M3 look

[RodDavies]

When I first saw the Tesla Model 3 about five (?) years ago I was completely underwhelmed. It looked frumpy and ill-proportioned. Just odd. I recall thinking “that will flop”.

I was wrong on both counts. It obviously did NOT flop. And I now actually think it’s a beautiful looking car. It’s gotten better with age. All the subtle design lines are quite beautiful. It’s gorgeous.

BUT I do wonder, like every NORMAL Automaker, will Tesla ever roll out “new” model M3’s, not just new bumper or light designs, but new from the ground up? If so , at what sort of intervals, and what would that mean to resale values of the current shaped M3?

I’m about to order my first one, but just got to thinking “am I too late in this model cycle”?

Thanks

 

[phaheem]

Redesigning Tesla cars was discussed yesterday somewhere in Reddit. Apparently, Tesla has to literally shut down production to make relatively minor changes to their cars which, based on the current backlog and waiting time for their cars, would be a nightmare. Someone mentioned how when the Model S got a facelift, Tesla had to stop production for several weeks to retool their factory/assembly line. So that could explain why Tesla hasn’t made any drastic redesigns but minor enhancements

 

[derekmw]

And if you use the Model S as any base, they seem to care less about doing any major redesigns on their models. The Model S really hasn't changed that much since the first model in 2012. Pretty crazy.

 

[Knightshade]

Yeah Tesla philosophy seems to be if the car looks good now it doesn't magically stop looking good later- it's the same car.

They have done a couple of (relatively) subtle facelift changes on the S (and more substantial under-the-skin changes with Raven and now Plaid)

But they don't do the same types of traditional cosmetic change-for-sake-of-change stuff as legacy auto... and the long backlog of orders seems to suggest there's no need for them to.

 

[afadeev]

When I first saw the Tesla Model 3 about five (?) years ago I was completely underwhelmed. It looked frumpy and ill-proportioned. Just odd. I recall thinking “that will flop”.

I felt and thought just the opposite, but our subjective design opinions do not matter. One bit.
Sales #s and reservation backlog do. Those are the objective indicators of cumulative customer demand.

BUT I do wonder, like every NORMAL Automaker, will Tesla ever roll out “new” model M3’s, not just new bumper or light designs, but new from the ground up?

As long as sales are growing (ignoring supply chain disruptions like Shanghai plant shutdown) and reservation backlog is > 0, Tesla really has no incentives to invest into model redesign.
It's as simple as that.

Same goes for all other automakers. They ONLY reason they redesign cars is to rejuvenate the sagging sales.
If the sales and customer demand are not decaying, the vehicle models stay unchanged for decades: Wrangler, G Wagen, Sienna, etc.

If so , at what sort of intervals, and what would that mean to resale values of the current shaped M3?

Intervals are irrelevant and do not apply to Tesla.
When a redesigned model comes out with any vehicle, the resale value of the older ones take a hit.

I’m about to order my first one, but just got to thinking “am I too late in this model cycle”?

No, not at all.
Go for it!

 

[dmurphy]

I’m about to order my first one, but just got to thinking “am I too late in this model cycle”?

Thanks

If there’s one thing you can bank on with Tesla, it’s that they dance to the beat of their own drum. They don’t follow industry conventions or norms, nor do they spend any money on advertising. So, there’s no “Introducing the 2023 Canyonero … now with more cowbell!”

When changes are ready, they roll out.

So we could be with the current design for a year or 20 years - nobody really knows …. Tesla themselves included!

Congrats on the order and enjoy the car — you’re about to realize how backwards so many vehicles are today.

 

[DocHolliday]

I was not a big fan of the design when it was first introduced, but it grew on me, and it looks much better in person IMO.

 

[davewill]

Seems obvious that they will have to some day. How long they will wait is anybody's guess.

 

[Chattanooga3]

What something does is more important than what it looks like.

-Me

 

[refusedmd]

i can echo that initial impression -- i really didn't like the look of ANY of the tesla line but the model 3 has grown on me the most (i actually think its the best looking model).

 

[Jclboston]

I sometimes wonder if Tesla will be forced to make some significant redesigns sooner than they’d like due to increasing competition and variety of EVs. There are some increasingly interesting designs coming out from legacy manufacturers.

 

[RSpanner]

When Tesla build quality gets out of the gutter, when Customer Service improves a lot (communication,etc) then maybe they could think about designs and design changes. Just my opinion.

Tesla's build quality sees slight improvement in J.D. Power's 2022 Initial Quality Study

J.D. Power’s annual United States Initial Quality Survey was released today and revealed that Tesla’s build quality score actually improved since last year. In general, however, build quality suffered across the board this year due to supply chain woes, with only nine of the 33 ranked brands...

www.teslarati.com

 

[Knightshade]

When Tesla build quality gets out of the gutter, when Customer Service improves a lot (communication,etc) then maybe they could think about designs and design changes. Just my opinion.

Tesla's build quality sees slight improvement in J.D. Power's 2022 Initial Quality Study

J.D. Power’s annual United States Initial Quality Survey was released today and revealed that Tesla’s build quality score actually improved since last year. In general, however, build quality suffered across the board this year due to supply chain woes, with only nine of the 33 ranked brands...

www.teslarati.com

LOL...from your link

It would beat Volkswagen, Audi, Maserati, Volvo, and Chrysler, as well as Polestar

So...Tesla quality still scored higher than...most of the companies in remotely serious competition with it on EVs


It'll be interesting to see if they "officially" include Tesla in their customer satisfaction survey this year, given their unofficial score from JD Power has been at or near the top of all car companies for as long as they've listed them.

 

[afadeev]

So...Tesla quality still scored higher than...most of the companies in remotely serious competition with it on EVs

Not exactly.
Polestar (aka Geely) sucks the most, but Tesla has a LONG way to go to catch up to "average", let along industry leading.
I do wish they prioritized QC, but that's unlikely as long as Elon continues to micro-manage the company.

2022 U.S. Initial Quality Study (IQS)

TROY, Mich.: 28 June 2022 — In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, initial vehicle quality notably declined, according to the J.D. Power 2022 U.S. Initial Quality StudySM (IQS), released today. The disruptions caused by the pandemic—supply chain issues, record-high vehicle prices and personnel...

www.jdpower.com

 

[MaskedRacerX]

Yeah, when I first looked at the Model 3, I thought the front end was a bit "plain", and the cockpit area had kind of a weird ratio.

Then I sat in it, and saw the incredible view/visibility from the driver's seat (as a result of that large canopy) and realized, yes, this is awesome.

When other manufacturers started releasing EVs, in particularly, those with remnants of ICE designs, I also realized that the unnecessary front end grills, intakes (usually all fake), made so little sense, there is really an elegant simplicity to the TM3 front end.

Plus, if you want a little visual differentiation, the aftermarket has nice options for front lips, entire front fascia replacements, different rear wings, tons of wheels, etc.

 

[Knightshade]

Not exactly.

Well, yes exactly. I specifically said companies competing on EVs. Nobody cares how nice the interior is on a corolla when they're shopping for an EV.

Most of the companies that scored higher than Tesla produce little to no EVs at all.


VW is by far the nearest to actual EV "competition" and scored worse than Tesla- as did Polestar and Audi (a VW subsidiary that also has EVs)


Hyundai/Kia would be the only brand on that list with any real substantial EV output that beat Tesla... and even then their volume is like 10x lower than Teslas



The other factor here, and it's been discussed repeatedly elsewhere, is the IQS penalizes higher-tech cars because the survey is often answered by old people confused by anything that isn't the same knobs they've had for 40 years... this is why Dodge, a notoriously crappy brand, always tends to score highly here.

Any time you find dodge scoring higher than Lexus on anything related to quality you should dig a bit deeper into how they score it.


This is kind of subtly called out in the link itself:

Six of the top 10 problem areas in the study are infotainment-related

That's the "internet is a series of tubes" crowd being mad the dash controls changed in the last few decades- not an actual quality problem

 

[afadeev]

Not exactly.

Well, yes exactly. I specifically said companies competing on EVs. Nobody cares how nice the interior is on a corolla when they're shopping for an EV.
Most of the companies that scored higher than Tesla produce little to no EVs at all.

Are you kidding?

Genesis?
Kia?
Lexus?
Cadillac?
BMW?
Ford?
Porsche?
Nissan?

I will stop here before the list gets silly long. Virtually every OEM makes EVs now. You get the point.

This entire argument is silly.
We all know Tesla needs to improve manufacturing QC.
We (Tesla owners) all wish that they did just that.
Making excuses for Tesla by claiming "Polestar sucks more", while true, doesn't do us (Tesla owners) any favors!

The other factor here, and it's been discussed repeatedly elsewhere, is the IQS penalizes higher-tech cars because the survey is often answered by old people confused by anything that isn't the same knobs they've had for 40 years... this is why Dodge, a notoriously crappy brand, always tends to score highly here.

Common, folks, lets please stop making excuses for Tesla's sub-par quality.

'nuff already!

 

[Knightshade]

Are you kidding?

Are you?

Genesis?

How many EVs have they sold so far? (Spoiler: it's shockingly close to 0. And is exactly 0 among cars in this survey- they delivered their first bev in the US ever about 5 weeks ago- and they're only available in a very few states in tiny quantities- and based on the same platform as the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and the Kia EV6)

Kia?

I specifically called Hyundai/Kia out as the one exception-- but noted they still sell ~10 times fewer EVs than Tesla-- and honestly that's mostly on the strength of THIS years sales... if we stick to 2021 which is about as late as the survey would include, Kia only sold about 20k BEVs in the US, and Hyundai about 14k.

Lexus?
Cadillac?

Both of which sold zero EVs in this survey.

BMW?

They DO have an EV that might be in the survey-- the i3- Which is now discontinued... and they sold only about 1500 of them in 2021...another ~1500 in 2020.

So not 0, but damn close. (For contrast, Tesla sold roughly 2x that many EVs per day in 2021)

Ford?

The Mach E actually had sales suspended for quality problems...

Report: Ford to Stop Delivering Mach-E Models, Recall Looks Imminent | Edmunds

Ford has issued a stop delivery on specific 2020 and 2021 Mach-E models due to a safety issue that may cause the car to become immobile.

www.edmunds.com

Hilariously the root cause seems to be something Tesla ran into too... back in 2012, and fixed soon after. 10 years later Ford making the same mistakes.


But even then in all of 2021 they sold just over 27,000 of them in the US.... which represents less than two weeks of Tesla EV sales in 2021. So again, not really "competition"

Porsche?

They sold just over 40k EVs i 2021. (Think about how NOT competitive Ford is when Porsche is outselling them in this market)... But again that represents sales well over 20x smaller than Tesla in 2021. And all their vehicles in the space are well north of 100k.

Given their EVs cost significantly more than a Plaid Model S and are slower I'd sure HOPE the interior is nice!

Nissan?

They sell one EV total during the survey period. The Leaf. Same as their situation 10 years ago.

In 2021 they sold a whopping.... 14,239 of them. Not even as many EVs as Ford, let alone Porsche.

14k sales represents less than one week of Tesla sales in 2021.

I will stop here before the list gets silly long

The list was silly from the start

. Virtually every OEM makes EVs now. You get the point.

Yes, the point is you mistakenly think most OEMs make any significant volume of EVs.

That is factually wrong.


Or to put it another way... let's combine all of the BEV output from Genesis, Lexus, Cadillac, BMW, Ford, Porsche, AND Nissan for all of 2021.


It adds up to 0+0+0+1500+27k+40k+14k= 82.5k BEVs. Almost half of those from Porsche.

Tesla sold just a bit short of 1,000,000 BEVs in 2021. Over 11x more.

And if you exclude just porsche- where again most of their EV trims are well north of 100k- it's over 20x Tesla sales to everyone else COMBINED in that list.



Of all the "competition" you imagine exists, no legacy OEM, other than VW, managed to sell even 1/20th as many BEVs as Tesla did in 2021--- and most of VWs sales were overseas which the survey doesn't cover.




And 2022 isn't looking a ton better for the "competition" here either.

US BEV registrations in Q1 of 2022 for example-- Tesla was just under 72% of all of them at 113,882 vehicles.

Hyundai/Kia was #2 at 15,414... Barely 1/10th of Teslas sales.

Ford was next at 7407, barely 1/20th of Teslas sales- and mostly the Mach E that's now suspended and likely to be recalled.


After those you've got Nissan, VW, Polestar with a few thousand each... then Rivian with 701... and nobody else even managed to hit 500.

"competition"

This entire argument is silly.

It is, but for reasons other than the ones you were thinking





I notice you also entirely skipped over the fact that even JD power admits most of the "quality" issues were with infotainment.... which again is old people who scored Dodge near #1 because they haven't changed their cabin switches in 20 years and they don't understand this fancy new technology the kids are using.

 

[jjrandorin]

(moderator note)

I would like to ask that the direction of the thread be directed back to the original intent, which is "opinions on the look of a model 3, and If / when there might be a major refresh in appearance".

There always seems to be a large amount of passion to talk about "tesla QC" but there are other threads for that discussion.

Thanks

 

[afadeev]

Virtually every OEM makes EVs now. You get the point.

Yes, the point is you mistakenly think most OEMs make any significant volume of EVs.
That is factually wrong.

That's a strawman argument.
The number of vehicles each OEM has sold is entirely irrelevant to the initial quality assessment.
That variable has exactly ZERO relevance to this discussion.

I notice you also entirely skipped over the fact that even JD power admits most of the "quality" issues were with infotainment.... which again is old people who scored Dodge near #1 because they haven't changed their cabin switches in 20 years and they don't understand this fancy new technology the kids are using.

Excuses, excuses, excuses.