Tesla customer gets new Model 3 with cracks | Hacker News Reader

Tesla customer gets new Model 3 with cracks

efahrer.chip.de

60 pointsdubswithus53 comments

Standard fare for Tesla. The complete lack of finishing consistency is one of the first things that turned me away from them when I originally wanted a Model 3.

I'm kind of confused as to the benefits of a Tesla. You get a car that has less rigorous quality control and is less maintainable. Why take the risk?

Warranty covers those. You get the charging network

Isn't the point of the story that warranty doesn't cover the shoddy quality?

You need to pay for the charging network. It’s no longer free.

But it's environmentally green and trendy to have a Tesla!

Cachet of saying you own a Tesla is about it.

it's fun to drive.

it's got the best charging network (in the united states).

they charge fast.

it goes vroom vroom.

other than charging network, I'd totally get a taycan or i4 over a model s or model 3

The i4 is kind of a “we’ll shoehorn an EV on this ICE platform we have”, things like no frunk, because it’ll cost money to figure out is kind of sad. Otherwise yeah great car. Hopefully their next platform is EV-first, that’s when I’ll consider it.

> it goes vroom vroom.

I thought the point was that it didn’t?

There’s probably an app you can install in the entertainment system to do this.

For me it was novelty and curiosity. Once that wore off I wanted to go back to "proper cars."

There has been some quality issues so not going to comment on that. But they're only "less maintainable" because you don't have to maintain them. No regular checkups, no oil changes. It's amazing. The only thing you need to do is occasionally give it more wiper fluid and tire changes. * Tesla Model 3 owner

Don’t Tesla’s need coolant like a regular car? Or break fluid? I don’t know, but if so EVs are a real game changer.

I've got a Kia Soul EV, not a Tesla, but... not really.

ICE engine needs coolant for the transmission, which I don't have. Break fluid technically (and keeping up to date on pads & rotors & so) but regenerative braking means the engine recharges a little bit for most braking action, rather than going to the brakes themselves. I think the only time my brakes actually engage are the final bit of coming to (and holding) a stop, and hard emergency braking. I suspect I'll be replacing the tires before the brake pads.

What if I want to install a bigger battery or take the motor out and put it in a boat?

If my grandmother had wheels, she would be a bicycle.

I find that the Tesla, atleast 2y ago, scored remarkably well on a specsheet: Absurd power, great range, easy of use with the network for a fair price. But ofcourse, the finish and quality are hard to express in numbers.

For a long time they were the most complete EVs on the market. The competitors may have offered better QC but oftentimes worse range and performance and were reliant on rather poor third party charging infrastructure. This has really only begun to change in the last year or two as more competitors have started releasing purpose built EVs (rather than retrofits of existing ICE platforms).

I want an electric car, but I'm looking at other makes. It's true that Tesla has a pretty good drive train, but that's by far not the only thing that matters in a car. I salute them for their pioneering of the technology, sad they couldn't keep up with the basics.

I love my model 3, but I'm glad I leased it. The electric motor is awesome, it's a blast to drive, charging is inexpensive and convenient. But the build quality is undeniably poor (for the entry level, base model 3). I've never been inside a model S or X - hopefully the $100k models are built a lot better than my vehicle, but if I hoped to keep a car for 8+ years I'd probably go back to a German brand.

More than the question of how that got past QA, I'm more curious how something like that would even crack unless subjected to extreme forces.

Quality Control (QC)

There are 2 million Tesla cars on the road now. Is anyone keeping track of which ones work ok?

no but they're really getting good at pointing out the few with faults :-P

my point exactly

My intuition is telling me that this is a hit piece. A wave of new electric cars has arrived. I know many people with Teslas and this is certainly not the norm.

Tesla's are well known for having lots of defects right at delivery.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaLounge/comments/v3jkn3/update_...

It’s not the norm but these basic quality fails happen much more with Teslas than with any other car. They invented a much better powertrain but are still catching up on figuring out how to build the rest of the car.

A lot of pearl clutching here. Even Toyota has defects. This is what happens when you go from selling 10,000 cars to 1,000,000 cars in a couple years.

Drive fast and deliver broken things.

Better than my Lincoln, that uses complete Ford parts that should have decades of QA testing behind them, but still shipped out with completely defective airbags I wasn’t alerted to until years down the line. Also every single one of the door handles broke internally, which was apparently common on these models.

I'm not sure how you consider one better than the other. Were your problems not covered as well?

I’m not particularly trying to say one is better than the other

I’m just tired of people ragging on Tesla, essentially a baby of a company - this coming from somebody who’s been fairly pissed about musk’s dumb antics the past few years - when companies that are literally a century old are unable to guarantee quality off the line.

Somebody else mentioned the airbag manufacturer - no, it is not the airbag manufacturer who had an automobile come off the line for sale to me. It was Ford. A century something old company, who in this age, should never have let something like this happen.

& yes - Ford has been a pain in the fucking ass back when I was trying to get their various recalls taken care of. I think there were 6 on my car alone.

Far be it for me to defend Ford's quality, but an airbag recall certainly isn't comparable to this. It was Takata's fault and affected a long list of OEMs, including Tesla.

The real problem here is Tesla refusing to fix the product they delivered defective and which apparently won't even pass inspection in Germany. Issues happen, and most companies fix them rather than deal with the bad press.

Full self driving is the biggest joke... if at least they would have called it self-driving... or half-self-driving

Public shareholders want more every year. No grow is a lower stock price. Eventually quality needs to suffer to maintain growth. Until it doesn't.

Why is this even a news story. Just refuse delivery or report it and get it repaired. Berlin is a new factory it's gonna have some bumps along the road. At least the issues aren't as prevalent as they were during hell week for M3 a couple years ago.

You jack up the car and look at details of the underbody every time you buy a factory new car?

Tesla is refusing to fix the issue:

>The lawyer is now asking Tesla out of court for a new delivery, i.e. for an exchange. But Tesla's reaction is anything but customer-friendly: the cosmetic impairments are on the underside of the vehicle and are therefore irrelevant. To fix this you would have to replace the entire battery unit, which you are welcome to do - but only at the expense of Stocker himself!

Is it purely cosmetic? It's quoted as Tesla's claim but it's not clear whether this is disputed. "Cracks" in the underbody (I first assumed paint when I saw the title) sounded much more serious.

Edit: translated the article and this being cosmetic is actually the core of the dispute. Since it won't pass the first safety inspection, it seems obviously false and the product is not usable as one could reasonably have expect and thus Tesla will have to fix it or refund the car under European consumer law as I know it (not sure if there are exceptions for vehicles).

It doesn't seem cosmetic as, if I read correctly, an expert failed to pass the car for German car safety standards during an inspection. Despite that Tesla isn't going to fix it.

I know nothing about German law, so sincere question - does enough of these issues cause Germany to ban sale of these cars in their country?

The article also states that an expert "consultant" thinks the car will not pass the German roadworthiness inspection and will not be allowed to drive on public roads thereafter (which has to happen every 2 years?). It's like CA smog plus general inspection of every system including structural integrity and even headlights.

> You jack up the car and look at details of the underbody every time you buy a factory new car?

I know you are being facetious but yes I do. Why wouldn't I inspect thoroughly? Or get it professionally done? I have never bought a car, or a home, brand new or used, without a proper inspection.

How is Tesla meant to know this guy didn't damage it himself? Please tell me how you would handle it in your business and how long you think you'd remain solvent.

I understand the story is in German so you might not have read it, but it says he received the car in February but didn't notice the cracks until months later because the cracks are in the jack supports - the part of the car you lift when you want to change the wheels or something.

The article in English via Google Translate: https://efahrer-chip-de.translate.goog/news/tesla-kunde-beko...

He did try to get it repaired. Tesla refused.

To add to what other commenters have already said: the car in question was manufactured in the US, not Berlin.

Its a Model 3, so not manufactured in Berlin. It isn't obvious to me if it was Fremont, it may have been from China.

Regardless of point of origin, the problem was likely caused during shipment, and tbh, should have been caught by Tesla during a predelivery inspection. To me, this last part is the main failure here.

Unless the customer took it somewhere for a tire rotation or wheel change and the shop did it. I know that is improbable, but, tbh, it wouldn't be the first time I've seen a shop screw something up and blame the factory.

Right, so how would Tesla be able to determine whether the damage was caused by them or someone else?

For someone spending $60k on a car, it seems kinds of moronic not to drop $2-300 on a full inspection after delivery but within the return window. The guy kinda deserves it. I get the hate train for Elon is full but this isn't Tesla's fault. The customer had the option to inspect on delivery and get any damage fixed. He chose not to.

I don't know where you are from, but here (country in Europe) no-one does that. If they buy it new, pretty sure most things are covered by warranty and even small user fault issues brands tend to fix.

I bought a 120k Porsche and didn't go and get it inspected. If I had any kind of problem with the car, I would just call ahead to secure a time slot and they would look over it/try to fix it. Once they diassembled the entire back seat system because of a rattling issue. Found out it was a metal ball from my kid's toy that went through the seatbelt hole and got under the seat. Took them a few hours to do so. Cost? zero. They replaced small parts for free also. Needed a bit of oil? not even a call, just stop by the shop and someone would do it in 10 minutes.

The fact that are documented cases, over and over again of bad QC on Tesla, and they refuse to fix it or tell the buyer of a brand new car it will take months to fix because they don't have the parts is just shitty behaviour, which I understand may fly in the USA, but in Europe they are running into troubles (already are with marketing issues re auto pilot and even Musk 'get back into the office' memos and shit)

> The fact that are documented cases, over and over again of bad QC on Tesla, and they refuse to fix it or tell the buyer of a brand new car it will take months to fix because they don't have the parts is just shitty behaviour

You can refuse delivery for any reason and wait for another. Taking months to fix is not a devious action, they quite literally put almost every part on the shelf into a vehicle. With all the complaining you are doing, their backlog of deliveries is still 6mo+ out. People don't seem to care about the issues you're making a huge deal out of.

It sounds like you're saying that prioritizing new sales over current owners is not a problem because it makes more money. Their inability to manage repair part stocks shouldn't be owners' problem.

It seems like its a Fremont-made car. Model 3 made in that factory always have some issues as opposed to Shanghai ones.

Might be from a lack of attention by the workers + QA

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