The New York Times’ documentary, premiering May 20 on FX, puts the world’s richest man’s stylish electric vehicles under the microscope—with occasionally deadly results.
Teslas are stylish, cutting-edge, and immensely popular electric vehicles. With their sleek exteriors, luxurious interiors and dashboards dominated by a single enormous touchscreen, they’re preeminent 21st-century status symbols. While their wow factor is undeniable, however, their safety and reliability record is more debatable, as evidenced by the fact that just last week, Tesla recalled upwards of 130,000 cars because of a not-insignificant new glitch: the onboard infotainment system had a habit of overheating to a dangerous degree, thereby shutting down a variety of basic functions necessary for operation. While a software update was all that was required to fix the glitch, it was merely the latest technological headache for the company, which—depending on which reports you believe—has to date issued recalls on a quarter to half of all its sold cars.
Hmmm…
