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Comment by smogcutter | Hacker News Reader

A related concern is how well their repair and service operation scales. There are already repair horror stories all over internet for the relatively tiny number of cars already on the road.

The model S is a beautiful car, but it's a luxury toy. I'll venture that most Model S owners have at least one additional car. If you're in the market for a 35k sedan though, you're looking for a commuter and family car that needs to be reliable. Having it out of commission for three weeks while the one repair shop within 50 miles waits for a backordered part is unacceptable.

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It is worth noting that Jon McNeill (Pres. Global Sales and Service) took the time to post on a user forum in direct response to service delays and spoke with a fair bit of detail about how they are fixing the problem. Whether or not you are a fan, I think everyone can agree that this level of engagement is a strong positive for their cause. https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/2004525/

That's really interesting. Seems like the answer is they need a lot more third party shops - the problems that McNeill describes sound like the kind of thing that happens when there isn't enough competition. If I'm a model 3 customer, I don't really care about your service record in Palo Alto. What can you do for me in Skokie?

Very interested to see how all this plays out. The success or failure of the Model 3 could decide whether Tesla is the next Ford or the next Delorean.

Ford doesn't do batteries, solar, supercharging stations, autopilot tech, etc. Delorean produced 8,583 vehicles. :) But I get your point.

> autopilot tech

On the contrary. They're well along that path.

Not sure what solar has to do with cars.

And charging stations? Do you think that's profitable secret sauce?

Tesla bought SolarCity http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/21/13698314/tesla-completes-... - even if they totally flump on cars they still have solar installations, gigafactory (developments), charging stations they could lease and tech/patents they could sell to other EV manufacturers.

Sorry, Tesla bought struggling Solar City as it needed a complete residential energy storage solution to leverage rebates from energy companies. I.e. the sum of the parts is greater than the whole in terms of final price to consumer.

SolarCity was/is $4B in debt at the time of the acquisition. If Tesla's car division fails, solar panels is not the cash cow the company is going to fall back on.

Let me know when Ford autopilot is available on the street. They did buy Argo, but current Ford projections are saying 2021..

"whether Tesla is the next Ford or the next Delorean" Tesla is neither of these because it is more than a car company. It is vertical integration that incumbents can't match at this point.

? Yes, of course. You must not own an electric car.

> Yes, of course. You must not own an electric car.

You may have responded to me instead of someone else. I own a Leaf, I didn't say "whether Tesla is the next Ford or the next Delorean". I work at an organisation that supplies both Tesla & Ford with the toolchains in which they do all their control design. (And Nvidia for that matter). I'm intimately familiar with what these companies are doing today and are capable off. It's amazing to see what they are producing.

Agreed.

"And charging stations? Do you think that's profitable secret sauce?"

Would you drive your Leaf from LA to Phoenix in a day? Guessing not. With the superchargers it's one more piece of the TSLA ecosystem.

The problem McNeill discussed was related to 3rd party body shops. Tesla does not do any body work in its repair centers.

Right. The point is that soon they'll need a whole lot more of them, and first party repair centers as well. "Sorry, we have trouble with quality control at 3rd party shops" isn't going to cut it for a mass market car.

Re: Ford and Delorean, this is not the hill I want to die on. But what I mean is that the batteries, charging stations, etc, all live or die with the cars. If they can successfully create a mass market for consumer EVs, sky's the limit. If not, you can see a future where Detroit eats their lunch and the Model S is a footnote.

Uh, what fraction of body shops do aluminum? Model 3 is not like Model S/X. And problems at body shops has nothing to do with problems at first party repair centers. I'm happy to agree that the future is uncertain, but you aren't adding much in the way of fact into the discussion.

I'm sure a growing number do, now that the most popular vehicle in America is made out of the stuff (F150)

Only a small fraction of the F150 is aluminum, but yes, I'm sure it's a growing number of body shops.

Yep :)

I was responding to smogcutter, not you. Your comment about Ford and Deloran was great, so I didn't need to make that point, and I upvoted you for it.

My mistake, I read it incorrectly.

So they need a network of dealers.

Personally, I've found The vehicle itself to be very reliable. But they need to scale out service operations. I can call an Audi dealer and have my car brought in within a couple days (or go to one of many third party shops). With Tesla, they're typically booking 1-2 months out (and that's in the bay area, where we have like 3 service centers). Luckily, the only times I've had to bring in my Tesla, it was something super non-trivial.

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