
A Rogue Tesla Mechanic Resurrecting Salvaged Cars [video] - CaliforniaKarl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuAMczraBIM
======
drewg123
I've been watching him for quite a while. One the most interesting videos is
where he gets his rebuilt Tesla (Delores) to supercharge. On the face of it,
that does not sound like a big deal. However, it is much more interesting than
that. It basically exposes the fact that supercharging is managed by client-
side security.

Tesla has all kinds of restrictions on what vehicles are allowed to
supercharge, and whether or not you'll be charged a fee. For example, my
friend's S is a 2015 with supercharging that transfers with the vehicle, so
that if he sells it to you, you can still supercharge. My 2017 X has free
supercharging that is restricted to the first owner, so if I sell you my car,
you'll end up paying for supercharging. And if either one of our cars is
wrecked, and Tesla finds out about it, they will not allow the cars to
supercharge at all until they are "recertified" by Tesla, at a cost of
thousands of dollars.

If you buy a salvage Tesla, I'd suggest that (unless you've rooted it, and
know how to re-enable supercharging) that you just pull the sim card, and
don't let it connect to your wifi. That will (hopefully) preserve your ability
to supercharge at the price of making the giant touchscreen basically useless.

------
InTheArena
I've watched his videos, and they are awesome.. but I am also somewhat
surprised he hasn't electrocuted himself yet. All that said, his point is 100%
on base. right now Tesla has gotten around without addressing right-to-repair
issues. The model 3 is supposed to be a mainstream car. One of the reasons I
have not pulled the trigger yet on my deposit, is because I am not convinced
that anyone other then Tesla can repair it.

~~~
Waterluvian
I watch this guy on YouTube, Louis Rossman, who fixes MacBooks. This reminds
me exactly of his experiences. Macs are increasingly more difficult to repair
and Apple generally wants to own the repair experience so they can funnel you
towards a new purchase.

Cars these days can run half a million miles in their lifetime if you treat
them right and replace the pieces that break. Could you imagine a future where
cars followed the Apple model?

~~~
jgibson
From an engineering standpoint, Apples devices became hard to repair because
they optimized for weight and size over maintainability. Would Tesla do the
same? Size isn't going to be something they care about because cars are all
the same size and thats what people want. From a business standpoint it
doesn't make much sense either. Tesla offers very long warranties (I believe
is 4/8 years for vehicle/drivetrain), so making things hard to repair would
likely be costing them money. For the next 10-20 years, assuming they survive,
there will be more new Teslas under warranty than older models as the
production rate keeps increasing.

Electric cars are so much easier to repair in my opinion because of their
simplicity, with the exception of the high voltage stuff, which I won't touch.
Replacing the drive unit in most electric cars is like 2 sets of wires and 4-8
bolts. Ever tried replacing the camshaft in an internal combustion vehicle?
I'd say the difference is, the aftermarket car parts business is very good at
making camshafts, bearings and pistons, but not so good at making high power
inverters and charging systems. But that'll change as electric vehicles become
more common.

~~~
simion314
>From an engineering standpoint, Apples devices became hard to repair because
they optimized for weight and size

This is FALSE, small size do not explain Apple not publishing schematics, not
selling parts, attempting to stop third parties to repair Apple products by
sending them to justice etc.

I think you need to research more this subject and if you are honest with
yourself you will stop excusing Apple for this.

~~~
oneplane
This is FALSE as well, Apple doesn't publish them for the same reason many
other companies doesn't publish them: IP/Lawyer departments. This is also why
the other stuff happens.

Basically, whenever a company says: we don't want third party X to do Y
because of user experience, it mostly boils down to 10% user experience, 10%
PR & Marketing, and 80% legal crap.

~~~
simion314
This is FALSE again, they go against people or sites that publish schematics
or instructions on how to fix things, they go against people that want to buy
replacement parts, they say is for keeping the brand standards but is for the
money.

Imagine your side mirror of your car is broken(say a Ford). Now imagine Ford
is not allowing you to buy any other brand of mirror to replace it, you can't
even buy the Ford mirror to replace it yourself either, you must go to a Ford
shop pay 10x more for the mirror replacement but in some cases the guys there
say that is to expensive to try replace only the mirror and they will change
the entire car body but all is fine if you bought the extra insurgence
package, if not you will pay 25%-50% the original full car price to have it
fixed.

Again, inform yourself, this thread has many references and be honest with
yourself, you can like Apple for the things that they do right and don't try
to excuse them for the things they do wrong.

~~~
oneplane
How is that false? They (as in, Apple's legal department) enforce their rules
(such as, the schematics are copyrighted and publishing them is just as not-
allowed as uploading a movie or ebook), that is hardly different from another
company enforcing their rules. Comparing it with Ford doesn't help either, and
neither does telling me to 'inform myself', I have been in this business since
1998 and haven't heard anything from Apple, ever. I'm not an APSP or AASP, but
board-level repairs aren't new, and doing it without schematic's isn't new
either.

If you read what I wrote, you should be able to understand that:

> they say is for keeping the brand standards but is for the money.

is exactly this:

> whenever a company says: we don't want third party X to do Y because of user
> experience, it mostly boils down to 10% user experience, 10% PR & Marketing,
> and 80% legal crap.

But without assuming malice or planned obsolescence. It doesn't make sense for
a company to create a workflow, train people and build up logistics for an
integrated product if there is no money to be made off of it. You can argue
that you don't like that, but assuming that they (Apple as a company) makes
tons of extra money because of that is a bit unfounded. It's not likely that a
company would retain a client base if they actively practice such rules
against incentives. If you turn it around, would you be able to say: "the
company (Apple) would make more money if they sold spare parts and repair
guides to anyone"? I think not. I don't agree with it, but it doesn't mean
it's going to make a difference. A law would make a difference, and since this
isn't an Apple discussion but a repair discussion based on Tesla, I'd think
you would be more interested in a structural solution than trying to assign
malice and speak emotions all day long.

The discussion should be about whether we agree with the rules, and if the
rules are lawful (and if we can change the law to enforce a better set of
rules). Not the personification of a company and assigning malice, that
doesn't get anyone anywhere.

~~~
syshum
See I have the opposite opinion to you.

I think one of the biggest problems with business today is that fact that we
in society have removed "personification" from the company, companies are made
of people, and allowing companies whole to act as if they are amoral
automatons with their only goal profit seeking removes the ethical obligations
of the people that make up said corporations. Allows management to hide behind
phrases like "it is not personal it is just business".

So no a company may not be a person, but people are in charge of it, people
make the choices and policies of the companies, and as such those people
though be personified and held to an ethical standard and foundation on behalf
of the company.

Explaining away all of Apples anti-consumer policies simply because "Well the
damn lawyers" as you have done here is a massive evasion and redirection of
responsibility that the management, engineers and really every employee of
apple as to their customers

~~~
oneplane
I think you have to know the inside to know where you can change them from the
outside. As an engineer or logistics expert, you have no leverage inside a
company to modify those policies. When you say a company is made up of people,
and try to personify it, you, and many others also try to vilify the same
people. Imagine working somewhere and championing an internal policy reform
(which takes ages), and reading some unknown person writing angry crap about
you, that's not a very nice thing. Responsibility is an equally useless word
here, as you can't expect all 'responsible' parties in one company to have the
same opinions. Say you have 100.000 employees working at Apple, do you really
think they all share your views? Even if they all have a responsibility to
make your life easier for you, you can't expect them all to believe in the
exact same way or route to accomplish that. Put 10 people in a room and you'll
have enough opinions and methods to give you a headache, let alone over a ton
of them. This is why they have some sort of chain of command that removes some
responsibility and capabilities down the chain. That also means that you can
be mad at the engineers all you want, but it doesn't mean it's their fault or
that they are 'out to get you'.

Business scholars devise calculations where you can put in the laws and
requirements of your business and out comes the way forward, often not in
favor of the consumers. If you want that to change, well, then capitalism gets
in the way and that's when you need laws or shareholder/board-level influence
if consumers want that to change.

Your opinion is based on the idea that you can make overall structural changes
based on the same principles as making changes to government; but the
difference is that there is no way to reach the business part of a company
short of changing a law or simply not buying the product.

The scale of operations often doesn't allow for certain changes due to the
cost involved, especially when it comes to catering to an insignificant amount
of people (such as independent repair shops or consumers that want low level
access to everything).

When I write about where the policies come from and why things are in a
certain way, that is not opinion but a reflection of current operations. My
opinion and the reality don't match, but that doesn't mean I'm going to
declare my opinion as fact or yell on a social media platform that
"personified company X is malicious". It doesn't help, it doesn't change and
it is far from constructive.

On top of that, most policies in larger corporations are in place because they
were implemented buy lawyers by directive of business management driven by the
wishes of boards and shareholders. Unless you can communicate to, and convince
the shareholders, boards and other actual decision makers, all the screaming
and opinions are worthless. Especially when it's 1000 people yelling and 100
million people not yelling but being consumers all the same (and paying for
products).

In my opinion, all devices should be completely open and manageable by whoever
owns them, but that has yet to become reality. Even basic stuff such as
parameters for the ECU in almost all cars isn't freely available. Plenty of
good & bad reasons for that, but still a bummer when you simply wanted to
change a bit in a register to enable or disable a function that suits you.

~~~
pastage
Saying "this company is malicious" is away to build public outrage which is
quite useful if you want to change company policies.

I do not agree with you on many points but that these kinds of policies are
hard to change is obviously true.

------
justicezyx
Wow first time heard someone capable of repair a Tesla. I always was assuming
Tesla cars are designed to be hostile to repair outside their own factory
(partially due to inherent complexity, and market strategy as well).

Also huge respect to his belief that things people bought should always be
repairable by the owner (with some reasonable learned skills).

~~~
dyarosla
I see this belief (that things people bought should always be repairable by
the owner) by many but I always feel it’s extremely self-centered. IMO it’s
reckless to think this way about repairing complex systems that can affect
others.

Repairing something that you own that only affects you is different from
repairing something like a car that could affect others. As a completely
fictional example: incorrectly repairing a complex brake system could pose a
danger to other drivers and lead to an -otherwise avoidable- accident.

EDIT: some responses are focusing too closely on the example of brakes-
perhaps it’s not the best way to illustrate my point. Say, instead, your
engine broke or your self driving car’s software was malfunctioning. Should
you still have the right to repair?

~~~
userbinator
The problem is that taking your line of thought to its logical conclusion, we
end up with a dystopian society where the bulk of the knowledge, power, and
control is concentrated in a tiny minority and also enforced by such.

Everything you do affects everyone else, that's no excuse to take away
freedom.

"No risk no life."

~~~
dyarosla
I don’t believe that’s the only logical conclusion. Perhaps there should be
some base requirement for people who want to repair something- be it a
certification or insurance requirement.

There could definitely be degrees of freedom for repair on specific items,
much like there’s a degree of freedom of usage for particular items.

The right to own should not necessarily imply a right to repair for all types
of items.

~~~
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
Yes, it should imply a right to repair for all types of items.

Mind you, right to repair is a separate question from right to use on public
streets. The former is between the manufacturer and the owner, the latter is
between the owner and the public/the state. There may be additional
requirements to be allowed to use a repaired vehicle on public streets, but
the important point is that that is none of the manufacturer's business, the
requirements are set by the state, not by the manufacturer.

~~~
userbinator
_There may be additional requirements to be allowed to use a repaired vehicle
on public streets, but the important point is that that is none of the
manufacturer 's business, the requirements are set by the state, not by the
manufacturer._

Indeed. This is usually called "roadworthiness" and varies between states. In
fact, this is why the whole custom/car modding/hot rod culture can exist ---
and from what I've seen, it's not been detrimental to overall safety. The vast
majority of deaths come from idiotic/drunk/distracted drivers, not problems
with modded/repaired cars.

------
drewmol
Tesla seems to be <!--towing--> toeing a line between: A) manufacturing
vehicles for sale as an _exclusively-electric_ auto maker... and B)
manufacturing the necessary hardware, but then just collecting an equiptment-
fee. This equipment is required, but enables use of their smart-car-as-a-
service driving subscription (Terms and Conditions subjuct to change without
notice).

I wonder if some Tesla cars will end up like old set-top boxes for some paid
Satellite TV service (DirecTV): utterly useless, illegal to circumvent due to
Tesla IP violations required, but still yours to keep!

~~~
jacquesm
'toeing'.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_the_line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_the_line)

~~~
goldenkey
Thanks, I didn't write the previous comment but had no idea that it was "toe
the line" instead of "tow the line." Idioms.....why do they always seem to
beat around the bush... ;-)

~~~
vinceguidry
You can usually work out which homophones make up an idiom just by thinking
visually about what those homophones would mean in the idiom. "Towing a line"
gives you a visual of hauling a cable out to something or someone, perhaps the
meaning of that idiom, if it were a thing, would be to save someone.

Toeing a line invokes using your foot for, well, something related to a line.
Is it an actual line or a metaphorical line? What's the line going to be used
for after you toe it?

The idiom is usually used in the sense of getting really close to some
imaginary, arbitrary boundary. Even if you don't know the history behind the
saying, that it's something that boys used to do to mess with each other, you
can usually rule one of them out and get pretty close to the actual history /
meaning of the idiom.

When I first came across it, I 'knew' it was 'toe' and I would have been
pretty surprised if it had actually been 'tow'. What I didn't know was the
precise thing that the end of the foot was actually supposed to be doing to
the supposed line.

------
hardwaresofton
> Tesla's stance on rebuilding vehicles is that only they should be able to do
> it

I had no idea they had this kind of stance -- is there any more nuance to it?

If there isn't I cannot conscience supporting Tesla in any way again --
there's no way I'm going to help a company that disregards/works against
right-to-repair get a monopoly. Just the same reason I avoid buying iDevices.

~~~
delhanty
Probably it's not nuanced - John Deere like to do this sort of thing too.

See my comment from March 2017:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13929078](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13929078)

------
e40
I don't have a Tesla nor had I heard of Rich before. What an awesome dude. I
just signed up for his Patreon. In case others want to:

[https://www.patreon.com/RichRebuilds/overview](https://www.patreon.com/RichRebuilds/overview)

------
soared
Who is this guy? I feel like you'd have to a be an electrical engineer, ex-bmw
mechanic, who got rich and is now wealthy + retired.

~~~
mahart
I've watched a bunch of his videos a while back and he said he had a day job
in the tech industry. But basically he's said he wanted a tesla without paying
$$$ so he bought some salvage vehicles and did it as a hobby.

But with his channel starting to take off he might have transitioned to a
youtube career. At this point he's probably funding a lot of it via youtube
income.

~~~
spike021
Reminds me of Chris, who has the B is for Build channel on YT. He started
rebuilding a few salvage cars (BRZ, Lotus Evora) on the side while being a
software engineer. Ended up losing that job and now does YT full time
basically rebuilding salvage or almost salvage cars.

------
stcredzero
One reads that Elon Musk has an interest in colonizing Mars. If Mars ever has
a government, they'd better have some Right to Repair laws! Those would me
more like, you'd-better-not-be-jerking-your-customers-around-and-let-them-
repair-vital-equipment-or-people-might-freakin-die laws!

------
avelis
I have been watching his channel when it was called Car Gurus and he had to
change it. What is so awesome is how he is pushing the needle for the right to
repair argument. As a TSLA stock holder I want him to continue to push that
POV. It will only be a matter of time.

------
perl4ever
It just occurred to me that there may be another thing I don't see yet
mentioned in this thread that gets in the way of repairing Teslas - from what
I've read, they make constant changes in their cars during model years, so how
do you know which exact parts you have in your car? I bet it's
underdocumented.

I have been trying to fix various things in an old car from the 80s, and one
of the more annoying aspects is trying to get a replacement part and finding
there is a rare variant that I need but has the _same part number_ as the
common one. There are also a lot of parts that don't have diagrams or part
numbers at all, because they weren't anticipated to be serviced normally.

~~~
userbinator
_finding there is a rare variant that I need but has the same part number as
the common one._

That's usually because the replacement is a drop-in compatible replacement;
otherwise the part number would also have changed. Note that sometimes this
also means a few other parts need to be replaced with new versions too, and if
so that would be something mentioned in a service change bulletin
(unfortunately rarely available, in contrast to service manuals.)

~~~
perl4ever
"That's usually because the replacement is a drop-in compatible replacement"

I wish. When I had it installed, I was told there was an issue, but I was sure
it was the right part so I told them to go ahead and just do it. Afterwards,
there was a heavy bag of leftover parts, and I said "what's this?" It was the
stuff that had to be taken off to fit the wrong part. That stuff,
coincidentally, doesn't have part numbers or documentation itself.

Also not helping - salvage places that don't send you the exact part that's
pictured on their website.

------
joeblau
Uncle Rich! I found Rich's YouTube channel[1] about a year ago when I got my
Model X and it's been funny and educational. It definitely sheds a lot of
light on how new Tesla is at making cars, but also how much further ahead some
of their manufacturing choices are then other auto brands. It's definitely got
strong language and he takes lots of shots at Tesla and Tesla Fanboys, but if
you've got time to watch the story of someone taking apart a car, then it's
amazing.

[1] -
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfV0_wbjG8KJADuZT2ct4SA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfV0_wbjG8KJADuZT2ct4SA)

------
ChuckMcM
That was fun to watch, I really admire the guy for his dedication to learning
all the various bits of the car. He should publish a manual and sell it to
support his web channel, I'd buy a copy!

------
djaychela
I've watched Rich Rebuilds for a while, and it's one of about 5 YouTube
channels I've bothered to subscribe to. I like Rich and the content in the
videos (for the most part, aside from the rants which aren't my favourites).

I watched this yesterday and was pleasantly surprised at the angle of the
video - I expected it to be a little more snarky about what he's done, but it
presented a much better angle in terms of the right to repair that Tesla
clearly fights against.

I'm often told that I'm an Elon Musk fanboy by friends and family - I love
what SpaceX is doing, and I want Tesla to succeed (because I'm convinced that
the sooner we get ICE-powered vehicles off the roads, the better), but I have
spent much of the last 30 years fixing my own vehicles; I built my first
motorbike from a written-off bike, and I've owned hundreds of cars. I built my
own rally cars and competed in one of them at WRC level. I love fixing things,
and as soon as I found out (via Rich Rebuilds, or CarGuru as it was then)
about Tesla's policy, my opinion on them changed completely; I still want them
to succeed, but I can't imagine ever owning one because of their stance (even
though it probably wouldn't affect me, even if I ever did own one, which is
unlikely to say the least).

There are a number of people on here taking what appears to me to be a straw
man on the 'right to repair' angle - talking about 'repairing the software
yourself'. I don't think this is what most people are talking about (and it's
certainly not what Rich is talking about). It's about Tesla's restrictive
policy over spare parts and repairing vehicles - not down to software level,
but to the level that Rich is working at - like-for-like replacement of entire
components. If a vehicle is on Tesla's list, then they will not sell you
parts. And you can't get pattern parts in the way you can for most ICE
vehicles - I'd imagine this is because the supply chain/pool is much smaller
(Tesla is a small, niche manufacturer in reality) and they have clauses in
place to stop the sale of these parts via other channels. And this is just
wrong. There is no more danger in the straight like-for-like replacement of a
motor unit or inverter than there is in any other competent repair.

My experience of dealer repair work has been limited, but when it has taken
place, it has been poor. The mechanics in question have been of the 'follow a
fixed set of instructions in the order given' type, not seeming to know their
trade well and get straight to the point. I was quoted over £2000 in labour
costs possible to diagnose a problem with a Ford Focus I owned (car was about
5 years old at the time) - 'because we have to do the diagnosis step by step,
even if it's obvious it's not that'. Had I taken it there, it would have been
the full price as it was one of the last things on the list (small end
failure, which was common on that particular engine). Service in the UK is
incredibly bad for the most part, and I've seen friends have terrible (and
expensive) experiences at franchised, approved garages, with multi-thousand
costs being generated to replace parts without any improvement (A friend's BMW
X5 is springing to mind).

There is no significant risk to anyone if this kind of repair is carried out
by competent personnel. And there are plenty of competent personnel about who
would be able to do everything normally needed to repair a Tesla. The service
documentation alone would allow that to happen (factory service manuals are
generally a goldmine of information, but also written in such simple terms
that nearly anyone could follow them), and the supply of the right parts to
anyone who wants them - at a price without a prohibitive mark-up - should be a
right. I'm saddened that Tesla is instead following a path trying to lock
people in to their ecosystem of service - and even more so when they refuse to
carry out mandated safety upgrades (such as the airbag mentioned in the
piece).

Oh, for anyone who thinks that Rich is really safe.... just do a bit of
research into 'safety wood'!

~~~
severine
Off-topic: Hey djaychela, how's your 2 year plan going?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13183972](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13183972)

------
jaimex2
I wonder if things would be different if there wasn't such a big media
spotlight on Tesla. Having more repair shops would be a help to them, they are
barely coping.

------
beamatronic
Is this Rich Rebuilds? I discovered his videos recently. I found them really
interesting and hilarious. I get the impression he does take appropriate
safety precautions.

------
backtoyoujim
I wonder if that is how Singer Vehicle Design got started making the best
Porsches available for the road.

------
dazhbog
Check out his youtube videos! Especially the ones he's playing the flute!

