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Comment by Syonyk | Hacker News Reader

I've been critical of Tesla before for various reasons, "Building throwaway cars" being one, and people keep insisting that, no, really, this year, Tesla has fixed their problems and such.

If you can deliver a car without a brake pad, that speaks to epic quality control failures (EDIT: A comment in the article points out the green "quality control" mark that is obvious on the caliper, which should indicate that everything was assembled properly - so things are seriously broken if it can be assembled wrong and then have a QC mark applied while still being entirely wrong). I cannot imagine Honda or Toyota shipping a car without a brake pad. I can't imagine Ford or GM doing it either. I'd be down into the "Uh... I think I've heard of you once..." non-western car manufacturers before it wouldn't surprise me.

Then, the absolutely horrid service center experience of "Oh, no, you don't know what you're talking about, that's normal, and we can't fix it any time soon anyway" is just absurd.

I know Tesla likes to rag on the horrors of the dealership model, but, seriously, I can't imagine getting this treatment with a legacy automaker. Not that I worry about them forgetting to put pieces in, either.

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Cutting corners is how these so called "tech companies" disrupt markets. They remove all the bloat; the bloat being safeguards and processes created through years of experience and evolution. And we flock to them, praising them for "showing the traditional companies how it's done". But sooner or later the cracks start to form. The random driver picking you up from that app turns out to be a rapist. That house you found at that other app turns out to be falling apart and you die. That shiny new car turns out to have had zero quality control and is dangerous to drive.

So they have to make changes. They have to introduce the same safeguards that have been standard in their respective industries for decades. They have to raise prices. And before you know it, the only thing that separates them from the traditional companies is that stupid app.

Well yes and no.

The app is not always stupid. I can't say I am fond of Uber and its business practices but in Vancouver at least the taxi apps are lacking some vital features Uber have -- despite Uber operating briefly in Vancouver in 2012 so it was clear they will be back and indeed in 2020 Uber/Lyft indeed started. Features include easy changing of pickup point which is quite important in the warren of one way streets where I live -- as I see where the car is approaching from, I can easily walk like 1-2 minutes to the next corner to save like five minutes (seriously) of driving around after pickup. Also it works with GPS coordinates -- when I meet with friends it's often at a beach on the weekend and public transit is a bit lacking so I prefer calling a cab/uber and it's practically impossible with cabs because those want a street address, even the app. And then there's the ability to safely communicate with the driver -- and this only needs wifi which makes airport pickups so much easier because I only need airport wifi. Taxi companies couldn't build these features in eight years. Pound sand.

That's true, the apps are sometimes good and they do make certain things easier and more accessible than traditional solutions. I know I didn't mention it explicitly, but the "stupid app" was actually me venting my anger over the rampant, unnecessary tracking and snooping that these apps do.

> the rampant, unnecessary tracking and snooping that these apps do.

It's none of those, at least to them. It's literally their business model, and how they extract the behavioral surplus to turn into huge profits. And as very few people are aware of how it works, and why they should opt out, it's become the new default way of doing "tech companies." Extract all the stuff, process all the stuff, sell all the predictions from the stuff.

It's not an accident that every new app seems to be trying to collect as much as they possibly can. You're not even the product - you're just the field of raw material they're trying to collect and process.

Unfortunately, the only answer I can come up with to object is to opt out of all those systems, which leaves me a bit lacking in some areas.

Vote for parties willing to push GDPR style regulations and push for enforcement. Turn the data from valuable asset into toxic sludge that contains some valuable nuggets that can be carefully extracted, with the remainder not collected or at least discarded. That's the only long term solution

I agree except for the "turn into huge profits" phrase, at least for a lot of these companies.

Bloat also being unionized workers who are incentivized to stay, gain wisdom and skills, and mentor new hires as opposed to the "everyone is fungible, everyone is abusable" worker conditions Elon seems to create.

Also this war on lidar, yet we're seeing these cars crash into trucks and walls, which lidar would have prevented, but lidar costs money, and as such "is bloat." Bloat is anything that keeps Elon and his shareholders from enriching themselves to the maximum degree, and if that means customers have to deal with safety issues, well too bad. The Elon PR machine smooths it over for via marketing efforts and deep ties to corporate media that will sing your song for a price. Life goes on, except for the person killed in the car.

I am not saying you’re wrong in your description of some of the dynamics, but I think it isn’t the only perspective. Another way to look at it is that this fuzzy area where corners are cut or laws are broken is also what makes room for change and innovation and more-efficient markets. Otherwise, the giant barriers to competition (capital requirements, network effects, whatever) become insurmountable and there is no way an entrepreneur can innovate (they would need to find a different country with different laws giving them that space).

The frequency and severity of the issues you call out feels limited to me. Sure these newcomers may end up rediscovering some of those same controls and processes that the old guard companies have in place - but they will still have pulled us forward to a different, better way of doing things in many ways. For example, I certainly prefer hailing an Uber or Lyft over dealing with rude, dangerous taxi drivers. Even if those two companies end up disappearing or putting more controls in place, I will appreciate things like using an app and being able to rate my driver to incentivize the right behavior.

> They have to introduce the same safeguards that have been standard in their respective industries for decades

I'm glad Lyft and Uber have to comply with safety regulations, but I think you're overestimating the quality of old "non-tech companies" and the quality of the services they deliver. The cab companies in my city were frankly terrible and delivered a terrible service for a lot of money.

They made a huge stink about safety, trying to get Lyft and Uber banned from operating here. They trumpeted a whole smorgasbord of safety benefits that they supposedly offered that Lyft and Uber wouldn't, but it's not like their policies and standards actually meant that when you got in a cab you didn't face exactly the same hazards they claimed to protect you against. You still took your chances with poorly maintained cabs, drivers who didn't know or knowingly disregarded traffic laws, frequently a different person driving the cab than on the license, etc. In fact when I got in an argument with a friend about it I only had to do a Google search and, oh yeah, it seems just a few years before there was a cab driver who assaulted multiple women while driving somebody else's cab.

I'm sure everybody in town had at some point heard about that guy who assaulted women while driving a cab, but just a few years afterward, the cab companies were able to use the specter of a rapist driver to argue that we were safer in cabs! It's a cynical exploitation of human psychology. Cabs have been around forever, so we perceive them as safe, yet we're terrified when something new is proposed that has the same risks.

(Cab companies warning about the dangers of Lyft/Uber reminded me of insurance companies warning about the horrors of public health care. Sexual predators picking you up, can't go to the doctor you like, unsafe cars and drivers, massive charges if a drug or procedure you need isn't unauthorized, if you listen to their scare rhetoric, they are both reciting their own known, long-standing flaws.)

Sometimes the result of "years of experience and evolution" is crappy companies and a crappy industry that deserves to be disrupted. I don't know where you live and what kind of cab companies were there before Lyft and Uber, but from my experience you could hardly have picked a worse industry to talk about the risks of disruption.

> Not that I worry about them forgetting to put pieces in, either.

Google suggests that you should:

https://www.google.com/search?q=missing+brake+pad+recall

That looks like, aside from the few Tesla results, exactly one model of Chevy was affected, and they decided to recall them. A missing brake pad is pretty damn obvious, and I'm almost willing to bet that, unlike Tesla, they didn't ignore or make excuses to the people who complained about the strange sound. This "assume the user is completely stupid and we're always right" mentality seems to entirely come from the tech industry.

https://www.autoblog.com/2011/12/30/2012-chevy-sonic-brake-p...

GM received a single report from a mechanic of a missing brake pad on a rental Chevy Sonic. They investigated, found some kind of root cause, and out of precaution recalled ~5000 Sonics manufactured around the same time for inspection. (and estimated 20-30 vehicles were affected - it'd be interesting to see how many turned up)

Tesla's response thus far is miles apart. Nothing about it gives me confidence in their QC.

because it's a single incident, there is nothing to recall.

So why can't they install the brake pad without keeping the car for close to a month? They are building model 3s on the assembly line right now right? They have brake pads in the factory? Pull one out of there and put it in this messed up car. If that means delaying assembly of an in-manufacturing model 3 til there are more brake pads, then so be it. You need to have enough brake pads to equip all your cars, especially the cars that you have already shipped.

It is quite likely that the caliper will need to be replaced. The hydraulic pressure that would normally activate the brakes has likely pushed the piston out, possibly making contact with the rotor under pressure (or making the seals suspect, having allowed them to travel beyond their design range). That’s the “worrying scraping sound” the owner reported.

Your point about “they must have the parts in the country” is a valid one, but it’s probably not going to be just a forgotten pad that they’ll need to slap in there. As a shade tree mechanic, if I’d somehow put my car back on the road without a brake pad, I’d do more than that. I doubt Tesla’s going to think differently with liability on the line.

Yeah, the caliper and rotor seems like more stuff they should have on hand though. And at first it sounded like just a missing pad.

I don't do my own brakes and don't know about the caliper, but rotor replacement is pretty routine, I thought. They usually resurface them whenever they replace pads, and replace them once they get too thin. So having no spares seems a little bit too JIT for a car company.

Pads and rotor are indeed regular wear parts, and even calipers are readily available for most every car (more from rust or crash damage than wear, but still fairly common and on the shelf in a warehouse serving every town of 50K+ people). It’s puzzling that they can’t manage to fix this car; only thing I can think of is no one has the authority to say “pull a kit from the line and fly it out there if you have to!”

You think Musk hasn’t seen this article yet?

I would think it needs a new caliper seal and piston, and possibly a rotor if the old one was gouged beyond the minimum thickness --- otherwise it can be machined smooth again in a brake lathe.

If the repair is that intense, they should swap her Tesla for a non defective lemon straight off the line (same color) and fix it if/when they get a chance. Or give her her damn money back and let her buy a different car.

That intense? It’s like having a flat tire and replacing the tire and wheel. Once that’s done, the car is as good as new. There’s no lingering concern.

It's intense enough that Tesla has postponed repairs three times, and still hasn't fixed it. I have no doubt it will be fine once fixed. My point is that Yeala should just replace the brand new car with another one off the line and repair the defective one at their leisure. Or give her her money back like she asked for. At this point, she's owned the car for four weeks, and Tesla has had it for most of that time. And before that, she had a horrible experience.

We don't know that. We have a single report so far, just like GM apparently got.

My parents bought a brand new BMW X5 once. One of the back doors wouldn’t open and they didn’t find out until they got home.

Somehow the car was built, shipped, etc and no BMW employee ever tried to open all 4 doors. BMW had to replace the entire door.

Of course, stories like that never hit the front page of hackernews.

Did BMW tell your parents that the door not opening was normal and expected behavior?

This is just a lie. The Tesla rep said it sounded normal but that they would confirm so when the vehicle was brought in for the appointment. They never said a missing brake pad was normal and expected.

Except it isn't factually correct to say that a grinding sound is normal. Either the rep wasn't honest, made a call they should not have, or isn't trained correctly.

Tesla brake grinding to a certain extend is actually normal or my car is also has a defect. Since I use my brake so rarely. It happens all the time that they rust and I need to brake a bit to have the grinding disappear.

I could imagine the rap thought that was what the owner was hearing.

You are correct. I should have such such a grinding sound in a new car warranted a second look.

your car doesn’t sound like this. squealing is normal, this is clearly metal on metal.

rust buildup is also removed within the first few applications of the brakes.

if your car sounds like this get it checked before you have problems.

Or the crappy audio from the smartphone video didn’t portray the sound well and isn’t a good tool for diagnosing vehicle issues.

no, it’s quite clear from the audio that there’s metal on metal contact. even with metallic brake pads they don’t sound like this.

Missing a brake pad would be like shipping the car without that door

no, you can easily buy a brake pad. you shouldn’t have to, but it’s still a consumable. a door is another question.

Did it take going to a third party and paying them to prove that there was an issue with the door, or were they able to go to a dealer? Did BMW refuse to pay for said third party? Did BMW refuse to give her a loaner and instead gave them cab vouchers? Did BMW refuse to accept the car as a return and give your parents their money back? Did BMW, after refusing to give your parents their money back delay at least 3 times to return the fixed car because they don't have insight into their own parts supply line?

Was the BMW produced using automated methods hailed as the future of car manufacture?

Because I doubt any of those are true and those all, especially in total, contribute to why this is on the ground page.

It's not about the dealership model, it's about taking quality seriously and not just slapping things together and pushing them out the door with minimal QC like a software startup in a tight market. It's clear by now that Elon thinks it's more important to ship more cars than to ship quality cars, and he may be correct, but he also has yet to prove that he is actually capable of the latter.

Elon’s job isn’t to make sure that the cars actually have brake pads. Elon’s job is to ensure he’s hiring leaders who won’t repeatedly use racial slurs for the people whose jobs are to make sure the cars actually have brake pads.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58807212

It's also Elon's job to make sure that cars have break pads. He is supposed to do that by delegating, but it's definitely his job.

Dealers usually have to prep a new car on the lot—a quick inspection of lights, brakes, steering, leaks; aligning the headlights; stuff like that. I'd argue the dealership model is relevant here.

Yes but there’s no reason it has to be a dealership doing that. The manufacturer could do that before they deliver the car. The manufacturer could run the dealership themselves. There’s not a ton of great reasons to preserve this institution in law.

>The manufacturer could do that before they deliver the car.

Cars do get jacked up in transit. Like "a large piece of metal road debris pierced the window and seat" bad (personal experience). So, even if it leaves the factory in pristine condition, someone at the end of the line will need to look at it to make sure it's 100%. Tesla has decided that final check responsibility falls on the end user.

Also I suspect it's more efficient for the manufacturer and dealerships to just roll all of that into the end-of-the-line inspection instead of splitting it over two locations.

>The manufacturer could run the dealership themselves.

This would work if there was a way for states to ensure the manufacturers had some serious skin in the game so they'd fear legal action.

The dealer being a legal entity incorporated in the same state you bought the car insures that they operate under state law and makes it far easier for either the state or the individual to seek legal redress when needed.

In addition, the fact that they're separate from the manufacturer means their incentives are also not aligned. They're incentivized to find issues, both pre delivery and during maintenance (especially during the warranty period)

how are their incentives not aligned? both are there to make money by moving as many vehicles as possible. if a problem is found with a vehicle they have on their lot then it’s out of inventory until it’s fixed or replaced. the incentives look exactly the same to me.

The only reason why Tesla hates dealerships is because they don't want to pay them, full stop. All those horrors can also happen without dealerships, see above.

Tesla wants people to pay the sticker price without being able to haggle and wants to keep all the profits for itself.

VW can deliver EVs for a similar price even with a dealership network. Although, they also started to block haggling by demanding customers to place their orders online via their car configurator. As long as you sell it as innovation, people will jump on it, even if this innovation is costing them more money.

You think haggling is going to come out in your favor? The dealership does it every day.

If that's the case, why should auto makers now demand you pay sticker price? Public companies don't do anything in your favor, ever. It's always because they think that they can now extract even more money from you.

At the moment it's hard enough to get hold of a car even if you walk in with the money to pay for it. As such, haggling is unlikely to work. At other times when the dealers are desperate to make a specific quota a good deal is more likely.

People who pay the dealerships asking price on a new car are paying at least a couple thousand more than they have to.

People who pay for a new car are paying at least a couple thousand more than they have to.

Because clearly all the people working at a dealership plus all the capital tied up in a dealership has no economic downsides.

It turns out dealerships don’t extract equivalent money from every customer. It’s not about haggling skills it’s simply a question of leverage on the part of a dealership. If they both have plenty of inventory and know you’re happy to walk somewhere else then they will take their thin slice of the transaction and move on. If however inventory is tight or your unlikely to walk then prepared to get screwed.

It’s not even about credit or haggling skills, plenty of seriously up market dealerships for exotics financially screw their customers on a regular basis.

The dealership system is to provide assurance to the buyer that a corporate entity under the authority of the state's regulators and law enforcement officers but also available to sell parts, perform warranty service, and repair the vehicle.

A dealer being willing to sell a company's cars serves as some assurance that the car manufacturer is stable, reputable, etc.

This all came into being during the big automotive industry boom in the 20's when car frames/powertrains were made by manufacturers and then a "coachworks" company would put a body on that..and both powertrain and coachwork companies were often in business just long enough to get some cars out the door before customers discovered poor workmanship, assemblies not designed to be repaired, non-standard fastener sizes and so on. It was common for people to buy a car, drive it home several states away (in an age where there was no interstate highway system!) and discover that their car was falling apart.

Oh hey, what does Tesla have problems with? Poor parts availability, warranty issues, long waits for repairs...

I wish I were exaggerating when I say Tesla was telling Model S owners that water getting inside the main drive unit (which contains not just the electric motor but the motor's power electronics) because of a faulty seal on a speed sensor was the customer's fault because they drove the car in heavy rain.

There is little distinguishing Elon Musk from the shysters in the 1920's that all these pesky regulations were written to address.

Any reference materials / history on car dealerships and how they’re part of the ecosystem?

When I was writing software for dealership stocking (19 years ago now), it was pretty clear to me that there’s no good reason dealerships exist, as states could also make laws that covered the manufacturer.

It made sense when manufacturers didn’t know how to scale out end consumer services, like marketing, financing, repair, etc. But now in the 2000s and 2020s, all the manufacturers have their own distribution and financing arm as well.

It turns out that people want to buy from manufacturers: “it’s a Ford dealership”, “it’s a Toyota dealership” as opposed to “it’s bfung’s cars”. The extra indirection and separation of legal entities actually make a worse user experience.

In addition, to be able to use the manufacturer’s brand, the dealerships new car pricing are all subject to the manufacturer, so no arbitrage opportunities can be made, except for getting suckers. The incentives of the dealership has skewed toward pushing services and used cars as that’s where they make money now.

For reference, here's the markups dealerships have put on some electric cars to make some extra cash.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vQQEE7Pk... (from reddit https://old.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/wiki/index/msrptra... )

> it was pretty clear to me that there’s no good reason dealerships exist, as states could also make laws that covered the manufacturer.

How would that be the case? Let's say the manufacturer is in Oregon. Why would laws in California apply to them at all?

Because presumably their selling cars in California. It’s the same reason online retail needs to collect sales taxes in every state.

There are federal laws and Supreme Court cases specifically and exclusively applying to collecting sales tax that require online retail to do so. There is no legal framework to apply, for example, car lemon laws to those same online retailers.

I suppose if you change US law then it might be possible. But if so I would anticipate a major shakeup and secondary effects you wouldn't expect.

The Supreme Court changed it’s mind independent of any changing federal laws and has removed physical presence from the requirements for the commerce clause.

“[e]ach year, the physical presence rule becomes further removed from economic reality”

That ruling is therefore not inherently limited to sales taxes and opens the door to lemon laws etc. At least assuming the purchaser is in their home state when the transaction takes place.

The ruling specified that it was a reasonable cost for SD to impose on Wayfair (the third part of a three part test) because of a 2005 federal setting up an interstate sales tax clearing system SD opted into.

Meanwhile, all credit card companies operate out of SD to avoid the usury laws limiting interest in the various other states. It's a very narrow opinion. Or, to put it another way, ground your argument in finance laws not in sales tax.

A jurisdiction with sufficient desire (political will) and market power will say “if you want to sell cars in this state, you need to follow my rules.”

That's not a thing they can really do. Look at the banking industry. Every wonder why most credit cards are run out of South Dakota?

What if I sell to citizens of California and ship them cars, but we do all the business in Oregon?

Sales taxes are a special exception with specific federal laws and Supreme Court rules.

VW is a bad example because their EV lineup is full of horribly inefficient cars with pathological infotainment systems. And, from the looks of them, it seems like the bespoke EV platform is a vague rehash of an existing ICE platform given how the extra space an EV platform could allow for isn't being utilized.

Have no illusions though, I wouldn't buy a tesla either.

Can you explain more about how their EVs are inefficient? Do you mean miles traveled per charge time, or something else?

Sounds like he has been watching Sandy Munro who has complained about the VW ID 4 not being up to par with Tesla in terms of efficient design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4zu46ojkbo

I'll gladly eat my own words. I had seen some video reviews of the ID.4 and the ID.3 on youtube complaining about getting far less range than what was advertised, but seemingly the advertised range and stated battery capacities seem to indicate that the VW EVs are just as efficient as Teslas are.

Engineering explained has a good video on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2txPzRP5DM it also addresses some of the user experience in aspects in a quantitative way. The vehicle efficiency is a factor, since it mean needing less energy. But really Tesla is far and above the other companies with the user experience in regards to charging. You can just plunk in your destination in the onboard navigation and be reasonably sure that everything will go smooth. Tesla monitors their chargers, tries to steer you to where you will get service and the chargers will perform very well charging your vehicle. It's a good experience.

Mach-e using Electrify America is probably the next best. But has issues.

Porsche/VW don't really have a good experience, and the others are even worse.

Tesla figured out early on that they have to sell an entire system, not just a car. Depending on 3rd parties to make that happen is foolish when it affects the core viability of your product. As the legacy OEMs are finding out.

Well maybe there business model makes sense in a rational regulatory environment like that every charging station are fungible as they are in Europe.

Yea, but like most things in America it will probably never be rational. So companies will need to adapt to reality.

In fairness, in today's market "blocking haggling" is a pro consumer move because dealerships are charging above MSRP for many EVs.

I agree that this is emblematic of Tesla's terrible QC, but your second point about how traditional auto dealerships would mitigate it strikes me as questionable.

Being sold a "lemon" has been possible for years, even with the traditional dealership model; that's why so many US states have "lemon laws" specifically to deal with that scenario.

Yes, but a lemon is a car that is unreliable due to intermittent issues, not a missing part in a safety critical system that should have resulted in a 'stop the line, we have an excess brake pad at the end of our shift', followed by an inspection of all vehicles built on that shift and a serious upgrade of QA processes. Really, this stinks.

> Yes, but a lemon is a car that is unreliable due to intermittent issues

Actually it's a term of some precision, and that's not it. "Lemon" laws define the problem as a car with an inherent defect that can't be fixed by the manufacturer or dealer within some reasonable amount of time (often "three attempts", depending on statute). The purpose of the law is that consumers shouldn't be on the hook for expensive but faulty products.

This isn't a lemon by any of those laws. They fixed the brakes and the car is fine now. It's fine to make pronouncements about Quality Culture or whatever, but lemon statutes aren't really at issue here.

> They fixed the brakes and the car is fine now.

Did they? The latest status I get from the article is that the ETA was pushed back again to January 19.

They've also quoted four different repair dates, three of which have passed. That sounds like "3 attempts" to me.

Perhaps the reason why is because there's another Tesla driving around right now with two brake pads.

In a disk brake setup (which is what this Tesla has) there is a caliper with slots for two brake pads on each wheel. So with 4 wheels that would be 8 break pads. The caliper squeezes the pads on both sides of the rotor (which is turns with the wheel) in order to slow down. This is why having one left over (or just an odd number left over) is a red flag. You can’t put two many in, there is no reasonable way to make that mistake, but you could leave one out, so it makes sense to check for that mistake.

This is why Toyota's Five Whys is so genius. Not only do you find out why there's an extra brake pad at the end of the shift, but you discover why you didn't catch it during the manufacturing process, and how it happened in the first place.

Me and my partner bought our first brand new car (2017 Highlander for the curious) a few years ago after being a used car family for so long. Had a lot of mediocre service with used cars, but nothing to write a nasty online review about or anything.

Gotta say, with the new car and its full warranty, we have felt like kings in comparison to past experience. Anytime we need any amount of maintenance we get an appointment and then whatever it is is fixed free of charge.

Maybe we got lucky, but the dealership has definitely delivered on its promise of complete warranty coverage.

I know many consider buying a new car some kind of financial cardinal sin, but I’m sold on it now.

Right now the economics of the used car market are so poor that buying new is a better play, assuming you can find the vehicle you want.

Have you verified this personally?

Out of curiosity (and fear), I looked up used 2007 Highlander this morning on SFBay Craigslist, and there was plenty of inventory and they looked like a reasonable bargain, around $6-10k for one with relatively low miles considering they are 16 years old.

Maybe prices at dealerships are way up? Or people want newer cars and those are crazy expensive?

I am certain my friend who just paid way too much for a newer used Toyota is a moron in such matters.

It’s possible things have changed in the last few months but I ended up going with a new hybrid recently (October in the Bay Area) when I couldn’t find anything reasonably priced in the 2-5 year old market I would normally play in. I wasn’t looking over a decade old but the prices you describe still sound higher than what models like that were going for pre-pandemic.

It's the chip shortage. The demand for new cars is greater than the supply because of supply constraints, so it spills over to the used car market. Prices in the used market go up until supply and demand are balanced again.

Yes, I think you're looking at cars so far back that the prices, while still elevated, aren't quite as bad as more recent used cars. I just ordered a new car for myself (my old car was recently totaled by a deer strike) and had to pay MSRP, because nobody is offering any discounts. That probably means I paid $1500-$2000 more than I would have a few years ago when I could negotiate a deal. Alternatively, on my wife's 2018 car that was coming off lease, I just bought it out for $27K, while on the open market the car is currently worth about $40K. So we're looking at $13K overpriced on the used car vs $2K overpriced on the new one. Still doesn't quite make up the "drive off the lot depreciation" of a new car, but it gets pretty close.

A very similar thing happened to me. Any used car or on-the-lot new car (in whatever apportionment a dealer will get) is hiked up to astronomically levels for impatient folks. This means when things eventually correct in price, there will be a lot of salty bagholders.

By ordering and taking the bus for a few months, buying a car from the factory was the best deal.

I usually buy used cars and maintain them myself to a good degree, but that's only on the premise that you really don't lose much value on them from years ~5-10. If the price halves over that time, I might as well lose a similar amount from years 0-5 from regular depreciation and have warranty coverage.

> I usually buy used cars and maintain them myself to a good degree

I used to maintain my cars myself, including doing belt services and such when due, and even a couple engine and gearbox rebuilds. But the older I get, the more I can't get up the motivation. It's so nice to just take the car in to a trusted mechanic and have them do it. Recently started using a vacuum oil evacuator to do oil changes through the top though and boy is that quick and easy. Best $100 I've spent in a while.

Yes it's good to have rules on how far one wants to go down the maintenance rabbithole. I usually set the limit at whether I'll have to buy an expensive tool just to do the service (e.g. one of those tools to clean the valves on these GDI engines) or whether the job requires removing more than N things (where N = 2 or so); if I have to disconnect a bunch of ancillary stuff just to replace a starter (or the back spark plugs in a lot of transversely-mounted V6 engines), then to the pro mechanic it goes!

It's not a sin, just do what works for you! People have highly variable approaches to the financial side of big ticket items.

Highlanders have always been good to me, I've heard of them lasting to 500-600k miles without major problems and still work fine.

Since I drive about 5k miles per year, I'm hoping mine will last me 80 more years. That's reasonable, right? :P

Assuming something important doesn’t rust, corrode, or disintegrate over time. ;)

This is why I love Toyota! I feel that buying things that last longer is as important for the environment and humanity as reducing emissions. Building things has a huge carbon footprint, and often a human rights ones as overseas mines often don’t take as good care of their staff as they should.

In the UK at least, most manufacturers let you buy an extended warranty for a few hundred pounds a year even if you bought the car second hand, so long as it's no more than 3-5 years old.

Definitely not a sin - you know that past you maintained the car at safe levels and you didn’t choose to cut corners. You didn’t let yourself spill coffee and soda all over the car. And you can keep it running well over 100,000 miles. And this might be the first car your future children drive!

This has absolutely nothing to do with "lemon" vehicles which are vehicles that run into ongoing or repeated problems. This is one single issue that any mechanic worth his overalls can (and frequently does) solve in a 2 hour job (and that's assuming something goes wrong).

Inability to supply and fit a part that is literally designed to wear out is unacceptable.

These cars are new enough that they haven't likely needed new brake pads. With regenerative braking, the pads don't get much use and they last a lot longer than you're used to. That would explain why the pads aren't an in-stock item.

If all brake pads came in standard sizes, and Tesla didn't invent their own, that would solve the supply problem.

Does Tesla have a big problem with Not-Invented-Here syndrome? They seem like the kind of place that would.

Right, maybe their supply constraints are the reason they're fitting 7/8 of the pads to production vehicles.

Dealerships are both a completely separate legal entity from the manufacturer and they have a very strong interest in not handing over a defective car to the customer because they're closes to the customer.

They are also required to conduct what's called a PDI - Pre Delivery Inspection - before the customer sees or touches the car.

The car is prepped for sale, and this includes a number of things. Sometimes cars have spacers installed in the suspension. Someone plugs in a diagnostic tool and tells the car's control modules that the car is no longer being stored/shipped, so it can enable all the stuff slowly drains the battery like memory settings, keyless ignition RF transmission, alarm sensors, etc. There's also a cosmetic inspection, where any defects in the paint are taken care of by the dealer's in-house detailing/car prep staff.

A big part of the PDI is going over everything safety related and making sure that nothing happened to the car as part of it being shipped. That includes a test-drive. Usually half an hour or so at a variety of speeds, where the test-driver makes sure every single part works.

I assure you, the person doing the PDI would notice a missing brake pad, even if the dealership mechanic who does the mechanical PDI somehow missed "there's a brake pad completely missing."

Lol at the paint defects being “taken care of” by the dealers “detailing” department. Also known as a filthy bucket with gritty sponge.

I did pre-delivery inspections on vehicles for many years at an automotive dealership.

one of the numerous things I had to do was test drive every single vehicle.

Yes a dealership would have caught this issue before the customer -- absolutely.

>I cannot imagine Honda or Toyota shipping a car without a brake pad. I can't imagine Ford or GM doing it either.

oh please, someone already linked GM forgetting pads on 4000 cars. There was also this gem in 1972:

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/01/23/archives/young-workers-di...

"sabotage, such as breaking windshields, breaking off rear‐view mirrors, slashing upholstery, bending signal levers, putting washers in carburetors and breaking off ignition keys."

Tesla Fremont facility saw its own wave of workers sabotaging own products back when it was called NUUMI https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a5514/4350856/ It was the reason behind GM decision to close it.

It occurs to me that 1972 is now 50 years ago

Yes, am a Tesla owner, this incident is inexcusable and the fact that it happened 50 years ago (or even 10 years ago in the case of the Sonic incident) does not matter. This is a 2022 model! None of this should have happened!

My daily driver is that old.

It was also built by GM.

In the last four weeks a lot that holds about 2,000 cars has often been filled with Vegas that had to be taken back into the plant for repair work before they could be shipped to dealers.

That sentence from the article alone demonstrates the huge difference between that and Tesla's response. GM actually cared about these problems and tried to fix them, instead of just letting faulty products reach customers and attempting to deny responsibility.

It also wasn't "GM forgetting pads on 4000 cars". They acted on one report, recalled ~4000, and only ~20-30 were actually affected: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29951540

Well, a few of my friends worked at Mercedes plants during summer time. Also on stations doing brakes. From the stories they tell, at least in Germany, I can absolutely imagine cars being delivered like that as well.

I had a small accident with a Range Rover some years ago that made the side airbag in the driver seat go off. I had it repaired at an official Land Rover dealer. When I got it back I only noticed at home that the seat leather is not well in place so I removed it to adjust it. To my surprise i find the new Airbag held ok pace with with multiple rounds of strong duct tape.

So far I trust Tesla more than the legacy automakers.

That quality control sticker could have been for the assembly of the caliper itself rather than the final installation of the brakes to the vehicle, which is when the pads would go in. Still obviously utterly inexcusable QA though. (Not to mention it takes them weeks to simply procure a new rotor, caliper and pads, which as the article mentions they need for every new car they build!)

As a counterpoint to "throwaway cars", when they don't need repairs they do seem to be able to do a million miles or more with comparitively little maintenance.

The throwaway effect can an does happen to any ICE vehicle easily, when the engine is not economic to repair. We should have laws covering all types and brands of vehicles to make them more repairable, but ultimately this should be easier with electric (recycling batteries in bulk is cheaper than mining more lithium)

An ICE vehicle can last 15+ years. Even more in a benign environment. Tesla doesn't make anything that will last that long.

That's why the auto industry is anticipating that leasing will eventually be the standard model. Nobody is going to want to pay half a new car's price just to have a new battery installed.

Isn't that a function of being an EV rather than an ICE? I'd expect an EV from any of the traditional automakers to also require comparatively little maintenance.

> As a counterpoint to "throwaway cars", when they don't need repairs they do seem to be able to do a million miles or more with comparitively little maintenance.

It was a reference to an old post of mine (https://www.sevarg.net/2016/03/05/is-tesla-building-throwawa...) - and, I actually agree with you that they do have million-mile grade drivetrains.

It's just that the rest of the car is poor quality. That's fine if it's cheap and easy to fix, but it's not. You can't get the parts, you can't install the parts if you can get them because they have to be paired with the car, and, in general, they're like a lot of modern ICEs that fall apart around a running drivetrain. Except worse, because they're luxury cars and you can't even do the repair work yourself.

It's interesting reading your blog post, as there's essentially a lot of projection as to what life would be like for Tesla drivers post-warranty. It's now over four years since you wrote that post, it would be neat to see how it's turned out.

Unfortunately, I no longer work with enough Tesla owners to have a reasonable sample, and I've lost my tolerance for the Tesla corners of the internet years ago. Someone should talk to owners and do that, but it's hard to get straight out of Tesla owners since so many are personally invested in Tesla succeeding. "Yeah, it's been 100% reliable, they've replaced my drive unit twice, battery once, six door handles, a LCD screen, but it's all under good will NDA care, so... er, sorry, I can't actually tell you any of this."

> As a counterpoint to "throwaway cars", when they don't need repairs they do seem to be able to do a million miles or more with comparitively little maintenance.

Can you point to a case of this?

Literally written yesterday: https://jalopnik.com/one-tesla-model-s-has-gone-nearly-1-mil...

> One Tesla Model S Has Gone Nearly 1 Million Miles And Needed Some Major Repairs

> The owner, Hansjörg von Gemmingen-Hornberg says the car is on at least its third battery. The first was replaced under warranty at about 180,000 miles. The second was replaced after about 93,000 additional miles before the third battery was installed. So far, the Model S has done more than 621,000 miles on that third battery.

>That isn’t all. The car also needed four drive motors to reach over 900,000 miles. The P85 has only one drive motor on the real axle. That means three different drive motors have failed.

An out of warranty battery replacement is 20k or so and drive motor replacement is about 10k, so I think it's safe to say we're talking about the equivalent cost in drivetrain replacements to what? 4 engines or 5 engines in an ICE? Assuming a rather expensive engine since the Model S is technically a luxury car?

Not really doing any better than an ICE: https://www.thedrive.com/news/27940/2000-honda-accord-with-o...

(Note all of their engine replacements combined would cost less in CO2 and money than a single DU swap on the Model S)

Here's one with no replacements at all: https://www.thedrive.com/news/29982/this-2006-honda-civic-hi...

And another with none: https://www.metrostlouis.org/news-release/second-metro-trans...

There's more if you want to look.

Technically you can drag most modern ICEs (or any vehicle for that matter) along to a million miles, but different cars are more or less likely to make it without major issues.

Tesla is not who I'm expecting to make the most million mile worthy EV. EVs are not some magical land compared to every other product in existence: Chasing new hotness so ruthlessly you consider model years an undue burden is not a recipe for a long-term reliable car.

The EVs that will do 1 million miles without major work (at the very least not needing entire drive units) will come from "boring" companies with "boring" designs.

And another with none: https://www.metrostlouis.org/news-release/second-metro-trans...

That's a heavy-duty diesel in a transit bus. Very different use-case, and 1M miles is not at all surprising there. For tractor-trailers and other heavy truck engines, a few million miles is a common lifetime.

I could point out how an ICE Bus vs an EV Taxi is not a dramatically different use-case, could point out how ridiculous it is acting like an M11 in a rust belt public transit bus hitting a million miles without an overhaul is "w/e"...

But I don't think your reply is meant to further the conversation, but rather to present a distraction: whether for self-satisfaction of stating the obvious or to divert the conversation from the actual point... why else would you just conveniently ignore the bulk of the comment?

So allow me to bring up more examples instead:

https://www.motortrend.com/features/million-mile-tundra-the-...

https://www.cars.com/articles/1990-honda-accord-owner-crosse...

https://www.farmshow.com/a_article.php?aid=24960

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a28991860/the-milli...

When you're done finding nitpicks about those we can also just look at how unreliable they are for everyone not going 1 million miles:

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-reliability-model-s-3-...

And if the common diversion to "oh that's just fit and finish stuff" comes out we can go to:

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/drive-unit-replaceme... https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/drive-unit-replaceme...

> Of the vehicles that have been reported to the Plug In America Model S owner survey, 32% of the 2012 model year cars have had their drive unit replaced at least once, 27% of 2013's, and 18% of 2014's and so far none of the very few 2015's reported. As you can see, the older cars have higher numbers. Is that because Tesla has improved the newer cars or because the newer cars haven't been on the road long enough for them to see the issues yet? To answer that question, one has to analyze the data using methods from reliability engineering. That's what the folks a Green Car Reports did; see page two of their article for more details.

Recalls are one thing, imagine there are mass production sedans from the last decade where 32% of owners needed a new engine? We're not talking about a F1 cars here, run of the mill sedans.

Oh yeah, and you get into gems like this, where they're having so many failures that now they won't replace parts that are functionally broken because they're not broken enough...

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/drive-unit-now-they-...

Imagine taking an ICE with a rod knock to the dealer and being told "that rod knock is not loud enough and you can still drive so we're going to let it go"

(For reference a dealer would take apart the engine and find what's wrong under warranty, Tesla will send you off until it fails I guess) -

Sorry if I come off as stand off-ish, it's just such a boringly plain conclusion that I can't believe it even has to be said in so many words.

>I can't imagine Ford or GM doing it either.

I think this is a great example of how generalizations based on guesses are almost always wrong. If you want to guess and be right, question generalizations.

"GM is recalling 4,296 U.S.-market Chevy Sonic models—all assembled at the automaker’s Orion Township, Michigan plant, for a possible assembly issue that leaves the subcompact lacking either an inner or outer front disc brake pad."

https://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1071185_missing-brake-...

I did not do a comprehensive search, so it would be unwise to assume this only ever happened to GM, too.

what I don't understand is how even high profile tech people don't seem to be able to see through these lies. Reading the Wikipedia article "Criticism of Tesla, Inc." [0] is openly shocking (accounting fraud, insider trading, pressuring whistleblowers, endless lies and missed predictions among many others).

Just today another crazy investigative article was published in the Wall Street Journal [1]. Sam Altman and others rally to defend Tesla [2]. Elon Musk is lionized and can do no harm. Criticizing Musk is like criticizing technology itself - a blasphemous act; the believers are undeterred.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Tesla,_Inc.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29947890

[2] https://twitter.com/sama/status/1130913917864034304

> Elon Musk is lionized and can do no harm. Criticizing Musk is like criticizing technology itself - a blasphemous act; the believers are undeterred.

You must be delusional. Look at this thread, or any thread reporting on Tesla problems on Hacker News or Reddit's car forums. More than 95% of comments are critical of Tesla, many nearly hysterical in their criticism.

Any defense, or even doubt of the overwhelmingly negative narrative, is met with accusations of being a "fanboy."

Yes, there are forums that are vehemently pro-Tesla, but you're not on one right now. Stop pretending that you're in an area where "Elon Musk can do no harm."

on Twitter, Seeking Alpha, Youtube and the vast majority of traditional media reporting and in analyst reports of the large banks, I see overwhelming praise and support for Musk. It helps to weigh by views/clicks, I like Hacker News but assume that it's quite small in the greater scheme of publication platforms. The CNBC Cybertruck video has 32m+ hits, I invite you to go through the comment section [0]

The stock price also tells a story about what most people think.

I do concede that the tone has shifted recently, but I still don't feel that the full picture of Musk's deeds are known to most people. In my perception, he has achieved a religious status

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25ZuKkbHdqM

I'm also bothered by the unavailability of a replacement brake pad. Why are brake pads not interchangeable between cars anyway? I understand there are different sizes and stuff, but a few standard types like there are for tires, windshield wiper blades, and other consumables should be enough. Tesla looks pretty stupid in this story.

Tesla is known for its NIH syndrome, but I think the reason for better parts availability with other brands is also because they have far more models and an appreciation for working at that scale, so tend to use no bespoke parts unless absolutely necessary.

I agree that these well-known wear parts parts should be standardised. There's no need for each model of car to have slightly different brake pads.

There are also entire companies like Bendix which specialise in braking systems (and may be most known for the vacuum boosters for a ton of vehicles).

(I made the same comment here but got downvoted too. Maybe by some designer who thinks they need to be "unique".)

"let's buid car in a tent to meet quotas" - and people lauded that.

yeah, this is within Tesla's normal QC parameters. they've had roofs fall off, they've had cars catch fire while parked, they even had a car which caught fire while self-driving in the middle of the night with nobody in it.

just goofy bullshit. the discussion in this thread will end up on Elon sooner or later, but the thing to realize is that Tesla the company needs it that way.

electric vehicles will definitely replace the ICE, but Tesla's not going to be Google when that happens. it'll be Alta Vista or even Minitel. buying one of these cars is just a much bigger QC gamble than it shoild be.

Actually the Google comparison fits quite well. They also frequently deliver sub-par software while still having an over-all hard to beat ecosystem.

> they even had a car which caught fire while self-driving in the middle of the night with nobody in it.

You realize that turned out to be a stunt, right? The car was a brand new plaid owned by a hedge fund manager who turned out to be heavily short TSLA. It was seized by his lawyers and never inspected for what the fault might have been. And the "driving itself on fire" story changed several times over the first 24 hours.

One of the weirdest things about buying one of these things and suddenly finding myself in the culture/counterculture war over the brand is how suspect so much of the coverage is.

Most of the coverage is from Whole Mars. So if you're going to call out some hedge fund manager as being "short Tesla", with the implication of ulterior motives, then it's equally worth mentioning that Whole Mars is extremely bearish, unapologetically very pro-Tesla cheerleading, too.

Here's some post-hoc coverage of the controversy: https://cleantechnica.com/2021/07/04/more-details-about-tesl...

Make your own decisions. But (especially since it happened just weeks after the refreshed S's started shipping and that we haven't heard squat in the six months since) that just smells off to me. Certainly it wasn't "driving itself around on fire", no further report on the fire exists (contra the Texas crash where the NTSB had lots of interesting things to say) and all the actual witnesses went silent (we don't even have confirmation of who was driving!)...

Just be realistic. It's almost certainly a setup.

Something very similar happened when FSD beta was released. Not two weeks in the NHTSA had a weird-sounding report leaked to the media claiming behavior (that the steering couldn't be overpowered) that the hardware can't produce. Then the next release, we all had an annoying waiver where we had to allow Tesla to save and upload non-anonymized data for any safety-related incidents. And... no more weird reports!

This company just drives people completely bananas, and I genuinely don't know why. The actual cars are fantastic.

Windshields that have no adhesive or anything actually holding them to the car, cars which shake uncontrollably between 35-40mph... you name it.

$22K to replace the batteries, so the guy had some YouTubers blow the car up instead

the model Y had a spate of qc problems a while ago and it's still recommended that you do an extensive inspection before accepting delivery. I thought it was really funny that I'd have to drive over to Fremont and spend a couple hours inspecting a car for major problems like that (and cancelled my order). Instead, I went to a Toyota dealership, bought a car on the spot, and will drive it, without quality problems, for at least a decade if I want to.

> I can't imagine getting this treatment with a legacy automaker.

I can. My friend drives a 2016 VW Touareg which he got used - I was present during the purchase and the previous owner told us that the coolant needs to be topped off from time to time - nothing big, but he said that the authorized service center shrugged this off as something they won't bother fixing.

How much, and how far apart?

There's a difference between "half a cup or so ever few months" and "I have to carry coolant around with me." The reserve tank will comfortably make up the first in any reasonable driving situation, the second is a problem.

Water pumps not weeping a tiny bit is a rather new innovation in cars. They typically use coolant to lubricate the seal, and some will get through.

I don't know of a single car made in the last 10 years where it's normal to lose "half a cup over every few months." Every car I or my family have owned in the last thirty years has never needed coolant added to it over years of ownership.

Water pumps "weeping" coolant is a sign of failed seal, not by design.

The GP commenter's buddy was sold a car by someone who was trying to pass off a needed repair; likely a leaking radiator or failing head gasket if they were unlucky. If they were lucky: a bad radiator cap or a failing coolant system hose.

If they were really, really unlucky: a failing heater core.

Very very much so. Or poor or plastic welds on the coolant manifolds, as plagued my Jaguar, whose coolant system shit the bed catastrophically several times, and even with a factory tech replacing as much as he could with heavier duty aftermarket parts, was only reduced to "needs a top-up every couple of months"

> How much, and how far apart?

About a litre every 4-7k km. Was like that from the start according to the previous owner. I found it unusual, because I never had to think about such things in any of my cars, including my old 2000 Corolla.

First thought,

on the rare occasions we have car shopped, VW was removed from the list (along with e.g. Jeep) because of what appeared to be continually poor QA and reliability. Led us to give up on the idea of trying to go biodiesel (dodged a bullet there...).

But Tesla seems to have a really remarkable problem.

> biodiesel

Out of curiosity, what's wrong with that?

Gunks up the emissions equipment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal

I cannot confirm VWs being unreliable. My family drives 4 18+ year old VWs (3 Golf, 1 Passat), all Diesel with 150,000+ km (2 with 300,000+ km) on them. Not a single rusty part, all on their first clutches (one is pulling trailers regularly), and only a single one needs a cup of oil every 1,000 km.

Maybe the VW plants in America are different but my family in Germany will buy VW (or Skoda/Seat) again when the cars give up eventually. Just this time no Diesel.

Interesting. So, to counter that, I've driven VW for many years in many different models on ridiculous mileage and never had a single issue with them.

This was until about 2008 when I switched to Mercedes, those too were pretty reliable until the last one, which was a recent vintage C class. Now I drive an oldie (25 this january).

German cars have a weird reputation as being unreliable in the US. Which seems strange as a European where they generally have a pretty good reputation, maybe not as good as the Japanese brands but not a million miles away.

I think the difference is likely just that the average backstreet garage knows all the faults on a 2005 VW Jetta and how to fix them, they have the right diagnostic equipment to plug them in and read the fault codes etc.

In the US I suspect they'd be the same with most GM / Ford / Honda cars of the same era but would think twice about touching a VW or Mercedes.

If you have to go to the garage for any reason, it's a reliability problem.

Vehicles need maintenance.

Precisely, so the less trips you need to take, the more reliable the vehicle is. It's a single axis. It goes from "inoperable and on fire" on the left to "exists only in far flung sci-fi fantasies" and the more trips to the mechanic you take, the further to the left of that axis your car is.

This is why vehicles that need oil changes every 15,000 mile (~24,000 km) are more reliable than ones from a few generations ago that were essentially constantly being serviced.

Sure, but if you take it to the garage and they know what the issue is straight away and have it fixed 2 hours later it is not nearly as big of a problem if it takes 2 days to figure out the issue and 2 weeks to order in the parts right?

The first is a minor inconvenience, the second is likely to leave a lasting impression of "this car is unreliable".

Kind of a big difference between getting the car from the factory and getting it used.

Also missing brake pad out of factory line is colossally bad QA compared to hard design and metallurgy issues that cause softer piston rings after 100k miles or gaskets that leak coolant after 50k .

Yeah but Tesla fans will defend bad stuff by pointing out not so great stuff from the competitors. In that respect you can say they're just like Apple fans.

Yes, but it was like that from the start.

Ditto. I have a 2010 Prius that burns oil. The dealer told me it’s a known issue at 100k miles. Offered to sell me a used engine with 70k miles to fix it.. Problem was he admitted there was a pretty good chance at 100k+ miles the oil burn would come back on the replacement.

No recall, just a ‘known’ defect. Oh, and because they know my car has a defect they made it clear that my trade in value would suffer if I wanted to upgrade to their latest and greatest model.

not the same as a car leaving the factory without a brakepad.

not even in the same ballpark.

not even on the same continent, for that matter.

A brand new car vs a used car which has been through who knows what kind of stuff between delivery and the factory, a slow coolant leak (which could be anything from a bad clamp, ripped hose or a serious engine problem) vs a missing safety critical component of which there are 8 on every vehicle so having one 'left over' from a build set just shouldn't ever happen.

These things are not comparable.

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