this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
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Electric Vehicles
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So what are the odds that Tesla specially ordered and cherry picked the specific vehicles tested? With such loose part tolerances and god-awful welds spotted in the wild, I expect they made damn sure the test samples were built "right" without providing an accurate example of normal build quality.
Not really an allegation, more an opinion and supposition. Tesla build quality is widely recognized to be inconsistent at best, and frequently just bad, and Tesla has acted in bad faith often enough that there's no reason to flatly assume they're going to act in good faith now. The question is whether or not safety tests are conducted with vehicles selected and provided by Tesla for the specific purpose of safety testing, or if they are acquired anonymously with no stated purpose.
It might be a safe car, that's entirely possible, but with so bloody many problems with build quality, a "near perfect score" deserves to be examined more closely. If they can't even keep their construction consistent, I don't have any faith that the crash performance would somehow be consistently near perfect. The question is whether the car is "near perfect" when it's built Right, or whether the one you get will be up to the same level.
I haven't really made any secret of not liking Tesla, any more than you have of liking them. Bias is integral to the human experience. Welcome to the Internet, you're gonna hate it here.
I have not, and am not saying that the cars are not safe. I'm also not saying that the tests didn't find what the tests found. I am questioning the scope of those results. I am questioning the methodology of the tests and their vulnerability to tampering, on the grounds that it is both not inconceivable that Tesla would tamper with the test sample, and that evidence shows the build quality of Tesla vehicles is itself inconsistent. Panel gaps are sloppy, but probably not going to seriously hamper the safety of the vehicles. However, shoddy, amateurish welds are another matter. It's not difficult to imagine shitty welding of the frame changing crash performance.
I would be satisfied with explanations of how the tests acquire their sample vehicles and how their methods prevent Tesla from carefully ensuring those specific vehicles were actually made correctly instead of to a more typical quality. I would be similarly concerned of any auto manufacturer that had such a widely documented recent history of inconsistent and poor build quality, but to my knowledge that has not been a concern in any other modern auto maker.
I draw the line at NOT just blindly accepting those results until inconsistencies are addressed. Until then, the most those tests really say is that some instances of the Model Y, at least the most ideal candidates, are safe vehicles. There is still value in that result, but it doesn't mean the vehicle a consumer goes out and buys today is reasonably guaranteed to have the same "near perfect" safety rating as demonstrated in those tests.