Questions on (long range) reliability, (winter) mountain trips

[Swiss_Martin]

Hi there,

I´d appreciate your comments on the following set of questions, which bother me.

Here my situation: I see free supercharging fade away and intend to pull the trigger on a MX before 16th Sept. I had hoped to see a 120 kWh version, but my impression is it won´t come any time soon.
My driving pattern is about 50 000 km per year; I plan to give up my two petrol/diesel cars and therefore need some long range reliability. I intend to keep the MX for a minimum of 4 years, that is 200´000 km plus.

1. Reliabilty: How risky is in your opinion to solely rely on on MX, with long range trips (in middle Europe, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia in my case). I hate the idea to get stranded, I hate the idea to have the car in long lasting repair efforts with an odd loaner replacement. How is reliabilty developping when you have done 150´000+ kms over time? Who can give testimonials? Tesla refers to the Amsterdam taxis, which get replaced after 300´000 km, but these vehicles just do city trips, where you always have your home garage around the corner.

2. (Winter) mountain trips: With a still somewhat thin supercharger network in the European Alps, can you still do skiing day trips? Well, I know it all depends from distance travelled, height climbed, temperature etc., that´s all clear. I´d like to hear from friends in Austria, Switzerland, Southern Germany ..., but also from other regions with similar set up whether they can do nice skiing day trips (without destination charging) or whether the car limited your habit of doing this. I know it´s a bit of a vague questions, but some user impression would surely help.

The other issues are just of minor importance: How do friends in Zürich/Bern park the MX in our multi storey park houses? I have to admit I had some difficulties with a MX (loaner). I have no idea why Tesla doesn't provide bird's view, would be absolutely necessary and helpful.

Interior build quality is still low, at least compared to German top brands; a 100´000+ CHF car and no coat hangers?; but I can cope with that.

And: As I need to use a referral code for the free supercharging I´d appreciate to receive a PN. I´d be happy to receive the wall connector, in case you don´t need it

Thank you so much for comments and answers!

 

[testarossa]

I don't have any answers. I'm in the same boat as you and will be take ski trips to the mountains in Colorado. My take is the opposite regarding an upgrade. Here in the US there was a massive dump of inventory model X cars, and the very fact that free supercharging is ending tells me that they are pushing to sell these cars before something new comes out in the pipeline.

 

[DoctorVenkman]

I don't have any answers. I'm in the same boat as you and will be take ski trips to the mountains in Colorado. My take is the opposite regarding an upgrade. Here in the US there was a massive dump of inventory model X cars, and the very fact that free supercharging is ending tells me that they are pushing to sell these cars before something new comes out in the pipeline.

Tesla has done the "free supercharging ending" stunt a couple of times. I wouldn't read too much into it. Another perfectly reasonable explanation for what you brought up is that they are trying to max the Q3 numbers. Elon has publicly stated Q3 will be profitable so they're trying to squeeze juice out of anything they can.

 

[MarkX100D]

The supercharger network is still building across europe and so it will only get better. The thing is, charging infrastructure is starting to be rolled out by all kinds of people and we will see more level 3 / 4 chargers springing up.

In Scotland, we have a supercharger up in Aviemore, which is one of our skiing areas, so bot so much of a problem but actually this represents the most northern supercharger in the UK and there is a lot more of Scotland above and to the west of Aviemore, so we rely on Chademo DC charging - which is really prevalent and adequate enough most of the time.

The great thing about the tesla is that it more or less doesnt care where the electricity comes from. Wall socket, rapid AC wall box, industrial 3 phase, DC - with the correct adapter it will work with all. You will likely find that most of the better ski resorts have good destination chargers.

As regards reliability, stupid stuff not withstanding, nearly everything i have researched says that the powertrain and batteries on a Tesla are in general very reliable and long serving (possibly the state of the art at the moment).

There was a good video of a dutch guy on YouTube with an early model S, he’s on around 400k Km, had the motor free of charge replaced around 200K KM under warranty. He only services the car every 80K KM! Otherwise the car has been sound. I think the show was RondjeKlok or some such.

You have a PM.

 

[cwerdna]

1. Reliabilty: How risky is in your opinion to solely rely on on MX,...

Model X was dead last at 10 Least Reliable Cars (covers only vehicles sold/leased in the US). In a prior year, Model X was middle of the bottom 10: https://web.archive.org/web/2016110...s.org/car-reliability/10-least-reliable-cars/.

FAQ on their reliability results at Consumer Reports' Car Reliability FAQ. Average problem rates at Car Reliability Histories. They used to require a minimum of 100 responses per model year to have sufficient data for that model year. Not clear about now.

Edmunds with their sample size of 1 in their long term test had a ton of problems. See 2016 Tesla Model X Long-Term Road Test - Wrap-Up under Maintenance & Repairs over 20 months and under 25K miles. From 2016 Tesla Model X Long-Term Road Test - New Updates, they got their car in April 2016.

Another data point, another co-worker who semi-recently bought a Model 3 had to take it into our local service center (he takes it to Sunnyvale) and said every single vehicle there in for service was an X. When he went back to pick up his 3 over 2 weeks later (for an admittedly minor problem), I asked him if that was the case again. He said yes.

 

[brd7]

1) I think switching to the Model X for a daily driver and lots of miles is the way to go. Since switching to the Model X, I have done more driving than ever, 17,900 miles in the first year (28,800km). It is just much more enjoyable to drive an EV in my opinion. It cost much less to operate for me. I have had a few minor issues, and Tesla Service has been great to deal with. Another thing about Tesla is that they do not wait for a next model year to improve something, they make the change as soon as possible.

2) There is some range loss with cold weather and running the heating, so that will need to be taken into account.. But as other people have said, the charging is only going to get better. I also use mine to go to mountains in Colorado and go skiing and it is great. The range of my Model X 100D means I don't have to worry about charging to get to my favorite ski area, but some of the others I would need to charge to get to, but I can just use the Supercharger network to get there. Also remember that on the trip home going downhill you will regen some power. For me that means most of the trip home is using very little if any charge at all due to the regen

In summary, my next car will be a Tesla Model X.

 

[cwerdna]

BTW, before someone slams me (and I'm guessing someone will), from Consumer Reports' Car Reliability FAQ

Your Survey Results Do Not Match With My Experience. Is Your Survey Wrong?
Even in the most unreliable models, some individual car owners are lucky and experience few or no problems during the 12 months covered by the survey. For example, in one of the worst models in our recent surveys, about 58 percent of the owners reported problems in at least one trouble area over the previous 12 months; of course, this means that about 42 percent of owners reported no problems. Your neighbor or friend might be one of those lucky owners. Of course, the opposite can happen as well—even in a model that tends to be quite reliable, there is an occasional "lemon."

Since the Average Number of Problems Is Small for Most Models, Is Consumer Reports Overemphasizing Differences That May Not Be Important?
Beyond statistical significance, we believe these differences are also meaningful to car buyers. We think that car buyers should expect a new car to be entirely problem-free in its first months or years of service. While the difference between a and a may be small, a pattern of several less-than-perfect trouble spots in a brand new car should be cause for concern and does not bode well for a model's long-term reliability. We have not yet seen a single model in our survey that is entirely problem-free. More than that, the Tesla Model X, which had the worst new car prediction score in the latest survey, is predicted to be about 12 times more likely to have a problem than the best, the Audi Q3. Those differences among models are important for car buyers to consider in choosing a car. We present these scores for trouble spots primarily to allow consumers to compare the relative incidence of problems among models. While there are no guarantees, you can improve your odds of buying a reliable car if you choose a model that has had a lower rate of problems in the past

I completely agree that it's an odds game. Nobody knows when they buy/lease a new vehicle whether their unit will be a lemon or completely problem free or where in between. One can improve the odds by choosing vehicles that have statistically done better.

Do also look at the average problem rate chart at bottom of Car Reliability Histories. It's very easy for the latest model year vehicle to have problem rates that say are 5% (picked this out of the air) or more for several systems (for most, the average prob rate is under 1% for a model year '17). That could easily take the whole vehicle into much worse than average territory. Yet, if you asked people anywhere or here about that system w/a 5% problem rate, 95% would say they had no problem w/that system.


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[Sandiegodoug]

There is a company based in Southern California, Tesloop. They only charge at superchargers and regularly go between San Diego and LA and LA and Las Vegas.
I see 2 of their x’s regularly at the supercharger here in San Diego. Both the ones I’ve seen have around 400,000 miles on them. The drivers say no issues
One car just had its battery changed
That was free since cars guaranteed 8 years unlimited miles. I have an x and plan to keep
indefinitely as never will put that kind of mileage on mine. They clean the cars while charging and I swear they still look new inside.