“Still” implies Tesla is trying to improve or cares. They are taking the piss now, as they understand people will tolerate this backwards step in industry standards and expectations in order to have the hype of driving a Tesla.
Hopefully with demand backing off the will be motivated to tie up these loose ends in their products and reputation.
So often people say “it’s no big deal” to have panels re painted and consoles removed/replaced. In reality it often opens Pandora’s box with a cycle of fix the fix the fix. Service centers are trying to achieve the fastest and least expensive repair ( that ls just business).
Of the 30 or so cars I’ve owned, I have only had body fit and paint issues with two…Tesla and Rivian. Both tried to deliver me cars with obvious problems. Both were a nightmare to deal with, mostly due to inexperienced and overconfident service teams who fix one thing then break or damaged another.
Rivian replaced two poorly stamped fenders and just had a local (medicore) body shop paint and swap them. The new fender paint was a very slightly different shade than the rest of the truck. Rivian didn’t consider that paint mixed on different days might be a little different and need some blending work. Ended up selling the truck because it’s HV battery failed, then two motors failed and they never could not get it align and track straight (pulled to the right really bad).
Ironically I had the same issue with Tesla, they shipped a replacement hood and bumper due to dents and scratches. It was painted at the factory and shipped to the repair center. Took 3 attempts because the panels kept turning up damaged from shipping. Finally they buffed the hood so much it burned the paint and they tried to deliver it back to me like that. I pushed back and they sent it to a Porsche certified body shop I was familiar with. They repainted everything and blended it as best they could. No mechanical issues with the car though, it’s been solid in that regard.
Seems like tue delivery and service staff play a bit of “stupid or liar” (stupid for not seeing obvious issues or lying by seeing it and hoping I don’t notice).
I’ve had cars from other brands go to the shop soon after delivery, but only for mechanical or recall issues. That stuff is just life, sometimes parts break or a bad batch slips through. But body work is so obvious and gets inspected so many times it’s hard to say the same.
I fully expect and have no issue with mechanical, electrical or software issues on a first run car or new brand. Body work should be near perfect though. That’s not new or different than other brands and should be low hanging fruit for customer satisfaction given the expectation that early adoption comes with issues.
From what I read here Lucid seems to be in the B+ range for quality and getting better all the time. That’s fair enough for a new brand. I hope they get up to A/A+ soon to set themselves in front of Tesla and Rivian.
My 2 cents
