I don’t have the data handy, but that’s certainly my impression. Yes, they’ve been involved in a few freak accidents when the car made a strange decision. But you don’t need to use any of the self-driving stuff. Most owners like it, but it’s an option. And mostly they are just cars, and their safety features usually rate “moderately good” when I’ve noticed them in IIHS presentations.
Only around 12-13% of Teslas have a self driving subscription or paid lifetime self driving at any given time. It’s not that common.
Let’s just say that i have a lot of friends who own Teslas, and i sit in their passenger seats without a second thought. (Except for the one friend who almost exclusively has the car drive itself around, then I’m sometimes anxious. But i still drive around with him. And 99% of the time, it’s not very different from having a human drive.)
They do pretty well in crash tests, fwiw.
Bravo! Well played!
To whom it may concern:
I, too, have heard and read that Teslas are extremely dangerous cars! I would not get one if someone paid me to do so.
Moderating:
OK, the joke was well played, but please stop now. You’re confusing far too many posters and generating a lot of flags.
Review of the Cybertruck with lotsa venom
Warning: that’s a video review, with sound.
Also, it’s funny, but there’s more venom than content. He does out to several concrete problems, but mostly it’s just just video of a guy driving a cyber truck while ranting about it.
From the OP:
Interesting! My wife just bought a ‘26 Tesla Model 3 after driving her 1st generation 2012 Nissan Leaf (we bought it used) for 7 years. And she absolutely loved that old Leaf!
The 3 is less than a week old and she loves it. Yes there are a lot of config settings and its UI isn’t the most intuitive. That’s being kind; sometimes it’s downright confusing. But its basic operation is fairly straightforward and again, she loves it. I’ve driven it a fair amount this week and this is our first and only Tesla (my daily driver is the Subaru OBW; or motorcycle), and I am impressed by its safety features. Besides passive safety (eg crash protection) the 3 has good active safety (acceleration, handling, braking, and FSD!), but on top of that its FSD, full self-driving, is very impressive! My wife uses FSD nearly 100% of the time she drives it; I’ve used FSD quite a lot so far in my miles, and yes it works quite well, but lately I’ve been driving it manually. In both ways, whether manual or FSD, the 3 is quite impressive.
I know it’s early in our relationship but so far we’re lovin’ that 3!
My cousin just bought a '26 Leaf S+ (basic model, but with a 300 mile battery) and it is a darn nice car. It has lane-keeping with the active cruise control, which is a long way from FSD, but it is lovely for long-distance use. The proximity warnings are pretty aggressive, and yet sometimes I think the forward object warning seems a tad late. For the price, it seems like a really good alternative to a Tesla (and it has a NACS port for DCFC, which did get used at a Supercharger at least 1 time).
There is a Grizzl-E Alpha in the garage for at-home level-2, which makes the EV a practical car. This is the huge gap for EV adoption: most apartment dwellers cannot get level-2 overnight, and many homeowners balk at the cost of getting level-2 put in (we were lucky to be able to just DIY swap in a 14-50 outlet where there had been a 6-50 not otherwise being used).
Couldn’t decide which thread to put this, maybe the general car discussion one, but this is the first one I found.
Tesla uses fiberboard and cotton for key pieces of aerodynamic and protective body work! It is fuzzy. Everyone who has never looked underneath any other modern car needs to be enraged.
Someone, who is not me, hit something and ripped the front aero shield (or front aero underlay or undertray as it is variously called). I can cut away the part that hangs down and scrapes on the road, but the panel does prevent dirt and debris from getting up into the suspension, front drive unit, and cooling system, so should be replaced.
I went into the Tesla app, went to service, selected “exterior”, “bottom”, and then tapped on a picture of the aero panel. You think Tesla knows this is an easily damaged part? 0.18 hours of shop time, a $205 part, and taxes come out to a total of $280 to have Tesla replace it.
Or, any number of aftermarket replacements made out of plastic, aluminum, or steel are available. The prices ranges from $70-300. As with all car parts made by such well known OEMs as Lumlazni, EZREXPM, and YEHERIT, price and quality are not correlated, and the reviews are mostly fake.
If I knew someone with a four post lift the replacement procedure would be trivial, as it is, I can get the car up on ramps and do it on my back. The only sticking point is that one of the bolts has been smashed in such a way that a socket will not fit on it, and when twisting it with pliers, it just turns. I assume the clip it screws into has come loose, but even with a (very cheap) boroscope, I can’t see what is happening, let alone get some fingers in there.
So, do I try harder to get the stuck bolt out? Then the replacement job should be very easy, and just a matter of picking a panel from the dozens available. Or, do I just let Tesla do it, get the -B revision panel (more plastic!), and not worry about it?
I was under the impression that the fiberboard/fuzzy splash shields and other underbody aero pieces are being used by a bunch of different automakers – I see them in Sarah-n-tuned’s reviews all the time. I assume the fuzziness reduces wind/road noise or something.
As for what to do, figure out a way to zip tie the dang thing up, drill a hole if you have to. I try to keep my cars as OEM as possible but underbody trays are inevitably going to get abused, and I just do my best to ziptie them back into place.
They are. When searching about the issue I found lots of recreational outrage leveled against Tesla for using fuzzy splash shields for skid plates, completely ignoring that it is an industry standard practice, and it is not a skid plate.
Ah, I now see how I should have parsed “Everyone who has never looked underneath any other modern car needs to be enraged.” Gotcha.