The Tesla 3 Blue Screens Every Few Days

Tesla

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Edmunds got hold of a Tesla Model 3 and has driven it for a few thousand miles. They are not thrilled with the build quality:

Body panel gaps are inconsistent, reflecting a lack of attention to detail….After we brought ours home, we discovered it also had a cracked vanity mirror and a broken driver’s seat shell. In our first six weeks, we’ve had to do the equivalent of a Windows PC’s Ctrl-Alt-Del reboot of the all-important touchscreen about a dozen times.

We’ve called a Tesla service center about the problems, but have had difficulty getting an appointment. Drive-ups were not welcome, so our parts were ordered based on photographs alone. Weeks later, we’re still waiting for word and it’s hard to get answers.

The touchscreen controls almost literally everything aside from steering and the foot pedals. If it decides to go belly-up, you have no windshield wipers, no radio, no headlights, no nothing. If it dies every 250 miles, that’s a problem. Elon Musk better get this fixed pronto.

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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