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Maybe my standards are too low. After all, I haven't owned
any serious luxury cars. No Bentleys, not even a Lexus.
When the salesman said "But Mr Fernand, you must
understand, this is not an average car, this is a Lexus",
I burst out laughing. Poor simple me, I thought a Honda
Accord LX was a very well made car. And, as if to viciously
prove me right, 14 years later, it's only needed brakes,
batteries and tires. And the leather seats are perfectly
nice. And it looks pretty good.
So, maybe although it's the most expensive car I've ever
bought, I'm just ignorant. I'm not out there on my Model 3
with a micrometer, checking panel fit, or craning my neck
under all its armpits looking for paint misses, and telling
everyone about QA problems. Like I would be, if I were a
proper luxury car connoisseur.
.
They absolutely are and everyone should expect the car they work hard to pay for to on pickup be in perfect shape. Just like the ones on the website at point of sale. Why should this be the case.. well because each of those cars before they leave the factory not only should have gone through various points of inspection but also a last one at the finish line. Is it a pass great put it on the ship is it not OK send it to ex place for a finish-up and assessment. Then you can even give the customer a digital document to show it was checked over. Common problems would be logged with an actual incentive to fix it higher up the production line. Vs current methods of if on average 2 out of 10 cars do not have paint defects or trim put on wrong or seats that don't align on our new flagship model Y then that is just OK to pass onto the customer.
If this method of passing it on is the new normal then a disclaimer should be put at the point of sale so that customers know what they potentially getting into. As in you are buying a beta car and over the next 10 years we will try to fix our production issues this decade as we failed to in the last. Don't hate me the Y shows its still happening.
You see this is my second new car in a year but it does give me an insight into how a different company with the same value car compares. I bought a Kia Eniro last year. At the point of handover it was wonderful because when I picked it up from the showroom it had been given a total check over even by the mechanics to make sure it met their checklist. Yes that is all it is a checklist of regular checks for a new car to handover to the customer so that he drives out and down the road and gets what I call a new car experience. Granted its charging and motor fault while I was out in France certainly ended that quickly but you see what I mean with the difference? "Your car has arrived (Friday) it will be ready for you to pickup Tuesday once we have registered it and it has passed our checks." This is the huge difference and in Tesla's vision of getting you a car quick and changing the industry for more efficient delivery fine. BUT.... just do the right thing before hand and all those great people who work hard at the SC wont have to be dealing with 90% production issues. Customers wont have to wait a month or more to get starting fixed with free slots to book and Tesla would have the best quality reputation which I am sure Elon Musk would damn well want to happen. What if they painted the falcon 9 like that or put a boot seal on totally wrong vs did the same on a booster?
Fernand is not ignorant! in fact he had little wrong with his 14 year old car before he bought his most expensive car a Tesla. 14 years ago.. Of course you would expect better. I agreed I am not out there with the micrometer but you should not be dealing with blatant issues day one. It is not going to remove everything as car is complicated and parts go wrong and that is just how it will always be unless a model 3 was built like a NASA rover over engineered. All this company needs is to invest in a little buffer, a QC at the factory or destination country and not worry about if a customer has to wait a bit longer because I am sure 99% of people would wait a few days to pickup a trouble free car and actually the odd person feels surprised to find something because "Tesla's finish is usually so good amazing how that slipped through the net"
I didn't get lucky, still 9 months on going through the process I have to arguing paint thinning issues and such. But I wish it better for people in the future because word travels damn fast. Tesla is groundbreaking, technically untouchable at the moment and has pushed forward a necessary way for us to travel on electrons to save our planet, now add quality to that please.