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Tesla Model S proves troublesome for Consumer Reports

The Tesla Model S has turned into the breakthrough model that electric cars needed. Instead of looking like a futuristic jellybean whizzing by, the Tesla would still be incredibly attractive with a V8 stuffed under the hood. But beyond its appealing styling, the luxury sedan offers a realistic driving range, impressive performance and oft-praised driving dynamics. It's everything many drivers are looking for. However, as more long-term reviews come out, it's becoming clear that living with one of these wonder cars isn't without its fair share of problems.
A few weeks ago, Edmunds published its 17-month ownership experience with a Model S. It praised the experience being behind the wheel of the luxury sedan, at least when it was possible. Edmunds reported that it had to make seven unscheduled trips to the service bay and even left a writer by the side of the road once. The biggest issues included replacing the drive unit three times, needing a new main battery and numerous resets of the center screen.
Consumer Reports just wrote about its own driving impressions after 15,743 miles, and its experience with the Model S has hardly been a walk in the park, though not nearly as bad as Edmunds' rough time. The infotainment screen needed a hard reset once after blinking out, and one unscheduled service left the sedan in the shop for two days. There have been other, smaller issues too. In Tesla's favor, the repairs were done under warranty.

Hertz adds Tesla Model S to Dream Cars fleet

The Tesla Model S is slowly infiltrating our rental car and chauffeured lives, having already gone to Las Vegas with Zappos as a taxi and San Francisco with car-sharing service Get Around. Now a lot more people will have the chance to get into one with its inclusion in the Hertz Dream Cars fleet, joining 19 petrol-powered rockets like the Aston Martin V8 Vantage, Mercedes SLS AMG and SRT Viper. What's more, in case you missed it when it was new, the Tesla Roadster will join its sibling in the Dream Cars corral.
Although the Dream Cars are available in 35 markets, the Teslas will only come to two: San Francisco and Los Angeles airports. The rental Model S gets the 85-kWh battery with a range of 265 miles, and appears to be the P85 Performance model since Hertz lists a 0-to-60 mile per hour time of 4.2 seconds.
You can read more about it in the press release below, and if your vacation plans include California, this could give you a chance to get into a Model S faster than someone who buys one.

Tesla Model S tops Consumer Reports annual satisfaction ratings [w/video]

Despite all the bad recent publicity for Tesla, it would appear that its Model S customers remain the happiest of any automaker - or at the very least, they're just likely to respond as such in satisfaction surveys. For its just-released annual owner satisfaction report, Consumer Reports surveyed more than 600 Model S owners, which resulted in the all-electric hatchback receiving a top score of 99 out of 100.
These results come from surveys that are sent out to current vehicle owners asking them "Considering all factors (price, performance, reliability, comfort, enjoyment, etc.), would you get this car if you had it to do all over again?" and the scores are assessed based on how many respondents answer "definitely yes." The Tesla's impressive 99-percent satisfaction rates the highest among all of this year's responses, with the Porsche Boxster was a close second with 95 percent. Other class-leading standouts include the Subaru Forester, Mazda6, Volkswagen Golf TDI and Dodge Charger, which were each the top vehicle in their respective classes with 85-percent satisfaction rates.
The full press release is posted below along with a video detailing the institute's findings.