The repair on your Tesla will cost more than a motor or transmission replacement on a conventional vehicle.
Tesla owners should file a class action lawsuit to force Tesla to extend their warranty to cover this issue. Tesla will try to fight it and make you pay out of pocket.
Sure they do. Take a look at the FICM failures with the Ford 6.0 diesel. In the gasoline world you'll come across failed injector or ignition drivers if you look hard enough. Failures due to environmental causes (like the wiring harness wicking hydraulic fluid into the control unit itself) are a thing as well.
It's not engine related, but BMW's late 90s-early 2000s five series uses a computer to control its lights. The failure mode is that your lights stay on as long as the battery is hooked up (fail safe). Unfortunately the IC that BMW used was discontinued by Infineon. I think a surface mount version is still available, but ultimately yeah these things wear out and you're largely at the mercy of the OEM.
Injector drivers and ignition drivers are part of the control unit.
The ECU is a computer, a packaged bundle of chips which plugs in to wires and does nothing but communicate to other components via those wires. That's what an electronic control unit means.
The driven devices, amplifiers etc. are under the control of the control unit. They are not part of the control unit. They're located in areas subject to much more heat and mechanical stress, and in most cases (ignition coils excepted) are mechanical in function.
Because...
The driven devices, amplifiers etc. are under the control of the control unit. They are not part of the control unit. They're located in areas subject to much more heat and mechanical stress, and in most cases (ignition coils excepted) are mechanical in function.
I'm not talking about the driven devices.
Here's a diesel example in video form:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k-G1dMgFUo
Here's one in gasoline form:
(But at least an EV doesn't have issues like VWs "maintenance free timing chain" skipping a link or two after 70kkm/50kmi)
Why is it Tesla's responsibility to fix the car out of warranty?
All products and services in Australia need to be fit for purpose. There's no strict definition for this but it basically means if you are selling a "premium" product, your warranty lasts for however long is reasonable in the eyes of the courts and not what the manufacturer says. It is very pro-consumer.
It would be reasonable to assume that a $40k-$100k car would last 10+ years. Obviously this doesn't cover consumables but bad memory cards would definitely be covered.
If you're saying this part is intentionally designed to fail shortly after the warranty expires, then I understand your point. Is that what you mean?
EDIT: The way I see it is if I buy a car with a 3 year warranty and something fails after 4 years, it's not the manufacturer's responsibility to fix it because the warranty has expired. Why do you think it is?
Ford for example did, with failing intake manifolds and the issue where the engine would eject spark plugs on Modular V8 engines.
Tesla in particular is screwing over the people it needs the most, by making boneheaded component choices.
I completely agree Tesla cheaped out on this part, I just wasn't convinced they are responsible for fixing it. I'm still not sure this justifies a class action lawsuit (I don't really feel strongly one way or the other), but I at least understand why Tesla might be held accountable for their actions.
You're talking about whether or not people should be upset. I'm talking about whether or not Tesla is legally responsible. These are orthogonal topics.
Yes, people should be upset with Tesla for a shitty design. I don't think anyone is arguing that. I don't think that automatically means Tesla should get sued for it.
Then again, I've never tried to sue an automaker. So maybe I'm just ignorant of how this is supposed to work.
But if Tesla cheaps out on critical items, thus dooming a car to that scenario, and a consumer can’t know that, it introduces a different legal dynamic.
(Disclaimer: IANAL.)
Because us tech people have been successful at hand-waving away product defects as mere planned obsolesce; we think about it as an option less and less. Point: Intel and all of the speculative execution crap, and specifically TSX (or the lack there of... but marketed as "Secure!" regardless).
Yeah it pisses me off. If you make an under-delivering pile of shit and make no attempt to right the wrong, fuck you and your company.
So for a variety of reasons, I'd argue they have a moral responsibility to fix it, INAL, so it's unknown to me if they have a legal or regulatory responsibility too.
Depends on the regulatory environment. In the main though people can expect cars to last for a good long while with maintenance, so a part that was guaranteed to fail well before then no matter how good care the consumer took of it would be a regulatory no no.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_warranty
One might argue that this flash memory was not the correct choice for the purpose it was being used for, and as an expert, it’s was Tesla’s duty to select a part up to spec for the purpose it was being used for.
The normal expected lifetime of a new car today is apparently 8 years or 150,000 miles. So I would expect the car to last 8 years on average. If a car is going to last significantly less than that on average (e.g. assuming this means the car needs a fix every 4 years), this should be disclosed in the marketing.
"years" of warranty is a silly concept anyway. If I buy a new car then store it in a perfect environment unused for 20 years (assuming we maintain anything that isn't stable like oil), it should still work as if new. If it doesn't, it clearly wasn't sold fit for purpose.