Teslas really are not great cars

In My Humble Opinion
61

A former coworker of mine has a Tesla Model 3 and I have a Mazda 3, which are similar sizes. We’d alternate driving to lunch frequently. These are the points that come to my mind.

Good:
The Tesla is effortlessly fast and stable. I can’t speak for the handling as a driver but my understanding is that the low center of gravity helps with that a lot, despite the weight.

Overall the drivetrain represents some excellent engineering and is commendable. Similarly the focus on reducing weight and improving aerodynamics in order to reduce the “rocket problem” seen in bigger/heavier electric vehicles.

Ride quality seems decent enough. Not harsh but not mushy either.

Onsite service (or would that be offsite?) is pretty sweet, but I’m not sure how much that’s done anymore. It’s counterbalanced by the number of things that need replacing or recalibrating.

Bad:
The “dumb electric car things” that are permeating the industry, like putting nearly everything on a screen, weird door handles, electric everything. Even as a passenger I found the screen unintuitive because everything is small and monochromatic, and difficult or impossible to use with gloves. The door handles are awkward to use at best (push to pivot with thumb then pull with rest of the hand) and they freeze up in icy conditions. Coworker had to use a hair dryer to free up the door handle on more than one occasion. Also the pushbutton interior door release tripped up other people more than once thinking the door hadn’t released. If it kicked the door out just an inch or two that would help.

Fit and finish is poor for the price. It’s gotten better, but when you do the minimalist thing, craftsmanship matters a lot. Same goes for things like road/wind noise. The quiet drivetrain makes those things a lot more noticeable so being just OK isn’t good enough.

Non-adjustable air vents. Non-blockable sunroof. Come on.

Despite the similar vehicle size, being a taller person the Tesla is much harder to get into and out of than my Mazda. The seats are lower, but I think the main thing is the steep angle of the a-pillar.

Subjective:
I think the 3 and the S look fine, but they’re nothing special. I find the Y hideous because the proportions are all over the place. It can’t decide if it’s a sedan, a hatchback, or an SUV. The Cyber Truck is a complete shit show.

The lack of meaningful updates/upgrades after so many model years is getting to be kind of ridiculous. I definitely don’t think change just for change’s sake is a good thing, and styling is subjective, but they just keep selling the same thing year after year after year. As I’ve gotten older I’ve noticed this more and more in electronics and appliances that used to see significant improvements over time. Computers, phones, cameras, printers, refrigerators, microwaves, vacuum cleaners, you name it, even cars in general. I think “It’s been 7, 8, 9 years now and it’s time to replace X, let’s see what’s out there today” and it very often boils down to “so I have to buy basically the same thing I bought before, with few or no improvements, and it still costs as much or even more than it did back then?!?” When it’s something as pricey as a car that’s a hard pill to swallow.

Regarding the charging/apartment situation, I live in a 100 year old building with no off-street parking, so that’s an even more difficult nut to crack. However, on average apartment dwellers already have a lower carbon footprint by virtue of living in smaller connected units, being closer to daily needs, and being able to walk or take public transit more often. It’s the people living in detached homes in the suburbs where every single trip is a car trip that most need to be driving electric cars, putting solar panels on their roofs, adding building insulation, composting, and doing all those things to mitigate the higher upfront impact of their living arrangement. I’m not saying we shouldn’t figure out ways to make charging easier for all, but there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit to be picked first.

62

At least the Apple Music requires subscribing to Tesla’s data service.

63

I use navigation for the traffic situation. That doesn’t require much attention.

Meh, it’s annoying, but not a safety concern. It’s not hard to notice when the car changes speed. Usually tapping on the accelerator corrects the situation, and if not, disengaging the cruise fixes it.

For comparison, traditional cruise control that always holds its speed also requires constant tending, as the car catches up with others or on curves. I just prefer that kind of adjustment than what the Tesla cruise requires, but it’s a personal preference.

64

My not-tesla has “adaptive cruise control” that slows down when there is a car in front of me, according to the selected follow distance, which can be adjusted with a button on the steering wheel. It also has a feature that adjusts the cruise speed according to the speed limit signs it reads, but I have the feature turned off. My car is basically a computer with wheels, which means there are a lot of bugs features to learn, and a lot of TU possbilities.

65

That’s how Teslas have been described – “a computer with wheels”. And this is precisely what I strenuously object to. To be clear, I’d love to have a car where I can just get into it and say “take me to destination ‘x’” and it will do it flawlessly, and then park itself and wait for me.

But that’s not what we have today. We have cars that make half-assed attempts to do things for us that are sometimes badly flawed and downright counterproductive and unsafe, like the dangerous pretense of full self-driving that is anything but.

If I had a car with any of that shit I’d turn it all off and regret having been forced to pay for it. On those occasions when I have long drives on freeways, I don’t even use traditional old cruise control – I just don’t like it and don’t see the point. How hard is it to keep your foot on the accelerator? If your intent is to have a nice nap, you shouldn’t be driving.

66

Yep. That’s what Tesla has implemented. Following traffic, it does beautifully. Makes congestion not quite as aggravating, since the car will adjust its speed with respect to follow distance very well. And the Tesla reads speed limit signs, although doesn’t read the printed conditions (like “truck” or “snowy”). The cruise troubles must often appear on slight curves or in interchanges. I think it’s some weird interaction between the computer looking at road conditions vs the computer reading the map. But it isn’t predictable.

What’s “TU possbilities”?

67

Potential points of failure (“TU” is, more politely, “toes up”).

68

My best friend drives a Tesla Model S Plaid. It’s a gorgeous car, one of the nicest I’ve ever been in, highly reliable, and cheap to run because he isn’t buying gas.

I admit I don’t like the “Everything in the iPad” display, but that’s my only quibble. Everything else about it is fantastic.

69

I can’t think of a single advantage that “dumb” cruise control gives you. You’re already ceding control of the speed of the car to cruise control, so it’s not about manually driving the car. Smart cruise control just does it better. You can use it whether you’re alone on the road or you’re in traffic. It’s safer because it anticipates the car ahead of you slowing down before you could react. It makes it useful in far more situations. And it makes no sense to say “I want to be able to control every function of driving” and then use dumb cruise control.

70

Pity that you ignored the actual substance of my post, so I’ll repeat it here:

That’s how Teslas have been described – “a computer with wheels”. And this is precisely what I strenuously object to. To be clear, I’d love to have a car where I can just get into it and say “take me to destination ‘x’” and it will do it flawlessly, and then park itself and wait for me.

But that’s not what we have today. We have cars that make half-assed attempts to do things for us that are sometimes badly flawed and downright counterproductive and unsafe, like the dangerous pretense of full self-driving that is anything but.

71

While I take your point, I think it’s a matter of “philosophy” for lack of a better word.

When I use automation I’m not ceding control to it - I’m driving the car through the automation. Without the “active” form of cruise control, I choose when to slow down, speed up or cancel cruise control entirely. The car is not taking actions I have not directly commanded.

Call it splitting hairs if you like, but I contend there’s a big difference between my mindset and how many other people approach the use of automation. It seems to me many people press the button and let the car handle things until the situation becomes dire, and they’re often too late. I do the opposite - I am actively driving the car, with or without various levels of automation. And it’s very important to me that I know what the automation is, and (sometimes more critically) is not doing. Do people really know the parameters of active cruise control? Are they “ahead” of the car, able to predict what it will do a few seconds from now? I suspect they mostly don’t.

As I said earlier, I will happily cede full control to vehicles when that technology is viable. But as Wolf pointed out:

72

I’ve definitely driven rental cars where trying to hit the right portion of the screen is a major PITA especially when its bumpy - but i don’t particularly find this difficult in my Model 3- most of the controls that you’d want to operate while driving are on the outer edges of the screen (or are on the multifunction physical buttons on the steering wheel) , and because the screen protrudes outward, it allows you to brace one finger on the outer edge of the bezel while the adjacent finger taps the screen.

73

I didn’t ignore it, I responded in the way I thought most appropriate.

74

I’ve been avoiding participating in this thread, because if anyone wanted to read what I have to say about the Tesla/EV/computer comments, they could just look at my posting history, so I’ll come in on the anti-automation side here:

I’ve never once had dumb cruise control phantom brake or slow down because I’m going under a bridge. This is not just a Tesla issue, but can apply to any active cruise control, vision or radar based.

Replying to this, too, because you’ve been trained to have, and probably naturally have, exactly the right attitude towards using the automation. I can talk about the old Tesla autopilot system being very analogous to an airplane’s autopilot, in that it manages speed, heading, and altitude, etc., allowing the pilot/driver to pay more attention to other aspects of flying/driving.

The big flashing neon sign difference is that you know a tremendous amount about how the autopilot works, and can predict its behavior and failure modes. When it fails in unforeseen ways, there are often industry wide changes. And you certainly consider yourself to be flying the plane, whether autopilot is engaged or not.

In the Tesla, or any other car with advanced automation, how much does even an aware driver know? Everything I know about FSD/autopilot is learned through experience, not training and simulator time. Even with that experience, FSD (and autopilot, back in the day) would do things that I didn’t understand and didn’t predict. FSD frees up some of my attention to be more aware of other cars and traffic. Some of that attention also has to be spent babysitting FSD. One of the things I’ve learned to predict is for any given situation if the attention needed to oversee FSD is more or less than the attention I’d need to pay to the tasks FSD is automating.

75

Many of the “Tesla” complaints in this thread relate only to the Model 3 or Model Y and not Tesla generally. The X and the S do not have an “ipad glued to the dashboard” look. Our Model X has a speedometer where you’d want one to be. The door handles work fine. The car dives beautifully. I would never buy another Tesla for political reasons, but we love our Model X. The nav system is the best I’ve ever used. (I don’t like the controls for the audio system, but they’re manageable.) Finishes are nice and well constructed.

76

All Teslas or are you just thinking of the Cyber Truck? Teslas themselves do not seem to me to be any different looking than any other sedans on the road. They don’t stand out at all.

77

Yep. All of them, especially the truck. It’s the wonky front ends, the odd lines and strange proportions. They look like those Knock-Off Hotwheels you would find in a McDonald’s Happy Meal.

To be fair, I’m not really a fan of many of the newer stuff.

78

Maybe a dumb question, but do you have your turn signal on when you’re doing this (which as I was taught you’re supposed to do when merging onto the freeway)? As far as I know, no car with lane assist will complain as long as you put your turn signal on before you cross the line, since the car now knows you’re trying to merge / change lanes.

79

I just want to be clear - I think this is a good thing. Until this thread I was not aware of any apartment complexes that had charging for EVs.

80

With a user name like yours you should love the look of the 3 and Y! From the front the 3 looks like a catfish, and the Y looks like a puffy catfish.