[lxn]

The quality of Tesla varies a lot depending on the factory in which it was built. The ones that came from the USA are probably the worst, especially at the beginning of a model. The ones that came from China are surprisingly better built. We own a Tesla Model 3 built in China, and I could compare the quality to what we drove during our multiple test drives, to what our friends got (built in the USA), and what I saw online. Our car had none of the issues reported by people with cars built in the USA. That explains, in my opinion, the different experiences you see online.

Media distorts the negative experiences, but there are a lot of Tesla owners for which Tesla was the first car. And those people tend not to report issues because they don't have something to compare. I heard about people who could not take delivery of the car because the trunk was not closing and opening properly, and they had to wait for the service to re-align it on the delivery date. For someone who bought a car before, this is hard to accept as "normal".

The quality is probably improving daily, but I would not dismiss any complaints as exaggerated by the media.

[fiddlerwoaroof]

I’m not doubting individual complaints, but I’ve noticed for basically every product that the people who are heard in public forums tend to be people who have a complaint while people who are content are often relatively under-represented in such places. And so, if your views of something are formed by reading reviews, you almost always form a more negative review of the thing than you would have if you experience it yourself. Add in various partisan attitudes about Teslas, and I’ve consistently found that the impression I got from reading about Tesla, Autopilot and FSD was significantly worse than the experience of using them.