
Tesla Model S: the story of a very short happiness and excitement - speedy_go
http://dmitryzavyalov.livejournal.com/712.html?utm_source=fbsharing&utm_medium=social
======
OliverJones
Thanks for telling this story. The car business is HARD. I, for one, hope
Tesla makes it across the chasm from early adopters like me to the mainstream.

There's a reason for the existence of dealerships: they are local businesses
that local jurisdictions can hold accountable for such things as lemon law
refunds. If Tesla wants out from under the dealership laws, they better handle
this kind of problem more professionally from the factory.

They also need to grow their corporate PR and communications to be bigger than
a single Twitter account if they're going to appeal to a mass market.

All that being said, I really like my Model S. I hope they make it.

~~~
sk5t
> There's a reason for the existence of dealerships: they are local businesses
> that local jurisdictions can hold accountable for such things as lemon law
> refunds.

I'm not sure this argument holds water. Civil and criminal law hold all sorts
of corporate entities accountable without forcing them to franchise out the
business of sales and service. We have a sort of "protected status" for car
dealers now in order to prevent the manufacturers from squashing them unfairly
after setting up local markets and goodwill.

~~~
mulmen
A franchised BMW dealership tried to charge me $15,000.00 for a new engine. It
turns out the problem was two spark plus that _they_ installed improperly.
Their diagnosis turned out to be entirely manufactured.

The idea that franchised dealerships somehow improve customer service is
laughable.

~~~
sk5t
For an out-of-warranty German car, your best bet is the independent mechanics
that the local car club members like. For a BMW, maybe start with the BMWCCA-
approved safety inspection shops on the track day prep list.

~~~
overcast
Yep, been taking mine to the local mom and pop BMW racing club guy shop since
day one. The ONE and ONLY time I took my car to the dealer for a free oil
change. They didn't put the oil cap back on, sprayed everywhere in the engine
as I was leaving, and months later I found out they didn't replace the drain
plug access panel underneath. Can't handle oil changes, I sure as shit am not
bringing it there for something serious.

Oh, forgot one more thing. They didn't tighten down the coolant cap fully, so
that eventually seeped out enough to set off the coolant level alarms.

~~~
mulmen
I took mine in for an oil change and they also removed that drain plug panel.
In addition they broke the plastic cover for the cabin air filter by over-
tightening the bolt that holds it on.

It's a staggering level of incompetence.

~~~
overcast
Yeh it's crazy, and you reminded me about the coolant cap they didn't fully
tighten as well! All things you find out about six months later, when alarms
go off. No way to every hold anyone accountable.

~~~
mulmen
I changed the oil myself the next time and they had the filter cover torqued
down so tight I had to make a wrench out of an old timing belt to get enough
leverage to remove it. The cap has a torque spec printed right on it that is
much lower than whatever the dealer tightened it to.

The amazing thing isn't just the degree to which they make mistakes it's the
frequency. More often than not they are doing the job wrong.

~~~
overcast
I've always changed my own oil, and at every 7500, rather than the insane
15000 BMW states for their service intervals. So while it was in warranty, I
took advantage of the 15000 mile changes, and did my own in between. In
hindsight, it's not even worth my time, and I won't be doing it again with a
future car. Oil change is quick, and you can get 5L Liqui Moly for much
cheaper than "BMW" brand oil.

~~~
mulmen
This is exactly what I do, down to the oil. BMW made it really easy with the
access flap for the drain plug and there are convenient jacking points on the
subframe. The service calls for more than just changing oil but I'm not
confident that the dealer even does all the "extra" things they claim. My car
is due for a brake fluid flush soon, not sure if I will do that myself or have
the mechanic do it.

~~~
mschuster91
> My car is due for a brake fluid flush soon, not sure if I will do that
> myself or have the mechanic do it.My car is due for a brake fluid flush
> soon, not sure if I will do that myself or have the mechanic do it.

Leave brake fluid stuff to the experts. If you manage to get any moisture or
air into your brake systems, say goodbye to your brakes. Back when I had a
car, I did everything by myself except brakes, engine works and steering -
mess up on these three and you can end up dead.

~~~
ars
> If you manage to get any moisture or air into your brake systems, say
> goodbye to your brakes.

That isn't true at all. You just bleed the air out, it's really easy, I've
done it multiple times using just a small $5 brake bleeding bottle.

The only way you'd get enough water in your brake system for it to cause a
problem is if you poured it in there, or left it open for several days.

> Back when I had a car, I did everything by myself except brakes, engine
> works and steering - mess up on these three and you can end up dead.

The brakes are the easiest [major] thing of all to to fix on a car. Your
caution was completely unnecessary.

~~~
mschuster91
> The brakes are the easiest [major] thing of all to to fix on a car. Your
> caution was completely unnecessary.

Yeah but when the brakes fail (or the steering, or the engine seizes) you
usually end up injured or dead.

If you have had a licensed mechanic dealing with the life-critical stuff and
it turns out that it was the fault of the mechanic then you can at least sue
his insurance for damages after the fact (or, if you die, your dependants can
sue, e.g. for widowers' benefit). It also protects you from being sued by
others in case your screw-up causes an accident.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I've had complete brake failure due to a rusted brake line. There's no need to
panic: I applied the emergency brake and pulled over to the side of the road,
then drove to the nearest auto shop that was conveniently a block away.

Unfortunately, their insurance didn't cover dropping the gas tank that was in
the way of replacing the brake lines, so then I had the fun of driving to the
next nearest place two miles away with only a handbrake and engine compression
to slow me down. Fun times!

------
kylec
In my opinion the most damning sentence in the article is this:

    
    
        This was the day of first bitter truth of Tesla: even you have a new car covered
        by warranty, you will need to wait in line for a few days to get it checked up.
    

This says one of two things to me, both of them bad. Either there are so many
Teslas with issues that the technicians are constantly booked up days in
advance, or Tesla doesn't care about providing even adequate customer service
for customers with serious issues like this. In reality, I'll bet that both
are at least somewhat true.

I get that not every car that rolls off the production line can be perfect
(though I suspect that Tesla's defect/lemon rate is a lot higher than most
other manufacturers), but at least the other established manufacturers have a
network in place to remedy issues like this when they arrive, and to minimize
the negative impact to the customer.

~~~
taneq
The overall picture I'm getting of Tesla is that they have great tech, are
very innovative, but they have a hell of an attitude problem. It's not like
the guy was making it up, they had clearly-detailed logs of the problems and
the car was provably misbehaving.

Even though in the end they did do the right thing, it would have been far
better handled if they'd simply offered a replacement the moment the (just
freshly checked and declared good) car refused to start.

~~~
sp0rk
> It's not like the guy was making it up, they had clearly-detailed logs of
> the problems and the car was provably misbehaving.

The fact that problems exist says nothing of what caused them. I don't imagine
it would be difficult for a competitor to intentionally damage a Tesla in a
way that they could make a blog post like this about it. I'm not generally
conspiracy-minded, but I feel like this is something worth considering when
you're reading an article that seems to be put up on a throwaway LiveJournal
account by somebody that doesn't link to any of their other social media
accounts or websites.

~~~
taneq
But that's precisely why they should have done a recall-and-replace. Funny
error message? Intermittent fault? No worries, give it a thorough looking
over. Find nothing. Okay, give it back to the customer. More weird error
messages followed by a persistent fault? The prudent thing at this point is to
instantly swap out the car, and this time go through it with a fine toothed
comb.

Now you're not just looking for a dodgy cable. You're looking for one of three
things:

1) An as-yet-unknown design flaw, which needs to be documented for maintainers
and fixed in future revisions.

2) A manufacturing defect, which should be investigated by quality control and
again documented in case it reoccurs.

3) Malfeasance, in which case you want to preserve any possible evidence,
finger prints on parts, damaged tamper seals etc.

It's not just about good customer service, it's about finding out exactly what
happened.

~~~
martin_a
> Funny error message? Intermittent fault? No worries, give it a thorough
> looking over. Find nothing. Okay, give it back to the customer.

Well said. This might be a problem, in a state of mind way, when you think of
your car as a computer but not so much a car. Have you tried turning it off
and on again? No? Well, do so and the errors will go away. Not really a good
attitude for a car manufacturer.

------
bcrescimanno
As a (now former) Tesla owner, there's not a single moment of this story that
surprises me. As I tweeted on the day that I was told that I would be
receiving $5,000 less for my car than they had offered me and that I would be
waiting 2-3 weeks (I actually waited over 6 weeks and had to follow-up
multiple times to get the check which incidentally arrived today), a Tesla is
a nice car--but the company is garbage.

I've got 3 years of experience with them that tells me it's just not worth it.
Sad too, I really wanted to be a Tesla owner for life when I got the car.

[https://twitter.com/bcrescimanno/status/809137117171482624](https://twitter.com/bcrescimanno/status/809137117171482624)

~~~
nraynaud
I click and see that you're employed at Paypal...

~~~
andruby
Why is that a problem? I don't think Paypal harbours any animosity towards
Elon Musk.

~~~
nraynaud
Ah no, I was targeting the remark that Tesla is a bad company in general,
while PayPal is itself also very famous for being a failure in customer
services.

I see a real parallel: not being able to transfer your money when you need it
and being stuck on the side of the road.

------
gtvwill
Wow that's sounds like a crappy experience all-round given the avg customer
service response!

A few things regarding the towing situation tho... Do tesla's honestly not
have any form of rear tow hitch/chassis/axle? The bit where the tow truck
driver had to push the vehicle out of a park because it was nose-in boggles my
mind. Like,why didn't he just strap on to a rear axle/chassis point and pull
it out with his truck/winch? I haven't had a chance to crawl under a tesla but
if by design they have nowhere on the rear end to slap a strap this sounds
like an absolutely terrible oversight/poor design by the tesla team. That or
the towie was just being lazy/precious and didn't want the late night. If
anyone owns a tesla and could take a snap of the undercarriage from rear I'd
be pretty interested.

Apart from that and the crap customer service experience I've gotta say that
this being such a new model of machinery I would be blown away if the first
half decade(or full decade) of releases weren't plagued with problems... Most
combustion vehicles engines/blocks have literally had 30 years on the same
base design slowly removing flaws with each iteration(and creating new ones in
the process).

~~~
lucaspiller
> Do tesla's honestly not have any form of rear tow hitch/chassis/axle?

I suspect the issue is more to do with the electric drive. There is no neutral
unlike a traditional ICE vehicle, so any kind of towing could potentially
damage the electric motors.

I have a Prius and it's the same issue - if I need to get it taken to a
garage, it's recommended to get a flatbed with a crane.

~~~
Dylan16807
Electric motors default to being in neutral. If they produce voltage, and
nothing consumes it, they spin freely.

~~~
vsl
Right. It’s that Teslas’ default mode is to be parked on brakes. You _can_ tow
it onto a flatbed, but you have to put it into a dedicated mode for it.

------
S_A_P
If those are the facts of the case, I would say that looks pretty bad.
Normally, a new car replacement under warranty is done in an effort to salvage
repeat business after extreme duress. This Tesla was a lemon, and it should
have been replaced with an equal spec model. This is where Tesla could have
gotten tons of goodwill from the press, and I can promise that even the most
fervent Tesla haters at the truth about cars/jalopnik/etc would have
publicized this as amazing customer support. I am curious if this will now
make those same sites as an example of how not to support the customer after
the sale.

~~~
Animats
It's not the manufacturers' decision. In California, you can demand a new car
replacement under warranty if, after a number of attempts, the manufacturer
can't fix it successfully.[1] Most states have "lemon laws". Here are
California's rules:

In California, a vehicle is presumed to be a “lemon" if, within 18 months of
the vehicle's delivery to the buyer (or 18,000 miles on the odometer):

\- 2 attempts or more have been made by the manufacturer to repair a warranty
problem that could result in death or serious injury.

\- The manufacturer has attempted to repair the same warranty problem at least
4 times.

\- The car has been out of service for 30 days or more for repair to warranty
problems.

\- Problems to the vehicle are not the result of abuse by the owner.

You don't hear about this much any more because most manufacturers don't
deliver many lemons.

[1]
[http://www.dca.ca.gov/acp/pdf_files/englemn.pdf](http://www.dca.ca.gov/acp/pdf_files/englemn.pdf)

~~~
S_A_P
I understand the law part. I understand why they may even say please sign this
California appropriate legalese so we can all move on. The truth of the matter
is that they should fix the problem and delight the customer unless they can
prove that someone had an ax to grind.

------
noonespecial
Something lots of car companies don't seem to get. If the service center has
your name on it, its an _advertisement_. PR goes all the way down to the
street.

Its so easy for a service center manager to blow $500K in goodwill chasing $1k
in savings to secure his $2k Christmas bonus.

2 brand spanking new Teslas passed out like party favors would have been
cheaper than having this story hit front page on HN alone.

~~~
matt4077
> 2 brand spanking new Teslas passed out like party favors would have been
> cheaper than having this story hit front page on HN alone.

That's actually quite problematic. I hate corporations as much as anybody, but
there are now actually people going around demanding free stuff and
threatening to make up some story to "my 20,000 twitter followers". Or
consider the story of the developer of "Dash" that hit HN: he threw all sorts
of allegations at Apple, and using the HN community as props actually got
Apple to offer him a way out. Only thing that exposed this scam was that he
got drunk on his power and posted the audio of a secretly recorded phone call
(!) which he believed to be supportive for his side of the story (it mostly
just made public that "someone" was faking reviews for apps with an account
using his credit card, hardware, name, address, and naming scheme)

------
hvidgaard
I know a lot of people that are happy with their Model S. I also know a lot of
people that have spend way too much time dealing with issues, having many days
without a car, and some even drove 200 miles multiple times to a service
center.

I just cannot justify that kind of service and reliability for a car that
expensive. I'd rather buy a BMW or Mercedes, because they actually handle this
far more maturely.

But what scares me most about this story, is that they do not have their
software done right. Even if their system is devided into a critical part, and
a non critical part (the infotainment system, ect.), if it throws a code like
in this story, it better log every possible thing it knows and what lead to
this error. And I would actually expect it submitted it directly to Tesla to
look at and analyze.

------
kevin_thibedeau
How can it throw an warning on the display without a detailed log of the
actual cause?

~~~
koz1000
Thought the same thing.

Remember in the early days when Tesla owners would claim some wacky thing or
other about the car (unintended acceleration etc) and Musk would publicly say
"Nope, got the logs right here on our server"?

Seems nearly impossible that a trouble code as bad as "car will be undrivable"
wouldn't be logged like crazy somewhere.

------
tdiggity
I'm sorry this happened to you. These are the things that scare me about the
Model 3 ramp up to 500k cars/year. Hard to do and they want to do it fast.
Their track record for the smaller details isn't the greatest, and when you're
spending 100k on a car, the details matter. To me at least.

-Tesla owner since 2013.

~~~
nerflad
Makes one wonder where else QC may be lacking. Especially if these cars are
expected to be fully autonomous in the future.

~~~
tdiggity
FWIW, the drive software on the car is independent of the displays. So,
pressing the pedal, braking and steering is probably very well tested. I've
had the main drivers screen crash on me and I have no idea how fast I'm going
(follow the car in front of you) while the screen takes 1 minute to reboot.

But you're right about the QC. Although, I don't think Tesla is alone in this,
every startup developing autonomous software (uber, cruise, google) will
probably have their own unique quirks.

~~~
cjrp
> I've had the main drivers screen crash on me and I have no idea how fast I'm
> going

That's somewhat terrifying! I'm surprised there isn't a requirement for a
backup, analogue version of core instruments, as there is for planes fitted
with digital displays.

------
pmarreck
I had the "12V battery problem" as well, which did require service. (I have a
P85+.) I also had a more involved problem with the main battery which actually
required them to swap the whole thing out for a temporary one, ship the
original back to Fremont, and 1-2 months later I got my original battery
swapped back in. (I got Tesla loaners both times it was in the shop for the
swap.)

I wasn't buzzkilled at all; I did kind of sign up for some growing pains with
an all-new technology. And Tesla service has been courteous as heck. And the
car is still WONDERFUL to drive, so...

~~~
Steeeve
> I did kind of sign up for some growing pains with an all-new technology.

I don't really subscribe to this line of thinking with a piece of equipment
that is so expensive.

That being said, I'm a car nut. I've gone through more than my share of
vehicles over the years and the percentage that have been problem free
straight out of the dealership is pretty low. I had a 5-series that my wife
got to drive for a day before it sat in our garage for 6 weeks. I was quite
perturbed. I had a mercedes that was in and out of the dealership for a few
months right out of the gate, but their dealership was the friendliest and
most helpful that I've dealt with. I had a mustang that I left service with at
one point with no brakes. Imagine being a block from the dealership and
figuring that out. I had a Navigator that I spent three months complaining
about before the manufacturer admitted they had a problem and put out a kit to
fix. Up until then the dealer laid blame 100% on the fact that I had
aftermarket wheels put on it.

It's not new technology. It's that the nature of the car business is such that
they put them together with best-effort and there isn't a lot that is done
from an individual quality-control perspective before they reach customers.
Dealer fix-it shops keep themselves busy and full of employees by fixing
warranty issues. The danger of doing it differently is that dealers would be
short manpower and repair parts would be crazy expensive if cars never had any
problems. It's cheap to fix a 12 year old F150 because so many people know how
to fix them.

Personally, I'd love to get a Tesla. From all I've heard they have great
customer service and work hard to make sure solutions are complete. I don't
expect perfection. The only thing that drives me crazy is getting the
runaround when problems are unusual.

~~~
mikestew
_I 've gone through more than my share of vehicles over the years and the
percentage that have been problem free straight out of the dealership is
pretty low._

That's disappointing, only because as I go through my mental list of cars
purchased new, I can't think of any major problems out of any of them. '82
Honda Accord: it never saw a dealer again after I drove it off the lot.
90-sumtin' Geo Prizm: problem-free. 2005 Scion xB: took it back for some
rattles. 2010 Nissan Leaf: haven't done a damned thing to it other than change
the crappy OEM tires.

Though comparing my list to yours: maybe you should buy less expensive cars.
:-) The only new vehicle I've owned that had actual broken stuff to fix under
warranty: 2014 BMW motorcycle, which has been back to the dealer more times
than all of my other new vehicles combined (granted, that's only three times,
and it has never left me stranded). Honda motorcycles: not a one ever saw a
dealer's lot post-sale.

------
automathematics
Thanks for sharing this. I hope Tesla respond in time, as this seems very
unacceptable to me.

~~~
jasonmp85
Honest question: why root for Tesla? Great EVs are starting to appear from
other manufacturers, so why cheer for one company in particular?

~~~
libeclipse
I guess everyone just really, really loves Elon Musk.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I am impressed with Elon Musk and his accomplishments, no doubt. But this is
not even close to the worst Tesla customer service story I've heard. The
company is a nightmare. The only state you can even SEE a service manual for
these cars is in Massachusetts where they mandate it by law, and you have to
pay by the hour to see it! There's huge issues that haven't been tested in
court with how Tesla treats these cars as "their cars" even after you buy
them. Refused to activate salvaged and repaired vehicles that you have the
title for, calling and threatening you because they detected you dared tinker
with your own car, etc.

I really want to like Tesla, but as long as they treat their cars like a
service rather than a product, I'd be terrified to invest my money in one of
their vehicles.

~~~
toomuchtodo
You own the Tesla hardware. You do not own the software. You're also not
forced to buy one. You're also free to write your own software for the vehicle
to bypass Tesla.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
While that may be technically true, I do not know if that will hold in court,
as currently Tesla owns a monopoly on software that runs on Teslas, and they
disable their software to prevent the legal owner from using their own
vehicle. I suspect this is wholly illegal behavior, and I really look forward
to seeing it get tested in court.

While this grey area has generally survived in smaller items, I suspect a car,
where you literally have a title to it, is not so defensible under that claim.
Especially when they also make it effectively impossible to repair the
hardware outside of their company as well.

~~~
dingo_bat
If Apple can do it, Tesla also can. No court is going to reverse it.

------
GreenPlastic
There are other stories like this on Tesla Motors Club and Tesla service
always goes above and beyond to get it right. The service guys gave me their
card when I picked my car up. When I have an issue, I send them an email and
get me scheduled immediately. They've taken care of a flat tire that they
didn't need to (on Xmas eve, nonetheless), fixed almost every issue, and have
always gone above and beyond.

When we had the flat tire, it was on Xmas eve, they worked to get our car
towed to the service center and even offered to deliver it to us later that
night. We left the key in the trunk and went Xmas shopping and it got towed
just fine.

~~~
mempko
Why would you need car towed for a flat tire???

~~~
GreenPlastic
We called Tesla roadside because other tire shops were closed and I didn't
want to put the spare on myself. They offered to just tow it to the SC and
have it fixed on them.

~~~
mempko
Putting on a spare takes 10 minutes. Unless you are physically challenged, I
recommend you try it if you can. Though if you own a tesla, and they are as
heavy as they say, hmmm

------
aetherspawn
An insulation fault -- I'm surprised they didn't go straight to inspecting the
high voltage harness. Seems like they could have done with some electrical
design engineers in the service center.

Source: I build electric racecars and my own cars have thrown this error one
or twice in three years, usually from component failure or cable abrasion
against carbon fiber.

------
musha68k
I'm always amazed how I skip a whole class of time/money intensive problems by
not owning a car.

It's a bit of a shame though as "Tesla" has actually been the first kind of
car I would have been interested in.

------
lordnacho
Are there stats about reliability? What about insurance stats? If someone has
them, please tell us.

Doesn't sound like a great story, but it means a lot more with statistics.

------
levlaz
I didn't know that livejournal was still a thing.

~~~
LeoPanthera
Very popular in Russia.

~~~
aglavine
and in Westeros

------
shard972
So, what happens in the Models S runs into issues transitioning to mainstream
scale? Considering they are heavily leveraged off Elon's other companies,
unless Solar city makes some great deals isn't Elon at risk of a credit
crunch?

------
sundvor
Gosh. Not that I can afford a Tesla here in Australia, but even if I did, I
think I'll just stick with Mazda and Subaru - no issues whatsoever with the
former, and only minor stuff on the latter which has been properly dealt with.

------
pratap103
Tesla is going to offer the model 3 in a number of developing countries, where
customer service will present an even bigger challenge.

------
mcguire
" _In couple weeks I got notified that my refund was approved, and I got
contacted by another guy, who suddenly suggested me to get vehicle rebuilt. Of
course I agreed to that generous offer saying I’d love to have the same
vehicle._ "

What?

~~~
chc
What are you saying "What?" to? It seems pretty clear to me.

~~~
toast0
I think the problem is with the word "rebuilt". I would take that to mean take
the car apart, and put it back together with maybe a couple new parts. Given
that Tesla thinks there's nothing wrong with that car, despite there clearly
being something wrong with it, taking it apart and putting it back together
again and hoping it works is kind of insane. (although it might work if the
problem is say a loose or poorly aligned pin in a wiring harness)

I believe the author meant that Tesla would build a new one to the original
specifications. This is probably reasonable, the majority of Teslas probably
don't have terrible problems or we'd hear more about them, so throw the old
one in the river and get a new one isn't a bad idea.

~~~
mcguire
Given the poor English of the article, I took "rebuilt" to mean something like
"certified" or "inspected". I can't see any company taking a product apart and
reassembling it. Note also that Tesla has already refused to give the customer
a new car.

Given that Tesla thinks there is nothing wrong with the car, the only way I
see that conversation working is if the car is returned unaltered.

------
boonez123
Remember Windows 98, then Windows ME?

------
Zhenya
Dmitry,

If I understood correctly, they sold your old car to someone else?!?

If they did, i would not recommend posting the vin here so that the owner
might find the story. Don't do that.

~~~
khedoros1
It sounded like they sold the loaner car that he was using at the time.

------
nurettin
I found one way to avoid all the costs, the taxes, the service times, the
accidents and that annoying kid who always scratches your doors with a key:
Don't buy a car.

~~~
khedoros1
Then I'm either paying for (and waiting for) taxis a minimum of two times a
day, or making my 15 minute commute into an hour or an hour and a half commute
on public transportation (depending on the exact time of day).

By not owning a car, I'd avoid certain costs and inconveniences by opting for
certain other larger costs and inconveniences. If I lived somewhere where it
was actually feasible to ditch the personal vehicle, I would've considered it
by now.

------
dmode
I have a Model S and Tesla service is generally exceptional. This sounds like
they messed up. I am sure if he escalates they would take care of it

~~~
sammydavis
Wow, there's an amazing amount of down voting in this article. Is that because
people hate tesla? I don't get it. I once bought an suv. It had a problem soon
after I bought it and got service for a while and i didn't have a car. It was
frustrating. It wasn't a tesla by the way :-) They didn't offer to give me a
loaner during that time, but I was pretty young and not aware that was a
normal expectation. Eventually my car was repaired, but I was out several
weeks of use of that car.

Moral of this boring story - things can break. The car company won't just give
you a new one. They will try to fix your old car. Tesla sells things, and they
can't just give you a new one when it breaks.

~~~
Lazare
> Tesla sells things, and they can't just give you a new one when it breaks.

Actually, they can. And legally, they have to (or offer a refund), if the car
breaks as much as that one did. I don't think you quite grasp the magnitude of
the issues being alleged.

> I once bought an suv. It had a problem [...] Eventually my car was repaired

Right, good story, but totally different than the OPs story, where he had tons
of problems and they were never fixed.

------
intrasight
Taking new, untested tech from a new, untested company on a long trip was a
bad idea. I fault the author more than I fault Tesla in this case.

~~~
aetherspawn
Electric cars are notoriously unreliable because there are just that many
things that can go wrong. For example, a battery pack on average will monitor
about 400 temperatures and perhaps 200 voltages. Its inherent design means
that it undergoes many thermal cycles, has thousands of fasteners and up to a
hundred switching circuity components inside various isolated power supplies.
The deviation of any parameter from normal requires an immediate shutoff at
risk of a lithium fire that cannot be extinguished.

You could not even imagine the amount of engineering that goes into making
sure the fasteners are positive locked in a redundant manner, whilst preloaded
against temperature change, without breaking isolation.

Yet, a Tesla is, in general, relatively reliable. Maximum props to them on a
job well done.

~~~
cowardlydragon
Ehh, but fundamentally its just 1-2 motors and a big battery.

No alternator, fuel injection, radiator fluid, oil, pistons, spark plugs, fuel
pumps, exhaust, manifolds, shafts, rods, gears, blowers, turbos/superchargers,
catalytic converters, etc.

Not saying it's easy as described with unstable lithium chemistry, and its own
heat dissapation problems, but MECHANICALLY it is fundamentally simple.

~~~
gambiting
Yeah, except that we have literally a century of experience building all of
above, but only decade or so of building huge automotive lithium batteries.
It's "just" a battery, but at the same time it's hideously complex device
where a lot of things can go wrong.

------
NotSammyHagar
Sorry, you had trouble with your new car. It happens sometimes that cars have
problems. Tesla is a physical thing and it can have problems. I would be
frustrated that my new toy had problems, but I don't see why this couldn't
happen with a porsche or bmw. In fact, they do sometimes have problems.

~~~
AtheistOfFail
> In fact, they do sometimes have problems.

The difference is those companies have their shit figured out.

If I had a vehicle checked like 2 times and it left me stranded, I would blow
up in someone's face if I got handed a letter that says "Customer made it up"

~~~
pbz
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eXUnZrykDY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eXUnZrykDY)

