Teslas are bad cars. Here are a few reasons why.

The primary reason they’re bad is they’re made by a shitty manufacturer that sells a garbage product at luxury prices, so you get all the ownership inconveniences of a luxury vehicle without actually owning one.

So your basically buying something that requires expensive handmade parts that take ages to ship, has limited service options and could spend months in a shop for basic repairs but had the build quality of a Geo Metro.

This is why new Teslas often rattle, have serious wind noise issues and almost constant paint problems. It’s because the manufacturing is often rushed and generally inconsistent. Straightforwardly, whatever you think of their design they are often poorly built.

This is why, regardless of whatever press they get or the impression you get from Elon Musk defenders, actual owners complain about them all the time. A recent JD Power reliability survey ranked them last among all auto brands. 250 complaints for every 100 sold.

(Tesla refused to provide owner data for that survey, which was done by other means, so that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence they would have done better otherwise)

The design itself though is hardly stellar. You know what happens when you get a golfball-sized dent in the undercarriage of a Tesla? It’s totaled. Because the batteries are welded into that plate, so if the dent is too big to pound out you have to rip out the electrics to fix it

You know how to get out of a Model 3 if the electric system dies? Of course you don’t, because you can’t. Opening the doors on a depowered Tesla ranges from comically obscure to literally impossible depending on the model. A common reason to depower? A battery fire.

One of Tesla’s nasty little not-so-secrets. Years ago whistleblowers in the company let people know of serious issues with a battery coolant system that was prone to corrosion and leaks. The coolant itself wasn’t flammable. Until it dried, anyway. Then it was.

Tesla responded to this by smearing the whistleblowers and burying the issue, which its never been clear they resolved.

Tesla also makes grand claims about the autopilot systems. At least, they do when they’re selling them, playing it up like it’s practically a self-driving car. When they talk to state DMVs they very much describe them as “driver assistance programs.”

The autopilot system is little more than a clever toy, at worst lulling drivers into a false sense of security. It’s why Tesla is so quick to note the feature wasn’t being used whenever there’s a wreck. They want you to know it’s the driver’s fault their car turned into a bonfire

A lot of people while say of course, it’s a new car, a new TYPE of car, these problems will be resolved over time. But Tesla as a company has been around since 2003 and other, more established manufacturers produce all-electric vehicles without anything like this number of issues

Nissan has sold more of the Nissan Leaf worldwide than Tesla has sold all its models combined. The only story of one catching fire that I found was from 2015. A wrecked Tesla burned for 4 solid hours just eight days ago.

And yeah, those kind of fires are still rare occurrences. But it’s a rare occurrence other manufacturers have mostly resolved. But Tesla hasn’t. Because they don’t give a shit, and trust their cult-like level of hype to plaster over their garbage product’s problems.

And if you’re unwilling to admit there are problems they don’t get fixed, whether you’re an egomaniac CEO or a pack of devoted fanboys who want to justify paying Mercedes prices for a cheaply made gadget.