Consumer Reports No Longer Recommends Tesla Model S

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Elon Musk can't be too happy about Consumer Reports not recommending the 2015 Tesla.

As part of our Annual Auto Reliability Survey, we received about 1,400 survey responses from Model S owners who chronicled an array of detailed and complicated maladies. From that data we forecast that owning that Tesla is likely to involve a worse-than-average overall problem rate. That’s a step down from last year’s “average” prediction for the Model S. It also means the Model S does not receive Consumer Reports’ recommended designation. (To be recommended, a vehicle has to meet stringent testing, reliability, and safety standards, including having average or better predicted reliability.)
 
First model from a brand new company. Nobody should be particularly surprised that it's going to have some growing pains.
 
If anyone was following the edmunds long term test, this would not have surprised them
 
The issue for me is not that this happened but what actions they take to fix it for the owners.

That says a lot more....just think of the difference between GM and VW.
 
MoFoQ said:
The issue for me is not that this happened but what actions they take to fix it for the owners.

That says a lot more....just think of the difference between GM and VW.
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Not following. I've been screwed over by both, there isn't really a difference... Neither assisted in righting a wrong that was completely a fault of their engine design or assembly
 
percydaman said:
First model from a brand new company. Nobody should be particularly surprised that it's going to have some growing pains.
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Tesla's first car was actually called the Tesla Roadstrer of which a bit under 3,000 were sold. The company itself has been around for a while now. They were founded back in 2003.

I do believe that the Model S is Tesla's first production model car however. Though I do not know to what extent / when a car counts as a "production" unit, as if we're going by that standard cars like the VW / Bugatti Veyron nor Shelby Mustangs would be considered production cars.
 
Kwaz said:
Tesla's first car was actually called the Tesla Roadstrer of which a bit under 3,000 were sold. The company itself has been around for a while now. They were founded back in 2003.

I do believe that the Model S is Tesla's first production model car however. Though I do not know to what extent / when a car counts as a "production" unit, as if we're going by that standard cars like the VW / Bugatti Veyron nor Shelby Mustangs would be considered production cars.
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The Roadster was a modified Lotus. You can actually buy those used for less than a Model S, but I don't know how they compare. Some day we'll all be able to buy an electric car and not need a 2nd car for long trips, but that day is not today. I'm not sure when it will be and I'm not sure that Tesla will be the big player. I wouldn't be surprised if it's GM, Ford, Honda or Toyota.
 
So, someone tell me, if they do not get money from the companies for the products they test and they do not have advertisements, where do they get the money from then?
 
ManofGod said:
So, someone tell me, if they do not get money from the companies for the products they test and they do not have advertisements, where do they get the money from then?
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Millions of subscribers to their magazine and/or website.
 
Time2Kill said:
Really? How do you figure. Do you realize they have almost $100 million a year in subscriber fees.....
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Where the heck did you come up with that number? That is beyond extremely unlikely, do you have proof to back that up?
 
ManofGod said:
Where the heck did you come up with that number? That is beyond extremely unlikely, do you have proof to back that up?
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I don't see current numbers, but Wikipedia shows numbers from 2006, 2007 and 2010 and it appears they have roughly 7 million subscribers. Each is $30/year, but it's $50/year if you subscribe to both.

Their testing budget is roughly 21 Million. I assume that they sell the Tesla after testing is finished. Doing that will significantly cut down on the cost of testing devices/cars.
 
ManofGod said:
I see no lines that say anything about subscriptions. Also, I see a line that says investments but, what investments? Investments in Toyota? Investments in Honda? Sony? I see nothing that says they are not bought out. (Being quite serious about it too, not arguing for the sake of arguing.)
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From the Wikipedia (along with links to the original sources):

Wikipedia said:
Consumer Reports is well known for its policies on editorial independence, which it says are to "maintain our independence and impartiality... [so that] CU has no agenda other than the interests of consumers."[5][6] CR has unusually strict requirements and sometimes has taken extraordinary steps; for example it declined to renew a car dealership's bulk subscription because of "the appearance of an impropriety".[7]
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I can only imagine the forum threads on the tesla forums after this release LOL.

Its an electric car thats from a brand new company. What did ya expect, Toyota reliability.
 
FrozenSteel said:
Not following. I've been screwed over by both, there isn't really a difference... Neither assisted in righting a wrong that was completely a fault of their engine design or assembly
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Yeah, I'm not getting it either. GM kills you via doorhandle and ignition problems that they try to ignore, and VW kills the environment via ECM programming? Which one is the good one?

ManofGod said:
I see no lines that say anything about subscriptions.
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Then you might want to get fitted for glasses, because the very first line in their revenue statement says "subscription, newsstand, and other sales." and states it was 230 million in 2015.

Also, I see a line that says investments but, what investments? Investments in Toyota? Investments in Honda? Sony? I see nothing that says they are not bought out. (Being quite serious about it too, not arguing for the sake of arguing.)
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I see nothing that says that they're not owned by a race of super powerful space aliens. How bout we talk about what it says, and not what it doesn't say?
 
ManofGod said:
I see no lines that say anything about subscriptions.
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UNEARNED SUBSCRIPTION REVENUE. If you read the report, you'll find that that's where subscription revenues are listed. They term it that way because each long-term subscription is calculated as being earned when the applicable term has been completed. If I get a one-year $36 subscription to the magazine, they only count the revenue as being earned when each month is up (or when the magazine is delivered) - if the term is January-December, then the earned revenue is $3 by the end of January, $6 by the end of February, etc.
Also, I see a line that says investments but, what investments? Investments in Toyota? Investments in Honda? Sony? I see nothing that says they are not bought out. (Being quite serious about it too, not arguing for the sake of arguing.)
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"Hey, I'm just asking questions." <yawn>

Again, find something wrong and bring it back. Quit trying to get everyone else to find proof to justify your so far baseless suspicions.
 
Curious if they receive a similar number of survey responses from other cars as well. 1400 might simply be a matter of small sampling error, because if you have something that's awesome you're probably going to be more concerned with experience the awesome, if you have something that has problems you're going to want to vent to someone and as a result be more proactive about it so you tend to be more "visible"
 
"The car is so very silent when driving that minor squeaks and rattles that you wouldn't be able to hear in a gasoline engine car become very annoying."
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Got some rich guy problems there. Most of the problems seem to be related to tesla being a smaller company without the learned experience for exhaustive reliability testing and imperfections from manufacturing.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Curious if they receive a similar number of survey responses from other cars as well. 1400 might simply be a matter of small sampling error, because if you have something that's awesome you're probably going to be more concerned with experience the awesome, if you have something that has problems you're going to want to vent to someone and as a result be more proactive about it so you tend to be more "visible"
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If I understand what you're saying:

All their reliability data is relative. None of it's absolute, it's all relative to the average of all the data they receive.

I.e. they send out forms. And people that have problems are absolutely (probably) more likely to fill them out than people that don't have problems. But since that's true for everyone, and all the data they publish is vs. the average of all the data they receive, it doesn't really matter that much. And that's the problem with some other car peoples data. It isn't necessarily relative, and it isn't necessarily unbiased.

The big question here would be "If you shell out 90 grand for an electric car, are you more likely to report when you don't have problems, or more likely to report when you do have problems?"

I'd say you're less likely to report problems if you think you're saving the environment and are super stoked about getting 120 MPGe or whatever.

And I'd say you're more likely to report problems, when you have a problem with your 90k dollar car, vs. someone that bought a 15k dollar Kia.

Which one wins? Who knows.
 
Frankie said:
If I understand what you're saying:

All their reliability data is relative. None of it's absolute, it's all relative to the average of all the data they receive.

I.e. they send out forms. And people that have problems are absolutely (probably) more likely to fill them out than people that don't have problems. But since that's true for everyone, and all the data they publish is vs. the average of all the data they receive, it doesn't really matter that much. And that's the problem with some other car peoples data. It isn't necessarily relative, and it isn't necessarily unbiased.

The big question here would be "If you shell out 90 grand for an electric car, are you more likely to report when you don't have problems, or more likely to report when you do have problems?"

I'd say you're less likely to report problems if you think you're saving the environment and are super stoked about getting 120 MPGe or whatever.

And I'd say you're more likely to report problems, when you have a problem with your 90k dollar car, vs. someone that bought a 15k dollar Kia.

Which one wins? Who knows.
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Agreed. I've always found it suspicious that every luxury brand is utterly unreliable when compared to the budget brands. Self selection bias and expectations hurt the standings. I use cr between classes of cars to narrow down options. It's as if everyone with a 2005 car broke down already if they paid over 40k. Kia is not the greatest car company of all time. Every s class Mercedes-Benz isn't in the scrap heap after 6 years either. If the tesla was 20k they'd have to create new stars for reliability. Expectations matter and self report skews resilts.

Edmunds long term results are far more "damning"
 
Don't care if it's a kia or a god damn Bugatti, it's how the company handles the problems.

I've heard that Tesla steps up and takes care of the customer, what else do you want? Early adopters can't expect Honda levels of reliability on the first pass.

I'd take a Tesla any day of the week even if it did have "problems" knowing they would get solved.

Every make every model of every product will have duds or lemons, it's a numbers game. You are far more likely to hear about the bad experiences than the good, just have to keep that in mind.
 
samm said:
I can only imagine the forum threads on the tesla forums after this release LOL.

Its an electric car thats from a brand new company. What did ya expect, Toyota reliability.
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For the cost of those damn cars, yes.
 
The people who buy Tesla cars are most likely the kind who upgrade after 3 years. And they probably have warranty. The real problems come for the people buying these cars used. No one knows how a 10 year old Tesla is yet. My VW is 18 years old and apart from replacing wear and tear parts it doesn't need much maintenance. Japanese cars are even more reliable but they tend to rust in the Scandinavian climate. The best cars here are Swedish or German.
 
Frankie said:
Yeah, I'm not getting it either. GM kills you via doorhandle and ignition problems that they try to ignore, and VW kills the environment via ECM programming? Which one is the good one?
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At least they're not as bad as Chrysler or Fiat :)
 
undercoverDrunk said:
Agreed. I've always found it suspicious that every luxury brand is utterly unreliable when compared to the budget brands. Self selection bias and expectations hurt the standings.
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Yet Lexus (a luxury brand) is again on of the top rated brands.

One thing to consider, is that budget brands don't have all the expensive gadgets and there is much less to go wrong.
 
nutzo said:
Yet Lexus (a luxury brand) is again on of the top rated brands.

One thing to consider, is that budget brands don't have all the expensive gadgets and there is much less to go wrong.
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Lexus owners are also likely to be vocal when things go well. When you get to a club/cult like status... one tends to talk about your positive experiences as much as you can.
 
Tesla is the only company making the kind of electric cars people want and actually selling them, not just showing off prototypes or selling low end crap nobody really wants. Even with all the issues and a very high price they are not having much trouble selling them.

My hope is they are learning from their mistakes and that each car will get better. This is bleeding edge stuff and the issues are no surprise. I do trust that what CR reported is true, but what can you expect when you are leading the world in electric car technology.

I would also point out that many of those high priced cars are not exactly the pinnacle of reliability. A decked out Model S is over 100K.
 
After bursting into flames when charging and bursting into flames when crashing, no one should be surprised that someone unbiased is finally going, "Oh, this company and its products really aren't worship-worthy." Most of the Tesla junk has just been people who are blinded by the need to idolize a single person like Elmo Monk anyhow. Those are the same people who blame everything wrong with a government on one political figure like a president or get drool-tastic over a company's latest smartphone because of the identity of it's CEO.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
After bursting into flames when charging and bursting into flames when crashing, no one should be surprised that someone unbiased is finally going, "Oh, this company and its products really aren't worship-worthy." Most of the Tesla junk has just been people who are blinded by the need to idolize a single person like Elmo Monk anyhow. Those are the same people who blame everything wrong with a government on one political figure like a president or get drool-tastic over a company's latest smartphone because of the identity of it's CEO.
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Wut, they batts are protected by diamond plate. The few fires that did occur (from having rods/crashes that would kill a mac truck) ALL of the drivers just pulled over, got their things, thanked the nice robot lady for telling them to exit the car in an orderly fashion, and then watch with there $400 sunglasses as a nice midwest home burnt down infront of them. When the fire trucks arrived (in states that sell teslas at least) they pop the tops off the batts and pop the hose in the presupplied "fire supression holes" of the battery pack.

The grips are justified for a $130k car. I can see it just being winy if your roof squeaks on your GEO, but a 6 figure car better be perfect.
 
nutzo said:
At least they're not as bad as Chrysler or Fiat :)
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WTH? What is wrong, you have one bad experience back in the Mercedes owned Chrysler and now you think you can speak for them? I have a 2015 Dodge Dart that is running great. I did purchase a 2013 Avenger before that but wished I had not because it was rather boring. I had replaced my 2013 Dodge Dart with a 1.4t and 6 speed manual which was running great and I loved it. (I had just purchased the Avenger after it because I was foolishly worried about things that I should never have been worried about.)

I miss that 2013 Dart but I do love this 2015 Dart immensely. :D Chrysler and Fiat are doing quite well but, they could be doing better. The only major issue they had with the Dart was the DDCT transmission and they have already issued a recall on that. Otherwise, most problems occur at the dealer level. Get a good dealer and you are golden, get a bad one and it will be a nightmare no matter the brand of car.
 
ManofGod said:
WTH? What is wrong, you have one bad experience back in the Mercedes owned Chrysler and now you think you can speak for them? I have a 2015 Dodge Dart that is running great. I did purchase a 2013 Avenger before that but wished I had not because it was rather boring. I had replaced my 2013 Dodge Dart with a 1.4t and 6 speed manual which was running great and I loved it. (I had just purchased the Avenger after it because I was foolishly worried about things that I should never have been worried about.)

I miss that 2013 Dart but I do love this 2015 Dart immensely. :D Chrysler and Fiat are doing quite well but, they could be doing better. The only major issue they had with the Dart was the DDCT transmission and they have already issued a recall on that. Otherwise, most problems occur at the dealer level. Get a good dealer and you are golden, get a bad one and it will be a nightmare no matter the brand of car.
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Oh, and just in case you where not aware: Dart is most loved car in America
 
I've had my Model S since March, put just over 10k miles on it. The worst issue I've had? Moisture in tail lights. I've had less issues on this car than on my Audi S4 that was at the stealership every other month.

I've read on the Tesla forums how some early people had drivetrain issues and such, but Tesla tends sends a Ranger to pick up your car, drops off a loaner and then hauls your car to the service center. I'd like to see other mfgs do that!
 
Sufu said:
I've had my Model S since March, put just over 10k miles on it. The worst issue I've had? Moisture in tail lights. I've had less issues on this car than on my Audi S4 that was at the stealership every other month.

I've read on the Tesla forums how some early people had drivetrain issues and such, but Tesla tends sends a Ranger to pick up your car, drops off a loaner and then hauls your car to the service center. I'd like to see other mfgs do that!
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This is worthy of a like button. :) Yeah, you definitely paid for it so, you deserve that kind of service when needed.
 
nightanole said:
Wut, they batts are protected by diamond plate. The few fires that did occur (from having rods/crashes that would kill a mac truck) ALL of the drivers just pulled over, got their things, thanked the nice robot lady for telling them to exit the car in an orderly fashion, and then watch with there $400 sunglasses as a nice midwest home burnt down infront of them. When the fire trucks arrived (in states that sell teslas at least) they pop the tops off the batts and pop the hose in the presupplied "fire supression holes" of the battery pack.

The grips are justified for a $130k car. I can see it just being winy if your roof squeaks on your GEO, but a 6 figure car better be perfect.
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The fact that they have to put specific holes in the car for putting out fires after an accident should be a pretty clear warning that the people who designed it pretty much know it's gonna go all SpaceX and turn into a giant fire hazard. If that's not a huge warning, IDK what else would be. :eek:
 
Frankie;1041922654 The big question here would be "If you shell out 90 grand for an electric car said:
I would say the later is probably more true. If the every piece of plastic in my Kia rattled every time I went over bumpy roads, I'd assume it to be the norm, especially if you're the type of person to be driving cheap cars. If you pay for a car near 100k you expect a better experience, so minor things will stick out more and make you more likely to compare.

For instance my dad's last car, not exactly a cheap car, but not a luxury car either, but because it was under the bumper to bumper warranty every time so much as a knob stopped working correctly (yeah those plastic fuckers had a tendency to break) he was at the dealership demanding they fix it. Because he had a "service" he expected something above and beyond what most people would.
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