Tesla has a new challenge and it’s not batteries or rivals: Reliability

Tesla has been one of the most consequential automotive brands in recent history. No other brand has polarized and influenced the population to this extent. And being a relatively new brand in the spotlight, it also has had its fair share of issues and concerns throughout its journey. Currently, Tesla sits on the throne as the World's Best Selling Plug-In and Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) manufacturer with a market share of 16% in the plug-in segment and 23% in the Battery-Electric Vehicle segment. Currently, their lineup consists of the Tesla Model S, Tesla Model 3, Tesla Model X, and Tesla Model Y. Fun Fact: when lined up together it also spells 'S3XY'.

The eccentric car brand has had a fair share of issues with batteries and overall reliability. The sheer amount of technology and electrical components is probably what causes this massive dip in the dependability factor. From faulty parking brakes to the battery catching fires and even AutoPilot crashes, Tesla cars have had some serious quality and reliability issues. Is the situation any better in 2021?

Tesla's Reliability Rank fell on two major car-brand rankings

With the arrival of the 2021 model year, Two major product reviewing organizations, Consumer Reports, and J.D. Power both announced their lists of the most reliable and dependable car brands of 2021. Both of these organizations are held as the gold standard when it comes to reliability analysis and accountability. The annual lists were revealed just two weeks back.

In the Consumer Reports Annual Study for 2021, Tesla Motors has dropped five spots and now sits in the 16th position due to reliability issues. To our surprise, the most reliable model out of the entire lineup was the thriftiest one, the Model 3. Consumer Reports stated that the Model 3 was the only Tesla that had a good enough reliability score that we could recommend it to customers.

The flagship sedan and the car that stunned the world, the Model S was one of the worst-performing cars according to Consumer Reports. The historical data provided by Consumer Reports shows that only the 2013 Tesla Model S and 2017 Model S had earned a rating of four out of five on the reliability scale. The rest of the model years struggled to get anything over three out of five which is the industry average. Some model years didn't even manage to score anything over one out of five, says the Consumer Reports.

It is a similar story to the radical Tesla Model X. The current model year Model x earned a two out of five on the predicted reliability rating. The 2019 Model X earned a pathetic one out of five, placing it at the bottom tier of the reliability rankings.

It's even worse for the Tesla Model Y. Consumer Reports states it has never given the Model Y a score of more than one out of five throughout the years. All of these consistently low-reliability ratings are the reason behind Tesla's declining Reliability Ranking.

J.D. Power is an American data analytics and consumer intelligence company. The company conducts surveys of customer satisfaction, product quality, and buyer behavior for the automotive industry. In their latest report, they have included the electric automaker for the first time ever. The report measured the number of issues per 100 vehicles that the drivers of three-year-old models experienced over the last 12 months. The survey showed that Tesla as a brand had 176 problems per 100 cars.

This poor performance placed it 30th out of 33 brands that took part in this study. Other unreliable brands like Jaguar, Land Rover, and Alfa Romeo all sit below the electric automaker. For reference, the Industry Average is about 121 problems per 100 cars.

Why are Tesla Cars unreliable?

The primary reason for the high-tech electric automaker's reliability issues is in the 'tech' itself. Tesla has always been at the forefront of new technology and it also became the first automaker to successfully implement autonomous driving in their cars. This is actually a genuine issue with many premium brands that offer immense technology and features. Basically, the more technology, the more are the chances of things going wrong.

On top of that, technology can be hard to repair and quite expensive to replace. This results in low dependability. Another reason that might be the root of this issue would be the limited testing carried out by Tesla during the pre-production phase. The eccentric CEO, Elon Musk limited the testing and instead decided to rely on computer modeling to reduce the amount of time spent prototyping.

Back in 2018, Sandy Munro, an engineering consultant, dropped an in-depth review of the Tesla Model 3. He said that it had the flaws that you would see on a Kia in the 90s. He pointed out even minor blemishes like the uneven gaps between exterior panels and paint job issues. One customer even found a hair embedded in the paint of his new Tesla Model Y. This is only one of the many examples of poor workmanship plaguing Tesla. Elon Musk has admitted that Tesla has been facing these issues for quite some time and he also pointed out that Munro’s criticism was quite accurate.

However, both the aforementioned organizations, Consumer Reports and J.D. Power, stated that the brand often gets high scores in the owner satisfaction aspect despite the numerous issues. Consumer Reports pointed out that most Tesla models earn a five out of five owner satisfaction rating. Even the Tesla Model Y with its poor reliability rating of one out of five earned a five out of five on the owner satisfaction rating. 91% of the owners even said they would buy the vehicle again. This is due to the immense technology offered by Tesla on all their cars which have garnered immense praise from the consumers. And second is the incredibly responsive operations carried by Tesla in terms of repairing and recalling the vehicles.

Verdict: Tesla has a long way to go but they will get there

Climbing up the ranks of reliability rankings is tough. Brands like Toyota and Lexus spent billions of dollars refining their assembly line and production processes to top the charts. Tesla is relatively new and as they churn out more cars like the Model 3 off of the new assembly lines, these reliability issues will surely see a decline. Frankly, it is quite impressive what Tesla has achieved in the last decade. It went from an obscure automaker with one electrified Lotus sports car offering to be the largest electric vehicle manufacturer.