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Comment by petersellers | Hacker News Reader

As someone who typically drives cars outside of their warranty period, I don't understand the lack of concern about reliability after your 3rd drivetrain. I suppose if you are leasing the car that is one thing, but with that kind of warranty work I would be extremely hesitant to buy a used Tesla.

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The Model S powertrain warranty is 8 years/infinite miles.

My current car is 14 years old. My previous two reached 16 and 17 years.

I try to run then as long as possible because cars are money sinks.

The future won't be like the past. I don't expect to own a car 8 years from now in any scenario (electric self driving cars on demand).

Owning a vehicle just seems like such a waste, so much capital tied up in something that sits around all day. Could you imagine airlines that let aircraft sit idle 95% of the time?

There won't be any self-driving on-demand cars in 8 years. Maybe 28.

8 seems like an extremely reasonable guess.

The Tesla motors will get much more reliable with time. Nobody has mass-produced such a high torque motor before, it will take time to get the manufacturing ironed out. They will certainly get them to last much longer, but even if they don't the motor unit is only a couple thousand dollars and only takes a couple hours to swap. A Electric powertrain is significantly simpler than a combustion vehicle.

Well then this is obviously not an issue for you. You don't sound like the type to be an "early adopter" for cars, so I think it would be out of character for a consumer like yourself to buy a Tesla is the first place.

I don't think they're alienating a significant portion of their demographic by not catering to people who only buy a car every one or two decades, especially considering they're selling a luxury sedan and they're the only successful American automotive company for at least a few decades.

I would love to buy an electric car for my next vehicle. But if the operating cost, including repairs, is higher than a conventional car, then that's not a good deal for me. I'm certainly not going to pay a premium just for that.

I also don't like being stuck on the side of the road. Frequent powertrain repairs like I hear being reported on this page greatly concern me.

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