Yup, well Hyundai Kona Electric is the same price as a SR+. You can buy a tragically low volume $25k car that looks like a $25k car with Hyundai paint and a big battery or you can buy a Model 3 from a small new company with big plans.
Tesla are delivering 2500 cars in a month. How many did they sell in AU last year?
To be fair while I would always pick the Tesla even if the paint isn’t what it should be, it does raise some concerns about the quality and reliability of the whole car. When the car is delivered to customers with dead batteries, bubbling paint, unpainted surfaces, doors that don’t close, low brake fluid reservoirs and empty windscreen fluid, you start to fear how things will be in 3, 5 or 8 years. It is a legitimate concern and we can only hope that Tesla service is good by then to address issues.
My suspicion is that while they are aware they have major paint shop issues they just can’t fix them without taking it offline for a prolonged period of time. With the model 3 in production 24hrs a day and the company depending on every one made to survive they just can’t have the paint shop pause. Elon has mentioned in the past when they made black the default colour that this was in part due to the fact they can’t afford to have the cars taking too long at painting as it slows down the line.
The same probably applies to the rest of the issues. It’s a “keep going at all costs, stop for nothing” mentality in the factory as they’d rather have 100k cars per quarter delivered with large numbers needing fixing later than 50k perfect cars and go broke by next year. While I understand the philosophy, if it’s your $100k that buys the car it does make you *gulp* as to what you’re getting yourself into.