Hacker News Reader

Comment by Spooky23 | Hacker News Reader

This kind of bullshit is why I’m solidly in the “fuck Tesla” camp. The battles over auto repair and nonsense “safety” excuses were fought 100 years ago and shouldn’t need to be fought again, only in this dysfunctional era of American government is it possible for Tesla to even exist.

Like any big company, they demonstrate every day why it’s so important to have independent service. As a company, they are too incompetent to run retail outlets, unable to supply spare parts for cars that are mostly unchanged year to to year, and unable to actually repair cars in the handful of service centers that exist.

Hopefully the successor company that buys them out doesn’t go down this path.

View on HN

I think it's more than repairs. The model to which this is converging is the abandonment of ownership. You do want to get YOUR car repaired but if it's not your car in the first place, you can't. I think the narrative is slowly building towards that. You're licensed to drive the car, you bought the license, not the car. It doesn't matter if you are in physical possession of the metal parts as long as the software running them is updated automatically and you're not allowed to repair them.

https://www.teslarati.com/do-you-own-a-tesla-or-does-a-tesla...

John Deere managed to do this https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/ so it's all the history repeating. And I agree with you, the dysfunctional anticonsumer regulatory environment enabled this.

This recently happened to a Kobo e-reader I bought in 2013 and have been using happily. On March 1, the company announced some firmware upgrade that I was required to install to continue even using the device. This was not a security patch and wasn't related to the ereader's core functionality. We're talking about a $50 ereader that only connects to my laptop once in a blue moon to transfer EPUB files.

Can't use it anymore without installing a firmware upgrade now. Turns out, I have a license to use the device, just not to own it.

How did they stop you from using the device? Does it connect to the internet? This seems like they preplanned this "feature".

Slightly offtopic, but I recently bought a kindle paperwhite and jailbroke it. The process was a bit challenging but definitely worth it and makes it impossible for Amazon to mess with it.

My opinion is a company that does that should be if you so desire, required to buy the device back from you at retail and pay for shipping.

I know you're saying it like a bad thing... but what if it's actually a good thing, we just don't know it yet?

I mean, none of us actually want to own a bus or a train, we just get on them and get off again when it's convenient for us. I have no interest in thinking about maintenance or service intervals or age of replacement or even how to actually 'drive' one.

What if that's the direction cars are going?

I understand that currently personal car ownership is deeply, deeply ingrained in the American psyche, but I do believe there can be a future where we don't own a car each, but rather just get in and out of them as they drive around autonomously. Why deal with paying for tires and brake pads if you don't have to?

I mean, I'm a car guy, and I'll probably always want to own some kind of "fun to drive car", but then again, I'm a dinosaur at 37, and to be honest if I'm just going into a city with mind-numbing driving I'd rather take public transit anyway. The stats on how few people under 30 don't even have (or want) a license clearly points to some changes coming.

Oh, I agree with you on that part. It's probably a good thing. But why am I paying the full price for the car if I don't own it? Because it seems like I'm renting an apartment for which I need to pay for repairs.

Because this is a transition phase, and things will be a little wonky for a while until everything falls into place.

If you don't want to be part of it, just don't buy one and wait until the transition is complete.

Nah... everything will fall into place indeed but that 'place' will be heavily skewed in favor of the entity making the rules of the game. And it's not the consumer making them.

I'm inclined to agree with you. But I do think Teslas are different from cars of yesteryear in a few important ways:

1. They have massive 375 volt batteries that could absolutely kill you if you're a little bit careless.

2. They have that "autopilot" mode. And that feature receives OTA updates from Tesla. I could see improper service causing problems with autopilot that would put other people (drivers and pedestrians) at risk.

Maybe a solution is to separate some of the software features of a car (like autopilot) from the mechanical aspects. If you repair your car yourself, maybe losing out on autopilot and the like is a fair deal.

So on the 375V battery: the car already should be designed so that Tesla mechanics can work on it. It already needs to be safe to work on, or their own employees are going to sue them. Anyway, so at the very least connectors and modules with high voltage have to be designed so that the high voltage is not exposed.

On autopilot mode: if it doesn't have a self test of the sensors it depends on, there is a big problem already. Actually conventional cars have electric power steering which you could argue has similar risks.

There are more dangerous consumer goods. For example, microwave ovens have 3000 V power supplies at significant current: this is the voltage level used for executions. One mistake and you're dead.

> 1. They have massive 375 volt batteries that could absolutely kill you if you're a little bit careless.

Homes have electricity. It can easily kill you if you're careless.

> 2. They have that "autopilot" mode. And that feature receives OTA updates from Tesla. I could see improper service causing problems with autopilot that would put other people (drivers and pedestrians) at risk.

Then the autopilot system is inadequate. Not tightening your lug nuts could cause your tire to come off at highway speeds. What's you're point?

> Homes have electricity. It can easily kill you if you're careless

Unless you're playing on the input side of the meter-box, it's extremely unlikely you'll be killed in any kind of modern building with a mandated-by-law earth leakage device.

Open up your circuit breaker box and touch the bus bar... or touch a live 30A circuit, and I think you'd disprove that one.

Not saying I agree or disagree with the line of reasoning here, but there is plenty of current even in a North American 2-phase house's wiring to kill someone pretty quickly, no matter how well grounded the system is.

Small nitpick. North-American domestic power isn't 2-phase. It's 1 phase, center-tapped.

Those "mandated-by-law earth leakage device[s]" are only mandated for those circuits where you might most easily electrocute yourself, locations where water is present (bathrooms and kitchens), in basements with concrete floors, and exterior receptacles.

The rest of the circuits are not mandated to have GFCI (the correct acronym for those "earth leakage device[s]") interrupters, and so those circuits /could/ kill you if you were not careful. Yes, it becomes marginally more difficult without easy access to water or a concrete floor, but is still quite possible.

In Australia they're law for the entire house, have been for decades.

Ah, then Australia is one up on the USA in that respect, where they are only required for the areas I listed, and even then the requirement is only for new construction or renovations.

Of course, we're talking in the context of performing repairs on a dangerous thing (Tesla), so if someone is doing their own renovations or repair, it doesn't matter what safety features are present as they might be defeated by the homeowner.

Somehow, however, we manage just fine.

> What's you're point?

I'm pretty sure the point is that designing software to run in specific conditions is different than designing software capable of running in all conditions. This isn't just about the driver, it's about other people on the road and pedestrians. Just because the autopilot is sufficient to drive the car under the constraints the car ships with doesn't mean it's sufficient if the motors are putting out significantly more or less power, and its ability to detect this if it exists is somehow compromised.

Tightening your lug nuts is fairly straightforward and easy. Verifying physical functionality of an AI driving system is not. The only safe way to react if it can detect the system is not as it should be is to disable itself and require manual driving. It should do this in the case of standard components operating outside of acceptable specifications as well.

Honestly, autopilot software should have checks and balances already in place to prevent use if the system is compromised. Regardless if it was compromised by human hands or general use / wear & tear

My sentiments exactly.

Tesla is hardly the only company that makes a car with lane following and adaptive cruise control. How do the other manufacturers deal with this issue?

Worse yet, their latest announcement regarding shuttering retail stores also indicates that their solution to their service problem is to deploy a fleet of 'come to you' trucks. EG, they're going to want to dispatch and repair/replace components in your driveway or on the street, which is prohibited in many places.

I would expect that this is mostly limited to software-related problems or really small stuff (wipers and window washing fluid) and for everything else they will just tow your car away.

Tow it to where, precisely? Additionally, are you going to get a free loaner that pretty much every other major brand gives you for warranty work?

If you break down on the side of the highway, what then? Where does the car get towed?

I don't know and frankly I'm not sure that Tesla does either yet.

But what are they going to do? Carry around whole drivetrains in their "Service Car Model X" that comes to your house? Even if so, you need specialized equipment, hydraulic lifts etc. to repair things like that.

So what will their options be if they do not have their own (service) shops anymore except than picking up your car, bringing it to _whereever_ and fixing it there?

I don't see any and I think this can and will probably fire back on them.

Exactly, I agree. It's going to be a boondoggle.

> boondoggle

Learned a new word today. Thanks. :-D

I hope that hornswoggle makes your day even better :)

Amazing! :-D

You just assume Tesla has no way to provide service to hundreds of thousands of cars they have on the road? This is just FUD...

They are not closing their service centers. They are closing the showrooms. They are totally separate locations. The showrooms are usually located in malls.

Where's the proof the have the capacity to service 100's of thousands of cars? Do they have a service center in every state? Every major metro area? Currently, they don't have a facility in every state.

I think people are right to be skeptical, buying an automobile is a major financial decision for most folks, and warranty/repair is a very important part of that story.

There are service centers completely separate from the retail locations. They have never done service at their showrooms.

They absolutely have ways to book appointments at their service centers and provide loaner cars.

> They absolutely have ways to book appointments at their service centers and provide loaner cars.

I can barely put 100k € in cash on the table and leave their place with a car and you tell me they have loaners like nothing standing around?

And for the whole of Germany there are 10 service centers listed on their website. That will be a long trip for a repair.

This is incorrect. They are closing retail stores, but those are usually not the same as the service centers, even if they share a building. An analogy would be a dealership shuttering their sales department but keeping the service department.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com