AnxietyRanger
Well-Known Member
@Spidy the plastic door sill has definitely changed over the years. I rented a 2015 for a month over the winter, and it is a much harder, cheaper feeling plastic than my 2017. I've owned an E55 Benz up 'til last year - and it's true that the high end Benzes use high end materials. But the Model S interior, honestly is pretty dang good with the exception of some stick-out sore spots such as the fake-chrome silver bezels. The new premium ventilated seats in my car look very, very upmarket. Personally, I think people confuse minimalism with poor quality. There are some parts Tesla should upgrade but overall the materials used on Tesla's 2016/2017 cars are noticeably upmarket from the early cars. The alcantara headliner is great, the alcantar dash is quality. The matte obeche wood combined with the light gray next gen seats and alcantara dash still makes people's jaws drop - it looks super tight. The X takes it up a notch further with a more "rich" or "quality" feel to the door sill - hard to describe but I think it's in the right quality level for the price - the S you can argue about.
I guess it is kind of telling, though, that out of the stuff you mention Tesla has already discontinued the ventilation part of the seats as well as the Alcantara on the dash. And on the SUV side, the Model X 5/7 seater's new seats don't exactly look upmarket compared to the old monoposts that actually kind of look(ed) upmarket...
The minimalism is perfectly fine, the design philosophy is not the issue IMO. But there are lackings on functionality and material quality that I would welcome fixes for - and the direction has not consistently been going up or improving, but going down in places...