The latest Initial Quality Study of 2020 was announced on June 25, where Dodge ranks first, followed by Kia and Chevrolet, and Tesla is ranked last based on 250 issues per hundred cars. Tesla’s infamous assembling quality has become a well-known fact, though it is still embarrassing to see the brand’s distressed position on the ranking.
As a substantially credible certifying agency, the Initial Quality Study of J.D. Power has been implemented for 34 years, and does not accept any forms of embedding advertising.
The scoring standard of the Initial Quality Study is based on the quantity of issues discovered by the owners within 90 days subsequent to the delivery of new cars from the American market for the specific year, with the unit of measurement being 100 cars. A total of 87,282 samples were tested this year. Let us take a look at the result for this year’s study.
▲ Ranked last on the study is Tesla, and what is noteworthy is that a number of luxury car brands have also dropped on the study in terms of ranking. Hyundai was recommended for a total of 7 models, and is the manufacturer with the best assembling quality this year. (Source：J.D. Power）
It is the first time for Tesla, ranked last, to be listed for the Initial Quality Study this year, where the marking after its name indicates that the company refuses to provide the information for its owners from 15 of the 50 states, and J.D. Power decided to autonomously obtain sufficient samples of car owners from the remaining 35 states. Hence, strictly speaking, Tesla cannot be listed on the ranking due to partial sampling differentiation, though a reasonable inference would conclude that the number of issues for Tesla will surpass the listed 250 on the table.
According to J.D. Power, the autonomously surveyed samples of Tesla owners consisted of 1,250 individuals, with a majority of Model 3 owners. Tesla’s score of 250 refers to 250 issues encountered per 100 cars delivered by the company during 2020, equaling an average of 2.5 per car, which is almost double the defect compared to the 136 issues seen on the cars of Dodge, who is ranked first on the study.
Fans of Tesla would know that the assembling quality is the company’s Achilles’ heel. Numerous American owners filed a class action suit in the beginning of June targeted at the defected paint of Model 3, and demanded relevant compensation. Various peculiar assembling problems can also be seen on the Tesla forum, including water vapor within headlights, water leakage inside the car compartment, and miscellaneous objects trapped between the car body and the paint. Some owners would even go as far as joking about these defects being the authentic elements of a Tesla vehicle.
These assembling issues have been proven to be ineffectual to the growth of Tesla, which is reflected from the sales volume of the company over the past two years. However, the Initial Quality Study has vividly pointed out that the assembling problem must first be resolved in the next phase of improvement should the company wish to grow continuously and establish genuine confidence for the public regarding electric vehicles.
Another fascinating discovery from the study is that one out of four new vehicles encountered issues related to the information system, such as failed connection for CarPlay, voice recognition malfunction, and ineffective touch panel, which implies that there is still room for improvement for each automotive manufacturer in terms of the incorporation of new automotive electronic technology. As for Tesla, most prominent issues lie on paint, interior, and strange noise within the compartment. See the full report to understand more about the information for other automotive manufacturers.
(Photo source: Tesla)
