Photo: Tesla
Remember when Consumer Reports gave the Model S P85D 103 points out of a maximum 100? Well, turns out that was just the start of Tesla’s downfall in the eyes of the consumer-oriented magazine. More recently, the Model S was ousted from the top spot of the cited publication’s luxury car ratings.
Why did CR drop the Model S from 87 to 85 points? As the industry adopts AEB systems on a larger scale than ever, the Model S still lacks automatic emergency braking. Autopilot may be the bee’s knees, but bearing in mind even a run-of-the-mill Corolla has AEB as standard, Tesla has no excuse whatsoever for the lack of this feature in the Model S sedan.
Here’s a quote from Jake Fisher, director of CR’s auto test center in Colchester, Connecticut: “When we purchased our latest test car, we were assured automatic emergency braking would be enabled by the end of 2016. We’ve been waiting for this important safety feature, which is standard equipment on much cheaper cars.” As a Tesla believer, I couldn’t agree more that patience is NOT a virtue.
People who dropped big bucks on a new Model S back in 2012 knew that it was a work-in-progress job. Almost five years later, it’s getting a lot harder to fathom why the Palo Alto-based automaker still treats is devoted customers as guinea pigs. Promising a thing but not delivering on time is, without a doubt, Tesla’s biggest problem for the time being.
The 2-point downgrade sees the Model S drop from first to third in Consumer Reports’ luxury car ratings, behind the Lexus LS and BMW 7 Series. The Model X’s score also nosedived to 56 from 58, with the pure-electric SUV now finding itself in the company of lesser luxury utility vehicles.
The publication’s change of heart didn’t go unnoticed by Tesla, who said in an e-mailed statement that it expects automatic emergency braking “to be included in a software update this Thursday, April 27.”
Here’s a quote from Jake Fisher, director of CR’s auto test center in Colchester, Connecticut: “When we purchased our latest test car, we were assured automatic emergency braking would be enabled by the end of 2016. We’ve been waiting for this important safety feature, which is standard equipment on much cheaper cars.” As a Tesla believer, I couldn’t agree more that patience is NOT a virtue.
People who dropped big bucks on a new Model S back in 2012 knew that it was a work-in-progress job. Almost five years later, it’s getting a lot harder to fathom why the Palo Alto-based automaker still treats is devoted customers as guinea pigs. Promising a thing but not delivering on time is, without a doubt, Tesla’s biggest problem for the time being.
The 2-point downgrade sees the Model S drop from first to third in Consumer Reports’ luxury car ratings, behind the Lexus LS and BMW 7 Series. The Model X’s score also nosedived to 56 from 58, with the pure-electric SUV now finding itself in the company of lesser luxury utility vehicles.
The publication’s change of heart didn’t go unnoticed by Tesla, who said in an e-mailed statement that it expects automatic emergency braking “to be included in a software update this Thursday, April 27.”
Google News