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Comment by gustavus | Hacker News Reader

For those interested in the meat:

> An Edinburgh couple say they are “in shock” after claiming Tesla gave them a £17,000 bill to fix their battery that was ‘damaged by the rain’.

> He continued: “They said that the battery is effectively submerged in water. How can that be our fault? “After finally getting to speak to a manager, he told me it had water in it due to the fact the weather in Scotland has been so bad. That was the issue. They said it’s not necessarily my fault but it’s not Tesla’s to pay under warranty. He reminded me there was a yellow weather warning in some parts of Scotland.

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Another one of those design flaws not considered by products "Deigned in California" where weather is nearly perfect.

Do you realize that Teslas are driven in other places than just California?

I wonder why you don't hear their millions of other owners complaining about the car failing after driving in a puddle...?

The obvious answer is that this couple is lying and the tabloid newsletter is just printing their BS.

Or the other possibility is their car had some defect not affecting every Tesla. Maybe the guy building it forgot a seal on something that lead to the intrusion of water. It is too early and not enough information to come to a conclusion yet.

I’ve grown to love winter for how it saves my region from being a testing ground for the thousand robotics startups that cram hacker-quality ROS-based code into some Apple-wannabe base platform and shove it out the door to deliver or monitor something.

Zero chance that's true.

The Model 3 is being sold by the millions globally, to markets with nearly every type of weather. Failure due to driving in the rain, is very obviously not common at all.

There's not enough evidence here to come to that conclusion. Edinburgh floods [1], just as California does. Sometimes people try to drive in deep water that they shouldn't. I've seen it, I've done it, and there's whole YouTube channels dedicated to it, where you'll find Teslas owners who apparently think the lack of an engine makes it possible (and they're somewhat correct!).

And, California floods, quite often. I've seen floating cars in SF. I've seen flooded engines a dozen miles from the Tesla factory.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG35xJtJb08

Why do you believe that California has nearly perfect weather? We just had massive flooding and it didn't lead to a bunch of disabled teslas.

As a Tesla owner, it's pretty clear these people are lying about what they did to the car.

Tesla's become one of the most popular brand in the US and sells cars all over the world. The idea that a Tesla can't stand a normal puddle of water is ridiculous.

This is just dumb tabloid garbage and of course HN gets bamboozled again.

How is it clear? I see Tesla as potentially at fault. In fact, I have a friend who’s Tesla was bricked in exactly the same way. He finally got them to replace the battery under warranty.

But can it stand to an exceptional puddle? Pretty sure no one is contesting that they can drive their Tesla in the rain. The question is if you live in a place that has outlier weather from where it was tested is the manufacturer responsible for their product?

I've never heard of a manufacturer of a regular passenger car covering a hydrolocked engine.

I think that is an unfair assessment of the situation. There have been lots of quality control issues noted in teslas over the years. Maybe there is a flaw under the windshield where it is supposed to drain water if it got plugged with leaves it overflows down into the battery compartment? I’m not saying that is what happened it could be users fault but I am not going to put it out of the realm of possibility that teslas are infallible. Surely if the car was that wet there would be signs that the floor boards are wet as well? Tesla should come forward with evidence that this was not their fault as it seems it should be pretty easy to show. How can water get into the batter? It’s not sealed? How did this happen not just battery was wet. It was noted that there was extreme weather rain did that play a role? I need more information before I come to a conclusion.

"Problem that effects the entire fleet of cars" vs "they're lying" is a false dichotomy. Personally I think it's more likely that they're not lying and this particular car had a manufacturing defect.

But you seem to be very confident that it couldn't be a manufacturing defect with this particular car. How did you manage to rule this out?

The article also says

> Obviously, it was wet with the weather last week, but I honestly can’t remember any huge puddles or anything like that. It’s not like I was driving my car through the Cairngorms.

Someone trying to get out of a £17k bill will likely not admit to having driven in too deep water, certainly not on the record with a reporter.

Yeah they talk like than and then you see a picture of the car and it’s clearly covered in mud up to the roof.

The only photo I saw of the car in TFA shows it shinning. Direct link to that photo, please?

Fair but nor will a car company quickly admit to a manufacturing deficit that requires an expensive repair.

Almost guarantee they saw a vid like this and attempted the same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzA0U53HF2g

Garages are also much less common in europe, so cars are often stored in driveways. It's not like the car would have avoided the rain by not being driven, so I have to agree with the owners here. If the car fails in rain (especially at just a yellow warning level), it's not suitable for sale in large parts of Europe.

Where's the market proof, or any test proof, that the vehicle fails in the rain with any meaningful regular occurance?

What are you agreeing with the owners about exactly? The article reads like trite clickbait.

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