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Comment by lacker | Hacker News Reader

None of this seems "throwaway" to me. It just means that rather than build a product that ends up being repaired by a distributed army of mechanics, they are going "full stack" and aiming to repair everything in-house. To me that seems like the ideal system - some people like the author might enjoy repairing their own cars, but I would rather not.

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You might not care about fixing your own vehicle, but you probably care about the cost of those repairs. If Tesla is the only company that can repair your car, they can easily charge many times the cost of the repairs. If Tesla is the only place that can repair your vehicle, you're left with two options: pay whatever Tesla demands to fix the vehicle or replace it with a new car. That's a very bad situation to be in because there's no control on the pricing.

Even if you say, "well, I could sell the Tesla rather than repair it," how many people are going to want to buy a broken Tesla? How do you explain to them, "It's totally mendable, I just haven't done that because. . ."? You'd basically have to tell them that they're buying a car that Tesla charges extortion fees to repair.

Even if you never want to repair your own car, even if you never want to go to a third party for repairs, you benefit greatly if you aren't single-sourced for repairs. Even if you will never take advantage of it, some other people will and, as such, Tesla would have to be competitive on price.

First off, you may not want to repair your own car but the practice is pretty widespread, at least with simpler repairs. That's why the US has four nationwide auto parts store chains plus some big box stores like Wal-Mart that carry parts.

Second, this is not just about shade tree mechanics. This type of vertical integration means you have a sole source for parts and work if you buy a Tesla. Tesla can thus charge as much as their customers will bear without driving them to buy someone else's car. They have no incentive to pass supply chain or servicing efficiencies on to their customers. It's an arrangement the other car companies only dream of, which is why they keep trying to throw roadblocks in the way of third-party mechanics and parts manufacturers.

It's not about the joy of auto repair. The vast majority of car owners cannot afford to repair their car. Even when parts are available. Having the technical documentation allows people to fix their cars. Tesla does not make the documentation available easily and parts, well, are pretty much as expensive as tesla wants them to be. Surely this is just a Tesla ownership issue. The problem is that Tesla will move to build lower priced models. Those cars will flood the used car market. People will buy them. What happens when they break down and can't afford it? People here might blame them for buying a car they can't service. True, but not realistic. People do not buy based on logic but on a combination of factors.

So far, we don't have any indication that Tesla will continue the same "closed-source" policies with their mass-market models. In fact they probably won't. They don't sell through dealers, so their repair "bandwidth" is obviously limited. They have got to be planning to allow third-party repairs at some point.

I did not downvote you, because your point is reasonable. I do disagree with it because it assumes that Tesla is putting their customers interests first. Their history points to the contrary. Your first sentence outlines the main point. It's similar to assuming that any successful closed source software will be open source when the product end of life is reached. Imagine assuming Microsoft open sourcing windows xp when it reach end of life. What kind of incentive would Microsoft have to let continue to run an open sourced maintained version of windows xp? None. Their interest is in selling more new windows keys. Thats why I assume tesla will continue to not provide any sort of documentation. The incentive to do so does not exist. Now, regulation that forces them to do so would provide the incentive. Thats why the right to repair act is so important.

Now imagine Apple got rid of independent repair shops (they are already heading in this direction pretty much). There would be outrage, and there's already unease with Apple's direction in these areas. Why does Tesla get a pass?

Because new, shiny technology is Good. There's an entire mythos behind Tesla and Musk the same way there was with Apple and Jobs.

You'll find Apple apologists who will excuse this as well.

My phone and laptop have a much lower price and expected service life than a $100k vehicle.

What is the price and service life at which it becomes okay?

Vertical integration limits options and competetion.

This is excellent for Tesla, but awful for the consumer.

Tesla is basically selling a "CAAS" (Car As A Service). More and more (Tech) companies try to lock down their products and protect the customer from himself. It's a worrying pattern. How can that be the ideal system?

As the article notes, they really could make it a service by leasing the cars like other electric cars have been. It's the model where they are supposedly selling the cars, but the cars effectively remain their property, that is particularly troubling.

If you leased the car for 8 years and then returned it, that wouldn't be so bad, but most people wouldn't want to pay the full retail price of a car only to have it potentially become a paperweight after 8 years.

Everyone should have the option and this ought to be protected by law to some extent.

Allowing the manufacturer to determine where you can service your car has been tried before and it ended badly.

Yep, and it makes sense for Tesla to do this. It's a new product, and the information they collect from maintenance and inspections is going to be invaluable for future revs.

Is it going to be more valuable than the bad press that they will get when it turns out people get burned by all these restrictions? Or the lost sales?

That's the million dollar question.

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