Tesla’s reputation burnished by JD Power survey after report questions quality of Shanghai-made Model 3s
- Tesla scores 113 points in JD Power’s new energy vehicle experience survey, just behind Chinese rival NIO’s 109
- Tesla says that its manufacturing process is managed based on the highest standards and in a consistent manner
Tesla cars made at the company’s Shanghai Gigafactory were among the highest-quality models sold in China, second only to NIO’s vehicles, according to the most recent quality survey by JD Power.
“Tesla Model 3 is well-received by Chinese consumers as its design and performance beat their expectations in many aspects,” said Jeff Cai, general manager of auto product practice at JD Power China. “In terms of driving experience and digital connectivity, conventional car brands now have a lot to learn from smart EV makers like Tesla.”
The quality survey could go some way towards buttressing Tesla’s assertion that it makes no compromise in the quality of its EVs rolling out of its Shanghai Gigafactory, in its rebuttal of an article by PingWest last week that questioned the carmaker’s Model 3 EVs.
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A war of words ensued between PingWest and Tesla on the Chinese microblogging service Weibo, with the US carmaker threatening to the take the tech news provider to court over the article in which it labelled the Gigafactory a “Giga-sweatshop” and for spreading false information about the plant.
PingWest, founded in 2012, is 6.7 per cent owned by UCWeb, which in turn is controlled by this newspaper’s owner, Alibaba Group Holding.
Tesla would not comment on whether it had taken legal action against the Chinese media company. However, in a statement to China News Service on Wednesday, the company said its software to automate factory processes is able to track every component in the whole assembling procedure to ensure quality, with the data kept for more than 10 years.
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“Tesla’s Gigafactory in Shanghai engages in manufacturing in accordance with China’s laws and regulations,” it said. “The manufacturing process is managed based on the highest standards and in a consistent manner.”
Car industry executives and industry observers downplayed the media report. “It would be a bit far-fetched to say that the plant is a sweatshop,” said Gao Shen, a Shanghai-based independent analyst on manufacturing industries.
The JD Power study measures new-vehicle quality by examining problems experienced by car owners within the first two to six months of ownership. New vehicle quality is determined by problems cited per 100 vehicles, with a lower number of problems indicating higher quality. Tesla scored 113, behind NIO’s 109.
Cai said Tesla and NIO’s scores, much lower the overall average of 143, showed that the top two brands achieved high satisfaction levels with most of their buyers.
To achieve the milestone, Tesla will have to deliver more than 181,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter, 40,000 vehicles more than the last quarter, which in itself was a record.
“Please go all out to make it happen,” Musk said in an email to employees last week, which was obtained by US news website Electrek.
“This is a great milestone to rally the company around achieving. All the critics who, as recently as two years ago said that we’d never make it, also called our target of half a million in 2020 ‘impossible’. The heck with them, we are doing it.”
