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Comment by ses1984 | Hacker News Reader

ses1984

What dealership is going to fix for free the problem you run into at 8years/150k miles?

The kind of problem caused by a manufacturing defect that leads to a recall. Parent's overall point is that you can effectively drive these cars 200k+ miles until the wheels fall off, and if you can't, it's due to a defect like that. Tesla is a younger company and it's not yet apparent how the vehicle's end-of-life will play out like it is for these sorts of vehicles.

https://www.tesla.com/support/vehicle-warranty

For 8 years you're fine.

Aren't there plenty of Teslas out there with 200k+ miles?

Anecdotally, but looking at older Model S on the local Craigslist equivalent, I see two listings right now that are ~6 years old with ~120k miles and say "recently replaced entire battery pack under warranty". If whatever fault that was happens to another Model S after the warranty expires, it's going to be a total writeoff. These cars are being sold now for below $30k (equivalent) with almost two years left of warranty.

Lots. https://sites.google.com/view/teslamiles

The Model 3 motors are designed for a million miles of service life.

The big issue is the battery pack. It's a major part of the total car cost, and it's not going to last a million miles.

For everything else in the car maintenance and longevity is going to be better than ICE cars due to the much simpler drivetrain, so the cost of replacing batteries and the battery lifespan is going to be the main factor in value of used fully electric cars.

At least in my experience, it's not the drivetrain you need to worry about. It's all the electronics and sensors - from antitheft to odometers to AC.

That's why I'm not terribly optimistic on Tesla reliability. Powertrains rarely fail in the first place.

Tesla is working towards a million mile battery [1] (and the batteries they have on the road today will easily last to 500k miles, which under normal duty [average American yearly miles driven], you won't see until you've been driving the car for 37 years @ 13,476 miles/year). It would also appear, from the cost decline curve of lithium batteries [2], that to replace your vehicle's battery (if necessary; highly unlikely) in 8 years at the end of its warranty will be substantially cheaper than replacing it today.

At a million mile service duty for battery and motors, the powertain is reaching human life expectancy (74 years) at average miles driven per year quoted above.

[1] https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-may-soon-have-a-battery-th...

[2] https://i2.wp.com/evobsession.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06...

This is sort of true. If there is something wrong with the battery then there is a good chance they will fix it for free even if it's not under warranty, rather than billing you several thousand dollars.

But if, say, the dash lights come on saying you need to take it in immediately because there is a problem with the battery, but when you take it in they can't find anything wrong with it, then they will still bill you a few hundred bucks for looking at it.

The system should totally keep a record of the dash lights shown, and they totally shouldn't charge you if you told the truth, yet they couldn't find anything wrong.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-record-mileage-900000-ki... 900k km is waaay more than 200k miles

It doesn't say whether he had to make an out of warranty battery replacement.

Although it not "Guaranteed" you can rest assured when you buy a Prius for instance, the probability of you having a catastrophic failure or expensive repair before 200k miles is very low - and if it happens, is usually covered by Toyota themselves.

Sometime around 2004 or 2005 I had an 1996 Honda Accord with over 200k miles on it that I took to the dealership for some maintenance and was told it had a cracked engine block. The dealer said something to the effect "that's not suppose to happen" and offered me a loaner while they fixed it for free.

My 2002 Civic with 250k+ miles on it had free service done on it maybe 3-4 years ago as part of a recall. The fact that a platform that old had enough cars still registered on the road is usually a good sign for that specific platform even given the need for a recall.

My 2003 Honda Pilot had the airbags, a transmission part and a key cylinder replaced under recall in the last 4 years.

Also normal car companies that follow the law have third parties called mechanics that can order parts and get cars fixed.

I just got an extended warranty notice from BMW for a potential defect in my Mini Cooper's fuel pump (not a recall notice) that covered cars up to 160,000 miles.

Maybe it has worked out for you, but I don't know all that much about cars and my experience is that dealers usually talk their way out of covering something or add one extra crap they say is not covered that costs a lot anyway.

I have had the opposite experience, FWIW. Dealers get reimbursed by the MFG for warranty claims, so I've had them cover things out of warranty or give me a rental car so they can pocket the money from the mfg. To the degree the last Jeep service I did they were SUPER pushy about giving me one of their "Rentals"

My Honda hybrid’s battery was replaced for free at 11yo thanks to California’s emisiones warranty requirements (15y 150k mi for PZEV cars)

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