Tesla Model S Service Contract: $600/Year, Or Warranty Voided | Hacker News Reader

Tesla Model S Service Contract: $600/Year, Or Warranty Voided

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Article has Mercedes costs completely wrong. My S63 has around 50,000 miles on it but I've gone through four sets of brake pads. And mysteriously, the rotors are always "just under spec" and always need replacing too. That's $3000 per brake job, not to mention the myriad other issues they discover on every service. The base price for regular service doesnt begin to cover the costs. Luckily I didn't have to pay for the engine work once to fix a stuck lifter and again when it was spewing oil all over the road. Admittedly, I drive my car a little harder than most, but costs are costs.

I should get my Tesla model S around June and eagerly await the same performance with only $600 a year maintenance.

I had a CLK430 and it was like a race car. By that I mean it needed a pit stop every 100 miles. God I wasted so many billable hours in the shop.

Also, the brake dust would regularly turn the front wheels black. I was always told it was the "high performance" nature of the pads.

I drive a Prius now and I still drive faster than 95% of people on the road. I just look like a dork doing it.

Yes, high performance brake pads do make black dust.

Really high performance pads make white dust, and much less of it (ceramic, usually a $5-10k option)

Put a spoiler on it

You're not alone. Mercedes is a very shady company, from what I've seen in the past. There is a very good, detailed website[1] exposing their "under-the-hood" tactics. For example, they put so many lives at risk due to a design flaw and secretly replaced certain defective parts under the name of a 'Free Inspection'. This website actually lists more of such tactics.

[1]http://www.thetruthaboutmercedes.com/home.html

"Mercedes is a very shady company, from what I've experienced in the past."

Seriously? Shady company?

You give a site from an obviously very biased operation in India as an example to support your point?

MB sales have increased tremendously in the US since the 1980's. Although I don't own one now I've owned 3 in the past (dating back to the 80's). They aren't cheap to maintain but I've never thought or seen any proof, in the US, of them being labeled as shady by any reputable source. And know many people who buy them year after year.

The site is by the organization that was Mercedes's dealer for ~13 years. I think that's more than enough credibility they're going to need to make such accusations. In my opinion, they aren't biased, because they provide supporting documents for every statement they make.

>I've owned 3 in the past

Unless you really know what's under the hood of your car, owning 'x' cars doesn't matter. Because this issue's seriousness can be understood only by someone who knows whats under the hood, which is exactly the opposite of Mercedes' target audience (They're more into luxury stuff, I believe).

Just curious - Do you know the seriousness of having a clutch assembly sticking to the floor? (Could cause fire, serious damage, deaths)

So you are saying that, once again, as proof that MB is a "shady company" you supply a website from a single party that posts a reply that they claim is from MB but doesn't even appear on the MB letterhead? (Not of course that that couldn't be faked but it seems odd that they don't even have a LH for that letter as part of their "proof".

"Do you know the seriousness of having a clutch assembly sticking to the floor?"

I don't have time to investigate this claim. Suffice to say that you have not provided proof of "shady" practices that have triggered any significant problems, at least in the US, with their sales or production. Cars frequently have recalls and manufacturers is US, most manufacturers will take steps to downplay the recall. There have been exceptions of course (See Ralph Nader or see the report on Audi by 60 minutes).

Perhaps MB in India does not operate the same as MB in the US or the rest of the world. But then again the power grid in India also operates at lesser standards than in the US (from what I've read and what I've been told).

So to conclude, you statement, that they are a "shady" company has not been supported.

My ML320 has gone through three sets of rotors and 4 sets of pads in just under 70K miles. About $1500 for each rotor set replacement. I even tried the aftermarket Zimmerman rotors and they were no more long-lived than the OEM rotors.

An S63 costs a lot more to maintain than an ML. Amongst AMG-tuned MBZ owners "AMG" is said to mean "All Money Gone."

By comparison, my Lexus LS has gone through a single set of rotors and an additional set of front pads in 130,000 miles (although it did cost me $6700 at my 90K service[!]).

$600/year doesn't seem that unreasonable to me.

Unless you're racing on the track every weekend, that sounds like a ridiculously short replacement interval. IIRC from my professional mechanic days, Mercedes puts some seriously thick pads on their brakes. I recall that they typically didn't get replaced until many miles had passed. As another commenter mentioned, I'd ask for the pads back.

The rotors, OTOH, come out of the factory barely over spec to begin with (I imagine weight savings/fuel economy as one reason). Just a little bit of wear, and they're not worth turning on the lathe.

You must drive your car hard! Do you ask for the brake pads back after each service? By law they have to provide them to you if you ask, and I suspect you will see a decrease in the number of recommendations if you start asking for them back and measure them to see what their specs are. I can't say for sure, but it would not surprise me if they are being over-eager in making their "recommendations".

Brake jobs far any expensive vehicle are just short of a scam in my opinion. Do your own brake job (takes about an hour for a complete novice) and save yourself the money.

i agree the article got Mercedes costs wrong but your comment is on the other end of the spectrum. I've owned 2 Mercs and never had to run through 4 sets for 50k miles, 1 maybe 2 at most. But I do agree that merc dealers charge crazy for a service. I was once told to fork up $1600 for a full service. The local service shop charged me $150 for the same thing.

The article seems to suggest that BMW has a good new car warranty but Mercedes doesn't. All new mercs have 4 year, 50k miles warranty as well.

BMW goes beyond a warranty -- they cover all recommended maintenance items for those first four years (oil, brakes, windshield wipers, inspections).

Yeah, but that's built into the cost of purchase or lease, no?

exactly. I'm surprised this is being so heavily discussed. I mean, if Telsa charged $63000 instead of $60000, no one would care. That 3000 covers the maintenance for 5 years. It is negligible in comparison to the cost of the vehicle.

In my opinion, the whole thing can be explained in three words from Musk's reply: "concierge level service".

I have always been amazed (in a bad way) at the quality of the work done by service departments at luxury and high-end car dealerships. I'm not sure what kind of agreement these independently-owned dealerships have that they're allowed to use the manufacturer's corporate identity to promote their business, but it should be a whole lot stricter.

Conversely, I've never had my laptop receive a shoddy repair at an Apple store - after all, the repair facility is owned and being operated by the same company who built the machine in the first place, so they share common goals and incentives. If Tesla is trying to do for car dealerships and service centers what Apple did for high-tech retail, the privilege of participating would definitely be worth $600/yr to me.

Now, Apple does have a licensing program in place to certify independent repair facilities as "Apple Authorized Service Centers" where warranty work can be performed. I think Tesla would do well to create a similar program, and maybe they plan to! Who knows, it's early days yet.

There is a reason why you can take a car to a mechanic and end up with it worse off than before you took it in. Car mechanics are incentivized by the dealer to push out jobs quickly. This isn't because they are lazy, its because their ability to make money depends on it. That means real fixes are substituted for patchwork fixes.

I don't drive much, but when I do, I like to take my car to a mechanic that I can watch in person make the repairs.

I have always wondered what my recourse is when a mechanic does shoddy work. Can I sue them in small claims court for the cost of repairing damage that their workmanship caused?

In this case I'm thinking of the time just a few months ago when a hose clamp that was misplaced during a cooling system overhaul caused a head-gasket-damaging overheat... which cost $4800 to fix.

(Ex-ASE-certified mechanic here, but IANAL.) Your typical recourse is to return to the shop and have them do the job again. Yes, the faster a shop turns out a job the more they make per hour. But if a car comes back, the money made on fast turnover gets lost quickly. So contrary to popular belief there is an incentive to do the job right. If the car comes back, they should work on it until it's right.

Now what if the shop said, in your example, "too bad, we're not fixing the head gasket"? I'll start with saying that court is probably your next option. But I have two other things to add. First, a decent shop would replace the head gasket if they screwed up. Once in a while a shop just has to eat a big job due to a screw up.

Second, though, is that it's sometimes hard to properly place blame. I don't know the details of your situation, so forgive me for assumptions, but head gaskets don't just blow the instant the overheat light comes on. Yeah, the shop may have screwed up, but that doesn't absolve the driver from pulling over when the light comes on. So who do we blame? Well, that's why you call a lawyer. :)

Warranty work (provided free) is one thing, but any service is quite another. If the tire blows out, then I would take it to the nearest goodyear (or whatever comes on a Tesla) dealer. Heck, I wouldn't even think to take a car needing tire balancing to a dealer either.

Parsing Tesla's $600 fee, let's allocate $100 for the wiper blades, roadside assistance, monitoring, and software update features.

What about the brake pads mentioned in the previous paragraph? Replacement pads plus labour for fitting would run to $200 easily. I'll take most opportunities to bash Tesla but $600 a year is relatively cheap in my opinion.

What about the brake pads? With regenerative braking, I expect the pads on my Nissan Leaf to last almost as long as the car.

Whether the $600/year is a good price is irrelevant. The matter at hand is "pay us $600/year or we void your warranty". It's shady, for one, and of questionable legality given Magnuson-Moss.

Deleted comment

Regenerative braking is not just a "hip, new (phrase)", it has an actual distinct meaning. That meaning is distinct from engine braking. I've driven manual transmissions all of my life, from motorcycles to large trucks, and to me regenerative braking and engine braking aren't even close to the same thing.

As a side note, if your brakes can lock your tires at speed (and I don't know of a modern car that can't), then engine braking in an emergency isn't going to help as the tires are the weak link.

It can actually be dangerous to aggressively engine-brake, as you're overriding any chance of ABS giving you control over the car while those wheels are locked.

Actually, it is not just a 'hip, new word'. It's entirely different than engine braking. Regenerative breaking actually captures some of the energy otherwise lost. It also works by simply pushing the brake pedal. Engine braking does neither of those things.

I own a '07 Prius with 90K miles, still on the factory brake pads. I expect them to last until at least 150K, if not more.

My '04 Prius has about the same mileage (though likely more stop/start cycles due to less highway driving) and is still on the original brakes too.

Ugh, now I'm convinced my next car needs regenerative braking.

That's because it does. Don't argue with yourself.

Was going to say what your parent said, but now I realize I might be missing key info about regenerative braking.

Do these types of cars use the engine for most braking, even when the pedal is pressed?

With the regenerative braking on the Nissan Leaf (what I own and can speak to with some authority), pressing the brake pedal does not mean the pads touch disk. What happens most of the time, and for most of the braking right up until the car comes to a stop, is that the electric motor is turned into an electric generator. I can watch the meter on the dashboard switch from sucking-juice-from-battery to dumping-juice-in when I hit the brakes. I also assume there are some large capacitors involved, as I can't imagine any battery likes having 30kW being dumped into it.

As far as I can tell the only time pads touch disk are 1) emergency stops when the generator can't cause enough load to safely stop the vehicle 2) below about 10mph (not much load from the generator) and 3) the battery is fully charged and has no room for additional electrons. The transition from generator to pad-and-disk can be felt if one is looking for it.

In summary, the vast majority of the braking on the Nissan Leaf appears to be done without the conventional brakes. I assume the Tesla works in a similar manner, hence my comment.

EDIT: added a third reason for conventional brake use.

The Nissan Leaf is designed for short trips and city driving primarily. In those conditions a significant amount of braking is done under 10 miles an hour.

Also, in almost all 2 wheel drive cars, regenerative braking only applies to the wheels being driven and standard, dynamic braking is applied to the non-powered wheels.

I would sincerely be amazed if your brake pads lasted you even half the lifetime of the car and I will willingly hold my hands up and admit defeat if I'm wrong.

IANA Automotive Engineer, but I notice that while much breaking happens below 10mph (everytime you come to a stop from any speed, you're doing some breaking under 10mph, right?) break pads are likely to get worn far more at higher speeds - kinetic energy depends on the square of the speed, right? So decelerating from 35mph to 10mph, the break pads need to absorb (for some k) k * 35^2 - k * 10^2 units of energy, while decelerating from 10mph to 0mph is k * 10^2. The difference is more than an order of magnitude, and it only gets bigger as the speed increases. This doesn't even take into account all the times we slow from 35mph to 25mph, which is about 6 times as much energy as slowing from 10mph to a stop.

I can't comment on how long brake life is, but the Nissan Leaf is meant to be used like how most people use their existing cars, around town driving. There are plenty of 35, 40, 45, 55+ mph zones throughout most cities. People are only braking from 10 mph when going through a parking lot. I doubt a significant amount of Leaf drivers are driving through parking lots all day long. If you're suggesting that freeways turn into parking lots during rush hours, then your statement could be said for all cars not just the Nissan Leaf.

It would make sense. The pedal is probably electronic anyway, so the car would try to use engine for regenerative breaking, and use pads only when the break pedal is severely pressed.

I don't see how regenerative braking makes a difference? Correct me if I'm wrong but if the pad comes in contact with the brake disc every time you press the brakes, regardless of whether it generates energy or not, I don't see why the compound of the brake pad would wear down any differently to standard brakes.

What you are missing is that the Leaf is drive-by-wire -- pressing the pedal does NOT always activate the physical brakes. For light-to-medium braking, the electric motors can be operated in reverse to decelerate the vehicle.

More generally, the wear on the brake pads is roughly related to the amount of energy they soak up. Energy that gets pulled back into the battery by regenerative braking does not go towards wearing the brakes.

Regenerative breaking doesn't use pads. It basically uses engine to slow down the wheels.

Sorry but that's just categorically wrong. The leaf, just like every new car on the planet uses disks & brakes. A quick google search of Nissan Leaf brake pads will bring up tons of results for aftermarket replacement pads.

What parent said is correct, categorically or not: regenerative braking does not use conventional pad-and-disk. It uses the electric motor to slow the car by turning the motor into a generator. The fact that a Nissan Leaf has pads and disks does not change this.

This really isn't that complicated. Electric cars use a combination of regenerative braking (using the generator to convert kinetic energy; forward velocity, into electric energy) and using the disc brakes when regenerative braking doesn't slow you down fast enough. This results in much less wear on the brake pads and callipers.

Take a look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_brake

Yes, the leaf has standard brakes... but it also uses regenerative braking to recapture some of the car's forward momentum without using the brakes.

And any forward momentum captured this way is not absorbed by the brake pads, thus they last much longer.

"Moreover, any visit to a non-Tesla shop--even for something as simple as tire rotation--will also void the warranty. Period."

That might get them into trouble, there are laws protecting independent service shops. This is a fought battle and the manufacture lost.

Not unusual for a high end car. In fact when I had a MB I remember very clearly having to pay for scheduled maintenance that iirc certainly approached $600 per year to maintain the warranty. BMW as others have pointed out includes all maintenance. This is essentially an economic decision on the part of the manufacturer. They could of course increase the price of the vehicle and give you free maintenance but then they would sell fewer cars. Although in general BMW cars actually are priced comparably to MB they have decided that they can sell more cars by including "free maintenance" than lowering the price of the vehicle (at least in the market that I am in it may be priced differently elsewhere).

http://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/service_and_parts/maintenance/...

Cars today are very complex. It is not unreasonable for the manufacturer who is extending a warranty of 4 or 5 years to require you to do certain things to maintain that warranty.

Edit: And to require this to be done at authorized dealerships not the corner mechanic.

Sounds like he has never owned a luxury car and can't afford a Tesla... (neither can I) If you can can't afford the maintenance, you can't afford the purchase.

Did anyone else have a laugh at "the Volt is among the most complex cars on the road today--far more complicated than the Tesla"?!

Reminds me of my friend who saved up for many years and finally got that Porsche, only to discover that fixing a small dent in the bumper was $2k+. "I don't have that kind of money." Car-poor.

Several years later he bought a house, then got a leak in the basement and the water heater needed replacing... "I don't have that kind of money." House-poor.

The Model S is extremely simply from a drivetrain perspective. AC motor <-> energy transfer management <-> energy storage

Chevy Volt: AC motor <-> energy storage <-> onboard generator

So I can keep my Model S reservation and shell out $600/year on top of the $50K+ purchase, or I can purchase a Volt and have a generous warranty I don't need to pay extra for.

Hard choice for the practical among us.

The Volt is even more complex; IIRC in some scenarios (such as when driving at high speed with a low battery) the internal combustion engine can also provide power to the drive train through mechanical means.

I was not implying that it was less complex. I chuckled about the suggestion that because the Volt was more complex, Tesla maintenance should be cheaper. Once does not imply the other.

Do note that the additional 'complexity' of a combustion engine actually makes several things much easier, not in the least the fact that running dry is far less likely, power to all systems is pretty much guaranteed, etc.

Of note and relevant: http://www.complex.com/rides/2012/09/general-motors-is-losin...

Oh, I was just noting that the Volt's system for getting power to the wheels is more complex than the "series hybrid" it is widely believed to be. I.E., the engine is not merely just a generator, as it is the case of the Fisker Karma. (It was late, and I wasn't actually making a comment on the cost justification of the maintenance program.)

But I agree that the pricing of the maintenance program should be independent of the complexity of the vehicle architecture. One is an engineering decision, the other is largely marketing & customer relations (not to the exclusion of financials, of course).

As far as Tesla's choice to price their program at $600 a year, it seems in poor form for a luxury priced vehicle. To me, the hallmark of a true "concierge" level of service (which is what Musk indicated as their goal) would be that it's included in the vehicle price, at least for the first few years, a la BMW. Beyond that, perhaps they should just take a page from Apple's book, and offer an extended "Tesla Care" warranty program to continue the service.

$600 a year seems like petty nickle and diming your customer if you're already charging them 80 to 100K for the car.

I think the argument was that the Volt is more complex, but still has a much lower maintenance cost. If Tesla is worried about ongoing service costs eating their bottom line, include the price in the car, don't tack it on as a "service contract" this late in the process.

At $600/year and assuming a 10 year vehicle life, that's an additional $6000 towards the vehicle purchase price. People buying a Model S aren't going to flinch at that (myself included); demanding it as a yearly service fee and creating fear about losing your warranty is disingenuous at best.

Not terrible considering the infancy of the technology and the value these services will provide Tesla. If you can afford a $60K+ car meant for early adopters, you can afford an extra $600/year.

It doesn't seem far out of line at all.

I just checked, I'm paying just over $300/year for dealer service and inspections on my Ford Transit Connect which sells for about 1/3 of a Tesla S.

I'm not getting roadside assistance (of a revision 1 vehicle), monitoring, or wiper blades. Heck, they usually neglect to reprogram the tire pressure monitor when they rotate the tires.

"Emulating BMW instead of Benz" is good advice, however. If they want to make a product that's more awesome than a comparable ICE, then they need to include the service program in the price of the car.

This is required if Tesla wants to survive as a car company. It reads like a way to distribute the impact of the large problems that are going to crop up early on (battery failure, recall for some part going wonky, Etc)

Well, if it is required for them to survive, they are going to have issues. Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act and some state laws keep auto dealers and manufactures from pulling the "service with us or lose warranty". There are generally exceptions for freely provided services, but this isn't it.

Car modders and local services shops have been down this road before. Honestly expecting every service to occur at the dealers is foolish.

Whil ou are completely correct, it will be many years before I would trust having my Tesla (if I was getting one...) serviced[1] anywhere that doesn't have Elon's personal seal of approval. While the warrantee can't be voided for taking the car somewhere else, it can be voided if Tesla can show damage is a direct result if work done.

If I blow my engine after I put a NOS kit on it, I will likely have voided my warrantee. If I do it after putting a cold-air intake on it, I probably haven't voided it.

1. The tire-rotation thing seems silly, but perhaps doing it incorrectly will damage the regenerative baking system. If that's the case, don't ever get a flat tire in the middle of southern Utah.

If a tire rotation damages the regenerative breaking then someone designed something horribly wrong.

Your decisions are your own. Which is a great thing. Forcing a decision in an industry with so much law history is not a good move.

I'm merely hypothesizing ways in which it is possible for Tesla to be in a situation where 3rd party service could legally void the warrantee. Tesla can't just void the warrantee because they say they void the warrantee.

And, for the record, I agree with you about the tire rotation.

The way they're going about it might not be the right way, but having worked at and run car dealerships, $600/year is not out of line (granted this is based on conventional engine vehicles). The first year of the vehicle you probably won't get your money's worth, but after that it becomes much more valuable. At a traditional car dealership, a 15k mile service is pretty basic, oil change and tire rotation, but they will try to upsell you on numerous other items (special additives to improve engine life/gas mileage, air filter change, wipers, etc...) that will easily hit $250-$300 for that visit. These items can all be done in ~10 minutes at home for ~$50. For a 30k mile service, you're looking at well over $400. To be able to take your car in, not have to deal with the hassle of someone trying to hustle/upsell you, get everything on the car done, road side service, and (hopefully) better service than you'd get at a traditional car dealership? Doesn't seem to me like the price is way out of line.

Not only that, but think about the last time you went to a dealership to buy a car, remember when you went in the finance office to sign the paperwork? More than likely the finance manager was trying to sell you a service contract from a 3rd party that was more expensive and covered less items.

In the end though it's hard to judge the value of these things without having the service contract in front of me, knowing you specific driving habits and exactly what services the contract covers and what services it doesn't (if any). Having said that, I would be highly surprised if 12% of Tesla pre-orders get canceled because of the service contract (as mentioned in the article).

That's less than 'standard' maintenance on my 28k Acura TSX. It was a real eye opener to see a 1k bill for standard maintenance on a 2 year old car with 12k miles on it.

That does seem a bit high, especially when you consider that the TSX is what Honda sells as the "Accord" outside of North America. It'd be interesting to see if owners of said "Accord Euro" across the pond see similar maintenance costs.

Let's look at this from a branding perspective: Say in the next year you sell X cars, built on a new technology about which there is some conventional/popular consumer discomfort or doubt.

Is it worth spending 600X dollars of company money for your customers to be able to say, "I just bought a Tesla and I don't have to worry about any maintenance costs at all for the next four years"? For ten thousand cars, that would be six million dollars out of about 800 million in revenue, or three quarters of a percent. Seems like that would be money well spent on developing consumer confidence in the technology and customer loyalty for the brand.

My prediction is that Tesla will change course on there current maintenance program. It's much better PR to offer free maintenance for the first four years, a la BMW, and then offer an extended "Tesla Care" warranty program that continues the coverage, similar to Apple.

Because a true "concierge" level maintenance program wouldn't nickel and dime the customer.

So let me get this straight, you bought an $80,000(ish) car with a full warranty, and you're mad enough about a $600/year add-on in which the company does slightly under $600 worth of work and picks your car up to do so that you write a blog post about it?

Tesla is not Ford. The numbers are completely different which necessitates a subscription model or higher prices in general. Early adopters shouldn't be surprised when their toys costs more, it's always been that way.

Isn't it illegal to void the warranty on a car for work done, just because the work is done at a third-party shop? I seem to recall this tactic being taken a while bag and it being struck down.

Looks like the service contract isn't necessary but you still need to bring it to tesla mechanics for repairs / maintenance and annual inspection to keep the warranty. If I have a warranty to keep my car free from problems, I'm going to use it at the place that issued it. Otehrwise how would I get free warranted repairs?

Let me get this straight, people considering the purchase of a vehicle that starts at US$57,400 are balking at a implicit service contract that runs about 50% the cost of their annual Starbucks budget?

These must be the same people that complain about the cost of a 99 cent app for their >=US$200 smartphone.

That's a very acceptable fee for such a high-tech piece of engineering. Most warrantied commercial equipment has mandatory service contract requirements, so it's no surprise that we're seeing that in the consumer arena as well.

No surprise, except for the whole 'illegal' bit.

15 USC 2302(c)

(c) No warrantor of a consumer product may condition his written or implied warranty of such product on the consumer’s using, in connection with such product, any article or service (other than article or service provided without charge under the terms of the warranty) which is identified by brand, trade or corporate name [... except that some exceptions can be granted if they are in the public interest.]

This isn't about brand, trade, or corporate name. It is about the nature of the service being performed and the fact that very few people are going to have the ability to actually service these vehicles properly.

Rich people problems (sigh)

I would hardly call this "rich people problems". I know many who make roughly 60-80K a year, and I would certainly not call them rich, and they still purchase cars with a sticker price of 50K.

Is it a wise decision to make such a purchase? No. Is it commonplace? Yes.

Also, it's an early adopter price. It'll decrease a bit with time. This is a luxury car.

Also, this isn't Reddit. Contribute something of value to the conversation.

You are describing the type of consumer who has a problem with a $600 a year fee -- the ones who can't really afford the product or service in the first place.

This is a wide spread business marketing issue. You have different classes of consumers, and often the loudest complainers are the one who are on low level or free versions. Do they complain loudly because they are the only ones who have time to? May be its just their personality and why they don't have any money? I don't know.

From a business owner standpoint it is pretty easy to see how irrational the original article author's position is. However, it presents a dilemma between choosing to pacify this type of customer vs just ignoring them. Each has its share of downsides.

With due respect, a 'high level' customer can buy just another car if he has problem with it, he can afford to, while 'low level' customers have to speak out loud because that is all what they have, it is a heavy and rare investment for them.

The 'issue' is not morally acceptable. First of all there shouldn't be any distinction between customers, it is the company's responsibility to offer the best product, whoever the customer is. How can you be ignorant to a customer who invests a big chunk of his earnings to buy your product.

Offering what's best for the customer is a balancing act with what's best for the company. If only 2% of your customers are likely to have issues with a given item, it may not be worth raising the price 10% for everyone just to appease those 2%. (disclaimer, I'm picking random numbers here, no relation to the item in question)

> 60-80K

Selection bias. Vast majority of the world and significant % of USA that is rich (enough to have rich people problems). ~15% are below poverty line. Not rich people worry if they'll have enough money to buy food. Not rich people can't afford any car, let alone a luxury one.

There is a word for those people: Foolish.

Anyone who ties up 20%+ of their annual income in car payments is, frankly, doomed.

This; I wouldn't tie up 20% of my income in housing (unless I was making significantly less than 50k), much less in a car.

I agree, but I'm not sure why you singled this particular article out. HN is filled with articles discussing issues with iPhones, MacBooks and similar. They're all "rich people problems". In fact, I would consider that a car costing 60k is less of an outlier than a telephone that costs more than 600...

You could suggest that, but I think it's pretty obviously wrong. Waitresses and bartenders and community-college students have smart phones. They don't usually own luxury cars.

That's the genius of Apple: They've managed to make it "normal" for people to buy their luxury goods. People who are savvy enough not to spend 3 times as much on a fancy car or shoes are still persuaded to spend 3 times as much on a fancy phone/computer.

A driver of a roadster says when repairs are needed, they come get the car, so it sounds like a way to pay for that service.

Interesting. When I talked with a Tesla sales rep I was told that maintenance is annual and would cost me $1 per mile from the dealership. She didn't mention a $600/yr contract.

I'm cautiously skeptical of the 'no tire rotation at other shops' claim. They seems not only like a flagrant violation of Magnuson-Moss, it also seems pointlessly customer hostile. Is there confirmation that this is actually the policy?

The 1/mile is just the cost for the service tech's to come to you when theres no maintenance center near you - http://www.teslamotors.com/own/service

Ive never purchased a new car, so could be thinking about this in the wrong way, but isnt $1/mile way way more expensive than $600/yr? $1/mile seems crazy expensive, so I must be understanding that wrong

Unless your dealership is hundreds of miles away...

...would cost me $1 per mile

That sounds stupidly expensive. Was that a typo? On a $60k car I'd expect to use it regularly and easily top 10k miles a year.

Per mile from the dealership. I live about 100 miles from the nearest dealership, but I was told they'd come to me for $100 per service. (Presumably there'd also be some sort of variable charge for parts/labor)

The $600/yr contract doesn't really change my opinion of anything (over six years it's $3.6k on a $60-90k car) except to confuse me a bit.

I find the claims about warranties being voided over trivialities much more concerning. If I get a flat tire, I don't want to arrange for Tesla-brand service, I want to fix the tire.

Sorry, I misunderstood. I agree with the claims of the warranty being voided for minor repairs being outlandish. I've yet to see an official source for the claim though.

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