Hacker News Reader

Comment by Aloha | Hacker News Reader

Auto manufacturers commonly do targeted warranty extensions and recalls for design and manufacturing defects outside of warranty.

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.

View on HN

Fair point. I don't know why I had a mental block and the idea of a recall never entered into my mind.

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.

Your argument is not totally unreasonable - but not within industry norms. Also Tesla is the manufacturer for electric cars in the public's eye, if they get a reputation for unreliability it will set the technology back decades. (see the Oldsmobile Diesel engine from the 80's)

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.

<i> it's unknown to me if they have a legal or regulatory responsibility too</i>

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.

I think the length of the warranty is kind of a distraction. Say Teslas had a particularly generous 6-year full warranty, but this part was guaranteed to fail 100% of the time after 6.5 years and cost thousands to fix. People would be justifiably upset.

> People would be justifiably upset.

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.

In a world of perfect information things would be different. If a consumer knew before purchase that a car was going to die shortly after the warranty ends, they wouldn’t have much of a case.

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.)

> Fair point. I don't know why I had a mental block and the idea of a recall never entered into my mind.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com