Tesla moves up five ranks in CR's reliability survey
ConsumerReports
Consumer Reports released its annual reliability report, placing Tesla 19th out of 24 car brands. The publication continues to offer harsh reviews for Electric Vehicles placing the entire sector as the second least reliable choice for a vehicle, just ahead of full-size pickups. While this review certainly generated a lot of attention, it is entirely predictable.
Until recently, Tesla was practically the lone player in the EV space, and now automakers are rushing to get an electric car with their brand on the road as quickly as possible. But, of course, any product rushed to market will have issues, and a vehicle is a complex piece of technology and machinery that will show those issues 10-fold.
Big Drops By New EV Manufacturers
For example, Hyundai and Chevrolet, which have significantly pushed into the EV marketplace, dropped in year-over-year rankings. Chevrolet dropped ten spots, and its Volt is listed as the fifth least reliable car. At the same time, Hyundai's Kona comes in ninth. Mercedes Benz dropped to last place in reliability. Consumer Reports blames its drop on EV production as well. Ford is now ranked 18th, as many consumers reported issues with the Mustang Mach-E.
Jake Fisher, a senior director at Consumer Reports, told CNBC, "The automakers are using EVs as a technological testbed for whatever new technology they want to try out. By having all this new technology, there's a lot of potential problems with them."
Tesla Takes Unnecessary Criticism
Fisher's comment begs the question, why are full-size pickup trucks so unreliable? They've been around for a long time. However, the majority of media outlets are aimed at Tesla. Take Bloomberg as an example; it used Tesla in its headline despite their ranking actually improving and the company being ahead of five other brands when it comes to reliability, including Chevrolet (20), GMC (21), Volkswagen (22), Jeep (23), Mercedes-Benz (24).
Consumer Report collects data from consumers of more than 300,000 vehicles. There were 2,000 owners of Teslas included in the survey. Model 3 received an average reliability ranking, but Models S, X and Y ranked below average.
Hybrids Are Not the Answer
On the flip side, Fisher then promotes hybrids as the most reliable vehicles, "Today's hybrids are just as quiet and just as quick and nice to drive as the normal versions. The reliability of electric vehicles is not great. In fact, the majority are actually below average."
This comment is perplexing. EVs removed all of the components that can go wrong with ICE cars. Over the summer, Elon Musk tweeted, Time to move on from hybrid cars. That was a phase. That's a nicer way of saying what he's reportedly called hybrids in the past, "an amphibian in a transition from dinosaurs to mammals." Consumer Reports says that 1 in 3 consumers want a hybrid as their next vehicle.
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The Cybertruck is having an eventful November. Just last week, we shared the news that Tesla isn’t offering their in-house wrap service for the Cybertruck anymore; the Foundation Series is now available in inventory in select US locations, Crossbars have arrived, and faster charging is around the corner. Now there’s even more to discuss about the stainless steel beast.
Projection Puddle Lights
Like the recently launched puddle lights for the Model 3 and Model Y, Tesla has introduced a set of add-on Projector Puddle Lights for the Cybertruck. These Cybertruck-specific ones go for $75 USD, or $105 CAD and are available in both the Canadian and US Tesla stores.
However, these don’t have the Tesla wordmark - instead, they feature the iconic Cybertruck symbol and, in our opinion, look even nicer. Here’s to hoping Tesla also introduces a set with the graffiti-style Cybertruck wordmark.
Powershare in Canada
While the Foundation Series Cybertruck has been getting delivered in Canada since November 7th, there was no news on Powershare being supported due to regulatory constraints. On the 20th, Foundation Series owners in Canada began to receive emails to get their Powershare installs started through Tesla’s official installer - Qmerit.
More to follow on pricing and the process as we receive our Canadian quote from Qmerit soon.
FSD in Canada
The Cybertruck Program Manager, Siddhant Awasthi, confirmed that with Powershare now becoming available, FSD for the Cybertruck in Canada will also become available soon. Canadian trucks shipped with a factory software build that didn’t include FSD, but did include TACC and stoplight/traffic control.
Early this morning Tesla began rolling out a new version of FSD 12.5.5.3 for the Cybertruck, which is update 2024.39.5. Will this be the version that rolls out in Canada?
Following Integrated Flight Test 6 for SpaceX’s Starship, Elon Musk confirmed that uncrewed Starships are likely to begin making their way to Mars in about 2 years. You’re probably going to ask what’s going to be in those Starships - that’s what Brett Winston on X asked as well. Elon confirmed that Cybertrucks and Optimus robots will be among some of the first items landing on Mars.
That’s a ton of awesome news for Cybertruck, and there’s absolutely going to be more around the corner, especially as we await the big Tesla Holiday Update. While you wait, why not take a look at our Holiday Update Wishlists?
Tesla software update 2024.44.3 has started rolling out to customers in larger waves recently and it brings several new features - including Actually Smart Summon to Europe and the Middle East, as well as improvements to Autopark. But that’s not all, it also adds a new Blind Spot Monitoring feature to the new Model 3, and potentially the Cybertruck, but that’s still to be determined.
We previously covered the Blind Spot Warning While Parked as part of our preview notes for update 2024.44, but now that it's going out to customers, it's time to see it in action.
If the vehicle’s door open button is pressed, and a vehicle or object is near or incoming, the vehicle’s Blind Spot Warning Light (2024 Model 3 and Cybertruck) will illuminate, an audible tone will ring and the door won’t open. A message will also be displayed on the center displaying, letting driver’s know why the door didn’t open.
Pressing the button a second time will allow you to override the warning and open the door normally, providing a way to get out in case you just parked close to a nearby vehicle or obstacle.
The object detection for this new feature includes cars, pedestrians, cyclists, and other objects - like things including traffic cones, bollards, strollers, and other large obstacles that FSD and vision-based Autopark detect during normal operation. Of note - this only works for the front two doors. Thanks to X user Max, who did some testing for us, It does not work for the rear passenger doors.
Optional Feature
The feature is optional - it’ll be enabled by default for safety, but if you need to enable or disable it, you can do so under Controls > Safety. For now, the feature is only available on the 2024 Model 3, but we expect it to roll out to the Cybertruck at least. However, there’s no reason why it can’t be added to other vehicles as well, minus the small red dot. We expect Tesla to eventually add this feature to all Tesla vehicles, but it’s currently not a part of update 2024.44.
Enhauto’s S3XY Buttons & Commander
If that’s not enough safety and vision for you, Enhauto, the makers of the popular S3XY Buttons and Commander recently put out a new software update for the 2024 Model 3, which makes some fantastic use of the ambient lighting.
With Enhauto’s solution, users are able to tie their ambient lights to Autopilot use, turn signals or even if a vehicle is their blind spot. Check out the video below for this awesome implementation, where the ambient lights turn red when another vehicle approaches.
Maybe Tesla will integrate something like this into a future update? We’ve been hoping for more customizability with their ambient lighting - it's an easy safety win and a demonstration of Tesla’s do-more-with-less attitude.
I look forward to @enhauto updates more than Tesla...
Ambient light effects....
I set default color to white. Blinks green on turn signals Turns blue on FSD activation Yellow if someone in blind spot Blinks red if turn signal on and blind spot activity detected.
![First Look at Tesla’s New 'Blind Spot While Parked' Feature [VIDEO]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/model-3-2024/blind-spot-indicator-monitor.jpg/4cdcb11af7b1c7cf021ba96588fd4f1a/blind-spot-indicator-monitor.jpg)
![Video Reveals the Cybertruck's Unique User Interface [Video]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/images/news/2023/cybertruck-ui-1_300w.jpg)
