Actually it is very easy to clean, it just has a different way about it. First of all, it is water cleanable, which is super-great in many cases where a wet wipe will do it. Second, you can clean it with a soft eraser (e.g. ball-point pen mark), something usually completely undoable on other kinds of cloth...
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Change from alcantara to cloth on PUP???
- Thread starter 03DSG
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Actually it is very easy to clean, it just has a different way about it. First of all, it is water cleanable, which is super-great in many cases where a wet wipe will do it. Second, you can clean it with a soft eraser (e.g. ball-point pen mark), something usually completely undoable on other kinds of cloth...
My 2.5 year old spilled mango on our white alcantara headliner and B-pillar interior. I left it on there for a week (I didn't notice as I don't sit in the rear seats and we were road tripping). Got back, ran wet cloth over it. Came off. No stain. Orange colored fruit had oxidized and stuck on and still came off and looks like new (no rubbing needed, just damp cloth over a minute and gentle dabs).
The Next Gen leather is even easier to clean with Meguir's leather cleaning cloths. My daughter eats lunch in the car everyday and its the easiest car to clean up.
The Next Gen leather is even easier to clean with Meguir's leather cleaning cloths. My daughter eats lunch in the car everyday and its the easiest car to clean up.
So it was a subsytems supplier‘s friend‘s dog, who dropped the ball... and then ate the Alcantara.
According to electrek the official statement is following:
„As we continue to increase production of Model 3 and produce more high quality cars for customers, all Model 3 vehicles are being made with the same premium textile headliner found in our flagship Model S and Model X vehicles, which has always been planned at this stage of production.”
Tesla updates Model 3 interior with new headliner material
So apparently it was planned that the first cars come with the Alcantara headliner and the ones thereafter are cloth. Which sounds a bit like bait and switch to me.
CAF
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The picture I took was AFTER wiping it off. I guess if it was a dark color it might not show. Regardless, despite what the marketing people would have you believe, alcantara is NOT a premium product in my book; it's just one of many synthetics out there.
Well, YMMV. All I can report are my own experiences from 15 years of using it in multiple scenarios, including cleaning a light-colored couch with massive ballpoint-pen damage done by a child. Erased right off. Any other material IMO absolutely would have been a loss. Water cleaning superb, cola stains, whatever, washes right off without using professional equipment (where many other materials would just stain worse)...
The only issue IMO that Alcantara has is hard rubbing, e.g. a car seat or other very tight seat that gets abrasion. That's where it can start to get worse over time (say, over a decade) - I would avoid Alcantara in the forward edge of a car seat's base, for example. (I've personally seen this only in some old office chairs with tight wrapped Alcantara.) Things like Alcantara couches are pretty much forever, though - I mean literally looking like new...
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Hmmmmmmm
Tesla Model 3: what parts breakdown says about high-volume electric car
"Tesla also seems to be using a few suppliers that have not traditionally sold to automotive manufacturers that build cars for the US market."
That probably explains a lot.
Tesla Model 3: what parts breakdown says about high-volume electric car
"Tesla also seems to be using a few suppliers that have not traditionally sold to automotive manufacturers that build cars for the US market."
That probably explains a lot.
Hm. I still feel that something needs to be done for the folks (notably me, of course) who ordered in good faith and aren't getting what was pictured when we configured, but I'm *less* infuriated about it now.
Just signed up to add this into the mix. Line waiter from Jersey (non owner), received a call from Tesla today confirming what they mentioned in their official statement. Tried getting more information in regards to a possible price decrease in which they had no further information. To clarify, I did email them yesterday when I first heard about this fiasco. Glad to see this has gained as much attention as it has. Very disappointed.
Ok. The Alcantara headliner, visors on all 3 models so far has been light grey in color. Can anyone please verify what color the new material is? It’s really hard to tell from the pictures of it but it looks light beige/tan to me.
@03DSG These should give you at least some relative idea:
Curiously it isn't. This thread has Model 3's with both Alcantara (or Alcantara-like) sunvisors and cloth roof, as well as cloth sunvisors (with Alcantara or like just on the mirror flaps), which suggests perhaps a transition is or was on-going depending on parts availability.
This isn't the clearest of images, but look at the left edge of the image where you can clearly see the cloth roof peeking beside the Alcantara-like visor:
Another car with cloth visors (with Alcantara-like flaps):
stevejust
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I'm really having trouble understanding how you think this is more than non-zero, when we know that companies like Porsche charge thousands of dollars to upgrade to alcantara. But let's say Tesla happened to find a micro suede provider that is cheap or comparable in price to this stuff that they've used in the base Model S and X headliner.
Okay, well then why is Tesla charging so much for the upgrade in the S and X? There's a few possible answers to this. Maybe it's simply because they can. Maybe it is because it is harder to work with, and so the cost of installation makes it better for Tesla to use.
But I think, given everything we know about this stuff, that it is cheap and not premium compared to the alcantara people thought they were going to get in their $5,000 PUP upgraded 3s. Don't you? I mean do you seriously want to try to make a cost argument here?
I mean, using Porsche option prices as a metric for anything is fraught. However, I'm not making any argument at all, merely speculating from a business perspective, if Telsa lost a supplier and needed a new one in a hurry, they might be getting a poor deal.
Also, they aren't putting Alcantara in the S or X anymore either.
You seem to think I'm trying to justify their poor communication. I'm not.
@Stoneymonster Then again, Tesla may have had this fabric lined up for non-Premium Model 3s already... and for Model S/X they definitely had it already for the base configs...
This is a flat out lie. There is no way on earth that Tesla, anticipating production challenges, planned in advance to change the headliner material after making just 2000 vehicles.
So dishonest. I guess its a good thing Elon is going to Mars. Maybe this makes sense on a different planet.
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