will hardly find any issues. Also, dealerships typically don't chose TÜV, but one of their competitors that do the inspection at the dealership. TÜV is where people go who want to save money by skipping the dealership. Most people who do this drive cheaper cars. That's why cheap cars are always having much worse numbers in these statistics. They are alternative statistics, like ADAC's (Germany's equivalent to AAA), but they all have the same problem. There are no good statistics for German cars. They all favour expensive German brands because those who the statistics will never see a broken car. The dealerships will always take care of that. I'd rather trust US-based Consumer Reports than TÜV or ADAC statistics.

microtherion 5y ago
A Renault Zoe costs roughly a third of a Tesla model S new. Which one is supposed to be the "cheap car" again?
- benjamir 5y ago
  I'm not a Tesla fanboy, but: have a crash with the Zoe and you will know what cheap crap looks like (0 star NCAP).
HarryHirsch 5y ago
Tesla is a luxury brand, yet one out of ten Teslas manages to show up with suspension problems at the 3-year roadworthiness inspection. That's quite something - one would think that the suspension is a solved problem, cars have has suspensions for over 100 years, coaches before that. That's just another symptom of appalling quality control.
- tjansen 5y ago
  Certainly true, but when German brands have similar issues, it will never show in the statistics. A 10% fail-rate would bother me if I bought a Tesla, but I know that there were German cars with extreme reliability issues that never showed up in statistics. Like VWs and Audis with early DSG transmissions. Car forums were full with people who experienced it, and I personally know people whose cars had these issues.
  - HarryHirsch 5y ago
    It's the suspension bit that's worrying. When the excessively complex transmission fails you have the vehicle towed to the shop, but the suspension is a safety issue (and you do wonder - if 10 % showed up at the inspection with problems how many owners had their suspension fixed because the car handled funny).
  - mgraupner 5y ago
    TÜV is not about general car defects or problems like failing transmissions or the infamous camshaft chain failure of VW engines. TÜV is about failures of your car which prevents it from secure operation like failing head lamps, suspession problems and so on.
    - tjansen 5y ago
      Yes, but ADAC statistics include failures and suffer from the same issues. If a three year old BMW breaks down, most owners will call BMW, not the ADAC. (And some car brands will actually send the ADAC to help you, but they have contracts to make sure it won’t appear in the official ADAC statistics)
      - mgraupner 5y ago
        Yeah, they are very different statistics. TÜV checks if your car is safe to drive on roads, and everybode is obligated to do so every second year (except the first one which is after 3 years). I don't know what ADAC is counting, broken cars on highways probably. :)
tjoff 5y ago
That doesn't make 10% not bad. But lets exclude expensive cars. How come Tesla is worse than cheap cars then? > The worst by far, however, was the Tesla Model S. 10.7 percent of the model showed up for testing with a defect of some sort. Not only was this the worst EV in the study, the Model S placed third-to-last out of all cars, including ICE vehicles, only besting the Dacia Logan and Dacia Duster. But even so, another huge factor is how expensive it is to fix the typical errors. Is it $5 in parts and 2 minutes you can do yourself or $1000 and two days at a shop?
- tjansen 5y ago
  > That doesn't make 10% not bad. But lets exclude expensive cars. How come Tesla is worse than cheap cars then? Even when you buy a brand new cheap car, like a Dacia, you typically go to your dealership for inspections in the first couple of years. The percentage of owners who do this is certainly lower than for the premium brands, but still much higher than for Tesla if Tesla doesn't have any dealerships that offer the HU+AU inspections (that's what they are called).
  - cycomanic 5y ago
    In other words Tesla with their expensive cars doesn't even offer the service that even the cheapest other manufacturers offer. So they essentially push the onto their customers
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- microtherion 5y ago
  It's all a matter of picking the right peer group. If you compare the Tesla only against the Dacia, it would be the most reliable car in Romania!
  - adolph 5y ago
    In Soviet Russia, the car was not inspected, you were! (In the year 2035, most other nations are similar since social creditworthiness is part of car inspection.)
nautilius 5y ago
Maybe you missed this part: "Model S placed third-to-last out of all cars, including ICE vehicles, only besting the Dacia Logan and Dacia Duster." I.e., it is not only (seemingly?) worse than expensive cars, but also scores at the bottom of cheap and budget cars. The only cars worse are the cheap Romanian Dacia rebrands of Renault cars.
- tjansen 5y ago
  If Tesla has no dealerships that offer HU+AU inspections, almost 100% of all Teslas will go to the TÜV without prior inspection by a dealership. But even owners of brand new Dacias will typically let the dealership take care of it. That's why the numbers are not really comparable.
  - nautilius 5y ago
    But we're not talking about brand new Dacias, we are talking about all of them.
  - croes 5y ago
    You can also bring a Tesla to an inspection before the HU
    - nautilius 5y ago
      Yeah, that's a weird line of argument. Because there is nominally no dealership, it's impossible to have your Tesla taken care of before doing the HU? I guess Teslas are produced - and then just rot away, and there's nothing we can do about it?
- namdnay 5y ago
  That's what surprised me the most in this report - Dacias have a great reputation for reliability! They've got the benefit of 10 years' hindsight on the Renault parts bin. I wonder if there aren't other factors at work (e.g. people driving the cheapest possible cars aren't bringing them in for regular dealer maintenance?)
NicoJuicy 5y ago
Du you have any specific data points that everyone uses a dealership for inspection? I do something similar in Belgium. But most people don't, definitely not for new cars. And since that is the fundamental thing in your claim, i hope you have more data to be sure than a gut feeling.
- barbazoo 5y ago
  Former German, same here. Personally I've never heard of people bringing their cars to the dealership which then does the TÜV for them. People do often bring new cars to a dealership for regular inspections, similar to many other countries, where these kinds of problems would be caught. Still, I wouldn't expect these basic problems to show up in a pretty much brand new car but I'm no expert so who knows if that's reasonable.
pmorici 5y ago
Tesla has plenty dealerships they just don’t call them that they are primarily focused on servicing cars with a small sales showroom attached. Everyone orders online though regardless of wether they go see the car in a show room ahead of time.
throwawayt215 5y ago
Well, here you go: "Tesla ranks almost dead-last on Consumer Reports reliability list" - Nov 2021 https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Tesla-ranks-almost-dead-last-Consumer-Reports-16632996.php https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Tesla-ranks-almost-dead-... HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29273140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29273140 Another test from Belgium from a few weeks ago where Tesla came last: https://www.test-aankoop.be/mobiliteit/auto-s/nieuws/enquete-betrouwbaarheid https://www.test-aankoop.be/mobiliteit/auto-s/nieuws/enquete... Translation of title and adjacent: "Tesla is the least reliable car brand. Owners of a Tesla report problems with their car more often than drivers of other brands. Those looking to take advantage of salon conditions in the coming weeks had better grab our ranking of most reliable car brands." So it's TÜV, Consumer Reports and Test Aankoop where Tesla scores poorly, and they are all very recent. Edit: "Test Aankoop is an association that informs, defends and represents consumers in Belgium. We work in complete independence, financially, politically and ideologically." - translated
- optimog 5y ago
  The graph of Test Aankoop also gives numbers on overall owner hapiness. Even while being last in terms of reliability, it scores 2nd in terms of overall hapiness (right after Porsche). So it must not be that bad, right?
  - daliusd 5y ago
    As far as I know Porsche is not bought because of reliability. At least I never heard anyone saying that :)
    - kohlerm 5y ago
      They are potentially. If your "problem" is to decide between a Ferrari and a Porsche, you might go for Porsche because of reliability.
  - hiptobecubic 5y ago
    Great if it works, but likely not to work. To me that suggests Tesla makes a cars for people who don't need a car, just want one.
zelon88 5y ago
So how do you go about getting a faulty Tesla repaired in Germany? Tesla only allows repairs by authorized technicians.
morsch 5y ago
And Tesla has no dealerships at all, as far as I know. They seem to have a store and service center in pretty much every major German city, around twenty overall. https://www.tesla.com/de_de/findus?v=2&bounds=56.427053433289664%2C14.706858388042825%2C45.803768938686154%2C5.610178700542825&zoom=6&filters=service https://www.tesla.com/de_de/findus?v=2&bounds=56.42705343328...
stefan_ 5y ago
That doesn't add up. No one pays for a full inspection and TÜV on top because no one expects a 3 year old car to fail it. It's not just slightly inflated either, 10% is twice of the average and the problems seem concentrated around suspension, a part that isn't expected to fail until much, much later in the car lifecycle - hardly the result of average wear and tear.
deng 5y ago
Oh come on, it is very well known that the Tesla S has ridiculous problems with the headlights (enclosure not water-tight, dimming DRLs, just to mention the most glaring ones). Likewise, the problem with the control arm is nothing new. Unfortunately for Tesla, this is something that the TÜV actually checks for.
mgraupner 5y ago
As a German I can't attest most of the stuff you wrote. You go to TÜV directly when you know/think that your car won´t fail the inspection. Otherwise you bring it to the dealership or an independent garage beforehand (in case of the Tesla or if you want so save money). They will fix the stuff for you and then introduce it to inspection. No matter if you drive a BMW, Dacia or Tesla. And TÜV is not cheaper, they want more or less all the same amount of money. These statistics of TÜV are not about broken cars, it's about road safety. Broken head lamps, failing breaks, rubbers at suspension is brittle, .... These kind of things. And yes, most(not all) German cars won't fail at these things in the first five or so years. And yes, there were cars with bad transmission (DSG), failing engines and so on, but these problems are not counted in the TÜV statistics.
tommyage 5y ago
> The 10% is not as bad as it sounds, because the author fails to mention that these statistics are heavily in favour of expensive cars with a good dealership network. And Tesla has no dealerships at all, as far as I know. Tesla has dealerships, but this is irrelevant. You are referring to garages, which can be included within a dealership. If you bought a car, you can opt into these contracts. Otherwise you can become a customer of any garage. All cars were compared. There are still 10% of teslas, who can not successfuly survive the initial inspection without additional maintenance. > When you own something like a BMW, you typically don't drive the car to the inspection yourself. Especially not if it's a leased or company car. Instead, you bring your car to the dealership (or they will pick it up), they inspect the car, fix any issues they encounter and only then bring in an official inspector for the actual inspection. This way, the inspector will hardly find any issues. Also, dealerships typically don't chose TÜV, but one of their competitors that do the inspection at the dealership. This is valid for any car, regardless of its age or brand, if a garage presents your vehicle for inspection. No need to refer to "german car brands". Also competitors need to respect the same criterias. > TÜV is where people go who want to save money by skipping the dealership. The price for the check is fixed. You only fail the check, if there are crucial safety issues or oil leaks. The majority of car owners is thankful for a safety hint from the inspector. > Most people who do this drive cheaper cars. That's why cheap cars are always having much worse numbers in these statistics. That is an assumption. > They are alternative statistics, like ADAC's (Germany's equivalent to AAA), but they all have the same problem. There are no good statistics for German cars. They all favour expensive German brands because those who the statistics will never see a broken car. This is a biased assumption. > The dealerships will always take care of that. I'd rather trust US-based Consumer Reports than TÜV or ADAC statistics. The dealership only takes care of problems iff you either signed an maintenance contract and additional insurance, the issue needs to be solved due to warranty or you accept the charges neccessary to fix the problems. It simply _is_ the case that tesla has a lower quality then any other europe car brand. Dacia is on the same level as tesla in terms of haptics - but their internas (chassis, engine, bearings..., etc.) are siblings of mature brands. The TÜV is responsible for checking for safety - Inspectors will get their license permanently revoked if they did not spot an serious issue. I would trust TÜV over any american report. When an accident happens and a certain money cap is reached, insurances will investigate and escalate to anybody. The TÜV will not prefer any car brand and take these risks. You do also insult any inspector (DEKRA, GTU or TÜV) by promoting such implications.
keewee7 5y ago
It's funny that every European Tesla owner I know are happy with their car but American media, twitter, and reddit users are busy telling us we are wrong.

microtherion 5y ago

A Renault Zoe costs roughly a third of a Tesla model S new. Which one is supposed to be the "cheap car" again?

benjamir 5y ago
I'm not a Tesla fanboy, but: have a crash with the Zoe and you will know what cheap crap looks like (0 star NCAP).

HarryHirsch 5y ago

Tesla is a luxury brand, yet one out of ten Teslas manages to show up with suspension problems at the 3-year roadworthiness inspection. That's quite something - one would think that the suspension is a solved problem, cars have has suspensions for over 100 years, coaches before that. That's just another symptom of appalling quality control.

tjansen 5y ago
Certainly true, but when German brands have similar issues, it will never show in the statistics. A 10% fail-rate would bother me if I bought a Tesla, but I know that there were German cars with extreme reliability issues that never showed up in statistics. Like VWs and Audis with early DSG transmissions. Car forums were full with people who experienced it, and I personally know people whose cars had these issues.
- HarryHirsch 5y ago
  It's the suspension bit that's worrying. When the excessively complex transmission fails you have the vehicle towed to the shop, but the suspension is a safety issue (and you do wonder - if 10 % showed up at the inspection with problems how many owners had their suspension fixed because the car handled funny).
- mgraupner 5y ago
  TÜV is not about general car defects or problems like failing transmissions or the infamous camshaft chain failure of VW engines. TÜV is about failures of your car which prevents it from secure operation like failing head lamps, suspession problems and so on.
  - tjansen 5y ago
    Yes, but ADAC statistics include failures and suffer from the same issues. If a three year old BMW breaks down, most owners will call BMW, not the ADAC. (And some car brands will actually send the ADAC to help you, but they have contracts to make sure it won’t appear in the official ADAC statistics)
    - mgraupner 5y ago
      Yeah, they are very different statistics. TÜV checks if your car is safe to drive on roads, and everybode is obligated to do so every second year (except the first one which is after 3 years). I don't know what ADAC is counting, broken cars on highways probably. :)

tjoff 5y ago

That doesn't make 10% not bad. But lets exclude expensive cars. How come Tesla is worse than cheap cars then? > The worst by far, however, was the Tesla Model S. 10.7 percent of the model showed up for testing with a defect of some sort. Not only was this the worst EV in the study, the Model S placed third-to-last out of all cars, including ICE vehicles, only besting the Dacia Logan and Dacia Duster. But even so, another huge factor is how expensive it is to fix the typical errors. Is it $5 in parts and 2 minutes you can do yourself or $1000 and two days at a shop?

tjansen 5y ago
> That doesn't make 10% not bad. But lets exclude expensive cars. How come Tesla is worse than cheap cars then? Even when you buy a brand new cheap car, like a Dacia, you typically go to your dealership for inspections in the first couple of years. The percentage of owners who do this is certainly lower than for the premium brands, but still much higher than for Tesla if Tesla doesn't have any dealerships that offer the HU+AU inspections (that's what they are called).
- cycomanic 5y ago
  In other words Tesla with their expensive cars doesn't even offer the service that even the cheapest other manufacturers offer. So they essentially push the onto their customers
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
microtherion 5y ago
It's all a matter of picking the right peer group. If you compare the Tesla only against the Dacia, it would be the most reliable car in Romania!
- adolph 5y ago
  In Soviet Russia, the car was not inspected, you were! (In the year 2035, most other nations are similar since social creditworthiness is part of car inspection.)

nautilius 5y ago

Maybe you missed this part: "Model S placed third-to-last out of all cars, including ICE vehicles, only besting the Dacia Logan and Dacia Duster." I.e., it is not only (seemingly?) worse than expensive cars, but also scores at the bottom of cheap and budget cars. The only cars worse are the cheap Romanian Dacia rebrands of Renault cars.

tjansen 5y ago
If Tesla has no dealerships that offer HU+AU inspections, almost 100% of all Teslas will go to the TÜV without prior inspection by a dealership. But even owners of brand new Dacias will typically let the dealership take care of it. That's why the numbers are not really comparable.
- nautilius 5y ago
  But we're not talking about brand new Dacias, we are talking about all of them.
- croes 5y ago
  You can also bring a Tesla to an inspection before the HU
  - nautilius 5y ago
    Yeah, that's a weird line of argument. Because there is nominally no dealership, it's impossible to have your Tesla taken care of before doing the HU? I guess Teslas are produced - and then just rot away, and there's nothing we can do about it?
namdnay 5y ago
That's what surprised me the most in this report - Dacias have a great reputation for reliability! They've got the benefit of 10 years' hindsight on the Renault parts bin. I wonder if there aren't other factors at work (e.g. people driving the cheapest possible cars aren't bringing them in for regular dealer maintenance?)

NicoJuicy 5y ago

Du you have any specific data points that everyone uses a dealership for inspection? I do something similar in Belgium. But most people don't, definitely not for new cars. And since that is the fundamental thing in your claim, i hope you have more data to be sure than a gut feeling.

barbazoo 5y ago
Former German, same here. Personally I've never heard of people bringing their cars to the dealership which then does the TÜV for them. People do often bring new cars to a dealership for regular inspections, similar to many other countries, where these kinds of problems would be caught. Still, I wouldn't expect these basic problems to show up in a pretty much brand new car but I'm no expert so who knows if that's reasonable.

pmorici 5y ago

Tesla has plenty dealerships they just don’t call them that they are primarily focused on servicing cars with a small sales showroom attached. Everyone orders online though regardless of wether they go see the car in a show room ahead of time.

throwawayt215 5y ago

Well, here you go: "Tesla ranks almost dead-last on Consumer Reports reliability list" - Nov 2021 https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Tesla-ranks-almost-dead-last-Consumer-Reports-16632996.php https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Tesla-ranks-almost-dead-... HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29273140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29273140 Another test from Belgium from a few weeks ago where Tesla came last: https://www.test-aankoop.be/mobiliteit/auto-s/nieuws/enquete-betrouwbaarheid https://www.test-aankoop.be/mobiliteit/auto-s/nieuws/enquete... Translation of title and adjacent: "Tesla is the least reliable car brand. Owners of a Tesla report problems with their car more often than drivers of other brands. Those looking to take advantage of salon conditions in the coming weeks had better grab our ranking of most reliable car brands." So it's TÜV, Consumer Reports and Test Aankoop where Tesla scores poorly, and they are all very recent. Edit: "Test Aankoop is an association that informs, defends and represents consumers in Belgium. We work in complete independence, financially, politically and ideologically." - translated

optimog 5y ago
The graph of Test Aankoop also gives numbers on overall owner hapiness. Even while being last in terms of reliability, it scores 2nd in terms of overall hapiness (right after Porsche). So it must not be that bad, right?
- daliusd 5y ago
  As far as I know Porsche is not bought because of reliability. At least I never heard anyone saying that :)
  - kohlerm 5y ago
    They are potentially. If your "problem" is to decide between a Ferrari and a Porsche, you might go for Porsche because of reliability.
- hiptobecubic 5y ago
  Great if it works, but likely not to work. To me that suggests Tesla makes a cars for people who don't need a car, just want one.

zelon88 5y ago

So how do you go about getting a faulty Tesla repaired in Germany? Tesla only allows repairs by authorized technicians.

morsch 5y ago

And Tesla has no dealerships at all, as far as I know. They seem to have a store and service center in pretty much every major German city, around twenty overall. https://www.tesla.com/de_de/findus?v=2&bounds=56.427053433289664%2C14.706858388042825%2C45.803768938686154%2C5.610178700542825&zoom=6&filters=service https://www.tesla.com/de_de/findus?v=2&bounds=56.42705343328...

stefan_ 5y ago

That doesn't add up. No one pays for a full inspection and TÜV on top because no one expects a 3 year old car to fail it. It's not just slightly inflated either, 10% is twice of the average and the problems seem concentrated around suspension, a part that isn't expected to fail until much, much later in the car lifecycle - hardly the result of average wear and tear.

deng 5y ago

Oh come on, it is very well known that the Tesla S has ridiculous problems with the headlights (enclosure not water-tight, dimming DRLs, just to mention the most glaring ones). Likewise, the problem with the control arm is nothing new. Unfortunately for Tesla, this is something that the TÜV actually checks for.

mgraupner 5y ago

As a German I can't attest most of the stuff you wrote. You go to TÜV directly when you know/think that your car won´t fail the inspection. Otherwise you bring it to the dealership or an independent garage beforehand (in case of the Tesla or if you want so save money). They will fix the stuff for you and then introduce it to inspection. No matter if you drive a BMW, Dacia or Tesla. And TÜV is not cheaper, they want more or less all the same amount of money. These statistics of TÜV are not about broken cars, it's about road safety. Broken head lamps, failing breaks, rubbers at suspension is brittle, .... These kind of things. And yes, most(not all) German cars won't fail at these things in the first five or so years. And yes, there were cars with bad transmission (DSG), failing engines and so on, but these problems are not counted in the TÜV statistics.

tommyage 5y ago

> The 10% is not as bad as it sounds, because the author fails to mention that these statistics are heavily in favour of expensive cars with a good dealership network. And Tesla has no dealerships at all, as far as I know. Tesla has dealerships, but this is irrelevant. You are referring to garages, which can be included within a dealership. If you bought a car, you can opt into these contracts. Otherwise you can become a customer of any garage. All cars were compared. There are still 10% of teslas, who can not successfuly survive the initial inspection without additional maintenance. > When you own something like a BMW, you typically don't drive the car to the inspection yourself. Especially not if it's a leased or company car. Instead, you bring your car to the dealership (or they will pick it up), they inspect the car, fix any issues they encounter and only then bring in an official inspector for the actual inspection. This way, the inspector will hardly find any issues. Also, dealerships typically don't chose TÜV, but one of their competitors that do the inspection at the dealership. This is valid for any car, regardless of its age or brand, if a garage presents your vehicle for inspection. No need to refer to "german car brands". Also competitors need to respect the same criterias. > TÜV is where people go who want to save money by skipping the dealership. The price for the check is fixed. You only fail the check, if there are crucial safety issues or oil leaks. The majority of car owners is thankful for a safety hint from the inspector. > Most people who do this drive cheaper cars. That's why cheap cars are always having much worse numbers in these statistics. That is an assumption. > They are alternative statistics, like ADAC's (Germany's equivalent to AAA), but they all have the same problem. There are no good statistics for German cars. They all favour expensive German brands because those who the statistics will never see a broken car. This is a biased assumption. > The dealerships will always take care of that. I'd rather trust US-based Consumer Reports than TÜV or ADAC statistics. The dealership only takes care of problems iff you either signed an maintenance contract and additional insurance, the issue needs to be solved due to warranty or you accept the charges neccessary to fix the problems. It simply _is_ the case that tesla has a lower quality then any other europe car brand. Dacia is on the same level as tesla in terms of haptics - but their internas (chassis, engine, bearings..., etc.) are siblings of mature brands. The TÜV is responsible for checking for safety - Inspectors will get their license permanently revoked if they did not spot an serious issue. I would trust TÜV over any american report. When an accident happens and a certain money cap is reached, insurances will investigate and escalate to anybody. The TÜV will not prefer any car brand and take these risks. You do also insult any inspector (DEKRA, GTU or TÜV) by promoting such implications.

keewee7 5y ago

It's funny that every European Tesla owner I know are happy with their car but American media, twitter, and reddit users are busy telling us we are wrong.