Tesla’s made-in-China cars lead market in quality while US-made Tesla cars score lowest

Tesla’s made-in-China cars are leading the market when it comes to quality, according to a new survey.

All while Tesla’s US-made vehicles are scoring the lowest for quality.

As we reported earlier this year, Tesla ranked lowest on J.D. Power 2020 quality study, with 250 problems per 100 cars.

The quality survey was based on roughly 1,250 Tesla owners and the vast majority of respondents own a Model 3.

In a surprising turn of events, a similar survey produced in China shows that Tesla is leading the market on quality with its Model 3 vehicles produced at Gigafactory Shanghai.

According to a new survey compiled by 12365Auto, the average passenger car in China gets 37.2 “complaints” regarding quality per 10,000 cars over the last quarter.

Over the same period, Made-in-China Model 3 only received 0.7 complaints – topping the chart.

The report stated (translated from Chinese):

“Judging from the ranking of hot-selling sedan complaints in the second quarter of 2020, American brands ushered in a bright moment. A total of 2 models were selected on the list, and both of them ranked in the top ten. Among them, the domestic Tesla Model 3 reached the top for the first time with its outstanding complaint sales ratio. This is also the first time that an American brand model has won the championship in recent years. Chevrolet Cruze, another model on the list, performed equally eye-catching this quarter. Its complaint sales ratio was significantly lower than that in the first quarter, and the complaint sales ratio increased significantly, which is worthy of praise.”

A side-by-side look at the charts from the J.D. Power survey and Chinese survey tell two completely different stories:

Tesla is dead last on one by a significant margin and first on the other – again by a significant margin.

Electrek’s Take

That’s quite a shocking difference.

Elon has been boasting about the quality of the work from the Gigafactory Shanghai team so it looks like there indeed might be a significant difference in quality, but that big of a difference?

Maybe there are other factors at play that are not being taken into account.

For example, while the Chinese survey is only for the last quarter, it may take into account all cars regardless of the date of production and mileage.

Tesla only started delivering made-in-China Model 3 vehicles about 8 months ago.

But either way, the data seems to indicate that Tesla’s manufacturing capacity in China results in much higher quality than in the US.

Of course, the automaker was able to take advantage of everything it learned from its mistakes in Fremont.

Hopefully, it will go full circle and now we are going to see improvements in US-made cars.