I see it from both sides, and I think a person's view of this type of hack all comes down to trust.
Do you trust that some engineers at Tesla needed a solution to a problem, modelled it out, did some materials testing and discovered that this plastic panelling was the right material for this job?
It does look bad because it's obviously not produced by Tesla, but so many parts are outsourced already in car manufacturing, this could be a solid engineering choice that's getting some bad publicity.
Of course, it could also be because some intern was tasked at solving a design problem and slapped this together overnight, and no one ever checked his work, and it went into production.
> Do you trust that some engineers at Tesla needed a solution to a problem, modelled it out, did some materials testing and discovered that this plastic panelling was the right material for this job?
That would be more credible if it was the same in all cars; it is not (see the source).
It not just not the same in each car but the pieces have rough cut edges and each piece is a different length. I would hope a production fix would at least buy a saw with a stop so that it looks standard.
Do you trust that some engineers at Tesla needed a solution to a problem, modelled it out, did some materials testing and discovered that this plastic panelling was the right material for this job?
It does look bad because it's obviously not produced by Tesla, but so many parts are outsourced already in car manufacturing, this could be a solid engineering choice that's getting some bad publicity.
Of course, it could also be because some intern was tasked at solving a design problem and slapped this together overnight, and no one ever checked his work, and it went into production.
Alllll about trust.