Owner Is Honest About His Tesla Plaid After Five Months Ownership

The Model S Plaid does acceleration better than any normal car on the road, but what about actually being a good daily?

25:44

Andrei Nedelea

By: Andrei Nedelea

Feb 16, 2022 at 7:14am ET

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The Tesla Model S is now a decade old, so the manufacturer gave it a major overhaul last year, thus putting it back on luxury sedan buyers’ radar. This refresh, especially inside, is what made Ryan Shaw decide to buy one in September of last year, after previously avoiding it because of its ageing, dated interior.

He’s had his Model S Plaid for some five months now, and he’s covered around 5,300 miles in it since he took delivery. Now as he announces at the very start of his 25-minute opinion video that most of what he’s going to say about the car is good, although there are some bad points that he wants to address.

When it comes to positives, he mentions the new interior as a clear highlight. It is very pleasant and luxurious feeling, assembly quality is good, the new infotainment screen is also really good and traveling in the car is deemed a very quiet, comfortable and relaxing experience. There is nothing relaxing about the performance, though, as the Model S plaid will pin you to your seat like no other four-door car can.

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Most of the video is dedicated to the things Ryan likes about his Model S, but he also lists the negatives. And they all start right on the day he took delivery of his brand new blue car, which had a dent in the front bumper. There was also some type of adhesive on the edge of the side windows, the door handles didn’t line up, there was a rip in the passenger side carpet, a strange sound coming from the driver’s seat whenever he turned right and a creaky armrest.

The issues were eventually fixed, but Ryan says these quality niggles are not acceptable in a vehicle that he paid over $130,000 for, even if it offers performance on par with hypercars costing millions. He also mentions that he finds the built-in music app frustrating, the blind spot camera feed feature is displayed in the center of the central display, instead of in the gauge cluster where it should be (like it is in Hyundai, Kia products) and you really have to look down to see it.