Tabbykatze
Tbh Phil, design issues like weird failing door handles versus failing majorly functional car parts? I know which company I'm going for and it begins with Tesla.
The door handles thing was just an example of something an established company can just do whereas Tesla can't. There are loads more examples. I gave you one in the 12V battery failures. What about the ‘ice breaker’ feature which has a lovely hole for a 5 year old to poke a finger into? Yeh, that wasn't good but there was no mitigation for the risk presented because they don't have the automotive R&D experience and they don't take their time.
Honestly, I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole. They repeatedly come at the bottom of reliability rankings, they are only alive due to investor money, they OTA update your car to make it worse and reduce the range without your consent…. the list goes on. the undercooked R&D is everywhere. Not just minor things. The repeated (often yearly) 12V battery failures due to them trying to charge a standard car battery like a lithium ion pack speaks volumes.
The Smart Summon failure is a recent issue and it's HUGE. You can summon the car to come to you from 60 meters away. For most of us, lazy rubbish, for disabled people potentially incredible. But it crashes into things. Repeatedly. It's undercooked and dangerous yet they released it. That is not minor, especially as people are using it, then it crashes into someone else and they deny fault as they weren't at the wheel. Part of doing something like this is ensuring you work with governments and insurance to get leglisation and procedure in place but they don't. They release undercooked software for a self driving vehicle into the wild with no regulatory framework to support it. They are dangerous cowboys. (EDIT, they admit it's beta but you don't unleash a beta version of self driving cars onto the road, YOU JUST DON'T! Beta testing computer control of 2 tonne+ of metal without a driver at the wheel is not acceptable, however you try and spin it).
Look at the company's financial records and it gets worse. This company will not be around for much longer without constant external investor support. They have a massive backlog and their stock surplus is huge. They can't shift the expensive models as they marketed the cheaper ones. So they have surplus expensive cars sat and can't fulfil orders for cheaper ones. Which will die off when the larger companies get in on the act. Why are the larger companies taking so damn long? They are doing the R&D properly. Toyota are doing the right thing. Hybrids for a long period of time to get service centres used to them, get the supply chain in place, sort out issues without crippling someone's car and being able to research battery degredation without major risk. It takes decades to do this kind of thing properly and Tesla are trying to do it (relatively) overnight.
What I will say is that that they have definitely pushed things forward. They will not last but they will be remembered as a company which drove the sector forwards. My issue is when they die and there are no servers for the car to connect to and no remote fixy people to sort issues over the phone, what happens to the people who have bought these things? Generic parts aren't an option in a Tesla as it verifies everything unless you hack the software.