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Comment by eh8 | Hacker News Reader

> Notably, the report identified lighting, brakes, and axles as prominent sources of faults in the Tesla Model 3.

I would have thought the battery or the powertrain or some EV-specific component would be the source of the problems. Does anybody know why these more seemingly standardized parts are failing at higher rates?

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The comparison is between old car manufacturers who have been perfecting building standardized parts for 10s of years, and between tesla who is still figuring that part out too.

Both VW and Tesla have been making EV-specific components for about the same amount of time (not long), but VW has something like 70 years more experience than Tesla in making brakes (edit: integrating brakes into cars, fine)

Tesla makes brakes?

Whether it makes them or not, it is integrating them into the car, and VW also obviously has more experience integrating brakes into a full car.

I'm sure you could have read "make" charitably as "making and/or integrating brakes into cars" if you wanted to.

VW specs brakes that are built by companies (e.g. ATE/Teves, Girling, Brembo) with those 70 years of experience. Tesla, famously, brought all sorts of complex assemblies (e.g. seats) in house. So I'm curious with the situation is with the Model Three.

I can sorta understand wanting to bring something bespoke like seats in house, but friction brakes are commodity hardware. If Tesla is trying to DIY friction brakes that seems like a colossal waste of time.

I'm pretty sure they don't make their own brakes.

> VW has something like 70 years more experience than Tesla in making brakes.

And assembling brakes

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/another-tesla-is-delivere...

Tesla puts a lot of effort into battery and powertrain reliability but relatively little effort into more visible things such as panel gaps, lights, interior trim, etc.

The panel gap meme is a myth - I've gone through quite a few Tesla's and none of them have had these 'huge' panel gaps that are rumored to exist. Not to mention all of my friends' Tesla cars do not have panel gaps either.

I don't think "huge" gaps was the issue I've seen talked about, it was inconsistent alignment in panel gaps: https://www.motortrend.com/news/2020-tesla-model-y-panel-gap...

I have not seen a single model X where the wing door trim aligns with other panels when closed.

'n = quite a few' doesn't cut it, there is documented widespread panel issues with Teslas, along with other QC issues

I had a problem with the lights on my Tesla - water "leaked in" and I had to get the Tesla service to replace. At considerable $$.

I'd never experienced that before, or heard of others who had experienced it.

These parts are not part of the check. Only the safety and environment relevant things are checked. So, to say it a little ironicly, when your car have no motor, this is ok, as long the break is working correctly.

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