[heavyset_go]

Unfortunately, manufacturers' interests are often not aligned with retail customers' interests.

For example, with Tesla, the company optimizes delivery numbers of cars sold by sacrificing quality control, and their service center model is anemic and almost an afterthought, especially when it comes to addressing the QC issues their customers experience.

For every Tesla with 400k miles on them with a few thousand dollars in maintenance costs, there are a dozen cars that are delivered to customers like this one[1] from today on r/TeslaLounge, with 17 blatant issues upon delivery that QC should have caught early on in the process. There are stories on that subreddit about customers having to wait months, without a loaner car, for service centers to fix their cars or to even get service centers on the phone about the status of their repairs and cars.

Dealerships act as an intermediary customer that can perform QC, repairs, customization, service, maintenance, reject deliveries etc that manufacturers choose to skimp out on.

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/TeslaLounge/comments/v3jkn3/update_...

[concordDance]

Due to non-random sampling, anecdotes are not evidence when it comes to a phenomena at this scale. Even four randomly sampled entries are better than 100 posts of people complaining if the latter are more likely to appear in your feed than someone getting theirs with no issue.

You need an actually random sampling of delivered Teslas to determine how extensive QC issues are and whether the average one can go 400k km with only $3k servicing. Also, they defects reputed to vary substantially over time (e.g. one model year might have 5x the rate of two years later).

[skolos]

> the company optimizes delivery numbers of cars sold by sacrificing quality control

How do you know this? Did you see their internal data? There are lots of anecdotes going around about Tesla's quality. However, with all the TeslaQ it is hard to believe that there is real correlation between anecdotes and data. Here are my anecdotes - I owned 6 Teslas over last several years. Not one of them had any QC issues. I had one service done because I hit tire debris and front break dust shield started making noises. Tesla fixed that for me quickly with no charge. As for the data - during earnings calls they mentioned that they do pay close attention to their customer experience data and they had period of time where service was lagging. But they started addressing this issue and saw improvements. The way they are growing I do believe they need to keep close eye on customer experience, but looks like they understand that themselves and use data to make sure they are on top of this. Unfortunately there's not much reliable independent data to have better understanding of this issue.

Add: The intent of my comment was to ask if parent info is based on specific data or just anecdotes. As an example, I gave my own anecdotes and mentioned that they are not reliable correlation to the data. Somehow the responses I've got are all about anecdotes, mine or others, also some personal judgement of my ability to appreciate cars or judgment of my life circumstances that required me to have these many Teslas. Can we get back to discussing the main point I'm making - do we have data to make any of these judgements?

[alexb_]

>I owned 6 Teslas over the last several years.

??????? Why on earth would you need this many Teslas? Maybe if you are buying so many teslas then it makes sense why you don't need them serviced - you barely give them enough time to wear themselves out!

[lancesells]

>I owned 6 Teslas over the last several years.

Isn't this also terrible for the environment? The resources it takes to make one car is a lot.

[joncrane]

I don't think the poster buys a Tesla, drives it for a few months, and sends it to a junkyard. I'm pretty sure that just because the other person stops owning it, the Tesla does not stop being useful to SOMEbody.

[lancesells]

Well clearly I understand that but I would think the less new cars being produced the better. There are a lot of cars sitting in used car lots.

[bombcar]

If you buy the latest and greatest and continuously upgrade to the next greatest it’s not that expensive; often cheaper than leasing.

[pc86]

Sorry there's just no way this is true. It doesn't even make sense. For this to be possible the loan payment would have to be less than the lease payment after depreciation. Even before depreciation this almost never happens without a huge down payment (which negates the point entirely).

[Thorrez]

Do you have data on that? I thought cars lose a lot of their value as soon as they drive off the lot.

And how long of leases are you talking about?

[bluGill]

Finance companies have a good idea of what a car will be worth after you are done with it. That is why they limit miles: they know the loss of value from miles and don't want to know lose money. Their goal is when the lease ends and you turn the car in the dealer pays the entire remaining balance and sells it as a used car. Dealers make more money from selling used cars than new (everyone knows what they pay for cars and won't allow any profit, but for used you don't know what they really paid for it).

When you trade in your car the dealer will give you an offer for your car. Depending on demand this may be higher or lower than what the lease company wants. When it is higher you win. When it is lower leasing would be better. Either way though, the dealer is pricing in a profit margin from selling your car, so if you don't trade in your car but sell it yourself you can get this profit margin in exchange for your time.

In the end it is about risk management. What will the car be worth in 3 years when you are ready for a new one? Nobody knows for sure 3 years in advance. Sometimes it will be worth a lot more than the lease company expects and so you win, sometimes it will be worth less and so you lose. If you don't trade your car in you probably will always win in monetary terms, though I'm not sure if it is worth the time.

[Thorrez]

How does sales tax fit in? If you buy the car, you have to pay sales tax on the whole thing right? I don't think that happens on a lease. And when you sell it, that buyer has to pay sales tax too right? And if that buyer is a dealer, then the next real customer has to pay sales tax again right? So sales tax reduces the liquidity and efficiency of selling cars, with no negative effect on leasing. This gets worse and worse the shorter the period of time. skolos owned 6 Teslas in several years, so this would be a big factor.

If you live in a state with no sales tax, then you avoid this problem.

[skolos]

Last two years used Tesla prices were higher than new ones. You need to wait up to a year to get new Tesla though. So you could actually make some money while driving newest versions of cars.

[Thorrez]

I guess it makes sense for cars that there's a shortage of but you're still able to get. In a normal market I don't think it makes sense.

Still, it probably would have been more profitable to keep driving just 1 Tesla, and sell the other Teslas as essentially new as soon as you got them.

[elif]

I did the math before buying in 2021, and leasing didnt make any sense.

the reason is that tesla price increases and backlog creates added value for aftermarket teslas.

As it happens, I can sell the used car i purchased over a year ago for more than i originally paid.

[alexb_]

Maybe it's cheaper than leasing the latest and greatest, but not everyone has an unlimited pool of money all the time, and the assumption that this type of purchasing behavior is in any way typical or representative of anything is absurd and out of touch at best, and purposefully misleading for the benefit of Tesla at worst.

[Dylan16807]

It looks like you knee-jerked pretty hard at that line, because they didn't say anything at all about their purchasing behavior being typical. They just said the QC was good on the cars they got.

And in general the issues I heard about were from-the-factory issues, so only having the cars for 1-2 years each wouldn't matter much.

[pc86]

Just because you don't notice issues don't mean there aren't issues. Tesla is widely regarded by "car people," both those who own them and those who don't, as having some of the worst fit and finish of any production car in the US. It's been that way since the Roadster. Here's a video review of the most expensive Tesla you can buy, by someone who rates cars professionally and rates it among the best he's ever driven, with paint flecks on the mirrors and other pretty egregious issues given the price point - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qen0ZlZM0ZA - and the video is less than a year old so it's unlikely given the long history of these and similar issues that they've made radical changes to their processes in the last 9 months or so.

[wumpus]

Paint flecks on the mirror? I'm dying.

[pc86]

Sloppy and chipped paint is pretty crazy when you're paying $130k+ for a car.

[bhauer]

> Not one of them had any QC issues.

Same in my experience, though it's not as extensive as yours.

It's surprising how often you see negative anecdotes about quality control amplified as representative of a larger trend. It often seems there is an agenda compelling many to work so hard circulating negative opinions.

[majewsky]

There is a much easier explanation: Disgruntled customers are always more vocal than happy ones.

[wumpus]

On reddit, it seems the most persistent repeaters of negative Tesla stories work in the car industry, and have never owned a Tesla.

There are definitely some disgruntled customers, too.

[cevn]

I'm here to chime in on having very few QC issues on my model 3 despite having gotten it in 2018. Not sure where all the service nightmare stories come from, every time I have dealt with them they've fixed the issue.

[elif]

yea i've had 2012 leaf for decade now, zero issues. i've had a tesla for over a year now, zero issues. From what i understand, if i do have an issue, i'll just have to push some buttons in the tesla app, and everything will be figured out for me.

I think a lot of the contrary voices are people scarred by ICE experiences and searching for comparable "gotcha boogeyman" to EV's to satisfy themselves with their current car situation, whatever it is.

[cuteboy19]

Dealerships are rent seeking entities that exist purely due to laws that force consumers to deal with them and only them. They are not in either consumer or manufacturers interest.

[refulgentis]

This is an extreme absolutist position that seems immediately falsified by the detailed and nuanced post it is in reply to

[cuteboy19]

If dealerships are so beloved by customers and so beneficial to them, why would they lobby so hard against customers doing business with manufacturers? They wouldn't need to if customers truly preferred them. Instead, Car salesman are despised even more than lawyers! Everything a dealer can do, a mechanic can do for cheaper. It's a ripoff and the law forces it to be a ripoff

[bluGill]

Because customers don't know what value dealers provide. They think direct would be better because they only see the negatives of the current situation and not the positives.

Which is really true for pretty much everyone in this argument on both sides.

[WorldMaker]

It's the lobbies that prop up the status quo because it has become very profitable, but it is easy to forget that the status quo exists in the first place as a series of compromises designed first and foremost for consumer protection against lemons.

[king-geedorah]

I whole heartedly agreed on this point but have grown to see another side of the issue. I don’t want to over glamorize it but in the north east car dealers have done exceptionally well, and often were the wealthiest people in the towns they serviced. A dealership in Pennsylvania recounted to me how the founder of the dealership more or less built the town square and at one pointed owned more than half the town. Now this may seem negative but the founder is long dead and the dealership now employees a several dozen locals all making very strong salaries, all with minimal educational requirements (just a bachelors cause it’s in vogue).

Overall I guess the point I want to make is even thought it is rent seeking (many industries are) this one seems to provide for so many communities all across America. I find it hard to believe that ford will pass up the savings to the consumers. We all know that profits will be returned to shareholders.

[TrickardRixx]

This only convinces me dealerships should be gotten rid of. That's a lot of money sucked out of the car buying process. I'd rather pay less to a manufacturer than pay for a dealer to own a town in PA.

[elif]

wow 17 borderline cosmetic opinions on a fully functional vehicle.

how dare they sell that vehicle.

Not to mention that when they bought it, Tesla gave the buyer the opportunity to reject it and have another specimen manufactured at no cost. they decided to keep it because it appears their vanity is literally only skin deep.

[heavyset_go]

Those are issues that would be caught by any competent quality control process, and that particular example is just from the top of the r/TeslaLounge page from a few hours ago. At any point you can log into spaces for Tesla customers and find dozens of stories of just like that one, or worse, when it comes to quality control or service center service[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11].

And you make a great point about the importance of rejecting deliveries, which is exactly what a dealership would have done upon inspection instead of forcing layman retail customers to do it free and to their detriment. We even have Tesla customers asking why other customers choose to take deliveries at the end of the fiscal quarter[12], because Tesla has a reputation of pushing out as many vehicles as they can in order to boost delivery numbers, even if that means delivering cars in poor condition. When quality and service is consistently that bad, you can't blame the customer for accepting a delivery of the car they spent tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars on.

Also, your comment goes against HN guidelines[13]:

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/TeslaLounge/comments/u9v1mo/off_my_...

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/rqie4g/gotta_lov...

[3] https://twitter.com/aprildawn78/status/1481450029462212616?s...

[4] https://old.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/nurlbg/my_model_...

[5] https://old.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/qzr5tx/how_is_th...

[6] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/comically-poor-deliv...

[7] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/my-first-model-3-exp...

[8] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/took-delivery-today-...

[9] https://old.reddit.com/r/TeslaLounge/comments/j59ovh/so_tesl...

[10] https://old.reddit.com/r/TeslaLounge/comments/smettt/terrify...

[11] https://old.reddit.com/r/TeslaLounge/comments/l0ownx/my_y_ha...

[12] https://old.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/j59dp1/tesla_own...

[13] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[elif]

it's also against guidelines to police comments in other comments...

This is my first time in 12 years on HN that mild sarcasm has been treated as confrontational. I hope you are okay.