Agreed. Tesla has tons of growing pains, but it's taken nearly a decade for another manufacturer to start releasing a decent EV. Tesla has been leading the charge for "fun" in the segment while other OEMs are dragging their heels trying to squeeze out all the profit they can from their massive ICE-based infrastructure and design. Toyota was making a slightly more aerodynamic Prius while Tesla was making the worlds fastest production cars.
I guess I can only speak for the two that I've driven (one I own, another i drove for 4 days) and a few others I sat in and looked at it person. One pivotal moment for me actually was when an ADGU customer rolled up in their 2015 Model S with something like 75k miles on it. It looked new. At this point in time I was still very much in the "yeah, they're fast I guess, but everyone says the build quality is garbage" camp. We came out to look at it for a while in the parking lot. The owner said it was all still nice and functional with no substantial squeaks or rattles. I was a bit shocked by how nice it was. I had heard all these stories about how terrible these things were.... and here's a 7 year old example sitting in front of me that looks far nicer than the brand new 4Runners we see. It looks on par with the brand new 200 series we see. A few weeks later, I rented one on Turo. That one was also great. The sole fault I could find with that 60k mile 2016 was that a rear door handle wouldn't always unlatch. It's a known problem and a redesign was issued since 2016 that makes them more durable now. The interior was perfect aside from some scratches on the inside of the driver's door handle (where a ring would hit the handle).
Perhaps the quality is more variable than bad? I've seen the new steering yoke (which seems dumb, IMO) wear insanely fast. And others look great. I've seen some paint quality issues in some cars - I guess all pre ~2019 - and have seen absolutely zero in my own Model S and the one I rented, nor that customer's 2015.
In the same timeframe just in the ADGU shop, we've seen a <year old 200 series with a completely dead rear tailgate handle that left a customer without access to their cargo. Every 200 series has a second row seat bottom that rocks and rattles within the catch mechanism. The striker has too little preload. Toyota/Lexus appear to have left that fault in all their flagship SUVs for the entire run of the car. Toyota makes phenomenal drivetrains.
Now one thing I must mention is the panel gaps and panel alignment. It's bad. lol. It's completely irrelevant to any function of the vehicle, but it's obvious their manufacturing lacks the precision of Audi/BMW/Mercedes. Toyota has great repeatability on their panels, so it seems, but they leave some pretty huge gaps from the factory. This is a case where Tesla is bad, Toyota is OK and the German brands are way out in front.
All suffice to say, 12 months ago I was under the same impression/experience you have. Now I've lived with and been hands on with a few and all is well.
