How Happy Are You With Your Tesla?

[AnxietyRanger]

That’s complete BS. Most owners love the company and the cars.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. We'd need more studies.

However, my point is: even those who don't love the company often do love the car. And as a separate issue even many who have massively more quality issues (or missing feature issues) with the car than they usually do with other cars, often love the car.

I'm one of those people and I do see others here.

Whenever something has gone wrong in my Teslas, I take it as a part of the experience and laugh it off. Whenever a feature I'm used to is missing, I'm far more understanding of it than usual. That's love for the product.

And that's why I genuinely mean I am 100% happy with it. It was a great purchase IMO. I voted accordingly.

I'm sure there is a limit when I'd stop loving the car, but the limit is much higher than usual.

 

[Zextraterrestrial]

That’s complete BS. Most owners love the company and the cars.

....and the many problems associated and countless hours/days(weeks) of fixing them

and I still love my child (ahem...I mean car)

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Parenting is an interesting parallel. Many parents are 100% happy with their children even when they really are not.

 

[Zextraterrestrial]

Parenting is an interesting parallel. Many parents are 100% happy with their children even when they really are not.

I gave mine a 90% due to all the hospital trips

 

[RogerHScott]

Parenting is an interesting parallel. Many parents are 100% happy with their children even when they really are not.

I've been very disappointed with the warranty service...

 

[AnxietyRanger]

I've been very disappointed with the warranty service...

And the residuals are terrible...

 

[dmode]

I love my MS. Best car I have owned. I came from a BMW X5, and I am not even a EV guy. Drove 20,000 miles during my first year of ownership. Put 500 miles on my other ICE car in that period.

 

[dmode]

Amazingly, even in this forum poll 90% people rated 90 and above. As someone who is on this forum daily, I didn't expect that

 

[Maximilien]

My another complaint just popped up in my mind is FSD. Back in October 2016, this sold me to go impulsive and open my wallet.
The idea of driving fully by itself was unparalleled to many other cars, and I hope Tesla surprises us in the first half year of 2018.

Fortunately I did not prepay the FSD. Still keeping 90% satisfaction of my vote above as there is no car brands that are willing to be as innovative as Tesla.

 

[jerry33]

Amazingly, even in this forum poll 90% people rated 90 and above. As someone who is on this forum daily, I didn't expect that

People who post, generally post about problems. You can check any automotive forum (or any other product forum for that matter) and confirm it. Most folks are pretty happy, a few folks have had some serious problems, and there are a few trolls, haters, and shorts. So every issue gets magnified.

 

[NewTMSMan]

People who post, generally post about problems. You can check any automotive forum (or any other product forum for that matter) and confirm it. Most folks are pretty happy, a few folks have had some serious problems, and there are a few trolls, haters, and shorts. So every issue gets magnified.

OK I have read a number of people post this about other car forums being full of complaints too, so I decided to just check a few I have participated in over the years and simply run a search for the word "Lemon". Here's the results:

Tesla Forum - About 1,000
BimmerFest - 992
RennList - Porsche Forum - 433
Corvette Forum - 492

Now of course you need to take into account number of vehicles sold, but easy to see without pulling any data that there is a much higher number of posts about Lemons per vehicle on the road in Tesla forums compared to others. I did pull Corvette sales data, which is very close to Tesla total sales over the time period of 2012 to Now and you can see even the Corvette has a much lower percentage of posts about Lemons compared to Tesla.

I know this is not a scientific study, but indicates a higher number of posts about Teslas being Lemons compared to other vehicles in the forums.

 

[jerry33]

OK I have read a number of people post this about other car forums being full of complaints too, so I decided to just check a few I have participated in over the years and simply run a search for the word "Lemon". Here's the results:

Tesla Forum - About 1,000
BimmerFest - 992
RennList - Porsche Forum - 433
Corvette Forum - 492

Now of course you need to take into account number of vehicles sold, but easy to see without pulling any data that there is a much higher number of posts about Lemons per vehicle on the road in Tesla forums compared to others. I did pull Corvette sales data, which is very close to Tesla total sales over the time period of 2012 to Now and you can see even the Corvette has a much lower percentage of posts about Lemons compared to Tesla.

I know this is not a scientific study, but indicates a higher number of posts about Teslas being Lemons compared to other vehicles in the forums.

I'd suggest that there are fewer people who have a grudge against conventional car makers. There's a profit motive in shorting Tesla.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

I'd suggest that there are fewer people who have a grudge against conventional car makers. There's a profit motive in shorting Tesla.

I'd suggest there are probably more people with a grudge against conventional car makers than there are even Tesla investors in the world. A simple numbers game, really...

I know the shorting angle is a popular myth on TMC, but IMO it is more a myth these days than anything else - regarding TMC reports. Some Seeking Alpha may be different, but TMC... Pfft. IMO 99% of the time the reports, comments (at times even rumors) posted here are accurate (in the sense that the report is real, not necessarily that the poster gets all the facts right) and the doubts about shorting turn out to be false.

It is a self-feeding loop: people doubt negative posters of being shorters, so they see shorters everywhere, so they call out shorters everywhere, rinse and repeat. In reality, most of the people bothering to post on TMC are just normal imperfect owners and followers.

I can believe this was different in the early days. But I don't see any supporting evidence these days of a widespread phenomenon, nor does it make logical sense since TMC really isn't affecting the stock anymore.

 

[purplewalt]

My Model S is not perfect -- no car is.
But pretty durn close.

I would give it as high as 95%, so voted for 90%.

 

[cwerdna]

I'm surprised that Consumers Reports published these results. The magazine is so negative on Tesla that these results confirm my opinion that Consumer Reports is a worthless source of information for any product.

For owner satisfaction, they are merely reporting on what the responses were. Ditto for reliability.

What would you expect them to do? Just leave off Tesla? Or leave them off when satisfaction is divergent from reliability ratings?

From 10 Most Satisfying Cars

To learn about satisfaction, CR has collected survey data from our annual survey on more than half a million vehicles. Our subscribers provide great insights into their satisfaction by answering one simple question: If they had it to do all over again, would they definitely buy or lease the same model? In addition, respondents also rate their cars in six categories: driving experience, comfort, value, styling, audio, and climate systems.

From this data, we find that the vehicles that lived up to their promises—and their owners’ expectations—are rated as the most satisfying.

Until recently, they didn't have people rate on their 6 categories at all.

I have the Feb 2018 issue in front of me. Tesla Model S and Porsche 911 have the highest owner satisfaction score of 92. Model X has an 88 and is the highest in the "luxury midsized & large SUVs" category. (Model X is dead last at 10 Least Reliable Cars.)

There is little correlation with reliability results and owner satisfaction results. And there are several criteria that must be met for CR to recommend a vehicle, one of which is at least average reliability (for which the Model X is WAY below that, being dead last). See Guide to New-Car Ratings and Reviews | Consumer Reports under Recommended.

Back to satisfaction:
From Nov 2013: Tesla Model S Takes the Top Spot in Consumer Reports Car Owner-Satisfaction Ratings
From Dec 2014: Car Owner Satisfaction Ratings - Consumer Reports
From Oct 2015: Tesla Reliability Doesn’t Match Its High Performance

Despite the problems, our data show that Tesla owner satisfaction is still very high: Ninety-seven percent of owners said they would definitely buy their car again.

For 2016: Tesla crushes Consumer Reports Owner Satisfaction ranking again – 91% would buy again, 2nd and 3rd at 84% and 77% - I don't have the numbers, but Elon points to a 97% CR satisfaction score.

Some of what Consumer Reports Responds to Tesla’s Complaints on Reporting, Research and Reviews points out is what some you are doing, conflating!

Tesla seems to misunderstand or is conflating some of what we fundamentally do our Annual Reliability Survey report and the related predictions versus our car reviews and tests.

First, Tesla appears unhappy that CR expects the new-to-market Tesla Model 3 to be of average reliability, which is generally a positive projection for any first model year of a car. This expectation is based on CR’s 2017 Annual Reliability Survey, measuring the dependability as opposed to the satisfaction, of more than 300 car models, model year 2000 to 2017, using the responses of individual owners of more than 640,000 vehicles. We provide this information to help people make informed purchasing decisions as new products reach the market.

You really need to separate out various things such as owner satisfaction survey results, reliability results (from owner surveys) also resulting in predicted reliability and road test score. Teslas Model S and X, so far, clearly do well on owner satisfaction.

Model S has done VERY well in CR's road test scores (e.g. Video: The Tesla Model S is our top-scoring car and Tesla Model S P85D Earns Top Road Test Score).

Model S reliability has been a mixed bag. Model X reliability has been terrible, so far.

 

[NewTMSMan]

@cwerdna I think you have this perfectly correct.

Wish they had data on what alternative car people would consider as I suspect for many there are no real options and so when asked would they buy again, many say yes. I know of one recent example of someone getting a buy back on their Model X (No not me ) and is planning to order a new one as no other car on the market fits what they need like a Model X.

 

[eMotionRentals]

Amazingly, even in this forum poll 90% people rated 90 and above. As someone who is on this forum daily, I didn't expect that

I've got one of each now (Roadster, S, and X). I gave Tesla 80% in this thread's poll, and that is largely due to service problems and lack of parts availability. Problems include: (1) scheduling service for a set day, bringing it in, and having the service department actually not start working on the car until several days later. (Don't schedule me for Tuesday if you're not going to work on it until Thursday!); (2) I've been waiting on a replacement door for my X for about two months. Unacceptable for any car company, but particularly for a car that costs over $100,000; (3) service staff that are not terribly friendly or helpful (at least here in the DC area).

One other area I have some issues with is their software. They have no password-protected user identities nor car settings. I would like to allow other drivers of my cars to adjust some settings but not others. I also want all my settings keyed to my ID so if anyone changes settings, radio favorites, or anything else on their driver profile, it doesn't affect mine. I also want guest access to the Tesla App. I need to be able to send an invite for guest access, then revoke that access later.

I love the cars, but I hate the service and repairs. They need to do better. And I haven't noticed a big difference since they rolled out their service improvements either.