Having this exact trim, I think you totally nailed it. It’s a neutral, fantastic daily driver. It may not excel in any one area (except maybe straight-line acceleration), but that’s really not the point of the vehicle.

As a middle-aged dad who will be car shopping later this year and is seriously considering an EV, I appreciate your insight. The Model Y seemed like a strong contender when it came out, but Elon’s antics and the myriad build quality issues made me hesitant to give it a look. I’ll add it back on my list! 

This would be the very first non-negative article ever. Pointing out that every single other article is negative != “cult,” it is simply descriptive of the tone.

It depends on the author. Some are highly negative about Tesla. Since Bradley was on an electric kick, I’m not surprised that he was more positive.

Never say never. I doubt people arguing Jalopnik is biased against certain brands said positive coverage is “never” found (seems like a strawman position that is easy to fight against), just that it’s rare here. Even biased people can occasionally say something positive about something they dislike. That plus this is…

Image. They would rather have the image of buying “top of line” Ford than a bottom of the line Lincoln. The image of being a regular American and not some elitist in a luxury brand because you don’t buy logos. It’s a very Texas thing (and probably most of the south/central US red states).

I think it’s the appearance of the “working man’s brand” but the nicest version of them.

Honestly I’m not sure. See, the thing about an EV is that you leave home every day with a full tank. Unless you drive more than 4 hours in a single day, you’re not going to come close to using all the range. I use “pre-conditioning” with mine, where it heats up the cabin and the battery to be ready by my scheduled…

It comes down to infotainment woes and not actually “reliability” issues that we would consider.

Looking at Acura being in the top 10 and Honda at the bottom make me question the quality of the survey though. I fully admit I do not know JD power survey process very well though

I’ve always held that 80% of their work is trash research. The other 20% is passable. But they build in bias at so many levels that it is embarrassing. And the weighting within their surveys - I’m not certain where they come up with that.

The problem I have with JDP dependability survey is it continues to allow infotainment dissatisfaction as a key indicator of “reliability”. In fact as pointed out it is the most common “reliability” complaint in the survey. The reality is at least half the “reliability” issues in this regard are issues with phone…

I was about to say... wasn’t Jalopnik just shitting all over the survey? Then when some report comes out about a Tesla being unreliable it’s suddenly accurate af.

Tesla is no more on their first chart than the last time you wrote about this exact subject:

EV owner since 2018. I reserved my Tesla Model 3 on unveiling day March 2016, and took delivery September 2018.

The category is called ‘Dependability’ and yet they claim the stereo is still where most complaints are still found.

There are people that seriously doubt the effectiveness of JD. Powdah’s surveys. Not all of them are Tesla drivers.

It is absolutely adorable, I can’t wait until they start showing up on the streets of Amsterdam, Stockholm and the rest of europe.

If the company doesn’t make it, that’ll be a Swiss miss.

Where’s the option to view the damn poll results?