I also find that a very weird measure, especially when you want to report on the quality of said vehicles. It'd also be interesting to know what kind of problems customers face. A not perfect paint job is annoying, but its certainly not as bad as motor problems in the early beginning. I cannot prove this with numbers from the study, but I'd also assume that, depending on the car the customer buys, he usually has a diffferent idea of what can be considered good quality or not. I know people who were annoyed because the stitches of their drivers seat were off by a bit. On the other hand I know Ford owners that lost buttons on their infotainment unit and just hot-glued them back in. But as you said, just reflecting on the initial impressions of a vehicle doesn't say anything about more important measures like long term reliability, TCO etc. Having a study evaluate the problems a vehicle sees within the first 75.000km would be a lot more interesting and would also allow better conclusions.

However, this study proves the several reports of automotive journalists around the world. Most people considered the Tesla vehicles decently good, but not matching the price tag Tesla puts on them quality wise. During the Model 3 production hell the quality problems became especially apparent with completely misplaced side-panels, the worst paint jobs I've seen on a mass produced vehicle among several other issues.

Now if you also read the same you will find the Chinese side of Tesla apparently has an entirely different outcome. Their quality is superb with workers across the plant invested to the point no one wants to embarrass another. So what to do US side? Having had friends and family in the industry where they worked the line you get the same issues you have in any business. There are those who are just there to punch a clock and it is always some other person's job. Please don't try the tired retort of pay, myself and I am sure others here can attest to having worked with people who pay isn't going to fix them.

Well if Tesla cannot insure the people at all stations on the line think otherwise they need to invest heavily on the end of the line and make sure that their delivery centers have no reason to ever have to work on a customer's car. Those employees must be able to fail a car without question. The only acceptable issues at that point would be damage during transit.

I know my next EV will not be a Tesla, they have nothing in their pipeline I want; well let me be honest nothing I should buy but that truck is obnoxious enough to just have; and another fear is they are not concentrating on quality.

Other car manufacturers have managed to create production lines that churn out high quality vehicles every 90 seconds (or better) for decades now. When it comes to these fit & finish issues, panel alignment etc etc there is no excuse for Tesla not being able to reach the same minimal quality bar.

Even if this were the case, that prospective consumers didn't care about paint quality and panel fit... then what's the problem? Why should Tesla focus on a problem you say nobody cares enough to buy a different car over?

Tesla seems to be unable to do any of this.

We can also say that people who educate themselves on the brand first, go in knowing that there will be inconsistent gaps and possibly other problems as well with their brand new vehicle. Most will want the vehicle regardless and bet on Tesla Service being able to fix the issues at one point or another (ie when Tesla figures out why certain parts are not working as expected and create replacement parts to fix them).

The problem, from an outside perspective, is that Tesla is operating as close to the bone as possible on costs, so the accepted variances in manufacturing are larger than what Ford or Honda would have due to the economics of scale.

I don't want to say that this is necessarily a worker problem, because at the end of the day, when a vehicle rolls off the assembly line, (I'm assuming) Tesla has quality control people to verify the vehicle is meeting their requirements, so these are the people who are either not raising the flags on production, or the variances are "acceptable", which is what I think it tends to be. To create tighter variances usually means slowing down the process, which in turn will reduce the number of vehicles leaving the plant, thus lower sales, etc.

I have no doubt, in years time, Tesla's quality of build will improve. But as a recent video review I saw on a Tesla vehicle said, "if you have OCD, you might not want to buy a Tesla."

Yes, but I don't blame my coworker, but the boss who hired them when I'm doing more work for the same pay. You're implying what, that Chinese factory workers have a better work ethic than American ones from your empirical review of Reddit formus/Internet, which may not be entirely unbiased.

I up-voted your comment due to your succinct comment about how newspapers 'hide' their sources. It seems totally unnecessary to me and not how the internet is supposed to work. If every news article linked to the original press release then we would see what a sham it is - a 'Chinese Whispers Game'.

After voting your comment up I then remembered the time I got called out for using the phrase 'Chinese Whispers'. A guy on my team who was ethnic Chinese but with a fully developed sense of British humour had called me out. He wasn't entirely serious but he did ask me why I used the phrase, by which time the penny dropped that he was Chinese and that I was in a spot of bother!

In America they have 'The Telephone Game' which means the same as 'Chinese Whispers'. This is all well and good, a drop-in replacement phrase, however most British people have no idea what the Telephone Game is. Chinese Whispers is a phrase that a British child can understand even if they have never met a Chinese person or played the game before.

There is nothing on your linked Wikipedia page about how the phrase 'Chinese Whispers' might be considered harmful. However, after the one time I was confronted partially in jest about the phrase, I would recommend using the phrase sensitively.

FWIW, in my experience, the New York Times almost always links to the original source.

Newer Volvos (since being acquired by China) have had notoriously bad reliability, and as far as I know, this is established. An anecdote: a couple each purchased a certain Volvo model (same car), one turned out to have severe engine problems, while the other was fine. Turns out that the problematic car was made in China, whereas the other was manufactured in Europe.

Kia and Hyundai have really stepped up their game recently. Excellent value, safe and reliable cars, and very good quality, so I'm not surprised there.