That’s some very carefully crafted maths to avoid saying “25% of Tesla cars have been recalled”
Look there are things Tesla can be praised for, but I don’t think anyone seriously believes they’ve got a good record on recalls especially with the year they’ve had
Tesla’s recalls are almost entirely software updates, and for trivial stuff like the seat belt warning chime might not alert the driver in some corner case. Another “recall” I got was a software update that disabled the boombox feature while the car is moving. The NHSTSA banned that because it could override the government mandated pedestrian warning sound.
The only physical fix I’ve gotten was replacing a cable for the backup camera. Apparently some models had a cable that could wear out, causing the camera to fail.
If we used the same standard for iPhones, then 100% have been recalled. The NHTSA really needs to have more levels of severity, because current recall stats are obfuscating the actual reliability and safety of different models and manufacturers.
Every car I've ever owned, from multiple brands, has had a recall. Some even had multiple recalls addressing different issues. So on the face of it 25% doesn't seem that bad to me.
which says that Tesla is the 4th best auto manufacturer in terms of recall rate at .936, which is better than the industry average of 1.115; Ford is at 1.139, This was in 2016, when Tesla had only been shipping relatively small volumes of cars. If recent articles which put Tesla's recall rate at 0.25 are to be believed (I'm not sure that they should; they seem to carry the tone that this recall rate is exceptionally bad), that would certainly make Tesla the least-recalled car brand.
Their metric of "problems per 100 vehicles" is not very well correlated with what we think of as vehicle quality. If your phone won't pair with car's bluetooth, that's considered just as much of a problem as the drivetrain failing. In their survey summary, they even admit that most issues are with infotainment systems due to things like, "not enough power plugs/USB ports". That's how they manage to claim that the highest quality vehicles are made by Buick and Dodge, not brands like Honda and Audi.
Also J.D. Power is pay to play.[1] From the WSJ[2]:
> Each year, J.D. Power & Associates gives out quality awards based on surveys of thousands of new-car owners. It sells the results to auto makers and charges licensing fees for using the survey's rankings in marketing and ad campaigns. According to one car maker, J.D. Power charges as much as $300,000 for copies of a survey, and the same amount to use the awards in ads. J.D. Power declined to confirm its charges.
Look there are things Tesla can be praised for, but I don’t think anyone seriously believes they’ve got a good record on recalls especially with the year they’ve had