Hacker News Reader

Comment by LeoPanthera | Hacker News Reader

Service is the reason I'm selling my Tesla. (Well, it was the first reason. What Elon says in public is the other. Embarrassing.)

It took a a year to get my Model X into an "acceptable" state, and it still has seven outstanding issues, six of which they simply refuse to fix.

If I wanted to get another service appointment now I would have to wait at least a month, and if they decide they're actually going to try to fix something (they often refuse), they keep it for at least a week and no, you don't get a loaner car in return.

It is an absolute disaster and I would recommend no-one ever buy a Tesla simply for this reason.

Here's the full list of issues with my car: https://ibb.co/VJJdNVk

(Thanks for the suggestion of imgbb)

View on HN

I would say you’re selling it not really because of “service” but rather because they simply sold you a crappy car in the first place. No brand new car should have issues that need fixing.

That's true, but if they had fixed all the problems in the first couple of weeks, I wouldn't have minded too much. Unfortunately they didn't, and worse, they lie about problems being "normal".

> No brand new car should have issues that need fixing.

As much as I'd love this to be true (and it should be), I have yet to buy a newly manufactured vehicle that didn't have to go back to the dealership for something at least once... often more than once.

I don't think it's entirely fair to lay that aspect at Tesla's feet. It is fair, however, to expect better and more timely service in getting those repairs made.

But a single something, even if it takes two trips to resolve, is a whole lot less than this list of ~18 problems with ~23 service visits that span from mildly annoying (wrong model listed in software) to serious (steering system grinding, which they had the audacity to pass off as normal).

This has to be close to qualifying for lemon law status?

It wasn't 23 service visits, as I attempted to have multiple problems fixed per visit. So far it has been in service for 14 days spread across 7 services.

California lemon laws require a car to be in service for at least 30 days in the first 18 months.

I’ve done it twice. Out of two new vehicles. YMMV.

Strange. The 3 Honda Civics I’ve owned (brand new when driven off the lots) have all had no “bring back to the dealership” issues except recalls.

Same with my several Camrys, Honda pilot, and Toyota.;)

Yah Honda and Toyota will eat Tesla alive once they get moving with EVs which they have.

Do you think Honda, Toyota and every other car manufacturer would even be offering electric vehicles at this time if Tesla did not exist?

I think they would. Toyota already had very good hybrid cars for years, so plenty of experiences with batteries. Tesla made electric cars sexy, but I was always just a matter of time before electric would go mainstream.

I think the existing investment in tooling, plant and equipment that these companies have accumulated makes it hard to economically justify starting from scratch with new tooling, plant and equipment on a product line that has no competition. Tesla provided that competition, and justified such investment.

Who cares?

I for one. Disruption of complacent industries has defined our age, and been the motivator for countless entrepreneurs. Created more jobs than we can realistically measure, through the emergence of entirely new industries.

The established auto manufacturers have a long standing pattern of paying lip service to electric vehicles. General motors went so far as to reclaim, disable, crush, and/or shred virtually every model of the EV1, the first mass-produced and purpose-designed electric vehicle of the modern era. [1]. The manner in which GM created barriers to entry for electric vehicles with the EV1 program is the stuff of legend. [2]

TSLA has been the most shorted stock in history, with close to $57 billion being lost by short sellers between 2010 and 2021. [3]. That entrenched economic forces want Tesla ended is no secret.

The mass adoption of electric vehicles was Elon's stated goal with Tesla, and it looks like that is well on its way to being accomplished.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car

[3] https://qz.com/1979325/tesla-not-gamestop-is-the-most-shorte...

I really don't think just b/c tesla "did it first" we should give a crap. We should only give a crap that companies are bringing cheap EVs to consumers. tesla is not doing that.

> That entrenched economic forces want Tesla ended is no secret.

Literally a conspiracy theory.

> Literally a conspiracy theory.

A conspiracy theory to have your stock undermined with unsurpassed short selling? Or for the president to hold an "EV Summit" and not even invite the company with the most US electric-car sales (74% over the past three years) who were recently dubbed the "most American-made"? [1]

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-beats-ford-as-most-ame...

My family has had 4 cars in the last 15 years (I won't mention models, but they were fairly reasonable, middle-of-the-pack vehicles). Three of them had no defects at all. The most recent one, a hybrid with a bunch of fancy electronics, had just a couple of problems, covered under warranty and fixed in less than a day. (And if our dealers flake out, there are independent service and repair shops that can do the same job, or better).

When several of my Tesla-owning cow-orkers reported waiting six months for things like body panels, I resolved not to buy one.

My car made by Toyota never had to go to the shop for anything serious for several years. Sure, I needed to get tires replaced multiple times, but internals took 7-8 years, and I finally sold it off at the 12 year mark, after having replaced the batteries, the alternator, and the brakes.

My BMW took at least a couple of years before I ran into problems.

A new vehicle shouldn't have any problems for at least a couple of years, period.

> No brand new car should have issues that need fixing

“Price, quality, manufacturing at scale. Pick two.”

Ok, that’s a little flippant. But the underlying truth is that quality for software and manufactured goods is one of many variables that can be dialled up or down at the expense of other variables.

Honda and Toyota seem to provide all three just fine.

(Well, maybe not price right now because the entire car market is insane.)

But Mitsubishi does not provide all three, and its prices are lower than Honda and Toyota. See also econoboxes from Eastern Europe.

So my claim is that Honda and Toyota provide high value by balancing a low-ish (but not the lowest) price against high quality.

I recently got a Toyota in the insane market at MSRP! You can have all 3.

Toyota kind of implies otherwise. Besides my impression is that Tesla doesn't really have manufacturing at scale yet. Aren't they still having trouble fulfilling orders?

So Musk is picking fewer than two? Fair.

Toyota is the king of doing all 3, it's a shame US automakers underestimated the Japanese. In terms of lemons, Toyota only has one every ~11.6 Million cars, while the lowest performer is Fiat with one lemon every 76k (Jeep, which is the same company as Fiat, at 131k). This publication didn't track Tesla, as the Model 3 started mass production 2 years after this article.

https://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2016/01/toyota-tops-fiat...

Those numbers are far too low, probably by two orders of magnitude or more.

To get a feel for the actual statistics, a very useful trick I came across on a Porsche forum is to look up the model on cargurus.com. E.g.:

https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/inventorylisting/viewDetailsFi...

Note the number of listings (401 nationwide listings for the Taycan at the moment) shown in the 'Filter Results' area. Scroll down to 'Vehicle History' and note the availability of the option to 'Hide vehicles with Lemon History Reported.' Next to that is a number reflecting how many used cars of a given make/model have a lemon title out of the set of cars currently for sale. With a 25:401 ratio, it can be inferred that almost 6% of used Taycans on the market were bought back by Porsche at some point.

I feel that may be biased, as presumably every lemon buyback from Porsche gets resold on the second hand market, but clearly not all cars from a 2020 model will have resold yet.

I'd even go as far to say that the majority of a 1-2 year old car model will still be with the original purchaser.

It's biased, but it's also proof that the numbers are far from the six-nines values the GP was referring to. They sell about 10K Taycans a year in North America, so there are likely around 20K on the road.

I guess all that can be said with any certainty is that the proportion of lemons could be as bad as 6% or as good as 0.1% (if the ones for sale on Carguru at the moment happen to include all of the lemons ever produced.)

Or just pick Kia or Hyundai and get all three.

Or not https://drivingdc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/autoguide-l...

That graphic gives zero information on how that is calculated or where the data came from. I have to assume that it includes historical data over long periods. Kia and Hyundai are totally different companies than they were decades ago and are different than even 5-10 years ago.

There's no way a modern Kia or Hyundai would appear anywhere near the same level as on that list (and definitely not below any American car company or Fiat or Volkswagon).

That is rather weird metric. Mentions per brand mention... In what?

And how could that take in account how often brands are talked about in general.

Tesla has 0/3

We had one of the first 85D and have sold for a lot of the similar reasons.

The real nail in the coffin was that they dropped mobile service in our area. I had a to replace the 12v battery, tried to do it myself, could not get parts.

The nearest service center is a 6-8hr roundtrip for me, more than happy to pay for mobile service but they didn't offer it any more.

Either way the shift to EVs has happened, with the F150 lightning and other offerings Tesla has largely achieved one of the main reasons we were an earlier adopter.

Not to derail from your main point, but how does Musk's public conduct play into your reason for selling your Tesla? I'm not a fan of the man but that shouldn't really be a factor in whether or not I use a product he's involved in.

Welcome to the culture war?

Boycotts and buycotts are nothing new.

Some people feel uncomfortable funding people whose antics they don't care for.

Unfortunately, when people see you own a Tesla, they assume you are a fan of Musk.

I'm not, but that doesn't change what they think.

I have plenty of other reasons to get rid of the car anyway. This one is just a bonus.

> Unfortunately, when people see you own a Tesla, they assume you are a fan of Musk.

I see. Musk being an asshole attracts assholes who act like assholes towards you for your choice of car. I have to admit that would also be a factor in me wanting to sell a Tesla if I owned one.

Tesla is a public company. The board could fire him if they wanted and might if he further escalates his trolling.

That's might be very difficult. Musk may not own a majority but the corporate bylaws require a supermajority of shareholders to support any major changes, though I'm not sure if firing the CEO is covered by that. If it does, it would require roughly 75-80% of non-Musk shares to vote him out.

His cult of personality is one of the reasons for Tesla's valuation. Remove him, and you have a crash.

Strange that this did not happen when a) Steve Jobs first left Apple; and b) after Tim Cook succeeded him.

CEOs loose their mojo. When Elon fails to follow-through with taking Tesla private, and (seemingly) acquiring Twitter -- its a sign that he isn't thoroughly thinking through the weightiest of decisions.

When Jobs was ousted Apple was floundering an his departure was more drama than impactful. When he stepped down at the end he had a well running machine that could generally point in the right direction.

> I'm not a fan of the man but that shouldn't really be a factor in whether or not I use a product he's involved in.

No one likes giving money to assholes. And to be fair, he is doing a pretty good job at revealing himself as one.

Little late for that if you already bought it.

>he is doing a pretty good job at revealing himself as one.

this looks like it's referring to recent actions. in my opinion, musks actions in the past year (including the past week or so) have been far, far more acceptable than those in the past decade

I assume the parent comments then also doesn't order at Amazon.

of course they don't apply this logic to other businesses, because the vast majority of large company CEOs are probably assholes or do tasteless rich people things - it's sort of a requirement for the job. people have the equivalent of trump derangement syndrome but for elon.

Say I do. We all are hypocrites in some degree, does that mean my opinion on Musk is not valid?

My problem with Musk is who he is getting politically aligned with, for several very close reasons.

> I'm not a fan of the man but that shouldn't really be a factor in whether or not I use a product he's involved in.

Everyone else is disagreeing with you, but I'll take a different tack:

Why shouldn't his behavior be a factor?

Because he may be the face most associated with Tesla but he doesn't provide strategy for the company, and doesn't really have a ton of input on operations, and 110,000 other people work there.

Tesla didn't seem to have a problem with Musk's public image when it was lifting their stock price into the stratosphere.

> Because he may be the face most associated with Tesla but he doesn't provide strategy for the company, and doesn't really have a ton of input on operations, and 110,000 other people work there.

CEOs set company strategy and drive execution.

> Because he may be the face most associated with Tesla but he doesn't provide strategy for the company, and doesn't really have a ton of input on operations, and 110,000 other people work there.

Mr. Musk is the largest individual shareholder.

If someone is an unhinged asshole on personal time, I'm not inclined to trust the long term success of their business.

I also wouldn't want to be funding a future political play by Musk by buying a Tesla now.

He cannot become president as he was not born in the US. However, he could perhaps become governor of Texas. Might even be an improvement.

I think people having problems with Twitter comments instead of questionable corporate dealings are mostly extremely ignorant. People have a different opinion on who the asshole is in the end. I don't really believe people care much about antics or if they do they just want shallow massage to their own ego.

I believe there have been problems at Tesla and Musk was known to sometimes lose himself against his employees. Didn't seem to interest anyone and they still bought the cars.

For a company that can become a problem too when customers are seen as assholes.

> Not to derail from your main point, but how does Musk's public conduct play into your reason for selling your Tesla?

Luxury items function significantly and social signals. Associate the brands with things potential buyers don't want to be associated with, and those buyers won't want to buy (or display) them. Tesla has benefitted from Musk’s image when it was less partisanly political and more “To Mars!”; his recent shift may shift where the brand has appeal.

It’s already doing so according to a recent poll [1].

[1] https://www.axios.com/2022/05/26/brands-politics-axios-harri...

Does the consumer that passes on Tesla because of Musk look much further than their twitter feed when evaluating the alternatives? How does the impact of one person's social media behavior weigh against the conduct and impact of mega corporations making decisions about large scale industrial production and energy consumption?

According to Tesla (and SpaceX) fans, Musk is the company. He not only makes strategic decisions, but is also involved in day to day engineering development. The valuation of the company is driven by Musk's social media behavior; certainly, there's no rational economic reason.

One person's impact is the reason for Tesla, no?

by "According to Tesla (and SpaceX) fans" you mean some random tweet I read one time?

I mean businesses are an undeniable source of political power in a democratic capitalist system. There is lobbying, influence over the media (see Bezos) etc. The choice of where you buy has an effect that is not totally unlike voting.

He has made a number of false claims about the capabilities of his cars. In my case, these claims influenced my decision, not only to purchase the car, but to pay for expensive options. Although it’s a great car, I feel like Tesla (Elon) over promised and under delivered. The idea that I was scammed out of $6000 for FSD pisses me off every time I get into the car to the point where I’ve considered selling it. That’s not a great reason to sell a car, but at least I won’t have a daily reminder of the time I was stupid sitting out in my garage.

In addition, Tesla has dropped a feature from autopilot, without making any mention of it in the sales process or manuals. This happened before with the voice recognition operation falling out of sync with the manuals.

However, the AP, formerly, in less advanced cars, allowed the car to change lanes with a simple operation of the turn signal -- all the while, maintaining position in the new lane, and adjusting for traffic aware cruise control. Now, the '22 model S, at least, you are forced to deactivate autopilot with a lane change. I'm now starting to think that there is no specification for autopilot, and every model year it will operate differently (worse) than prior model years.

If it's any compensation all self driving car companies are staffed by liars. Big ones. Of the AI variety, which deserves a special genus all its own.

People have moral compasses and don't want to give money to companies he's involved in.

Probably the plan is to get Optimus ready to do the service, as obviously AI+cameras +actuators is vastly better than wet brains + eyes + flesh. If only you had waited until September one of the robots would probably do the service for you, or by the end of this year at the latest. (Edit: Mandatory /s)

I 100% expect Musk to say that Tesla needs help training the Optimus neural net, and that the best way to do this is to open a volunteer program where unpaid Tesla enthusiasts perform Optimus-like tasks at the service centres and factories while wearing an Optimus costume.

I expect tens of thousands of Tesla fans will eat this up, quit their jobs, and go work for free at Tesla to help "train the neural net". TSLA stock will improve drastically as Musk will be able to fire the entire factory floor, replace them with volunteers, and labour costs will be greatly reduced.

You seem like you are probably in the top 1% of picky customers. The one problem I had in my 3 year old model 3, which was fairly urgent, was fixed in 2 days.

Issues from your list like “tesla mobile app incorrectly identifies car as 100D” and “Autopilot down chime is distorted” are rightfully lower priority than things like brakes not working properly. Most people (including me) would not even notice most of these things on your list. I am not surprised you had to wait a while for those things to get fixed, I have a feeling you’re going to also be disappointed with your next vehicle.

Indeed. A camera fogging up in rain... Sure, probably a constructional error but if a car shop can fix that in a week I would be surprised. I am sure they would find some chemicals to don't let water condense here and maybe Tesla would train mechanics to do it. But this probably didn't get the highest priority.

I mean these are things that might need improvement, but to me a car transports me from A to B. Given, I also don't pay much for them.

The camera fogging up disables autopilot and prevents it from working so it's not quite as trivial as it seems. It's not normal for it to fog up, none of the other cameras do.

Maybe I am picky, but I also spent $100K on this car. Frankly I think if you spend that much you should expect better quality.

I am actually taking delivery of a new X on Monday so I am definitely going to be interested in the build quality

I would never expect perfection from something that is mass produced regardless of the price

> I was going to upload a screenshot of my issue tracker spreadsheet but I couldn't figure out the best place to do it. What's the pastebin of images? Imgur seems too public.

I've often used imgbb[1], which is free, requires a direct link to view images, and has the option to expire URL's at your choosing.

[1] https://imgbb.com/

That seems great, thank you.

You can upload it to Imgur but not post it to the public gallery. That gives you a "private link" (ie. obfuscated URL) that is theoretically only visible to people you share it with.

Of course if you're going to post it to HackerNews that's very public so be sure to redact anything you don't want the world to see.

I really don't get letting your hatred for Musk dictate your feelings towards your car.

If the car hasn't been a good one, so be it. But if you let your personal politics color your life's view, you're going to have a tumultuous life.

What are you going to switch to out of curiosity? Are you going back to ICE?

I haven't made a final decision. I'm considering the Mercedes EQS, although it is very expensive. The Hyundai Ioniq 5 and the Kia EV6 are very appealing for their extremely high charge rates, although they are a little smaller than I would prefer.

How about a Mach-e?

I test drove one and hated the UI. Plus I've had bad experiences with Ford dealers in the past. 150kW charging is OK, but "only OK" these days. Even my 2-year-old Tesla can charge at 250kW when the battery is low.

A lot of people do like it though!

I had a Honda Clarity for a couple years - it was a great city car and I'll admit fun to drive with the instant torque of the electric motor. But then I moved to a rural area so I sold it and bought an F-150 :)

Genesis GV6, Audi Etron GT, Porsche Taycan also use 800-900V architecture, though pricier

Mercedes that cheated on emissions in a huge scandal that cost them billions in fines? Whose CEO was indicted for man slaughter?

Hyundai, who lied about MPG and had to pay hundred of millions in fines? Whose chairman was arrested and convicted for bribery and embezzlement and had to spend several years in prison and fined over a billion dollars?

Kia, who had severe issues with engine fires that they failed to recall, and only became public after a whistleblower told them? That had to pay over $100 million in fines? That caused over 5000 fires and 158 injuries and several deaths?

Where are your standards for the leadership for these other companies?

Wasn’t it Volkswagen that cheated on the emissions?

People love to talk about their morals and not giving money to support things they see as evil but when push comes to shove and it’s time to make a purchase, 99% just throw that out the window. I mean people are still dancing to Michael Jackson’s music at their weddings.

They both did.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltaylor/2020/09/15/merced...

warning: awful forbes website

Ah didn’t know thx

You seem to think that the behavior of the CEO is the primary reason for me selling my car, and it's not.

I was only thinking there was some substance to your grandstanding about corporate responsibility or choosing to make purchasing decisions based the ethics of where your money is going, which it is clear now that there wasn't.

Onedrive, Google drive, icloud, s3. Take your pick.

Of those I only use iCloud, but the sharing function doesn't just show other people the image, it just gives you a button to add it to your own iCloud Drive. Not what I want.

Why not all at once[0]?

https://rclone.org/union/

> Service is the reason I'm selling my Tesla. (Well, it was the first reason. What Elon says in public is the other. Embarrassing.)

Considering the founders of a few other car companies have said or done truly horrible things[0][1], I'm curious what Elon has said that is so beyond the pale.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford#Antisemitism_and_Th...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen#1939%E2%80%931944:_...

You are pointing to people who have been long dead and made comments when there wasn't a much of a backlash against such things.

Is your point "Some very horrible people were nonetheless successful so it's OK for them to be horrible"?

No, the obvious point was asking you what Musk said that you find so unsavory? The other implied point was if you’re going to sell your Tesla because you find Musk appalling, what other car manufacturer are you going to support, since other founders have also said or done unappealing things?

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

Because he’s a right-wing oligarch who pretends to care about the environment but really want to leave us on earth with his ewaste. And if someone can’t see that and works for Tesla, how could they competently build a car? They can’t, it seems.

Elon isn't the founder of Tesla, he's the CEO of Tesla. I'm pretty sure Henry Ford isn't Ford's current CEO.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com