As another anecdote, I have been a Tesla owner for a decade+ and have owned several. The build quality isn't the most impressive, the reputation for manufacturing defects and gaps and outright missing or broken pieces on delivery to customer are all true in my personal experience. They definitely had some lazy employees who just didn't take pride in their work ethic build my cars. But I love the cars enough to repeat buy, so they also have some good ones.
It probably doesn't help that my cars were built in silicon valley, one of the most expensive cost of living locations in the US.
I have heard that the cheaper cars are made in Texas etc where cost of living is substantially better, and hopefully those manage to retain better employees. I don't want one of those though, so I can't say if they are actually built to a different degree of quality.
My batteries came from a little town in Nevada and have been absolutely rock solid all along with no issues ever, so at least those were assembled by people with some work ethic. Which is especially important because they have 8000+ cylinders connected together with tiny little solders and are a lot more complicated than the haphazard plastic trim placements and body panel misalignments you get from California.
They definitely aren't luxury cars. The single screen cars are extremely low end, and the top of the line ones have mid-level interiors at best. And the Model S had a more luxurious interior 13 years ago than the newest one now. Partly because before they used leather instead of plastic, and also just because 13 years ago a big touch screen was innovative and 'luxury' while today they are in basically everything and they shrunk the screen. Tesla really didn't add anything new since then, but other cars have jumped so far beyond in luxury tech its not even fair to pretend teslas most expensive car could be called a luxury automobile. They're the cheapest 1000 horsepower car that goes 250 miles per hour but they don't have leather or electro dimming glass.
As another anecdote, I have been a Tesla owner for a decade+ and have owned several. The build quality isn't the most impressive, the reputation for manufacturing defects and gaps and outright missing or broken pieces on delivery to customer are all true in my personal experience. They definitely had some lazy employees who just didn't take pride in their work ethic build my cars. But I love the cars enough to repeat buy, so they also have some good ones.
It probably doesn't help that my cars were built in silicon valley, one of the most expensive cost of living locations in the US.
I have heard that the cheaper cars are made in Texas etc where cost of living is substantially better, and hopefully those manage to retain better employees. I don't want one of those though, so I can't say if they are actually built to a different degree of quality.
My batteries came from a little town in Nevada and have been absolutely rock solid all along with no issues ever, so at least those were assembled by people with some work ethic. Which is especially important because they have 8000+ cylinders connected together with tiny little solders and are a lot more complicated than the haphazard plastic trim placements and body panel misalignments you get from California.
They definitely aren't luxury cars. The single screen cars are extremely low end, and the top of the line ones have mid-level interiors at best. And the Model S had a more luxurious interior 13 years ago than the newest one now. Partly because before they used leather instead of plastic, and also just because 13 years ago a big touch screen was innovative and 'luxury' while today they are in basically everything and they shrunk the screen. Tesla really didn't add anything new since then, but other cars have jumped so far beyond in luxury tech its not even fair to pretend teslas most expensive car could be called a luxury automobile. They're the cheapest 1000 horsepower car that goes 250 miles per hour but they don't have leather or electro dimming glass.