10 troubles with Tesla's ``leeks''

 "Consumers who buy Model 3 should control their expectations."

"Unlocking a rear seat heating, you will have to pay 2400 yuan, really unexpected." Tesla owner Xiao Zhang told Sina Technology. After entering the winter, sitting in the rear seats feels very cold, but if you want to be warm, you have to pay to activate the rear seat heating function OTA.

Tesla owners feel more and more panicked. On the one hand, they have to bear the stimulus brought by price cuts. On the other hand, if they want to experience smart driving and other basic functions, they have to spend more money.

"Is it worth buying this car now?" Many prospective car owners who wanted to buy a car all expressed such doubts in interviews. On October 1, 2020, Tesla announced the price cuts for the domestic Model 3 standard battery life version and the long battery life version. When the "wait for the party" was excited, it was delayed.

The senior car critic and chief content officer of the veteran driver , Han Lu, combined his Model 3 four-wheel drive high-performance version to comment on Tesla’s products for a period of 24 minutes. He believes that “consumers who buy Model 3 should Control your expectations".

Tesla owners have their own troubles

That is to say, on the day Tesla announced the price cut, Mr. Li, the owner of Model 3 in Nanning, encountered an annoyance. When he used a third-party charging station to charge his Model 3, the fuse was blown and he could only send it away. Maintenance, which delayed the trip during the National Day holiday.

"Big problems are not encountered, but small problems continue." Mr. Li told Sina Technology, such as battery decay. His Model 3 has been driven 8,000 kilometers since the car was picked up in May 2020, but the battery has decayed more than 20 kilometers. According to the cruising range of the Model 3 standard battery life version, it has been attenuated by about 4%.

The city where Mr. Li is located has only recently opened a second super charging station. Prior to this, he could only rely on third-party charging services. "I have never heard that using a third-party charging will cause the fuse to blow and the battery to attenuate faster."

Mr. Li’s friend, Mr. Wu, is a car fan. Although he is currently driving a petrol car, he has always wanted to buy a Tesla while working in Shenzhen. After Mr. Li's car was repaired, he took advantage of the National Day holiday as a guest to test drive this Model 3. "The acceleration is really fast, and the back feels very strong." After coming off the highway, Mr. Wu shared his test drive feelings.

But during the two-hour test drive, he also found a lot of small problems. For example, although the acceleration is fast, the faster the speed, the greater the wind noise; the brakes are too fast and there is no smoothness of the fuel car; the kinetic energy recovery plan is helpful. To extend the actual battery life, but it gives the driver a stronger sense of frustration from parking to starting.

"I scored 70 points, most likely I would still choose a fuel car, BMW 3." Mr. Wu told Sina Technology, as a new car company, Tesla's exterior design is indeed very beautiful, the simple design looks very clean and neat, but the vehicle The workmanship still needs to be improved, especially the wind noise during driving, which is really difficult to tolerate for a long time.

Also after the test drive, Zhu Da gave up buying Tesla and switched to a domestic brand. He told Sina Technology that after getting the new energy license plate and before deciding which car to buy, he first spent two days running to a certain brand's charging station and talked to several car owners. "Then I rented a car of a certain brand and went straight to Zhangjiakou to get a real driving experience."

After returning from Zhangjiakou, he went straight to Tesla's experience store in China Central Place and applied for a test drive. "I asked the test driver to drive on the Beijing-Tibet Expressway, and then speed up.” Zhu Da told Sina Technology that on the Beijing-Tibet Expressway, he found two problems. One was the wind noise, and the second was the suspension. The frame is too hard, and the speed bumps at the toll booths shocked my waist.

The day after the Model 3 test drive, Zhu Da placed a deposit in a certain brand. "After driving for a period of time, I feel pretty good. Of course, I have my own problems. For example, it has its own problems. For example, it is too slow to switch between video and map monitoring in the central control. But in terms of materials and workmanship, Tesla is really bad. ." Zhu Da emphasized to Sina Technology. A former Tesla employee told Sina Technology that when he drove a Model 3 out, he encountered the chassis guard detachment.

On October 23, after Tesla announced the recall of nearly 50,000 imported Model S and Model X in the Chinese market due to hidden front/rear suspension problems, Tesla was immediately exposed by foreign media, and it blamed the damage to the vehicle components Improper use for car owners.

After learning of this news, Zhu Da specially emphasized to Sina Technology, “At that time, I felt the suspension was uncomfortable on the speed bump of Beijing-Tibet Expressway. Fortunately, I didn’t buy it, so I didn’t end up saying that my driving posture was wrong and the suspension went out. Question." Zhu Da said.

The aforementioned Xiao Zhang, as a female car owner who values ​​beauty, really likes Tesla’s young and technologically-sense appearance design. For this reason, she gave up the beetle she originally liked and became a Tesla owner instead. A domestically produced Model 3 with standard battery life. I thought it was more worry-free in maintenance and other aspects, but I did not expect to encounter many embarrassing things.

The weather was cold, and Tesla just provided heating for the rear seats, but I did not expect to charge 2,400 yuan. "Unlocking a heated rear seat, you will have to pay 2,400 yuan. I didn't expect it." Xiao Zhang was a little depressed. "It's like buying a toilet back. If you want to use the flush, you need to pay extra. People feel very uncomfortable.” Xiao Zhang believes that either they should inform consumers of these functions before buying a car, and consumers can choose and pay for what they buy.

Compared with the above car owners and prospective car owners, Mr. Jiang's experience in the Tesla aftermarket is bizarre. Mr. Jiang told Sina Technology that he was one of the first Tesla Model 3 owners in China. He bought the imported long-life rear-drive version of the Tesla Model 3 and delivered it in March 2019. In July 2019, the paint was dropped from the rear of the car while driving, and the car was sent to Tesla's Shenzhen Nanshan Service Center for repair. According to the presence records of the insurance company provided by Mr. Jiang, the compensation amount for the car after the repainting was 2,800 yuan.

At the beginning of 2020, Mr. Jiang left Shenzhen and planned to live outside for a long time, so he sold this Model 3. Eventually, a friend I met expressed his wish to buy this car. He provided Mr. Jiang’s frame number to Tesla’s official second-hand car certification staff, hoping to estimate the value of the vehicle. Unexpectedly, the staff’s reply was “There was a serious accident in the front of the car in July 19, and the maintenance cost should be 10%. More than 10,000 yuan, which does not meet our company's certified second-hand car acceptance standards.

Knowing this result, not only Mr. Jiang, but his friends were also very shocked. He looked through the insurance records. There were two repair records. The first time was in July 2019. The amount of compensation was 2,800 yuan. The reason for the repair was that the rear end of the car had to be painted; the second time was in 2019. In November, the right side of the body was scratched, and the compensation amount was 4200 yuan. "It stands to reason that the repair cost of more than 100,000 cannot be paid, and there has been no accident in the front of my car." Mr. Jiang told Sina Technology.

Mr. Jiang approached the Shenzhen Nanshan Service Center, which was in charge of repairs in July 2019, to negotiate. The person in charge of the service center told Mr. Jiang, "The service center was originally a 4S shop for Maserati repair and maintenance. Because it just took over Tesla, the early repair needs The service center is relatively large. The service center needs to purchase Tesla parts in large quantities, so it uses the frame numbers of the owners, including Mr. Jiang, to purchase. That’s why Tesla determined that Mr. Jiang’s car had suffered a major accident."

"These are our routine operations." The recording file provided by Mr. Jiang showed that when he called to express doubts, the staff of the service center responded like this. The person in charge of the Shenzhen Nanshan Service Center and the staff of Tesla's official second-hand car certification said that this is a misunderstanding and will submit an email to the after-sales service department to help Mr. Jiang modify the repair record. However, the original buyer gave up buying a vehicle on the grounds of "decreased trust."

Until now, Mr. Jiang’s problem has not been resolved. "I don't understand why my car has become a major accident car." Mr. Jiang said.

The gap between Tesla's expectations and reality

 Although the price of Model 3 is attractive enough, as Han Lu said, "Consumers who buy Model 3 should control their expectations."

In an interview with Sina Technology, senior Tesla owner and founder of super charging station Chang Yan said that user expectations for Tesla can be divided into four levels, followed by quality expectations, performance expectations, and charging expectations. , And intelligent expectations.

Early Tesla owners, whether it was the P series, S, X series, or even the imported Model 3, spent more than 400,000 or even millions of dollars, using Tesla as the second car, and the first Vehicles are generally luxury models. They have certain expectations for the quality and driving texture of the vehicle, so the Model 3 is far from reaching their expectations.

In terms of performance expectations, the low center of gravity control brought by Tesla's pure electric drive is very direct, and the acceleration is very strong. For example, the acceleration from 100 kilometers is less than 5 seconds, which is much higher than expected.

In charging, Tesla is also constantly improving. Life of the vehicle, though not the top, but is satisfactory; and after Model 3 achieve delivery, rapid construction in China Tesla charging grid network in major cities have implemented coverage charging network.

The most disappointing thing is actually the expectation of intelligence. "Tesla's performance in intelligence is far below its own propaganda, users' perception of it and the level of price it should reach." Chang Yan said. On the one hand, many of the features currently promoted by Tesla are just gimmicks, and they perform very poorly on the ground, such as automatic parking and smart summoning, which are not very useful.

On the other hand, modules related to high-frequency interactions such as car machines, large screens, and on-board systems can be directly perceived by the car owner, but they are not done well, so these problems will be magnified as soon as they appear; while maps, music, and voice Controls and so on are only semi-finished products, barely able to be used, and the experience in most scenes is very poor. "Not to mention that the FSD (fully autonomous driving), which sells for around 60,000 yuan, has just begun testing in the United States, and the rewrite of the test to China is nowhere in sight."

There is a prospective car owner in Beijing, Mr. Gao, who likes Tesla very much and wants to buy a Model 3. After the price cut again on October 1, he almost had to place an order, but he heard that there might be a heat pump for the change, so he decided to wait.

"Why do you have to buy Model 3?" He was asked this question by many people. His answer is also very simple: "Because of the high recognition, the children on the street know Tesla. Compared with domestic cars, although the latter is better at the same price, it still likes Tesla. , It feels different.” The prospective owner told Sina Technology.

At the moment, many potential users agree with Mr. Gao's idea that Tesla has a very high brand recognition, which is also a plus for car owners. But many old car owners have already expressed doubts and even resistance to Tesla.

In a horizontal comparison, at the beginning, many people chose Tesla because they subconsciously believed that Tesla was superior to domestic brands. However, after spending a lot of money to choose Tesla, they found that many localized software experiences began to be equalized or even surpassed by domestic brands. This is also one of the main reasons why Tesla users are now unbalanced.

Chang Yan believes that, regardless of imported models such as S and X, Tesla's Model 3 is still one of the most worthwhile models in its class, but the so-called price-performance ratio will follow the localization of new domestic brands and brand recognition. Ascend and become weaker and weaker.

In addition, driven by the new infrastructure, with the improvement of China's charging network infrastructure, Tesla's advantages in charging and battery life will be leveled. "At the end of 2020 or early 2021, many domestic brands will launch more new localization features. Tesla is just a little bit close in this regard. I think this is a very big watershed."

Tesla owners who buy and enjoy early have their own worries, and Tesla, whose sales are steadily increasing, certainly has.