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Tesla has given us the electric car as both a cultural phenomenon and a legitimate alternative to the internal-combustion mainstays.
Yet in 2025, the company still hasn’t solved its most persistent flaw: build quality. The latest entry in this ongoing saga comes not from Fremont’s assembly line, but from a dealership delivery gone sideways, quite literally.
“My wife and I picked up our new MYLR over the weekend.
We had to drive about 2 hours to pick it up. The lady who was the delivery person couldn’t have been any worse.
She went out to install the temp tag and do whatever she had to do before handing the vehicle over. We gave it a Quick Look through, and all seemed fine.
We then drove home. When we stopped about halfway home to supercharge, my wife mentioned the temp tag was crooked. My initial thought was that she meant it was just a bit off because it’s paper.
Nope, the lady did this. She drilled holes off-center and put it in all skews. So, we’ve got a service visit scheduled next week for a new fascia.
We’re liking the car, way more solid than our other MYLR – but this is unacceptable.”
The Reddit thread that followed turned into a kind of automotive town hall. Sympathy came first, “Service will take care of you though,” wrote u/RE4Lyfe, followed by a round of incredulity. u/StartledPelican wondered why the tag wasn’t simply taped in the rear window, as is common in many states.
The answer, offered by the owner, was that every car they’d owned had temp tags installed at the plate bracket. The irony is painful: Tesla’s engineers had already built small indents in the fascia to guide installers, and yet the delivery specialist bypassed them completely.
Tesla Model Y Juniper Long Range AWD
- The dual-motor AWD powertrain delivers a combined 397 hp and 389 lb-ft of torque, enabling a 0-60 mph time of just 3.9 seconds and a top speed of 127 mph.
- Offers an EPA-estimated range of up to 327 miles and can add up to 162 miles in 15 minutes at a Tesla Supercharger, thanks to its 250 kW peak charging rate.
- Features a refreshed exterior with new lighting and styling, plus a quieter, more refined interior with upgraded materials and a panoramic glass roof.
- Dominated by a large central touchscreen that controls most vehicle functions, and includes advanced driver-assistance features with the option for Full Self-Driving.
“Fun fact, lazy eye just means lack of depth perception,” wrote u/Master-Pineapple-355, addressing a joking comment about the specialist’s eyesight. “The facia has little indents punched out for where you drill and screw into.” Translation: Tesla literally pre-marked the spot, and someone still missed. This was not a robot-tolerancing error or a misaligned panel fresh out of Fremont; it was a basic human mistake compounded by poor training.
And unlike crooked stitching or a squeaky trim piece, this particular error leaves permanent holes in the bodywork of a brand-new $50,000 EV.
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Tesla’s paradox comes into sharp relief here. The cars themselves are often superb, with instant torque, intuitive infotainment, minimalist cabins, and over-the-air updates that fix bugs while you sleep. Yet hovering over the brand is a stubborn shadow of inconsistency, the sense that while the company can master self-driving algorithms, it still struggles with the basics. Build quality remains Tesla’s restrictor plate, an invisible limiter holding back its otherwise stellar lap times against legacy automakers.
Tesla Model Y Juniper Long Range Build Quality Issues
To the owner’s credit, there was no vitriol. “We’re liking the car, way more solid than our other MYLR,” they admitted, underscoring Tesla’s steady if uneven improvements in construction. But the juxtaposition remains glaring: cutting-edge EV technology delivered alongside a fascia that’s been treated like drywall in a rental apartment.
It’s the same contradiction that has followed Tesla since the first Model S: flashes of brilliance marred by lapses in execution.
The thread even detoured into a discussion of ophthalmology. One commenter’s lazy-eye quip opened the floor for u/shaggy99, who shared a personal story about living with depth perception challenges. While illuminating, the consensus was clear: this wasn’t biology, it was process, or more precisely, the lack thereof. Delivery day should be a seamless handoff, not a case study in why power tools require training.
Tesla Model Y Juniper Cargo Volume & More
- Provides spacious seating for up to five passengers, with a massive 71 cubic feet of cargo volume behind the front seats.
- A lower center of gravity and stiffer chassis contribute to good handling and roadholding, with a skidpad rating of 0.88g.
- Built on an award-winning safety platform, with a full suite of active and passive safety features as standard.
- As the world’s best-selling car in 2023, the Model Y Juniper continues to be a dominant force in the EV market, benefiting from Tesla’s brand recognition and Supercharger network.
And therein lies the heart of the issue. A company capable of updating your car’s software from 500 miles away ought to have procedures ensuring license plates are mounted straight.
Yet here we are, with owners booking service appointments not for drivetrain issues or software bugs, but for fascia replacements because someone missed the guide marks with a drill. It’s less a flaw of engineering than of organizational discipline, something Tesla has struggled with since its earliest days.
One commenter summed it up best: “This is some serious complain-to-manager-or-corporate type energy… hopefully, she was just having an off day, but if this is her usual MO, then it would be best to say something so future buyers aren’t screwed too.”
That sentiment captures the Tesla ownership experience in 2025, caught between admiration for what the car can do and frustration at how it sometimes gets delivered.
For all of Elon Musk’s visions of Mars colonies and robotaxis, Tesla still hasn’t perfected the one thing every automaker must: getting the basics right, every single time.
Image Sources: Tesla Media Center
Noah Washington is an automotive journalist based in Atlanta, Georgia. He enjoys covering the latest news in the automotive industry and conducting reviews on the latest cars. He has been in the automotive industry since 15 years old and has been featured in prominent automotive news sites. You can reach him on X and LinkedIn for tips and to follow his automotive coverage.
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Source: torquenews.com
