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Comment by stirlo | Hacker News Reader

Most of this seems to be cosmetic (various switches breaking, noisy seat mechanisms) that the typical buyer would not bother fixing on a car with 100's of thousands of miles.

Also interesting how much they got covered under warranty. I'd assume Tesla is doing these repairs for free as they are getting valuable data on the real world durability of their cars. I don't think the average owner would get a free battery or CV joints when they reach a couple of hundred thousand miles in 10+ years.

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The free batteries really must've skewed the data, assuming a regular consumer couldn't work out the same deal. Batteries are supposed to be a significant fraction of the cost of an electric car; analogous to replacing the engine in a combustion car.

The big question with any battery replacement is what the core credit is for the expended battery. If the battery costs $20k, but you get an $18k credit for surrendering the used battery, then it's not so bad. In theory, used car batteries would still be in fine shape to be used in fixed systems (like a whole-house battery, etc.) thus generating a nice core credit, but there just isn't enough data to know what that will look like in 10 years.

> would still be in fine shape to be used in fixed systems

I don't understand what you mean; if the charge they hold is a fraction of the original charge, or worse, who's going to be using them as-is?

I'm sure there's value in recycling the various exotic materials they're made of, but I don't see how that would be anywhere near 90% of the original value

If space is not at a premium, then it's perfectly reasonable to buy twice as many half-efficient used batteries if you get them for cheap.

Battery prices are still falling by about 10% a year. I don't think the cost of battery replacement would be that big a cost if it needs to be replaced after 10 years. You would get some money for your old battery as well.

The article mentioned which repairs are done for free - warranty or good will.

The fact that the battery had to be replaced 3 times in 3 years seems very odd.

An average owner would likely never have it replaced.

This is just a guess from reading the article, but the A/C that was running non stop for years runs off of the 12V battery instead of being belt driven. There are many issues that occur when people take affordable passenger cars, (e.g. Camry) and drive them as taxis, that stem from not being used as designed.

The article states that the A/C compressor runs off of the high voltage battery, not the 12V.

I'm curious what is running off of the 12v to cause such wear, but considering the miles traveled having to replace it 3 times isn't actual that crazy.

The 12V battery is the tiny one that doesn't cost much, similar to the one that every ICE car has. Teslas do need a marine grade 12V battery, which costs a bit extra.

Not odd. Tesla’s are notorious for being hard on the 12V battery due to all of the non-traction loads in the vehicle. We replaced ours with deep cycle 12V lithium packs to prevent early mortality.

Tesla replaced mine with a deep cycle marine battery. Which aren't that much more expensive than a conventional ICE 12V battery. This is apparently now standard equipment.

This is great to hear.

I only noticed one. Can you note the mileages when it was replaced two other times? I agree with you that most owners wouldn't have been able to get that warranteed at the 300k mile mark.

Unfortunately, the battery warranty is one of Tesla's weakest points.

The other battery replacement occurred at 158k miles. I'm guessing the third replacement that comment is referring to was actually the line item for refunding the 355k mile battery replacement, which (as I understand) isn't a third replacement.

So, two battery replacements in 400k miles.

The ones at 158k and 355k were the 12v battery. Those are annoying, but probably not exceptionally high for 400k miles.

It looks like 317,037 was the only high voltage battery replacement. That wouldn't be too bad, IMO.

Note that they’re talking about the 12v battery, not the battery pack. The 12v battery is like an accessory battery.

Yes. It’s the same size battery that every ICE car has.

> I don't think the average owner would get a free battery

Tesla's old Model X battery warranty was 8 years, unlimited miles, 70% of original capacity. The new battery warranty is 8 years or 150,000 miles, 70% retention:

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

So had they bought the Model X under the new warranty they would have had to pay for the new battery since the car was beyond 150,000 miles.

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