
Tesla plunges in Consumer Reports' rankings - bdcravens
http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-consumer-reports-20161024-snap-story.html
======
toomuchtodo
[http://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability/car-
reliabili...](http://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability/car-reliability-
survey-2016/)

Can we get the LA Times clickbait title fixed (I suggest "Consumer Reports
Recommends Model S Again Following Reliability Survey; Model X Didn't Fare
Well")? And maybe point to the above direct CR source?

~~~
ceterum_censeo
[http://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability/car-brands-
re...](http://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability/car-brands-reliability-
how-they-stack-up/)

is a better link, since it has the actual table referenced by the article.

------
amluto
This isn't quite what the article is talking about, but the Model S itself is
decreasing in usability, too, in my opinion. One critical component of car
design is that all of the functions intended for use by the driver should be
operable with minimum distraction. On the Model S, most functionality is on
the touch screen, and, with the latest firmware update, almost all the
touchscreen controls auto-hide. So now, to access the controls, you have to
tap the screen to brig the controls back, wait a second or two, and then use
the (already fairly attentions intensive) controls.

Of course, Tesla seems to think that the driver doesn't actually need to pay
attention to the road...

Frankly, I miss the experience of driving my old Lexus. It wasn't fancy, but
you could control basically everything by feel without looking away from the
road.

~~~
greglindahl
I find that almost everything I want to do is (still) on the steering wheel.
If I want to use the touch screen, I tap it without looking to bring up the
controls, wait a second, and then they're in basically in the same place
they've always been.

~~~
asenna
> If I want to use the touch screen, I tap it without looking to bring up the
> controls, wait a second, and then they're in basically in the same place
> they've always been.

I've never sat in a Tesla but that sounds crazy. Why would they want to hide
everything away? Aesthetics?

~~~
greglindahl
A bigger map is the main benefit that I see.

------
pfarnsworth
I'm generally a TSLA bear, I think they're a money pit and will run out of
money, especially after that disasterous decision to buy SolarCity. I'm
currently short TSLA via puts because I think the SCTY purchase is going to
cripple both companies.

But there's something to be said about trying shoot for the moon, and trying
to build "the best car ever." I, in fact, do admire that all-in, ballsy move,
from a techie's perspective. And if it were limited in quantities, I'm sure he
could accomplish it, because there are some very amazing features in all of
Tesla's cars, however, I don't believe it's possible to mass produce reliably
in the timeframe they need, given their track record.

I just don't think from the point of view of a business, it's the right thing
to do.

~~~
beambot
Why actively trade against a moonshot -- Would you have done the same against
NASA for the moon landings...?

My understanding is that short positions are not merely passive; they can have
a detrimental effect (in aggregate) on a company's likelihood of success. Are
you really interested in harming the company (even if fairly negligibly for
you as an individual) in exchange for some modicum of personal financial gain?

Sorry, I just don't get it. Assuming NASA's $18.4B budget is split evenly
among 300M Americans... I'm paying ~$60/yr for NASA. I would gladly pay that
to TSLA even if it didn't have "good business prospects" as a way to push
forward humanity -- that it continues to have financial upside is just a
bonus.

In this world, we so rarely get a chance to "vote with our dollars" in a
meaningful way. The fact that some people have grandeur plans and work
tirelessly to progress humanity is amazing; that others just want to naysay
and profit off their crashes & burns... it boggles my mind.

~~~
ihodes
Buying shares of TSLA doesn't put money in TSLA's pocket anymore than buying a
PUT on TSLA takes money from their pocket.

~~~
mingmecca
Not directly, but in acquisitions the price of the stock does help in all
stock/part stock deals.

------
LordHumungous
Elon seems to think that innovation means vastly over promising, and then
expecting it all to work out via the triumph of his will, or something. It's
an attitude that reeks more than a little of arrogance, as if he's started to
believe his own bullshit a little too much.

------
Animats
Well, there's this little problem...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ7vqAUJdbE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ7vqAUJdbE)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoSNw_n1Xgk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoSNw_n1Xgk)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQkx-4pFjus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQkx-4pFjus)

Note that those are all the same design flaw.

------
DubiousPusher
Honestly with how much simpler Tesla's cars should be their position on
Consumer Reports' round ups has always troubled me. It's the main reason I'd
lean away from buying one even if I could justify it financially.

As a side note. I switched from BMW to Lexus a year ago and have been a much
happier car owner.

Edit: I'm going to retract this. Looking into Tesla guts a bit and some things
I thought would be much simpler actually get more complex like the cooling
system.

~~~
etimberg
Yes, overall, it is simpler but a lot of the complex electronics have to be
replaced if they break. None of it is really end user serviceable.

~~~
DubiousPusher
Yeah, reading up and this was an ignorant thought on my part.

------
WhitneyLand
How many Tesla insiders knew reliability would be poor before the first
customer picked up a Model X?

Certainly it was known by many of the key engineers, possibly some in
management, but the interesting question is did Musk himself know?

It's hard to believe he would knowingly tarnish the brand by delivering the
least reliable SUV in America to customers.

On the other hand, it was already _18 months late_ \- the pressure from all
sides to deliver must have been enormous, with people on the edge of burnout.

As a purist, it's easy to say hold out as long as needed and don't compromise,
but at some point it could have become a duke nukem forever scenario.

Pick your poison.

~~~
vgt
I think we're seeing Elon Musk's strategy of hitting the market early play out
here. Same thing is happening with "autopilot" \- the aggressive marketing has
clearly cost lives, but it helps Tesla in their future endeavors (for now, at
least).

By contrast, Google's self-driving tech is years and years ahead of Tesla's.
Google is not interested in going to market with this technology until it's
100% ready.

~~~
cyrus_
"the aggressive marketing has clearly cost lives"

Tesla has suggested the opposite -- that the crash rate when the car is on
autopilot is already lower than normal.

~~~
jayjay71
Tesla spun bad statistics to make that claim. They're comparing highway
driving to all driving, and highway driving is statistically safer. They're
also ignoring demographics, as Tesla owners tend to be affluent and older. If
you take this into consideration, it actually suggests that it's _less_ safe,
however with such a tiny sample size it's too early to draw any conclusions
from the data.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-
cage/wp/2016/10/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-
cage/wp/2016/10/07/are-you-safer-in-a-tesla-on-autopilot-as-elon-musk-says-
lets-do-the-math/)

------
otterley
The ambiguity in this claim made me chuckle:

"The amount of issues we've addressed with Model X has fallen by 92% in the
last 12 months..."

Does that mean their ability to fix existing issues has fallen by 92%? Or does
it mean that the number of outstanding issues has fallen by 92%?

Words matter.

~~~
jsprogrammer
I think it means: "For every 100 issues we had to address each day 12 months
ago, we only have to address 8 issues per day, today."

------
RodericDay
> "I think there was some hubris there with the X," [Musk] added, before
> reiterating that it was "the best car ever."

Musk sounds like Trump sometimes. Reminds me of this other line of his:

> Musk is a self-described American exceptionalist and nationalist, describing
> himself as "nauseatingly pro-American". According to Musk, the United States
> is "[inarguably] the greatest country that has ever existed on Earth",
> describing it as "the greatest force for good of any country that's ever
> been". Musk believes outright that there "would not be democracy in the
> world if not for the United States", arguing there were "three separate
> occasions in the 20th-century where democracy would have fallen with World
> War I, World War II and the Cold War, if not for the United States".

~~~
darawk
Personally I agree with Musk on the issue of American exceptionalism and
nationalism. Not that the US is without faults, but on balance I absolutely
agree that it is the greatest single force for good the world has ever seen.
Now you can take that as an indictment of the world or an exaltation of
America. In my opinion it's a little of both.

~~~
GuiA
Yeah, you and Mr. Musk are both entitled to your opinions, but unless you're
willing to expound in details about how one would measure exactly the
"greatest single force for good the world has ever seen", apply these measures
systematically to every major world entity history has seen, and show that the
US comes out on top, this is just basically 1am THC fueled dorm school debate.

~~~
meddlepal
Well we've had to save Europe twice now from destroying itself and possibly
the rest of the world. So we've prevented a heck of a lot more bad than we've
created IMO.

~~~
dragonwriter
By the time the US entered WW1, Europe had already destroyed itself, the major
belligerents were exhausted (or had already dropped out), and the war was on
the edge of ending anyway.

And, while the US contribution to the outcome in WWII was more significant
globally than in WWI, we absolutely did not get involved to save Europe from
anything, or anyone from Europe. It wasn't Europeans that attacked Pearl
Harbor.

~~~
terravion
That's a re-write of history.

The Roosevelt administration Congress has approved the Lend-Lease act which
meant active involvement in Europe with armaments, active naval combat in the
North Atlantic, and ground troops in Iceland. The US had started building a
'two ocean' Navy almost two years before Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was a
final gift to the Roosevelt administration's multi-year program of full
mobilization.

This program of support and mobilization absolutely was in response to events
in Europe and a desire to see the UK in particular not fall. Note that when
the US did enter the war, the Pacific was designated the secondary theater of
operations.

------
cheriot
"In retrospect, it would've been a better decision to do fewer things with the
first version of Model X," Musk said in February. "I think there was some
hubris there with the X,"

Says the guy that wants to fly a rocket to mars next? Musk is the news story
that I can't stop watching. Thankfully he's using that power for better ends
than Trump!

------
omarforgotpwd
"Yeah I really wanted a Tesla but then I read Consumer Reports. Yeah it's
still around. Anyway, I got a hummer instead." \-- Nobody, ever

