Two recent photos on Twitter show heavy rain and the Tesla Model 3 don’t mix well.
Picture the scenario: You just bought a Tesla Model 3. You paid your $1,000 deposit to reserve it and waited several months as Tesla ironed out production. Finally, at last, you finally take home the finished product. Everything should be right with the world – then this happens.
1/2 hr, bringing Model 3 home, run in to heavy rain on the streets & bumper comes off #devastated @Tesla #help @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/mOh2UAjWWr
— rithesh (@rithesh) August 12, 2018
Ouch. Tesla owner Rithesh Nair just took delivery of his brand new Tesla Model 3. No more than half an hour later – and with the help of s
ome rain, according to Nair – the bumper came off. Alarmed, he took to Twitter, reaching out to Elon Musk and Tesla for help. In the past three days, Musk has not responded, at least not in the public sphere.
However, that’s not where the story ends. Shortly after, another Tesla Model 3 owner – this time from Florida, responded to Nair’s tweet:
Hey that looks like mine! pic.twitter.com/c1zTLGDCBF
— Ben (@Benj1Franks) August 12, 2018
In the comments, Ben claimed his bumper came off as he “drove through a large amount of standing water in heavy rain.” According to Nair and others in the comments, it seems the bumper cover separated from its screws and the weight of the water in the heavy rainfall tore it away.
Tesla responds
Tesla did comment on the incident, and says they’re investigating the issue: “We’re setting an extremely high bar for the Model 3, and what happened in this situation is not how we build our cars. We’re investigating the issue to understand what caused it, and we are contacting our customers to resolve this and ensure they are satisfied.”
As Tesla aims to ramp up Model 3 production, the company’s speed could jeopardize quality. At least, if reports like this one from Reuters are any indication. In that report, workers state the Model S and Model X suffered quality issues.
Tesla, like any other automaker, has quality control processes in place to ensure these issues don’t happen. However, as the Model 3 is a new venture, it may take Tesla some time to work out issues as they pop up in the real world.