Build quality: alignment of trunk

[Robert.Boston]

View attachment 9136

Notice, too, how sleek the mid-line bar is on the pano roof. I'd give up the larger panel gaps to get such a sleek implementation of the pano!

 

[J in MN]

His opinion was that Model S looked better in a dark color because the dark color hides all of the body seams

The paint finish on the Model S, particularly on the dark colours, is so incredibly reflective that I don't think it does anything at all to hide the seams.

I really don't think it would take much more to get it really great.

I'm afraid it might take new stamping dies. That sounds like a very expensive proposition.

 

[MikeK]

J, I disagree. I've seen the dark colors in person, and on the blue, green and black, the seams are definitely minimized. You do see them especially if the car is in bright sun, but the contrast is lower so they don't jump out as much. They don't grab your attention.

Regarding the dies, my understanding is that it's possible to modify them, at least to an extent, to refine them. I am certainly not an expert.

One more example of a good fit. This is Tesla's video of the test drives at the October launch event. This URL should jump you to 10 seconds, but if not, just go ahead to 10 seconds and look at the white car pulling away. I think that's probably the same car that they ended up putting into Santana Row, and which is in that other video I posted. The gaps at the trunk are tight and the car looks great.

I really hope this is what they're working towards. Time will tell.

 

[jerry33]

I looked carefully at the cars in the Dallas Get Amped and I didn't see any problems with the gap. They looked even and not noticeably wider than those on other cars. The cars were silver, white, blue, and brown(s).

I don't think we'll really know what the gap is like until production reaches full speed.

 

[contaygious]

Notice, too, how sleek the mid-line bar is on the pano roof. I'd give up the larger panel gaps to get such a sleek implementation of the pano!

Now that pic just makes me even more mad about the ugo pano bar!

 

[ddruz]

Now that pic just makes me even more mad about the ugo pano bar!

80% of people voted for a slimmer aesthetic pano roof bar over a bigger bar that accommodates a sunshade in the poll we ran a few weeks back: http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/9455-Would-you-buy-the-panoramic-roof-without-a-sunshade

Contact your Tesla rep and request it. Maybe they will change it if structurally possible and enough people raise their voices. Same thing with the trunk alignment. Tesla seems to listen to sincere and constructive feedback.

 

[contaygious]

Yeah but when I asked about it I was told safety and sunshade reasons. Not much luck

 

[Brian H]

Yeah but when I asked about it I was told safety and sunshade reasons. Not much luck

I think it's secretly a rollbar.

 

[jerry33]

So, it's not a show-stopper, but gosh it would be great if they could tighten that gap up. I really don't think it would take much more to get it really great.

Now there's a gap:

 

[AnOutsider]

I think it's secretly a rollbar.

That was my thought too.. something with them going for that 5 star rating

 

[EarlyAdopter]

Unless you're looking at photos taken by the same camera from the same angle in the same light, you can't make a comparison. All three of those factors have a huge impact on shadow detail.

Better to look at videos that will show a continuous sweep through many angles.

 

[MikeK]

Unless you're looking at photos taken by the same camera from the same angle in the same light, you can't make a comparison. All three of those factors have a huge impact on shadow detail.

Better to look at videos that will show a continuous sweep through many angles.

In general, I agree with you. And in that video I linked above, there is just such a sweep as the white car pulls away.

I do think that this gap thing with the trunk is at least partially dependent on the angle from which you are looking at the car, as I said above. But the root of it is that the gap is comparatively large, so that there does exist an angle where it is really prominent. With a smaller gap, you don't get the same effect. It's pretty clear that the cars on the Get Amped tour, even the most recent ones, don't match the October event's white beta in terms of that fit.

 

[chmod a+wrx]

Just a thought here.......


....any chance that the gap in the hatch is related to the automated nature of opening and closing it? ? ? ?

 

[AnOutsider]

Just a thought here.......


....any chance that the gap in the hatch is related to the automated nature of opening and closing it? ? ? ?

Possibly. We've seen at least one photo where the gap is better than those seen in the twitter picture. So I guess the question is why.... And your theory could be an answer... Could also be that the one we saw was manually adjusted too and/or the ones in the pic had not been

 

[WarpedOne]

I bet most of this "problem" is due to bad photography.

Just look at this ghastly gap:

Lexus RX450gh

 

[MikeK]

I bet most of this "problem" is due to bad photography.

It's possible that that's the case with Elon's tweet photo. It's not true generally, though, because I've seen the gap very obviously on cars that I've seen in person.

One thing I did notice with my own iPhone photos is that shooting HDR, the gap looks wider than shooting without HDR turned on. Something about how it stacks the multiple exposures, perhaps.

Regarding the door mechanism, as I was trolling the Internet looking for photos of the early prototype, I came across a photo that reminded me that the original hatch design used a complex linkage that allowed the hatch to actually pivot forward slightly over the roofline. Perhaps that linkage also allowed the hatch to close in a way that allowed for super tight gaps. But, the car in the photo above (with Elon, from the October event) has the shipping configuration, and it was operable and has reasonably tight gaps.

Here's that prototype linkage:

 

[pete8314]

Because of this thread, I've been obsessively trying to find other cars with similarly complicated panels on the trunk. The result? Nada. It seems most fastbacks/hatchbacks (whatever you want to call them) get some straight close lines by using the rear window. Other cars in the same segment seem to have vastly simpler lines where panels meet. It leads me to wonder if someone in the Tesla design shop isn't kicking themselves for creating something that's clearly fairly troubling. I'm sure they'll fix it, but it must be consuming time they'd rather spend elsewhere. My view is that the trunk panel shape is unecessarily complicated, and while it adds to the uniqueness of the car, it clearly has some downsides.

 

[MikeK]

It leads me to wonder if someone in the Tesla design shop isn't kicking themselves for creating something that's clearly fairly troubling.

I would bet you that if they had it to do over again, they'd revise where the trunk seam falls.

 

[ddenboer]

Some gap pics from today at Santana Row. Not as good as some, but better than the ones that were there in March.

 

[MikeK]

Did you happen to catch the VIN on that car? If it was 115, it was the same one that was at Palo Alto earlier this month, and is actually not all that recent. (I do recall that this car looked pretty decent.)