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Mystery shoppers love Infiniti, hate Tesla

Infiniti, followed by Lexus tied with Mercedes-Benz took the top two spots for best sales experience according to mystery shoppers from the latest Pied Piper Prospect Satisfaction Index, while EV manufacturer Tesla recorded the lowest overall score. Not surprisingly, premium brands dominated the top ranks. Including the three already mentioned, luxury brands occupied seven of the top ten spots and included Audi, BMW, Porsche, and the only American brand to crack the upper echelon, Cadillac. Toyota, Volkswagen, and Nissan rounded out the first ten positions. The news for domestic automakers isn't good. Aside from Caddy, the only other star-spangled automaker to score above the industry average is Chrysler. The rest of FCA, most of GM, and all of Ford fell below the line. But Pied Piper's mystery shoppers handed Tesla the biggest walloping – the company is ten full points below the next lowest brand, Volvo, and its score of 86 is 17 below the average of 103. It's baffling, considering the company's touted direct-sales model. "Tesla leaves me scratching my head," Fred O'Hagan, Pied Piper's president and CEO, told Wards Auto. "They own all of their stores, so you would think each one would be doing the same thing. But they're not. Tesla is consistent in its inconsistencies." O'Hagan added that there's a "huge variation" in Tesla's store-to-store effectiveness, and that in some cases, shoppers found showroom workers that acted more like "museum curators," Wards Auto reports. It might be popular to call Tesla the Apple of the car world, but based on Pied Piper's work, the brand has a long way to go to emulate the uniform shopping experience of an Apple Store. The news might be bad for Tesla, but even for the brands that scored below average, there's cause for celebration. Only Tesla and Mini lost points in this year's rankings, and only Mercedes and Lincoln held steady. Every other brand, including Infiniti, which topped the index for the first time, gained at least one point. The biggest improvements belong to Porsche, Land Rover, and Mitsubishi, which all jumped five points. Pied Piper's annual Prospect Satisfaction Index uses mystery shoppers – over 6,100 this year – from across the country to assess dealers and generate rankings from over 50 individual factors. News Source: Pied Piper via WardsAuto Green Audi BMW Cadillac Chrysler Infiniti Lexus Mercedes-Benz Nissan Tesla Toyota Car Buying Car Dealers study

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.

Honda, Acura EVs will adopt Tesla's NACS charging port

CARMEL, Calif. — As more and more automakers pledge to install TeslaÂ’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) ports on their electric vehicles, Honda says that it, too, will hop on the bandwagon. Future EVs from Honda – as well as its luxury division, Acura – will have NACS charging setups, giving these cars access to TeslaÂ’s huge network of Supercharger stations. "It is quite important," American Honda Motor Co. President and CEO Noriya Kaihara said in an interview Friday. "We also have to push NACS, as well. It is clear." As for when this will happen, Honda is currently at the mercy of General Motors. The Japanese automakerÂ’s next two EVs – the Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX – use shared architecture with GM, leveraging The GeneralÂ’s excellent Ultium battery technology. The ZDX will launch first, and have the traditional CCS port that isnÂ’t compatible with TeslaÂ’s chargers, but it will switch to the NACS design in 2025 or 2026. "We clearly depend on GM," Shinji Aoyama, Executive Vice President of Honda Motor Co., said during Friday's interview. "Once they [switch to NACS], this will follow for ZDX, as well." Looking to the future, Honda is part of a joint venture with seven other global automakers that will see the installation of more than 30,000 EV fast-charging stations across the United States and Canada. The chargers are still in development, but Honda says the companies are all aligned on the core values that are needed to make this charging network successful.  "The software needs to be really reliable and really open infrastructure so it communicates with every OEM's software," Jay Joseph, American Honda's Vice President of Sustainability and Business Development, said in Friday's interview. "The hardware needs to be capable of the highest levels of charging. It needs to be secure, it needs to be reliable, it needs to be accessible." Joseph said the current public charging companies know and understand the shortcomings with their systems, and that TeslaÂ’s Superchargers set an example of how to do chargers right. "If you look at what's so great about the Tesla Supercharger network, it's the maintenance," Joseph said. "They stay on top of it, they've got someone onsite monitoring the equipment, they're monitoring it electronically and remotely, and they fix it – fast. That's probably the most important thing." All the more reason for Honda – and other automakers – to switch to the NACS charging setup as quickly as possible.