October 2017 Consumer Reports Review

Their no discounting policy is my most respected aspect of Tesla.

Reading every new post on the pricing thread here doesn’t make me feel good about my purchase. A price should be set in stone. There shouldn’t be so much opacity and haggling to “discover” how low someone can go. It’s an all around awful experience that I won’t ever do again. First and last time I purchase a car from a dealership.

 

Did you buy a salvage title car?
The reason I ask is I have never heard of anyone with as bad an experience as yours.
We have had afar better reliability and service experience as you.

As for the software, they have changed the driver's console layout once between 2012 and now. Likewise, I also have not seen information removed from it more than that one time.

Our experiences with the service centers in Minneapolis and Los Angelos have been stellar. We have never experienced better customer service than we did at each of those service centers.

Don't get me wrong, it has never been as reliable as a Prius. But as for me and the couple dozen owners I know personally, your experience seems an aberration. I am sorry you have had such a rough time with it.
If your experience was not so uncommon, they would not have the satisfaction score they have.

As for the issues we have had with ours.
Our first model year (2012) signature edition had the following issues:
Door handles replaced.
Battery pack replaced due to faulty sensor.
Drive motor replaced twice.
Center console screen replaced.

This was all within the first 18 months and all under warrantee. I spent less time taking care of these than taking care of the oil changes in our 2008 Prius.
As for the 2015 Model S, our list of issues wiith it is much shorter... zero.

 

We purchased the car new. Our production number probably isn't too far off from yours, in fact.
I'm kind of disappointed how the first sentence of your reply seems to be something of an attack (suggesting that I may have purchased a known-bad car and am complaining without basis), which is something that I also feel is common in the Tesla owner community.

As for your statement regarding the console, that is demonstrably false. You may not have noticed it, or it may not have been "important" to you (two techniques Tesla owners seem to like using to hand-wave off these complaints), but these changes are quickly google-able.

V6: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/532a4459e4b086acfd602816/t/533b6bc0e4b0aea39167f244/1396403218447/Tesla-Model-S-gauges+%283%29.jpg

V7 (date removed, battery info moved and made much smaller, graphs have less resolution, different trip info displayed): http://cdn.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_5835.jpg

V8 (gauges moved around - I will admit I haven't upgraded to 8 since I'm going by Tesla's own images from their emails and I don't want even more stuff moved around): https://www.tesla.com/tesla_theme/assets/img/features/software/autopilot-dashboard-imperial.jpg?20161213

In any case, I feel like this is going to devolve into some sort of pointless offtopic internet arguing and this thread should be about the Consumer Reports review of the 2017 Prius Prime.

 

My apologies, it was in no way meant to come across as an attack.
I asked about the salvage title simply because of the number of issues you had. I had one of the first couple of hundred built and didn't have near that number of issues.
Other than that one change for AP cars, I don't recall any others, that caused a loss of info. I'll review the links you provided, I may simply not recall.

 

the freezing doors seems like a major issue, or is it just a one off?

 

I live in Minnesota, land of winter. Through seven winters, 1/8 inch of ice, I have never had doors frozen shut.

 

Reliability ratings can give an impression that each car of a model can have a few problems, when the reality might be closer to several cars have no problems with one having many.

 

it's not a very good system, but it's all we have.

 

That is why it is called an average, and why large data sets are valuable.

 

Totoya did indeed had two EVs at one point before discontinuing them. The Scion Qi and the RAV4 EV. Toyota use to own a small stock of Tesla given that the RAV4 was a joint venture project between both Toyota and Telsa. Last year Toyota ditched Tesla like a hot potato and sold back it's shares.

 

The iQ EV was dead on arrival. Really expensive with the shortest EV range available. Only a few were sold to ride shares and rental agencies. It and the Rav4 EV were only intended as compliance cars. Toyota was betting on hydrogen in California, so cut ties with Tesla as soon as the contract was complete.

The Mercedes B class EV is also a joint project with Tesla, and the two companies still have a connection.

 

I didn't know about the iQ-EV. I would have bought that car! I even thought about the ICE iQ ...

I take it back. 12 kWh was not enough range.