A YouTuber ditched his Tesla for a Mercedes EQS. It came down to quality issues.

• Austin Evans said he decided to sell his Tesla Model Y over a variety of small build defects.
• The tech YouTuber also said he didn't like some of Tesla's design choices.
• Evans replaced the Tesla with a Mercedes EQS, which he said feels like a private jet.

Tech YouTuber Austin Evans sold his family's 2021 Tesla Model Y because he was fed up with a myriad of quality concerns.

"It was like death by a thousand cuts," Evans told Insider about the car, on which he and his wife put about 25,000 miles over the past two years. "There were just a bunch of little issues that piled up."

Evans said it started with a strip of glue smeared between the panels of his sunroof that he noticed when the car was first delivered, but he discovered more issues with the Tesla over time.

He broke down his decision to ditch the EV in a video for his over 5 million subscribers earlier this month.

In the video, he detailed quality control issues. Parts were on the brink of falling off the car, he said, including the passenger side speaker and a spoiler on the back of the vehicle. A panel under the car dragged and rattled when the vehicle was in motion, Evans added, and only a few months into owning the vehicle he had to tie the covers for the seat controls down because they were falling off.

He also criticized the car's ride quality, which he said caused him to lurch in the seat at nearly every bump on the road.

Outside of quality concerns, Evans wasn't a fan of Tesla's interior design — which lacks a dashboard — saying it took the lack of physical controls "to an absolutely ridiculous minimal level."

He also took issue with Tesla's signature door handles, telling Insider that the Bluetooth for unlocking the doors was inconsistent at best — meaning his wife would sometimes find herself trying to fiddle with her phone to get it to connect while holding groceries or standing in the pouring rain.

It wasn't all bad: Evans liked the speed of the EV, he said, as well as Track Mode, which is designed to allow the Tesla to optimize its performance for racing. He sees Tesla's Supercharger network as its best feature.

Evans said that he could have taken the vehicle in to fix some of the quality issues, but he was wary of dealing with Tesla service centers, which have received their fair share of negative reviews over the years. He added that he may have been more willing to deal with the quality issues if he'd bought the car after Tesla slashed the prices for the Model Y below $50,000 — significantly less than the more than $60,000 he paid for the EV.

He filmed the YouTube video months ago, but waited to release it over concerns that exuberant Tesla fans might take it the wrong way, he told Insider.

"I tried to be fair, and I'm not just saying Tesla sucks," Evans said. "There are things I'm going to miss about the car, but also a lot of issues that really bothered me."

In the video, Evans also provided a sneak peek at his new family car, a Mercedes EQS SUV. He told Insider he'd considered buying a Model X, but had been unimpressed with the vehicle when he took it on a test drive.

"When you compare it to the Mercedes, a Tesla feels like you're in an Ikea," Evans said. "The Mercedes feels like you're in a private jet."

A spokesperson for Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from Insider.

Evans is one of many Tesla owners to describe quality control issues with the EVs, including issues with panel alignment on the car, paint jobs, and leaks in the cabin. In the past, Elon Musk has admitted that the electric carmaker has had issues with quality control and even warned it might not be a good idea to buy a Tesla during a new model's ramp-up period.

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