An InsideEVs article recently asked “Remember the Tesla Model 3’s Rusty Seats?” Author Gustavo Henrique Ruffo, with the help of Munro & Associate’s Director of Benchmarking Al Steier, was able to provide readers an answer, “apparently, that’s normal.”
According to Ruffo, “whenever we hear about any issue EV consumers may have, we investigate them. That is how we found out Nissan showed a $35,000 bill for a single Leaf battery pack, and PSA had comparable prices for the humble Peugeot iOn. As the biggest EV manufacturer, Tesla tends to present more issues. We dig a little deeper whenever there seems to be a problem, but that helps get facts straight. That is what happened with the Sudden Unintended Acceleration accusation against the company and now with the rusted seats on a Model 3.”
All was quiet … until Munro published its fifth segment of its “Tearing Down Tesla” series where the company analyzed the front seats of the BMW i3, Chevy Bolt EV and Tesla Model 3. InsideEVs reached out and Steier offered some additional insight:
“If you were to look at a number of seats across the various manufacturers, you will find that about 50 percent do not paint the seat supports (bottom and/or back). They will however paint any area that is visible to the customer – i.e. the lower mount points and sometimes the rails if they are not covered with trim. So most have determined that they can live with a little surface rust on non-visible parts. Besides, eliminating the paint is good for the environment.”
In sum, according to Steier, “this is not an issue.” You can check out the entire InsideEVs article for full comments and details: http://bit.ly/3dc0Ows
