Tesla recalls nearly half a million Model 3 and Model S cars | Hacker News Reader

Tesla recalls nearly half a million Model 3 and Model S cars

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205 pointsturtlegrids267 comments

Since 1966, hood latches are required to be redundant in US vehicles. That's why, when you pop the hood, it just opens a bit, and then you have to go and release a hook or something from the front. This is because, in 1950s cars, hoods flying up suddenly were a thing. Often followed by a crash.

Double latches are required by 47 CFR 571. "A front opening hood which, in any open position, partially or completely obstructs a driver's forward view through the windshield must be provided with a second latch position on the hood latch system or with a second hood latch system. "[1] That's from 1966. In Teslas, the hood covers a storage space, and both both the primary and secondary latch are electrically controlled. It's not some big dumb spring-loaded hook. So it's higher risk for failure.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/571.113

>> In Teslas, the hood covers a storage space, and both both the primary and secondary latch are electrically controlled. It's not some big dumb spring-loaded hook. So it's higher risk for failure.

Yeah, I interviewed at a company that had a frunk module in development. I was initially puzzled as to why they wanted the full ASIL treatment for a basic actuator until it hit me that failure in this case means the hood can open while driving. I know its cool to have auto open and close on everything, but IMHO just leave the 2nd big dumb latch in the front.

ASIL = Automotive Safety Integrity Level.

Thank you for that

An additional safety feature of some cars is that the hood is designed to leave a gap underneath when open, allowing you to see through in an emergency.

For affected Model 3 owners, Tesla has pledged to install a new cable harness and guide protector free of charge.

Wiring harness flexing and chafing is a decades-old well-known problem with well-known solutions. I wonder what the people who designed that area are thinking now, when they were presumably trying to save costs?

If Teslas' issues were specific to being EVs or otherwise new functionality specific to its cars, that would seem more understandable; yet these appear to be low-hanging fruit. As the other comment here mentions, other manufacturers have many recalls too, and some of those do look like low-hanging fruit, so I wonder if this is just a norm for the industry as a whole. What I'm trying to say is, why haven't simple things like latches and harness flexing/chafing been solved and perfected by now?

Attempts to save money in manufacturing undermine solved or perfected approaches.

But you only hear about it when it fails. When it's successful it just looks like products gradually getting cheaper.

Yes, that's the definition of risk.

My understanding of the automotive industry is that they cut corners everywhere they can because they know it’ll save more money than a lawsuit or recall will cost. Do they do these things and when someone dies or raises a stink only then do they do the recall.

This is largely urban legend from the Corvair debacle when an internal document showed someone comparing costs of lawsuits to a cost of recall. I don’t think it ever made it into some sort of policy, it was just a math wonk running numbers

This is largely urban legend

There are numerous anecdotes about cost/benefit analysis. Not just Corvair.

The Ford Pinto fuel tank is one of the most notorious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Cost%E2%80%93benefi...

I had originally typed the Pinto as the example, but changed it after thinking the memo in question was related to the Nader book. Regardless, the point still stands. From your link:

“The general misunderstanding of the document, as presented by Mother Jones, gave it an operational significance it never had” and that the memo

“explains in part of his Mother Jones article that Ford employees wrote this document as part of an ongoing lobbying effort to influence NHTSA (24, 28). But his readers have relied exclusively on his other claim, that it was the "internal" (20, 24) memo on which Ford based its decision to market the dangerous Pinto and settle the few inevitable lawsuits”

That’s what I meant by it not translating to actual policy.

Actually I was referring to the Ford rollover thing: https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/ford-hid-suv-...

And to the GM ignition thing: https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/10/3/18073458/gm-car-r...

Having spent 7 years in automotive, I can tell you definitively this is not the case. Automakers are not interested in dealing with litigation, regardless of the cost-benefit-analysis. It is a mess. Discovery is a mess. The actual court work is a mess. No automaker wants to risk going down this road.

I watched “Fight Club” too, good flic.

Is this at all an abnormal issue? I've had cable run failures myself in other cars. It's a pretty routine thing, I think. It rises to the level of a recall here only because the device on the other end of the wire is the backup camera.

It's amazing the amount of attention the simple fact of "TESLA!" can bring to the most mundane and normal issues. It's... an inspection recall. People will just schedule a service visit on their phones and the Tesla folks will show up and check it. Is this really worthy of (at current count, I believe) three front page stories on HN?

Or is it because the recall encompasses 20% of all the vehicles that Tesla has ever sold?

Isn't that a bit spun, though? 90% of "all the vehicles that Tesla has ever sold" were sold in the last two years. It's a brand new company ramping quickly. In fact the total number of vehicles affected here represents about... six months of production output. That's a big recall[1], but not particularly notably so. There are six-figure recalls announced every year.

I just don't understand what it is about "TESLA!" that causes people to get so terribly upset. I especially don't understand why the people who are most upset are the ones who didn't buy a Tesla and don't plan to.

[1] And again, it's just an inspection of a cable run! We're not talking about swapping a drive shaft or something.

Do Tesla folks make house calls?

Yes. They refer to them as "mobile service".

To you question: no idea. But I know my aunt has a Honda CR-V that needs to go back to the shop every 1-4 months to get a cable harness serviced and they have to take apart a huge part of the car to do it. I think it’s more a matter of unintended consequences. In the case of the Honda, the dealership tells her their understanding is Honda thought it was nestled away deeply enough it’d be protected. Big oops on their part the integrity measure failed and results in hours of maintenance to repair it

Why does the harness need to be on the moving part in the first place?

If there's lights or other electrical components (such as a backup camera in this case) mounted on the trunk lid, then the harness will need to flex every time it opens.

They took the apple route and decided to just go ahead with it after a few months of testing. Like the fiasco of using flex cables for their macbooks. They would crack from opening and closing and would cost $800 for a new screen plus labor.

Not to be rude, but link that backs this claim?

https://support.apple.com/13-inch-macbook-pro-display-backli...

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/07/20/flexgate-class-action-l...

you are making a presumption there in terms of the engineering. I think the Model 3 (And Model S) where the first two major production cars from a new vendor - who didn't necessarily have the institutional knowledge. That said, I have had a Honda Odyssey, that has had four major return to shop events in it's lifespan. I had two Honda that had to have their airbags replaced. A VW that had a alternator reknowned for running backwards and destroying itself. A Honda recall that involved a kids seat suddenly becoming unlatched and possibly catapulting a child during a car crash.

It's hard to cover ever contingency.

Sure. But the examples you have listed are all on pretty complex systems while hood latch seems very basic. It makes me wonder which issues Tesla didn't recall cars for.

I had the Model S frunk open in front of me while driving. Lucky to be alive.

On my last Model S (2018 model year), I was driving up on a bridge and it suddenly opened and blocked my forward visibility, with a trailer on my right. The vehicle was looked at by service a number of times because I got intermittent “Front trunk hood status unknown” (which I had also seen on a couple loaner Model S’s) and service despite taking it in a number of times and looking at it presumably a few days each time was not able to reliably reproduce and investigate the root cause. After the incident, they looked at the car for a couple weeks and. To their credit, they were quite good at resolving the issue and when I asked they <strike>lemoned</strike>“Goodwill bought back” the vehicle and I ordered another Model S. Their diagnosis, I was told, was that the emergency escape button inside the frunk had some sort of glitch and activated and was causing the frunk to open at times, but this must have been part of the problem. Glad to see this issue addressed at large, as it was super scary, but it took 2+ years since I first reported my own frunk problems till now that the recall is being issued.

yikes. so it was an electronic failure, where the computer decided that the hood goes up now, not a mechanical one?

That was my understanding. Ironically the "emergency escape button" inside the frunk is a dubious regulatory requirement for such a small space but could cause a major problem.

It doesn't seem like the rear view camera problem is that much of a safety issue, thoughts?

The front trunk flying open while driving seems highly undesirable though.

federal regulation requires backup cameras on new vehicles, so that breaking likely to break would be probably be considered a decent sized problem

Rear view cameras are a required safety feature in the US now. As SUVs proliferated and pillars got thicker for crash safety cases of parents running over their toddlers increased.

You’re right, but it can still be fixed after the problem happens

as predicted in the early 1990s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI_Jl5WFQkA

Pretty sure this is from s8 or higher so more like late nineties? Probably more a parody of trends already existing

Not just SUVs. The visibility out of the rear of my Model 3 is almost as bad as the rear of my BMW X5 SUV. The trunk is so high, you cannot see the headlights of a following passenger car until it's some distance behind.

It's not just Tesla, visibility across all cars is getting worse over time, as manufacturers are pushed by crash test standards to improve performance in a crash against another vehicle or stationary object, to the detriment of the ability to avoid a crash (visibility, weight/handling, etc), and at the cost of humans and animals NOT in a big heavy motorized box.

So glad to come across your comment. This has been driving me mad when I've been on long road trips lately. As a driver of a "normal" sedan, it's amazing how few cars i can see around/through on the highway at this point. I was specifically noticing the model 3 and its raised rear window. It requires a much larger safe following distance when the only signal you get is the taillights of the guy in front of you, especially when they're the type of human who cant figure out how to leave a buffer so they tap the brakes for no reason every few seconds. And of course with an abnormally large space in front of you you'll get aggressive drivers moving around to fill in the spot, mostly the SUVs who can see over most, which means you get to try to see around them now.

it's a shame the trend (toward larger and larger cars) is so at odds with the environment. cars are already such a large and inefficient solution for what theyre used for 99.99% of the time, why keep making it worse?

In Europe (Euro NCAP), crash test standards include tests against pedestrians and electronic assistance like ESP and emergency breaking, including against pedestrians. Standards are regularly updated to take new technologies, other road users, and potential loopholes into account.

Maybe it is different in the US, but most cars sold in the US are sold in Europe too.

Weight and visibility are still a problem, and electric cars and their big batteries make the weight problem worse, but it doesn't mean that crash test standards only cares about the car occupants, and handling is definitely considered.

You're right, it's an exaggeration to say they don't consider pedestrians at all. Europe is leading the way there, but it's definitely becoming a consideration in the US as well.

>most cars sold in the US are sold in Europe too.

is this actually the case? i'm sure the inverse is true, but when I visited australia (which admittedly I'm aware is not in the US) I was surprised how many huge cars there were, which you don't really see at least in my part of europe. I was under the impression american cars similarly tend to be bigger than european ones

Most European cars need modifications before they can be sold in the US and visa versa. Some manufacturers have previously said it's like building two separate cars for the two different markets.

The rearview camera is a big issue because it is a requirement under Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.

Yes. It's a safety issue. But there are also at least tens of millions of cars on the road without backup cameras.

Lack of rear visibility without a camera is a much more of an issue on newer cars; older cars, which make up the bulk of those "tens of millions", don't have such a serious problem.

That's fair. Even when I shopped for a car over a decade ago, it felt like some of the electronic safety systems were making up for lack of the sort of sightlines you had historically. One of the reasons I ended up going with a pretty old-school SUV design even though I didn't have much of an interest in most of the off-road features. Would probably buy the same vehicle today even though it hasn't been updated a lot.

Yes, and of course there are exceptions. I bought a new Toyota 20 years ago that probably had worse rearward visibility than some of the Teslas that are being recalled.

I'm not (directly) saying it's a safety issue, I'm saying it's a compliance issue. It is clear that it needs fixed because it's clear that this function is required by law.

Of course it needs to be fixed.

I had a hood come open on a car I was driving once. It was definitely some scary shit. Luckily, I was on a long, straight road, and was able to decelerate in a controlled way and pull off the side of the road.

British vehicle?

Is common on British cars? The only other time I've known it to happen was on a family friend's MG a long time ago

Tesla's have limited rear-view visibility due to aerodynamic shape. Not a big problem, but once you get used to backing out while looking at HD screen, lack of it is quite a hindrance.

Yep - that’s the first thing I noticed/get used to w/my Tesla Y: rear view mirror looking out back windshield is basically useless and camera is basically necessary while backing up.

The Model Y would be pretty much undrivable without a camera. The Model 3 is also pretty bad about rear visibility, but the lack of visibility out the back of the Model Y is shocking.

Mandatory safety feature not working not a safety issue? How do you work that one out?

The recall is not specifically for vehicles with broken backup cameras. It is to deal with cars that have working cameras, but contain a flaw wherein closing the trunk could damage the cable and cause the backup camera to cease working. So TL;DR this should be fixed ASAP (hence the recall) but presumably those cars with currently-working cameras are perfectly safe to drive until then. The Model S hood issue, on the other hand, that’s more serious.

Okay so let’s say someone is at the grocery store, loads up the trunk, while doing so breaks the cable. Tries to backup without the camera/ obscured field of view inherent to the vehicle, hits someone.

I get most auto manufacturers calculate risk of death versus recall value, but Tesla doesn’t really have the cash on hand to survive that, and the stock would get obliterated. Why chastise them for being proactive?

Yeah usually when my camera goes out I just say screw it and back up without looking.

Just because it's a safety feature doesn't make it now the operators fault.

>Why chastise them for being proactive?

Who is chastising whom? As an M3 owner I'm thrilled they're being proactive with this recall. I'm also thrilled that this issue is minor and any failure is easily detected. My camera is working fine, and as long as it continues to work fine I'm not at (extra) risk of hitting anyone.

Compare this to a critical safety issue like a malfunctioning accelerator cable or a defective hood-latch -- those are things that could pop up at any moment without any warning and kill people. My point above is that safety-critical recalls exist on a spectrum, and this one is about as benign as you get. Whereas the Model S frunk issue is not benign at all.

see also: Tesla ranks almost dead last on Consumer Reports reliability list

https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Tesla-ranks-almost-dead-...

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/tesla-model-s-no-longer-reco...

I hope this doesn't come across as excessively smug but I think my life, level of stress and personal finances are measurably improved by owning something that is closer to a $9000 Toyota Corolla and spending money on regular, basic maintenance for it.

Presuming you can afford a Tesla, the virtues of thriftiness and limiting the scope of your consumption will get you much further than "FSD".

They also ranks first in customer satisfaction survey -- 4 years running:

https://thedriven.io/2021/11/15/tesla-dominate-top-10-most-s...

This pattern is more of the norm than not for expensive high-tech cars. Rich people like nice stuff and are willing to pay maintenance and repair bills.

and then later in their life they become impossible to fix at a reasonable price.

somebody might sell you a mostly okay running older BMW 7 series for $4500, fully loaded with all the options but take a look at the parts and labor cost to fix something on it.... you might as well throw away the whole car.

While I've driven them (on a track) and appreciate the attraction of the German sports luxury brands, what I've always heard is that if you want to keep them past their warranty period you need a trusted independent foreign car mechanic--and it can still get pricey. Just has never been a sufficient priority for me.

You’re spot on. I’ve done exactly this for the last 20 years with several old Mercedes. It only works because I have a great local independent mechanic, and I don’t mind spending $2k/year in maintenance.

If that $2k/year gets you a car that runs fairly reliably, that's a pretty good deal compared to the depreciation of a newer car. I assume your cars are depreciated to the point where there's no further depreciation?

Yes, the maintenance is mostly preventative, with the goal of the car being in functionally new condition. Putting the second 100,000 miles on a well-maintained, reliably luxury car is the best deal going, I think, aside from not driving at all.

E.g, in 2011 paid $16,000 for a 2003 E320 wagon in perfect condition. It was $70,000 brand new, so the original depreciation is eye-watering. Since then I’ve probably put $2,000/year * 10 years into it, so less than half the depreciation. It’s still functionally new, with a fair share of small aesthetic issues.

I once bought a car with negative value, in that I spent more on deferred maintenance in the first month than I paid for it. That was a magnificent vehicle, though, once I fixed it up; identical to this — https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1987-mercedes-benz-300sdl-...

I'd love to do this with a W126 (1979-1991 S-Class) because I think they're the most beautiful Mercedes. Very few electronics compared to modern cars, so I assume it would be possible to keep it running and in good condition.

But in reality, I don't have the energy for dealing with this sort of thing. In fact, sometimes I have a bad dream that I bought some high-maintenance older car and am stuck with it.

Oh, I agree with you about the W126. I sold ours to a friend, replacing it with the W210. The most compelling difference was safety — the W210 wagon has 11 airbags, while the W126 has only 1. Other than that, though, damn, it’s a magnificent-looking vehicle, and was a real joy to drive.

Since you're making broad, sweeping generalizations, I can play. There are 7 people in my social circle who are Tesla owners but not fiercely loyal. They are not rich. And none of them have experienced more than minor issues in their ownership.

They are "not rich" in only the most privileged of perspectives. Even if we limit that perspective to the US, which is a pretty wealthy country by most measures: the average vehicle on the road in the US was built before Tesla even opened their first assembly plant. The used car market in the US is 2.8x the size of the new car market. Median income buyers struggle to afford new cars of any fuel type or brand.

But, call 'em whatever you want. My point was, the demographic who buy new cars which compete in a luxury-priced segment are a demographic who are motivated by the technology of the product rather than value/price/maintenance.

If you own a Tesla you're almost by definition rich. If everyone in your social circle is driving expensive/new cars, you're all rich. Not to go all "check your privileges", but seriously..

This is where Hacker News is at its best: endless discussions about what the word "rich" means.

A model 3 MSRP is $45k. A used one can be found for even less than that.

Check your local car prices, b/c that is not really that expensive and certainly nowhere close to "rich" territory.

A fully loaded F-150 is $78k. I would be shocked if you also said anyone driving an F-150 is by definition rich.

Also, a cheap used car may be drastically less expensive to buy for most people, but they will ultimately pay thousands of dollars of maintenance, part replacements, fluid changes and gas which a Tesla really never has to deal with, ever. No one seems to talk about this.

A BMW Gran Coupe 4 is also around $45k. These are luxury goods.

> A fully loaded F-150 is $78k. I would be shocked if you also said anyone driving an F-150 is by definition rich

Someone driving a fully loaded new one has to be pretty comfortably upper middle class to rich.

And also a fully loaded F150 buyer is culturally a different market segment than a Model 3 buyer. There's no real comparison between them.

Yeah no, sorry, if you can afford a $45k car you must be pretty rich. I know there are places in the world where a $45k car is almost a toy, but that's an extremely narrow and very priviledged perspective.

Some people aren't rich but buy pretty expensive cars with a loan. Either because they really like cars, or they're financially irresponsible, or both.

I know people like this.

Some trims of Honda Pilot cost more than a Model Y. Or did, anyway. Is Honda a rich man’s car now?

If you option one so it's as expensive as a Model Y, then yes, absolutely. Honda also makes a Type R civic which is definitely a rich man's toy.

Using someone car ownership as a gauge of possible wealth can be incredibly misleading. Plenty of people go into dealerships and walk out with a wonderful car and debilitating monthly payments.

this is factually correct and while we're getting off topic it brings up the problem of overloaded consumer debt in the USA in general.

I also saw a statistic that something like 45% of Americans couldn't immediately come up with $1000 for an emergency the same day. Just in case we need a benchmark measure of relative wealth and prosperity between the typical six figure FAANG employee and people working jobs that pay a great deal less.

just 39% could immediately come up with $1k according to this survey from January: https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/financial-security-...

The real comparison is whether they would’ve experienced complaints with any similar class of new(ish) car. What’s left out of TSLA reliability talk is that they are often compared to the average car, which is much older, has less safety features etc. That’s why consumer reports compares similar class and year

Consumers tend to rate higher satisfactions with "luxury" goods (i.e., goods at premium prices, regardless of material quality or value) than they do with non-luxury goods. It occurs to me that that bias affects Tesla's reception as well.

I vaguely remember (or perhaps misremember) Mercedes doing a study that consumers respond less favorably to their cars when they are pierced below some threshold compared to the same cars when prices higher. There’s definitely some consumer cognitive bias effects around pricing

Presumably the survey includes other luxury cars.

Certainly. The effect happens with all luxury items, and the report suggests that other luxury brands are similarly grouped at the top (and similarly have reported reliability issues).

I think Tesla would be the only all-premium vendor of significant size in the US market? And almost certainly the only one to sell a significant fraction of >100k cars.

The model 3 and y are on that list as well, and are closer to $50k.

Placing them just about halfway up the BMW car scale. These are luxury goods.

The model 3 and y is on that top 10 list as well, and they're not quite luxury goods.

I know very little about cars, but a cursory search shows that both the Model 3 and Model Y are about ~60% more expensive than the top-selling sedans and SUVs in the US. They're also both in the same rough ballpark as popular "luxury" car labels (Lincoln, BMW), so I think "luxury" is a fair descriptor.

I don’t think comparing a Tesla’s price to an ICE competitor is an apples to apples comparison.

Sure on the surface a Model 3 price tag looks luxury, but look at full cost of ownership and things start looking downright reasonable. No mandatory scheduled maintenance, no gas costs — charging the thing at home is laughably cheap, brake pads last in to the 100-200k kilometre range thanks to regenerative braking. Don’t forget all the subsidies too against the purchase price.

If you drive a lot, the numbers start getting awfully close to non-luxury vehicles.

And all of this is before you consider the non-monetary drivers of value such as how fun it is to drive, tech gadgets, etc.

I think you're absolutely right: amortized, driving a Tesla for a decade is probably cheaper than driving a brand new luxury sedan. But I don't think that's incompatible with Tesla being a luxury brand: many (although) not all luxury brands advertise themselves through their amortized savings or durability. Put another way: a product's longevity is frequently a selling point for a luxury label, even if longevity itself isn't a guarantee of luxury.

The same is apparent in clothing: I have an expensive, recognizable jacket that I expect to last for the rest of my life. It's undeniably a luxury item, because it costs several times more than even a premium, high-quality jacket would. But it'll probably save me money over the next 60 years, since I won't buy half a dozen merely nice jackets instead.

In the real world, outside FAANGistan , paying 50k for a car, IS a luxury. I said that as a fellow FAANGistanian.

50k is standard for normies in their 40s and 50s and typically financed with a down payment. Typically $600-$700 a month

In case anyone else is wondering: median income for a 50 year old American is around $90K/yr before tax.

median income for a 50 year old American at 90k is skewed high by a small number of people way above 300-400k.

how many millions of americans have a gross yearly income of maybe 35k?

randomly chosen Montgomery county in Kansas:

The median income for a household in the county was $30,997, and the median income for a family was $38,516. Males had a median income of $29,745 versus $20,179 for females. The per capita income for the county was $16,421. About 9.20% of families and 12.60% of the population were below the poverty line, including 16.80% of those under age 18 and 10.90% of those age 65 or over.

randomly chosen Benton county in Washington:

The median income for a household in the county was $57,354 and the median income for a family was $69,834. Males had a median income of $57,496 versus $36,575 for females. The per capita income for the county was $27,161. About 9.3% of families and 12.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 19.3% of those under age 18 and 6.1% of those age 65 or over.[13]

>median income for a 50 year old American at 90k is skewed high by a small number of people way above 300-400k

Medians don't work that way. Maybe you're thinking of the average.

Median income is not the mean. It is the boundary where 50% make less, 50% more. It’s not skewed by outliers like the mean can be.

The median for 45-55 year olds is much higher than the population overall. It’s the highest of any 10-year cohort, IIRC.

Plus high income areas skew up so if you're in some parts of the country a 50k car is on the low end.

This source says the median income for a 50 year old American is $56k: https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-income-by-age-percentil...

Where "normies" == "People who have accumulated wealth during 20+ years and above average savings"? Dunno where you live (in Beverly Hills I guess?), but those "normies" are not the norm anymore. Have you seen how the rest of Americans live outside the big cities?

That's pure survivorship bias. Everyone else who encounters major problems with their Tesla gets rid of it, and therefore wouldn't choose to buy their Tesla again because they don't have it anymore.

People who do have one new enough not to have a major defect will overlook small issues with the build quality and other complaints that people have about Tesla, because they've bought into a luxury and lifestyle brand. When someone else dies in a Telsa fire or dies in an autopilot accident, they convince themself it was the operator "doing it wrong" instead of an inherently defective product. When story comes out about Tesla remotely disabling functionality on a car capriciously, there has to be "more to the story" instead of it being a shocking erosion of consumer rights.

Why wouldn't that apply to every car brand?

every other car brand doesn't have a fanatical legion of elon musk fanboys

Then they would have ratings similar to every other car brand all things being equal. One can infer the hazard function given such a skewed distribution.

I see this all the time but then if you want to buy a new Tesla you have to wait a year. And that is due to demand.

The consumer reports reliability thing just seems like a meme at this point that doesn’t ring true for most people either in importance or reality. I can’t quite put my finger on why this meme is wrong but my intuition says it is.

Have bought several Teslas over the last 3 years (S->X->Y). Quality improves each time I’ve bought one. Lots to complain about, still wouldn’t buy from another manufacturer.

If there is a lot to complain about, why wouldn't you want to buy something else?

Because the alternatives are worse. Bolt EV LG Chem battery recall, Taycan is woefully inadequate for the price point, Ford dealers are adding $10k-$30k “market adjustments” to Mach Es and $5k-$10k for F150 Lightning reservations (which is obnoxious), Teslas have the Supercharger network, frequent over the air updates, a robust battery warranty, strong resale market, etc.

My Model S frunk recall appointment with a mobile tech coming to the home to perform took less than three minutes in app to schedule.

That’s funny. I’d buy a Taycan but never a Model S.

Taycan and Tesla don't even fit to same sentence. Tesla is literally Lada in terms of build qualify comparing to any major car manufacturer.

Can you give out some examples here? I saw Tesla’s Model Y in person and the build quality seemed on par if not better than my 3-series.

While I have my doubts with the build quality (initial Model 3s had panel gaps my finger could fit in), my low opinion of Teslas goes far beyond merely their inability to put a sheet a metal on straight, or merely make sure the colors match[0].

The Model S interior is ugly and empty, and the Tesla infotainment system is a joke. Just integrate with CarPlay, and toss that Mickey Mouse crap like off brand maps and streaming services.

[0] https://www.thedrive.com/news/22951/new-tesla-model-3-with-m...

atleast the 5 centimeter panel gaps on your lada are consistent across the car...

Tesla has bumped the price of their vehicles _at least_ three times this year, in some cases well over $10K in total, so it's not all that much different to "market adjustments".

Not sure how a $5K refundable deposit is "obnoxious". Sure, it's less convenient than the Tesla deposit, but it wasn't like that money wasn't earmarked anyway. (And if you're in the market for a $50-75K vehicle and the difference between a couple of hundred and couple of thousand down is a deal breaker for you, you could argue affordability).

The manufacturer bumping the price due to demand and supply chain issues is one thing, dealers gouging is entirely different (pure profit for adding no value). Musk was entirely right that dealers would be an impediment to EV adoption.

https://jalopnik.com/dealers-say-salespeople-still-arent-rea...

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15346108/some-dealerships...

https://www.fastcompany.com/90294305/car-companies-put-in-a-...

Edit: @FireBeyond I don’t believe I’ll be able to help with the confusion

And yet, somehow, all the other manufacturers are not bumping the price at wholesale.

I'm confused.

How is a manufacturer raising prices due to demand “adding value”, but doing it at the dealership is not?

Check out the definition of "rent seeking".

Check out the Audi etron GT. Its built on the same platform as the Taycan, but much sexier and also cheaper.

>Ford dealers are adding $10k-$30k “market adjustments” to Mach Es and $5k-$10k for F150 Lightning reservations (which is obnoxious)

The price of Teslas went up by 10k+ this year and Teslas famously have reservation costs, so I don't see how that's different at all.

> Teslas have the Supercharger network, frequent over the air updates, a robust battery warranty, strong resale market, etc.

This sentence, the propoints, seem important and barely added as an afterthought. Given that Tesla has been starting to open up its supercharger network, does that change your view of its value?

You consider frequent over the air updates to be a benefit. Can I ask why? It seems like you're at the mercy of Tesla's software QA department for each update to make sure it doesn't decide to crash stop and or accelerated into traffic. Meanwhile, I'm not really aware of what benefits you're getting from those updates.

Because there are lots of things the Tesla does that nothing else does in the same way, or the overall package of other vehicles (price, features, functionality, intangibles, whatever) doesn't match for that particular buyer.

I'm constantly amazed that otherwise intelligent people latch on to a single "factual" reason that proves they must be correct about a matter of opinion, particularly when their experience set is often objectively less relevant. To wit: presumably the parent has owned numerous other cars in addition to the Teslas.

And some of us buy cars and keep them for over 10 years. Which isn't rare behavior.

My 2013 Model S is doing great. I had all of the usual first-year-car problems, since then it's been fine. No fit-and-finish problems, no rattles, paint doing well, and so on.

TBH, I'm not sure what those "usual first-year-car problems" are these days. That hasn't been my experience though that's admittedly a small sample size.

I meant the first year Model S was built.

Plenty of people advise not buying the first year of any new model from any carmaker, because there are usually more problems than usual. Refreshes are safer.

If you have the financial resources to buy 3 teslas sequentially (S->X->Y) you are in the probably top 1-2% of income per year globally.

The intent was to demonstrate Tesla’s build quality rapidly improving over a short window of time. My apologies if it came across otherwise.

> I see this all the time but then if you want to buy a new Tesla you have to wait a year. And that is due to demand.

High demand doesn't mean the product is quality. Fyre festival sold thousands of tickets, even though it was fundamentally fraudulent. Video games are another perfect example: fans pre-order AAA titles that studios fail to deliver over and over and over again. Demand just means that people like the idea of it, not that the product actually delivers on its stated promises.

> Video games are another perfect example: fans pre-order AAA titles that studios fail to deliver over and over and over again

I literally pre-ordered Anthem, and then apparently having not learned my lesson, did the same with Cyberpunk 2077. Enough said...

The thing about games vs cars is games aren't even supply-constrained; you just download a copy from the store!

Even if you buy the physical games, they're almost always available within a few days of release at most. Just not a good idea to preorder games.

Unlike the Fyre festival or an unfinished video game, Teslas already exist. You can see them driving down the road. Maybe you know someone who owns one and can ask them about it. Even if you don't, there's no shortage of reviews and videos of actual Teslas made by people who don't work for Tesla.

By this point, you should know more or less what you're getting if you buy a Tesla, so that demand is presumably based on the actual product and not just the idea.

> there's no shortage of reviews and videos of actual Teslas made by people who don't work for Tesla.

The whole point of this thread is criticizing a company, Consumer Reports, that does exactly this. The message I responded implied that high demand automatically means a quality product, while Consumer Reports is downgrading Tesla's rating.

Tesla sells plenty of things that don't already exist. Real FSD is one of them, as is the cyber truck and Roadster, and robotaxis.

It does mean that the quality is acceptable enough to the buyer at that price, and that says a lot.

Again, just because people are willing to pay a price for a product that works doesn't automatically mean they're going to get one that does, which is why companies like Consumer Reports exist. They're in the business of ensuring that products that companies put out actually meet the standards they claim.

Which is why reviews are most often skewed towards negativity unless there is a clear incentive to leave it. People who have cars or products that work are going to go about their day, but the ones that have issues will ultimately find an outlet for their review. All this while reviews in general are becoming less and less trustworthy due to bots and whatever else is happening behind the scenes.

There's nothing to put a finger on and no meme rebuttal needed, because both statements can be true.

Tesla can score poorly in 3rd party consumer testing and that might be a valuable data point to those who care or value their testing.

And a number of people who really want a Tesla can also be people who have never heard of Consumer Reports nor value its testing.

At current domestic capacity levels, you [only] need 500K people from category #2 ahead of your order to produce the observed lead times.

>The consumer reports reliability thing just seems like a meme at this point that doesn’t ring true for most people either in importance or reality.

It’s based on, well…consumer reports of reliability issues so it seems like it’s quite literally based on (perceived) reality.

I haven't had a single problem with my Tesla (2021 Model 3) so this seems odd and was surprising to me. I know that is a sample size of one but I would expect some issue.

I mean, I doubt any car model is so bad that you’d expect defects in _all_ units. If all units were noticeably defective, they’d have gone bust under the repair load.

I had one issue with my 2019 model 3. The charge port door would sometimes not open. Tesla service came to my house and replaced it, under warranty. Now what other car manufacturer does that?

Sample size of one Tesla vs. one Subaru Outback, both bought new, I'll take the Tesla any day. The Outback had a chronic issue with the cable going to the rear door which had a ton of electronics in it. I had to repair it multiple times. Head gasket failures. Then the engine died and I had to replace it as well. It also had a few "recalls". Recalls, sometimes massive ones, are not that uncommon for all brands.

It's not wrong. It's just that car buying is as much emotional decision making as it is rational.

I buy and ride motorcyles. I drive a car as well. By almost every measurable metric, the car is superior. Better braking, better turn speeds, better inclement weather handling, better protection against the elements, better cargo capacity, and I'm far better off in a car during a crash.

I still like bikes better. In part because there's a thrill in doing something needlessly stupid and dangerous; there's a joy in knowing that you're one just a single tiny mistake away from being killed or worse. When you're seeing the grey blur of pavement half an inch away from your elbows and knees, or the blur of a stone wall promising to quite literally rip your arm off at the shoulder if you dare get any closer. There is nothing else like it in the world.

You can't exactly put something like that in a spec sheet or mark it as a KPI though. For many Tesla owners there probably are dozens of defects and problems, but all of them you're willing to ignore because of an intangible affection. It doesn't make them wrong, it just means that their priorities are different then someone that might care more for something else.

Instead of Consumer Reports, how about JD Power? Every car company that brags about ratings quotes their JD Power rating first and foremost. Tesla is 30 out of 33 on JD Power.

Yes, the third party we should use to evaluate is definitely the one the manufacturer wants you to pay attention to.

If I see my bestie in a Tessie, I will be happy for them, but much like you I'm OK with a more conservative choice until something like the Tesla EV's becomes the conservative choice.

If you want a more conservative BEV choice, buy a Bolt.

I've looked at it, but I have a good decade.5 on my current car so it will be one of those things I check on in the future.

The joke is that GM had to recall 100% of them to replace their batteries because of a fire hazard.

I see Tesla as more of a lighter under the incumbents' collective ass than a car manufacturer, but nevertheless I think I'll eventually get one, because they're still ahead of the competition and I don't actually need a daily driver anymore.

> I hope this doesn't come across as excessively smug but I think my life, level of stress and personal finances are measurably improved by owning something that is closer to a $9000 Toyota Corolla and spending money on regular, basic maintenance for it.

Agreed. My criteria for a car now is that it has to have a large aftermarket for parts, and it needs to be serviceable by pretty much any mechanic. Corollas and similar cars fit that bill perfectly.

Corollas are easy to get parts. My next auto purchase will be in the next two years, and I will be checking with availability of parts at third-party part stores. If you do this, do it for a specific model and don't assume that one manufacturer is better than another or has even availability on every model. Kia Rio has parts available, and the Kia Niro needs everything ordered. Also, checking what people who do aftermarket modifications are driving isn't such a bad idea.

Also, watch some youtube videos of common maintenance and repair scenarios. Even if you won't be doing the repairs, knowing the difficulty level and parts required might give you some insight into how good the vehicle is long term.

The value of those rankings is very low, the methodology is flawed. And doesn't accurately reflect the relative inconvenience of flaws.

Tesla for EV have had pretty amazing success in terms of battery and drive train reliability.

If you are going to consider a Corolla, you were not the target audience in the first place and even if Tesla was literally the best company in terms of reliability it wouldn't make you a potential costumer either.

Given that you can order the exact same car three times in a year and get three different configurations including missing components, that's not a surprise.

Following the CNBC link also says: "but Consumer Reports put the Model 3 in the middle of the pack and still recommends it."

I'm also wondering what's the relative ranking vs. other BEVs and whether or not the ranking is weighted by some of the earlier production vehicles that had more issues.

I've had endless issues with ICE cars. Never owned a Toyota. But did own a Dodge, an Audi, a Subaru, all of which had lots of problems, some of them resulting in getting stuck and needing to get towed, the last one was ~1500km from home in the middle of nowhere with the Subaru and a seized engine which is when I decided to get the Tesla. Maybe just my luck.

I think I feel less stress in my Model 3 which so far hasn't let me down. But ask me again in 10 years. No oil changes. No stinking gas stations.

$$-wise I think I agree. But if the Model 3 cost $9k I think we both know which one you'd get...

My 3rd Subaru had 2 head gasket replacements under warranty, and needed a 3rd when I sold it to buy a Tesla. It's as if everyone makes decisions based on their personal experiences. I know I do.

(It was a design flaw that was unusual for Subaru -- but there's no excuse for Subaru not fixing the part after it was shown to be unreliable.)

This is about half of all Teslas ever sold in the US https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/tesla-us-sales-figures/

Yep. Tesla is a new automaker, and this was the first high-volume model for Tesla.

BTW the Takada airbag recall was 100% of Teslas.

To put this in perspective, Tesla had sold about 2 million cars total. So Tesla have recalled a quarter of all the cars they have ever sold.

Didn't Musk sell a billion dollars worth of stock a few days before this recall was announced?

1) He announced the sales would happen months ago. 2) He had (I believe) stated the sales were to cover tax costs in California 3) He is still net increased his number of shares over the last year due to his compensation package.

Does his increase in number of shares actually mean anything? I assume that, like most stock compensation, these shares are newly issued shares, diluting the value of existing shares. That would mean he still has a lower stake, regardless of number of shares, no?

I may be misunderstanding something.

The dilution happened when the options pool was expanded years ago.

No, they’re options that were already issued and reserved in a pool. The shares would’ve been released to the market (or whatever mechanism Tesla has in place for unrealized options - many times that means the company buys them) if he didn’t exercise

Ah. Didn’t realize he is being granted options and not shares. That makes sense.

Is it illegal to schedule the transactions months in advance, but then intentionally (but with plausible deniability) slow the release of damaging news like this till after the transaction completed?

I'm confused-- these seem like 2 totally separate issues. The Model 3 issue doesn't even sound like a trunk latching issue, it sounds like a cable-harness-in-a-hinge issue?

I actually have a Model 3 that exhibited an annoying rear camera problem (now fixed). It had to "go in" to be fixed 3 times, for complicated reasons, but I found the ultimate fix (an OTA update) to be annoying. I had read on the forums that harness damage was not-uncommon, particularly among people who had installed a power trunk closing retrofit and somehow managed to damage the harness in the process (oops!)

Basically:

* When the car was new, rear camera did turn on 100% of the time, but failure rate was pretty low. The car had a few minor bugs and the camera seemed to be one. Within a few months most of the bugs were sorted and I had no regular issues with the camera anymore. (way less than 1% failure rate I'd say -- not unlike I've noticed in other cars).

* ~ April 2021 the camera started failing to come up with some regularity, immediately after a software update, so I suspected a bug, and just waited for it to get fixed. I think it basically never worked at this point. But it didn't get fixed in the next few updates. (this was when the car was 3 or 4 years old)

* A few months later, I took the car in for its final "warranty about to expire" visit. Probably the car's 2nd time at the service center in 3 years? I mentioned the camera along with a few other minor issues. They said they'd replace the harness through the trunklid if they had one, but thought it was out of stock. Sure enough, it was out of stock and they never 'fixed' it.

* Mobile service visit, came to my house and replaced the harness in about 20 minutes. But it didn't solve the problem. The tech said likely the FRONT coax harness would need to be replaced, which was much more involved and would require a service center visit.

* Scheduled service center visit.

* The night before the visit, they called and said "hey, is your camera fixed? We pushed an update". Well, I don't know. Even if it IS working, 12 hours isn't enough to tel whether an intermittent problem is permanently fixed.

* Took the car in, they examined everything, said it was fine, and it has been ever since.

The car's been relatively trouble free but I want to say this is the second time (possibly for the same camera issue) someone at Tesla pushed a update to the car the night before a service center visit, in the hope it fixed the problem. Why not prioritize these fixes for, I don't know, a few days before the visit, if you want to fix things OTA and limit the load on service centers?

Quite possibly completely unrelated, but I do recall helping some friends analyze build defects on early Model 3’s and making some comment like “boy I hope none of those high voltage lines [in the same harness] are ever active when the lv ones are [due to non-existent shielding and routed to the same MOLEX]”.

If memory serves it was power and data over 20 gauge wire intertwined together, unshielded, and pretty much every compute component in a Tesla uses Ethernet as a common bus. Could easily see the back harness being a single package where power for rear defroster, lights, and camera data were housed together. Lights! Camera! …no action

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29739029

The rear camera MAY fail issue seems pretty benign.

When it fails go get it fixed?

Or is that no longer a permitted approach.

These recalls used to be for things major. Now we are getting a recall over what would be a warranty claim? Can they not just extend warranty coverage in this year to something like 10 years?

Backup cameras are considered required safety equipment, I assume, since they’ve been required for years. So I don’t think Tesla has any choice in this.

The much smaller Model S recall seems like the bigger deal to me. Obviously having the frunk open while you’re driving would be pretty bad.

There are two hood latches, like all cars. This recall affects one of them. 0 known incidents. Definitely ought to have a recall.

Yes, and my side mirror is required safety equipment. When it is knocked off by an idiot, I go get it repaired.

The backup cameras are working in these cars they are recalling.

If it breaks, go get it fixed under warranty.

I've done this with headlight bulbs by the way, and headlights are required safety equipment (potentially as important as the backup camera).

I've also had to do this with a windshield wiper, also potentially a key piece of equipment (I had to drive with my head out the window once in snow/rain).

If there was a manufacturing defect that caused your mirror to fall off that would also be a recall.

I don't think you understand the difference between something failing due to chance, and something failing due to a known manufacturing defect. One of them you get fixed out of your own pocket, the other is a recall. Try to guess which is which.

> These recalls used to be for things major. Now we are getting a recall over what would be a warranty claim

This is actually a great thing. That we seem to be ordering less major recalls means that automakers got their shit together and across the board, work harder to not kill people than they used to. A far cry from the Takata fiasco.

This comes just weeks after the CEO sold billions in TSLA stock to "pay taxes" when the market is in the middle of the largest bull run of all time..?

Highly suspicious imho.

(There's a very good chance that the ROI on any TSLA stock today will exceed the interest owed on 1 years worth of unpaid taxes... assuming you were not about to recall almost every car you've sold in the past year, that is.)

I am shocked at how bold this was.

Between Dec 21st (the date of TSLA filing this recall) and today, he's sold almost $3 Billion worth. Wow. That's insane.

Stock options have an expiration date. A package of grants are expiring. When you exercise the options (buying the shares reserved for you at $x/ price of the stock when you were granted the options) you have to pay taxes on the delta between grant price and current market price. To cover the taxes you need cash, which requires selling shares. Net worth doesn’t mean liquid cash. He lives off loans against stock, of which loans on unrealized gains generally come due when options expire. The IRS would not look kindly on selling shares to pay loans but not taxes. Plus, if the stock tanked between exercise and a year from now, like you suggest, he’d be royally screwed. I don’t see the IRS giving him a year+ to get the cash to pay the bill.

I’m far from an Elon apologist but conspiracy theories that have purely legal explanations are weird

>The IRS would not look kindly on selling shares to pay loans but not taxes.

They would not look at it unkindly, either.

They would simply charge interest on it like everybody else on this planet who has large loans and does not pay their taxes in full and on time every single year.

>I’m far from an Elon apologist but conspiracy theories that have purely legal explanations are weird

It's not a conspiracy theory that he sold $3 billion worth of TSLA between filing the recall and notifying the public. It's a public fact, and it's otherwise known as insider trading.

not really. He had a ton of stock options that he either had to exercise, or he would loose. He also had tax implications, not to mention people like AOC making him public enemy number one for not paying taxes that are actually not legal taxes.

>He had a ton of stock options that he either had to exercise, or he would loose.

That's completely irrelevant.

Purchasing stock options for pennies on the dollar and selling billions of dollars worth of stock when you know the company is recalling 500k vehicles in the next few days are two totally different things.

And oh... he's also done selling now.

If this is not prosecuted by the SEC I would be very surprised.

Meh. Honda just did a hood latch recall on Pilots.

Just a reminder that cars are recalled all the time and the only reason you are seeing this article is because it is Tesla. Any other manufacturer and this would be a non-story especially on HN.

Did Ford recalling 185k vehicles a couple days ago make the front page of HN?

How about Toyota recalling 200k vehicles also a couple days ago?[2]

Maybe Honda recalling 725k vehicles a month ago?[3]

EDIT: Lots of people are taking this as a defense of Tesla. That isn't my intention here. I am providing context to this issue. Someone who isn't familiar with the frequency that cars are voluntarily recalled is going to conclude that this is a bigger deal than if viewed in the context of the auto industry as a whole.

[1] - https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2021/1...

[2] - https://www.justicepays.com/news/toyota-recalls-over-200000-...

[3] - https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38425033/honda-passport-p...

just a reminder that product recalls (especially vehicles) are discussed all the time on HN [0], and Tesla isn't somehow special for being mentioned here.

[0]: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=recall

None of the recalls I pointed to were discussed here. Here is one example of searching for another manufacturer.[1] Three articles including a pair of duplicates. The other article is 12 years old. They seemingly combined to receive 2 upvotes and 0 comments. Meanwhile this article already has over 50 upvotes in an hour with 25+ comments. We can't pretend that this community treats all of these issues the same regardless of manufacturer.

[1] - https://hn.algolia.com/?q=recall+honda

There's more to the story. Ford, Toyota and Honda makes significantly more cars and models than Tesla.

I am not trying to start a fight about the quality of Tesla's vehicles compared to other manufacturers. Maybe you are right and Teslas are recalled at a higher frequency. I don't know enough about it to have an opinion either way.

I am simply pointing out that a solitary voluntary recall, which is what this article is about, is barely newsworthy and is only being posted/upvoted because it is Tesla.

And it is upvoted through the roof because it is Tesla. The one car manufacturer valued as high as "all other" (very many) car manufacturers together. Tesla is different, why treat them like everyone else?

>And it is upvoted through the roof because it is Tesla.

That was my point so we agree.

Well yes, but you seem to think it's unfair treatment whereas I think It's perfectly reasonable to treat them differently if they are different(Which they are). So we disagree as well.

I never said it was unfair. People are projecting a lot onto my comments here.

Before your edit many misinterpreted this, probably because the links you mention are not equal/close to equal and therefore not comparable to discuss.

I was limiting my search to recent weeks to highlight the frequency of these recalls, but that means there weren't limitless examples to choose from. Despite that, the Honda recall I linked to in my first comment was bigger in terms of total vehicles. I expanded that timeframe in another reply and linked to a Honda recall of 1.4m vehicles which is bigger in relation to annual vehicles sold.

Is your implication that Ford, Toyota and Honda, by being longer in business and having much more experience, should be needing less recalls?

This recall, as a percentage of the amount of vehicles that Tesla has ever sold, is significantly larger than the comparable percentages of other manufacturers' recalls.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts about every Rivian and Lucid recall in the next couple of years. Hint: new car companies have fewer models and larger recalls than companies with many models.

Well yes, and they have (per unit sold).

They're still not valued to one trillion dollars.

I disagree that those headlines are even nearly so newsworthy! This Tesla recall is only 20k less than all that they sold in 2020. Ford recalling 200k cars is only 5% of what they sold in that same year.

This is a relatively large proportion of all Tesla's on the road.

That was my thinking, a major supplier / manufacturer recalling a year of (and 1/4 of all ever made) products is at least interesting. To OP's point though, it likely reached the front page so fast b/c it has Tesla in the name.

You can check this link[1] which I posted in another reply. There is a story there about Honda recalling 1.4m vehicles. That is right around a full year of sales in the US and exceeds annual sales for the last couple years[2]. That story got one upvote and zero comments when it was posted here last year.

Once again, I am not trying to excuse Tesla for quality issues or say they make as good or a better quality car than any other manufacturer. I am simply pointing out that the name Tesla drives attention and clicks compared to their competitors and that is why you are seeing this story.

[1] - https://hn.algolia.com/?q=recall+honda

[2] - https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/honda-us-sales-figures/

Not that it matters a lot - but we've subtlety moved from total worldwide sales (Tesla) to US sales (Honda). 1.5M is a much smaller fraction of global sales for Honda (~a third).

It's true that the hype cycle around Tesla might unduly inflate the seeming significance of this. It's also true that this is unquestionably a very large, very significant recall.

> we've subtlety moved from total worldwide sales (Tesla) to US sales (Honda).

Fair enough. I will happily admit I am not an expert on global auto sales and was just Googling for information. But either way, I think the pattern is clear that car recalls generally don't garner much attention on HN unless they involve Tesla or some other interesting angle like the corruption and criminal behavior at Volkswagen.

Ford simply sells a much wider variety of cars which results in more frequent recalls. The odds of any one recall impacting a ford owner is less, but the odds of any recall impacting them are about the same.

For example in the recent 16 million for airbags vehicle recall across multiple car manufactures only 3 ford models where impacted. https://oharelawfirm.com/blog/massive-car-recall-reveals-pot...

it's interesting how Tesla is definitely not a car company when somebody mentions their absurd valuation but just like all the other car companies when something goes bad. Cannot have it both ways.

I have read about Toyota's impressive production systems and then hear people claiming that Tesla's manufacturing capability is 10x better than anybody else's.

At some point we'll have to decide whether looking like a duck, swimming like a duck, and quacking like a duck makes it a duck.

Tesla's manufacturing capabilities are notoriously bad.

the inconsistency in their finishing on the cars is telling. the tech inside the cars is amazing, but not being able to do things like proper bodywork or having lots of cars with after production line installs is a sure sign of an immature production process.

One key difference is that for Tesla, 500k cars is a huge amount of the total cars it's sold in the last 5 years. More than a third. Has any automaker ever had a recall on such a huge proportion of their cars?

Tesla has sold about 1.4M cars in just last two years. 500k last year and 910k (likely more) this year.

Next year Tesla is going to sell probably at least 1.5M cars. Given they have two new factories, and Tesla Shanghai factory is expanding again, 2M wouldn't surprise me.

Only new automakers have a high % of production of a single model. I'm always surprised by how much hate new automakers get on a startup-oriented forum.

BTW the Takada airbag recall was 100% of Teslas.

I don't get who you're calling out here. The upvoters? The press? Other car companies for not being as good at generating hype? Who messed up (other than Tesla)?

If you're just raising awareness that HN finds Tesla articles interesting... that's fine I guess.

If we have to hear about it every time Tesla is the best-selling brand for a single month in Estonia or Chile, but we never get to talk about all the other months and places some other brand is the top seller, it follows that we also have to talk about Tesla recalls, even though we never talk about Honda recalls.

This is unnecessarily defensive. A quick search shows that other large recalls have been heavily upvoted on HN: Volkswagen, Hyundai, Fiat, Peloton, Amazon, and many others.

Just a reminder that news about the 6th-largest company in the world, owned by the richest man in the world, isn't a personal attack on you.

Not all recalls have the same level of newsworthiness.

Both the Volkswagen and Hyundai recalls were related to internal corruption and potential criminal activity making them more noteworthy. That is a failure in the regulatory system while Tesla's recall is the system working as intended.

The Fiat recall was related to hacking so it will naturally get more interest on HN.

I don't have data on this, but voluntary recalls seem to be much more common for cars than other retail products.

What makes this more interesting to me is that is came about during a probe into the driver assist technology. This particular recall is of less interest than that probe.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...

I don't own a Tesla, nor do I know anyone who owns one. But the amount of noise I see on social media and the news makes it obvious that they have higher visibility across the board, and hence more scrutiny. I don't see anything wrong with that.

>Any other manufacturer and this would be a non-story especially on HN.

Perhaps it's noteworthy due to Tesla's documented past behavior of playing fast and loose with safety, and quality assurance, coupled with Musk's arrogance in the media.

Also, "recall" sounds like the cars have to physically move back to the factory. Reality: I took 10 sec to schedule a visit from a Mobile Technician who'll do the work in my driveway while I go on living my life.

Big non-issue.

It may be a big non-issue for you, but having to deploy mobile technicians to a significant percentage of their customers' driveways sounds like a very real issue for Tesla.

For certain, but recalls are not unusual for any brand. As best I know Tesla is alone in having the option of an app-scheduled mobile-service which is massively more convenient for me and likely an order of magnitude cheaper for Tesla (compared to bringing in the car to a oversubscribed service center).

From what I hear, Tesla is notorious for repair delays. Even if it's not inconvenient to have a tech service your vehicle, presumably doing this nearly half a million times will make the repair backlog even longer.

Sample size of 1: my service happens 6 days from now (Bay area). From past experience, getting a slot in the service center can be .. ahem .. difficult, but getting a service call has never been an issue. I bet it's easier to scale the mobile service than building new service centers.

What's your personal experience with Tesla mobile service?

It depends. If you need a major part of the body replaces, delays can be long. However, many repairs that the mobile service can do are much better.

Just as you wouldn't see ford recalls you usually don't see them for other reasons too i.e. tesla the "not a car company" is special.

Ford trades at a Price to Earning ratio of 29. Fold also owns a 10% stake of Rivian.

Tesla ratio is 351.

It _does_ matter more when Tesla slips up. The expectations from this company are much higher. Your point would be valid if the expectations from all these companies were same.

It's true that there are recalls all the time. The differences with Tesla are:

• Tesla already has a service/repair backlog. This will make things worse for owners whose brand new cars leak when it rains, make odd noises, and have safety issues.

• Other manufacturers have extensive dealer and third party repair networks. They can handle large recalls more easily/efficiently.

• Other manufacturers have many more cars on the road, from selling for decades before Tesla existed. Have there been any other recalls that covered the same percent of any other manufacturer's fleet? If so, I assume those recalls were considered a very big deal.

• Tesla is 'disrupting' the car manufacturing market and trying to prove that things can be done a different way. Critics have called out their QC failings. Each additional recall gives more credence to critics' claims.

Tesla finances and number of EV produced have already proven everything that needed to be proven.

Unless you want to argue this recall is gone have some massive impact on their finances its pretty much non issue. And arguing that would of course be nonsense.

>Tesla finances and number of EV produced have already proven everything that needed to be proven.

It reads like you mean this in a positive way. I see it as the exact opposite. Tesla have made very few cars unless you compare it to brands like Lamborghini or other speciality cars. VW EVs already outsell Tesla even though they are just ramping up. Tesla's finances is also almost completely based on non-car sales. If Tesla only had income from car sales it would go bankrupt in a few months.

> VW EVs already outsell Tesla even though they are just ramping up.

False. Tesla significantly outsells VW EVs. 2021 Q1-Q3, VW brand had sold 167800 EVs. Whole VW group 293100, including Skoda, etc. Tesla sold 627000 cars in the same time period.

> Tesla's finances is also almost completely based on non-car sales.

False. [0] Tesla had $2B GAAP operating income and 14.6% operating margin in Q3 2021. $1.6B of GAAP net income and $2.1B non-GAAP net income. Automotive gross margin was at 30.5% GAAP (28.8% without credits). Regulatory credits (which you were presumably referring to) were only $279M.

> If Tesla only had income from car sales it would go bankrupt in a few months.

False, it'd hardly make any difference.

0: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/20/tesla-tsla-earnings-q3-2021....

Perpetuating the same garbage you read on twitter? Do some actual research. Literally everything you said is false.

How much will the stock rise as a consequence of this?

This headline makes it sound like “Park your car in the driveway tonight and it will drive itself to its nearest service point and returns back before 5am next day.” kind of event.

It is the same phrasing used when any automaker recalls vehicles.

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