# February 2022 Consumer Reports on Model S



## bwilson4web (Mar 4, 2019)

By accident, I received the February 2022, _Consumer Reports_, only to find a blurb about the Model S and ranking for the Model 3 and Y. Sad to say, they replicated their abysmal Prius 'style' . . . a rigid, stuck in the mud, review:








These reviewers are inflexible, unable to adapt to anything different. They pretty well panned the Model S.

One silver lining was a table showing their view of three current Tesla cars:








The red highlighted column is called "Useabilitey" which is a totally subjective view on how well the car matches their opinion of how the car should behave. Worse, ut seems to have an inordinate effect in their overall score as shown by the "Tesla Model S." The only metric _Consumer Reports_ did not like became the signature of the score in contrast to the "Lexus LS500."






Past Prius experience with _Consumer Reports_ showed what they downrated was often contradicted by their owner surveys. I suspect the same will be true with Tesla cars as their reviewers are unable to adapt to future technology.

Bob Wilson


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## SalisburySam (Jun 6, 2018)

The yoke is controversial, for sure. Not everyone likes the yoke, nor the “new, improved” touch-sensitive buttons, and CR’s reviewers certainly don’t. I can’t fault them for bringing this up though, nor their subjective opinion about what these “improvements” mean to drivers. That said, I have seen in a few blogs/fora where owners actually DO like the yoke after some reflex retraining, though I’ve not seen anywhere any positive comments about the buttons vs. stalks. And there is a lot of negative press about the horn activation on the yoke.

CR gets a lot of bad press for not being current, sticks-in-the-mud, biased, resistant to change, your grandmother’s magazine, and so on. Nonetheless, the issues brought up here for this review reflect today’s drivers (all ages, not just the geriatric set) and driving environment, not Tesla’s computerized-robotaxi-fleet-all-input-is-bad philosophy, goals, and delivered products (v11).

I really wish Tesla could manufacture two versions of their cars: one for the reality of today and the near future with appropriate controls to leverage the excellent drivability, charging, and EV-ness of their vehicles, and a second version with all the driving “enhancements” and other items that automate more and obfuscate controls for humans. Whether Tesla’s direction pans out in the future, or not, remains to be seen. But we have to drive our cars today.


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## slacker775 (May 30, 2018)

In some ways, is their inability to look forward much different from the folks who act as if their puppy was just killed when Tesla updates the UI? Any type of user-interaction changes are always going to be subjective, and there will be hits and misses along the way. The yoke may turn about to be a great innovation, or it may not. I for one don’t miss all the knobs and sliders in a typical car. There are certainly occasions where it may be too many taps to get to a particular function but that is easily resolved in a future UI tweak.


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## NR4P (Jul 14, 2018)

I really don't have a problem given the limited information you showed.
1. Charge times are long for EV's, vs refueling an ICE vehicle. That circle text is accurate.
2. It takes a lot of time to get used to a Tesla for useability. Did you notice the Lexus got the same double down arrows? Infotainment systems are very complex.
3. As stated above the yoke is very controversial. In fact, just the horn function confounds people. 

Obvious signs that Tesla is continuing to narrow consumer choices going forward. Early on, no SXM in 3/Y, Carplay or Android Auto per Elon. Then the yoke with no alternative and now, Plaid Model X just lost the 5 and 7 seat options. They are gone, 6 seats only. That removes cargo space due which will warrant more negative reviews on useable cargo space in the future. Plaid MX order holders are quite upset over the conversion, even at n/c. Some have cancelled their orders and are going to other choices in the market.


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## bwilson4web (Mar 4, 2019)

There is a trade off between ‘classic’ and new UI interfaces. I remember in the 1980s when DOS command lines ran into Macintosh and I never looked back.

Like a manual transmission, a yoke might be theft proof.

Bob Wilson


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## msjulie (Feb 6, 2018)

@NR4P I agree with the comment about Tesla narrowing choices. Further, they seem hell bent on removing features/usability from existing cars (V11 downgrade)

I have to agree with CR this time; the yoke is news maker I suppose but removing controls etc is probably as much about cost cutting as being a tech showoff. Real buttons and bits cost more money then mass produced capacitive buttons, same for one big screen in the 3 vs some hard buttons for decidedly low tech requirements (heated seats on/off as example)



SalisburySam said:


> I really wish Tesla could manufacture two versions of their cars: one for the reality of today and the near future with appropriate controls to leverage the excellent drivability, charging, and EV-ness of their vehicles, and a second version with all the driving "enhancements" and other items that automate more and obfuscate controls for humans. Whether Tesla's direction pans out in the future, or not, remains to be seen. But we have to drive our cars today.


This!

Tesla makes interacting with the driving bits of the car harder all the time it seems (though backlash seems to mean the yoke airbag will trigger the horn in newer cars) in deference to the FSD being a reality. Many people will never pay for it (me) if it is even delivered and legally usable within the lifetime of existing on-the-road cars.

I find myself disagreeing with CR a lot because they do seem stuck in the past a bit but in reality some of that reflects some of their audience


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## Ed Woodrick (May 26, 2018)

You do have to wonder the usefulness of reviews where the reviewers are reviewing the exact same thing every day, especially when they have to go back to driving the same old thing at the end of the review.
There is some viability in their statements, if you rent a Tesla and drive it, you may be very lost on how to operate it. I remember one of the first keyhole less vehicles that I drive. It took some time to figure out how to turn the dang thing on.
But "innovative, but different" shouldn't generally be considered a negative, it's just different. 

I think that they really should have posted a higher score with a disclaimer.


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## SalisburySam (Jun 6, 2018)

bwilson4web said:


> There is a trade off between 'classic' and new UI interfaces. I remember in the 1980s when DOS command lines ran into Macintosh and I never looked back.
> 
> Like a manual transmission, a yoke might be theft proof.
> 
> Bob Wilson


I don't think so. It's more like Classic Coke vs. New Coke. That was fun, and we know how that turned out.


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## slacker775 (May 30, 2018)

SalisburySam said:


> I don't think so. It's more like Classic Coke vs. New Coke. That was fun, and we know how that turned out.


It's potentially more like Blackberry vs the original iPhone: "What do you mean there is no keyboard??? I can't type my BBM's without a physical keyboard!"


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