2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Road Test | Hacker News Reader

2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Road Test

edmunds.com

141 pointsethana119 comments

That's great that the drive unit was covered under warranty.. that was Edmunds 4th drive unit in 30,000 miles. Of course, once it hits 50k miles, the warranty period is over, and it's $15000 to replace it.

MotorTrend reported the same problem.. they've already had it replaced twice.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/2312325-tesla-may-have-a-hug...

Wow. I've never had a vehicle worth more than $15,000. That's one expensive part.

Your vehicles were very likely worth more than $15,000 when new. You've just never had a new vehicle.

Also, engine replacements on new gasoline vehicles run around $10k.

True, but when was the last time you heard about a car that needed a whole new engine every 7k miles?

It's an interesting question actually, are Tesla motors only really serviceable as a unit? That could be bad news. A new gasoline engine might be $10k, but 99% of the time you just replace a belt or a pulley or a seal, or take off the top and do some machining for a few thousand.

The electric drive motor is about the size of a watermelon and weighs ~70lbs. Its easier to pull it and swap in a new one than to tear it down on-site.

If the alternative is to pay 15k for a new one, I don't care what is easier for the technicians. I care about what is most price friendly for me, the customer.

If I think about it, no example comes to mind where I would be okay with paying much much more for something because the relevant technician says "I'll be easier for me if you buy a new one instead of me fixing this."

The electrical motors can be rewound, but it's definitely a process no one will be able to do on site - the motor would need to be sent off to a company that has equipment necessary to do it. Still, it should be cheaper than $15k.

Perhaps Tesla does or should give a rebate for sending back the old part who can then turn around and refurbish it.

I would be almost certain they would have a core fee reimbursement of some sort.

A house with mold is easier to burn down and rebuild rather than completely gut it out. That doesn't mean that's the correct decision.

Are we talking about a specific type of mold? What makes it so difficult to get rid of?

Black mold. It gets everywhere, and it is pretty dangerous to humans so you have to be sure you get it all.

Why wouldn't it be the right decision, assuming that "easier" takes into account all the costs involved?

"Easy" is not a measure of cost. Getting rid of mold is more painstaking work, but it is less resource-intensive than rebuilding.

As another example, amputating a limb is relatively easy as surgery goes, but it will cost you your limb and you would probably prefer that doctors not do it for their own convenience.

"Easy" only fails to be a measure of cost if you don't account for all the people involved.

The sum total of amputation is much harder than fixing the limb, assuming it's possible. Yes, it's easy for the doctors, but it's hard for you.

If fixing mold in a house is cheaper than building a new house, that's telling you that it's easier overall. It might look harder, but that's because much of the difficulty of building a new house happens off-site, in the felling of trees, mining of gypsum, fabrication of pipes and wires, etc.

If Tesla is doing warranty replacements instead of repairs it's not because it's "easier" in the sense that the technicians do less work at the expense of the company, it's because it's "easier" in the sense that it's less effort and money in total.

It seems not entirely unlikely to me that either Tesla is temporarily choosing the more expensive option because they don't feel they have good handle on the problem (e.g. they aren't sure their repairs will stick), or they're actually doing both replacements and repairs (with your replacement being somebody else's refurbished model).

I'd put my money on the latter, although they could pretty easily transition back and forth between the two as they needed. Start with new replacements, check out the old ones, see what went wrong, fix them up if you can, then use them for new service. If you have a lot of nominally identical items out there, why make the customer wait for a repair when you can swap in a new/refurbished unit, then repair their old one at leisure?

You can get a new engine and transmission installed for under 10k on most mass produced mid-range sedans.

What about the Tesla is similar to mass produced mid-range?

The Model 3 will be much closer to this characterization, and will be using much of the same technology as the Model S.

I suspect they are the 2013 Retina MBP of cars.

Even the rather unreliable MultiJet engine I have in my car has had a total maintenance bill of around $2000 over 70k miles. This was for an EGR valve that got stuck and a timing chain.

I wonder if tesla (dealer mechanics) or the eventual non-tesla mechanics will adopt the model in the aircraft industry of engine leasing? Bad motor? Drop in a loaner that you pay a daily fee for while yours is shipped to facility the can repair yours, after which the loaner gets swapped for your original motor...

A new gasoline or diesel "engine" (whatever that means) costs nowhere near $10K. Even at a standard to high shop rate, that cost is on the high side. Also, an "engine" is really a collection of components, unless we're talking about simply the "engine block".

Source: Family of petrol-heads.

You're forgetting labor costs...

Edit: Not at all forgetting labor costs. With labor, you can have a new motor for mass market vehicle installed for under $10K (US)

Yahoo answers concurs.

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100310205608A...

     With an average labor per hour cost of anywhere from
     80 to 120 dollars, you're probably looking at anywhere
     from 1280 to 1920 for just labor. It will probably
     take two techs two days to perform the work. Plus 
     the cost of the parts needing for mods, if I had to 
     give you an educated guess I would say you're looking
     at paying anywhere from 1500 to 3000.

I'm looking at putting a new engine into my Jeep Wrangler right now. A crate HEMI runs ~9k new, and you can't get it installed for less than ~$4k in labor. I'll be able to get a used one for ~$5k

Obviously some cars a cheaper, but I wouldn't want to be swapping engines in a BMW or Merc (competitors for the Model S)

A crate HEMI is in no way a "standard" replacement engine for a Jeep Wrangler. While it is a common swap for the Jeep (for hardcore off-roaders), it's equivalent to a high performance motor, for which you should expect to pay a premium.

Absolutely, agree.

Of course, the engine in the Model S is clearly a high performance engine too.

It's worth noting a replacement stock 3.6 VVT engine for the Wrangler is exactly the same price.

What's interesting here too is that these costs can come back to haunt you on the leasing side. Tesla's leasing programs "guess" at what the value of the car will be when the lease ends. Should this issue turn out to be true and therefore drive down resale value they'll be buying/getting many of these cars back at prices they can't get when they turn around and resell them. Assuming of course it turns out to be any sort of real issue.

I do believe these results are an outlier.

I've had my Model S since December 2012 (one of the first production models in the state of Georgia) and have had no major issues with it. I've only ever had proactive maintenance (12v battery system replacement, coolant pump upgrade, and improved sealant on the sunroof), all of which I haven't paid a dime for. They even provided loaner vehicles while they worked on it. I've driven it up and down the East Coast and a 260 mile straight shot from Atlanta to Savannah.

I've heard similar stories from most other owners. It is a tremendously easy car to own, as you barely have to do any work on it. Yes, cases like this will happen. But no different from any other car out there.

Out of curiosity, why does it have a 12v battery (& system) ? I always assumed it didn't have one, and that accessories would be powered off the "big" battery.

Probably 2 reasons,

- Voltage / Current differences.

- Abstraction, for safety, testing and debugging purposes.

Better to step down to 12v at one high-efficiency DC-DC converter than try to build accessories that can handle hundreds of volts.

Most of the car's internal electronics (lights, airbags, ignition, touchscreen, instrument cluster etc.) are based on traditional components that require a 12V connection. The 12V battery in the Model S also powers the high voltage contacts that transmit power from the main battery to the motor.

Chemical limit of the materials. If you go out to buy battery bigger than 12v, for example 24v, then you will see that it is actually made of 2 12v or may be even 16 1.5v, depends on what material they use to make a battery. I have asked your question about Tesla and low voltage batteries to my friend who was studying as Physics Teaching, he explained me these things.

This is what annoys me about my Prius.

It has a large, high voltage battery that could easily be stepped down (and in fact is, since it charges the 12V battery), and yet a separate 12V battery is required to power the electronics to start the car.

Since the 12V battery is only used to power the electronics (the high volatage battery powers the starter motor), it is very small and consequently, drains quickly (a few weeks) if the car is not in use. I don't drive much and regularly find it dead when I try to drive somewhere.

The upside of it only being required to power the electronics is that I can (and regularly do) jump start it with a NiMH remote control car battery.

I understand that if the high voltage battery goes flat in a Prius, you're somewhat screwed, which is perhaps why they don't allow it to power the electronics for starting, but it's still a pain.

Disclaimer: this is an older Prius, newer models may be different

Nobody got the answer even remotely correct WRT the EE issues.

Battery bulk current handling capacity is provided by bulk lead in the plates and copper wires. Its extremely cheap to build a lead acid battery that can momentarily squirt out a thousand (or so) amps to start an engine on a cold winter night. Maybe $100 or so.

Unfortunately power converters / supplies of all sorts scale at a higher than polynomial rate. So although a 20 amp smart battery charger might only be $50, a similar power converter capable of 1000 amps peak starting currents might be way over $2000. Thats about 10KW and thats about the right price for non-industrial non-automotive inverter hardware so its probably higher cost.

The total system cost to provide momentary 1000 amp starting currents is minimized by a $50 charger and a $100 battery rather than a $2000+ inverter.

My wife has one and I'm slightly jealous, I know ham radio guys who've spliced in inverters to run their entire house off the prius, using it as a stationary generator basically. There have been articles in QST magazine. Anyway one issue they and everyone else runs into is the primary battery is physically disconnected from the world until the boot up self tests pass. Leakage current to chassis, stuff like that. Until the tests pass, power is not connected by the giant relay. So its chicken and the egg time, where how do you get enough power to run the self tests of the electrical system if the primary battery isn't connected until after all the tests pass? So you need a secondary battery thats never physically disconnected, the 12V lead acid traditional batt.

Now an excellent firmware question is why not have the firmware self test and partial boot the car every 6 hours to top off the 12 volt battery for 5 minutes? Probably some mechanic who thinks the car is off will manage to set it on fire by not being careful while replacing the battery or something like that. "Oh of course the main power cables are powered down, the whole car is powered down... err... whoomph" and then you need a new car and mechanic.

A design change to connect the 12V to the primary battery would then mean routing even more junk thru the primary battery compartment. There really is no perfect solution.

(Have to reply to mikeash as an edit. Yes I researched this after your comment and you are correct and MG1 is powered from the HV not the 12V to start, I did not know that. I knew it charged the HV and helped out at full throttle, along with MG2 that does "most of the work".

Anyway the TLDR summary still stands, from a scaling perspective there is an economic crossover point at a surprisingly low current, at least around the 90s's to 00's when this was designed, where its much cheaper to use a battery/charger than a really beefy inverter above a certain (medium-ish) current level. Someday that'll probably change as semiconductors advance and that crossover point becomes 50 kiloamps or something.)

Your comment about peak current confuses me. Was that just meant to address normal cars? Because the starting current for a Prius comes from the high-voltage battery, not the 12V battery.

As for topping off the 12V battery every so often, I don't think there would be much point. Most people drive their cars at least once every couple of weeks. If they don't, a cheap trickle charger will keep the 12V system happy while it sits idle. No point in adding equipment to solve a 0.01% case that's easily solved by the people who need it.

You might be interested in the following post, which I found while researching which battery to buy to jump start mine:

http://irobin.org/prius/startup/startup.html

The required 12V startup current for a Prius turns out to be surprisingly low. The author measures it for a 2005 model directly at around 30 amp (with one test showing a brief spike to 60 amp).

Based on this, I bought a pack of 10 5Ah sub C NiMH batteries for jump starting (unfortunately there is no outlet in my car park for a trickle charger).

I agree. Consumer Reports did a survey of Model S owners and found that it was reliable enough to warrant a strong recommendation, and that "no owner in our survey has reported problems with the electric drivetrain". http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/10/tesla-model-...

Edmunds also seems to have had a long history of writing negative Tesla articles, oftentimes ignoring any positive aspects of the car in favor of oddly nitpicky complaints. See http://cleantechnica.com/2014/03/22/hatin-tesla-model-s-seem... Some have speculated that they might have a hidden agenda when it comes to Tesla, though obviously that's very difficult to prove one way or the other...but it certainly seems odd that nobody in the Consumer Reports survey experienced a single drivetrain failure while Edmunds went through three in a row.

Regardless of your view of their writing, the warranty issues are not debatable, nor are Motor Trends. There was a highly publicized buy back recently as well. Searching it is not hard to find the hard luck stories. As for the magazines results, they use their vehicles a lot more than every day people and tend to stress them more too

Let alone the fact that many early adopters, if not the majority, are far less likely to complain about issues because they don't want to question or be questioned about their choice.

I am still waiting for the their 35k/40k/etc car. It will be very interesting to see their quality control issues with a near mass production car. Right now they are still down in the uber luxury levels of production and costs.

Consumer Reports downgraded the 2013 Model S' reliability score to "Below Average" because of owners reporting more problems.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/07/20/will-a-majo...

>I agree. Consumer Reports did a survey of Model S owners and found that it was reliable enough to warrant a strong recommendation, and that "no owner in our survey has reported problems with the electric drivetrain"

Consumer reports has a reliability rating of "average" on the Model S, and according to the Tesla forums themselves, the Model S was on the list of "Used Cars to Avoid".

CR requires a subscription, but this stuff is all over the internet:

http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2014/04/tesla-model-s-rel...

It's a great car, I'm sure, but hyped to no end.

I just checked my Consumer Reports account. Tesla S is rated average reliability. Specifically, the 2012 model had high reliability, while the 2013 model had below-average reliability.

The most interesting thing about this to me is how similar it is to other long-term road test articles -- IOW, how well Tesla has built a car that conforms to people's conceptions about how cars should operate. That's extraordinarily impressive; to me, it's more impressive than the (admittedly impressive) technology in the cars themselves.

I'm not a fan of the Musk/Tony Stark schtick, or of SpaceX, or the hagiographic treatment he receives from the technical press, but I am a fan of Tesla as a carmaker.

Most long term tests of 1 year/30,000 miles have multiple drivetrain failures?

I think your parent is saying "It is a victory that Edmunds is conducting a road test just like with any other car".

Exactly.

That seems a little easy-going. Yes, it's good that an electic car is being tested alongside other cars, but it seems as though we have moved beyond that point. In particular Tesla is rightly showing no humility about their cars.

First, it sounds like Tesla service is pretty great. All that work at $0 cost, done in 1.5 days, is pretty incredible. Good maintenance should bring a positive ROI.

Yes, there's a downside, which is out-of-warranty cost, and ultimately resale value. It's both a science experience we are funding here, and a public company. I would love to have seen some hard numbers from the stated financials about warranty costs, and expected future warranty costs.

I think it's a good question to ask -- is the longer term service cost of the car understood? Maybe we're just starting to get to that point, but I'm not sure the data is really out there. I do expect of any company that Tesla would be the best at predicting their long-term performance and costs.

It's one thing if the car isn't perfect, it's another if it becomes a maintenance nightmare. That could happen only outside of warranty, and not even directly impact their expenses, but it ultimately does impact sales. I would expect if there's an issue that Musk has discussed it at length already. This clearly isn't new.

I don't like the scaremongering about the cost of this repair. Did they even ask Tesla how much the repair would cost, and they refused to answer? It certainly doesn't say that they even asked the cost. I doubt it would matter, but I'm sure there's a law that they have to disclose the retail cost of the repair.

I know car reviews rarely quote the CEO, but for this specific issue of drive train, I think it's worth getting a quote from the company in the article.

Since the car was under warranty, why is $0 cost so great? Isn't that completely standard for warranty work?

I'm guessing these quality issues are caused by the massive amount of fatigue and overtime at both the Tesla Design Studio and the Fremont factory. Tesla employees work 6 days a week, and we're not talking 7-hour days here. So they are able to polish the product really well, but the fatigue shows up in the tiny details that are rushed, leading to long-term quality control issues.

Or it could be just growing pains, I suppose. But I've always been critical of Tesla's (and others') reckless attitude towards excessively long hours.

So it seems to me like there isn't enough raw data about the auto industry available to consumers. What are the odds of having a lemon Model S like Edmunds' vs the odds of having a GM that drives itself into a tree, for example? I'd obviously rather have to replace parts than have my accelerator go nuts, but is there any real source of data outside of anecdotal evidence via Consumer Reports or relative outliers from subpoenas in the case of Toyota and GM?

>>We decided to pass on the annual service

It's interesting - I bought a brand new Nissan Qashqai recently, and I HAVE to do an annual inspection to keep the warranty, regardless of the condition of the car. Basically after a year they will look at it, say "yep, it still works" and charge me $300 to stamp my warranty booklet.

"We decided to pass on the annual service. The alignment had already been performed when we installed the new tires. System monitoring? We were just there in May when Tesla took care of a laundry list of items. Plus, they were already installing the firmware upgrade as part of the "Courtesy Inspection." Hardware upgrade? Any critical part should be (and was) covered under warranty. More on that later. So the only thing we were missing out on was the AC filters and the wiper blades, not worth $600."

I love how they (and most) rationalize skipping this service (aka maintenance is for suckers). The more time a trained mechanic spends under, in, on and thinking about your car the better. Especially when it's a techno-feast such as the Model S.

Oof, I thought resale value on Jaguars was bad ($70k to $15k in 5 years) but these are basically write-offs after the warranty expires.

It's a grand experiment but I don't think the market for $70k assets that lose 90% of their value in 5 years is going to be too hot.

Cars aren't really 'assets'. They are consumer goods that may or may not have some resale value, but it's a mistake to think of them as a store of value, or (outside of rare cases) as something that might appreciate in value.

Cars are assets. Depreciating assets, yes. But assets. They are an economic good that produces value (travel).

Remember that an asset is not the same thing as a store of value. A store of value can be an asset, of course.

Cars also have some value as shelter and storage.

You're making up the numbers, and then making up far-fetched conclusions about there being no market, which contradict the reality of the market - if I remember it right, Model S outsold every single luxury sedan in its price bracket.

Your parent is speculating about future sales backlash, if service life proves to be short or repairs too expensive. Initial sales isn't counter-proof to that.

Actually, Singapore has proven it can be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_Entitlement

The right to own a car for only 10 years has been bid up to about that. You can find cars with COE with less than 5 years remaining, that are still worth multiples of their non-Singaporean value. People will get into debt to drive a car.

Isn't that kind of a whole different kettle of fish?

I'm not sure what comparison you're trying to draw.

Singapore has shown that restricting the supply of vehicles will drive the price higher. Yes, owning a vehicle is extremely expensive in Singapore and many in that economy are willing to pay the price (by definition since it's an auction based system).

I believe your parent was pointing out that the depreciation of the Tesla appears to compare very poorly with alternative vehicles, and potential buyers are unlikely to choose such an expensive option when there are far cheaper alternatives available. Singaporeans have no alternative.

Well, it was a bit tongue in cheek, but I was specifically answering: "I don't think the market for $70k assets that lose 90% of their value in 5 years is going to be too hot". The COE loses 100% of its value in 10 years, but you still find plenty of buyers.

Singaporeans have the alternative of not owning a car - both public transport and taxis are highly available, cheap and very pleasant to use. If you see a car as merely a means of transport in exchange for economic value, it makes no sense to own one at current market prices (it's cheaper to take a cab every day, for example - even if you live near the airport and work in CBD, a 15km commute, that's $40/day or $80,000/10 years). Why do some Singaporeans take out 30 year mortgages for the right to drive an average sedan for 10 years?

What the COE taught me is the value of intangibles like status boost and the pleasure of driving for its own sake. This is more relevant to Tesla's target demographic than the considerations of the average second hand Toyota Corolla buyer (closer to where I would fit in, and why I'll never own a car in Singapore, no matter my net worth).

They actually seem to be doing great in the aftermarket. There's a wait list to purchase new, which is surely helping.

Well at the moment, yes, but we'll have to wait and see until the Model S and co are > 5 years old, or even >8 years old and the warranty on the battery expires, or other age-related issues crop up. I'm thinking it'll be a very expensive used car to keep on the road, which will limit it to collectors or rich people and/or severely impact the resale value.

> I'm thinking it'll be a very expensive used car to keep on the road, which will limit it to collectors or rich people and/or severely impact the resale value.

I think $100k cars are already limited to rich people.

Not after 5 years of depreciation.

The lemon law is not quite as cut and dried as the author of this article states. If you're not happy with your car you should not make this judgment for yourself. Consult an attorney.

You can be outside the 18k miles but if the problems began inside the first 18k miles, you qualify. I have personally had a car bought back a couple of months ago. After rejecting the manufacturers' initial offer of monetary compensation and sending a letter to the company on attorney letterhead, the mfr immediately folded and offered to buy it back for the full amount required by the CA lemon law.

FWIW - I've done 18,000 miles in 1.5 years - 0 reliability issues, so far.

One car isn't enough to form a true conclusion, but what about 76? [1] This poll is biased in the sense that "0" isn't an option; still, it's an alarming amount of failed drive units. If this is a real problem, it won't scale---they can't keep replacing these things under warranty.

[1] http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/29834-Drive-Un...

Don't forget about the Toyota RAV4 EV, which uses the same Tesla drive unit. There are lots of reports of similar problems on the RAV4 EV forums.

Tesla is a public company, so this cost must make its way into an annual report, right?

There is also a sampling bias, people who have experienced problems with the car are more likely to hang around in online forums trying to share their experience.

So the rate the problem is being reported at should be comparable to other premium cars? How does it compare with BMW, an enthusiast brand with high online engagement, many unofficial forums and so on? Audi?

1: The people who are most likely to bitch about it are also the people that congregate online.

2: Troll factor - people who just want to see the company fail.

3: Tesla's own professional paranoia. It's cheaper and easier to replace a faulty unit now to inspect it and determine how to make a future unit more resilient than it is to deal with bad press in the future.

Then you have some people who baby their cars, and then you have the people who drive cars professionally who are looking for ways they can break things. 76 is not a signal when the company is making 700 cars a week, it's well below the noise threshold.

So there's enough points to counter. The simple truth is, anyone who's trying to come to a conclusion on this car this early is stupid. The fact that this test was called "Long-Term" should tell you something about the industry.

The survey isn't just "biased" in that 0 isn't an option, it represents a fundamentally different question. The results of this survey can be phrased as: "Out of 76 cars which had their drive units replaced, how many drive units did they have replaced?"

From this poll you can't even say you have a sample size of 76 cars as you only have a sample of 76 cars whose drive units have broken.

A different survey on the same website includes zero [1], and is more appropriate to answering the question of "How likely is it that a Model S will have its drive unit replaced?"

[1] http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/32608-Drive-Un...

I'm going to go ahead and guess here that Tesla is going to have to give up on launching the 4,785 pound Model S to 60 mph in 4.2 seconds. There might not be a possible gearbox that can do that for the life of the car and fit the cost/size constraints of a sedan.

Another case of "just because its possible doesn't mean you should". It will be fixed with 3 lines of code (to create a gear friendly torque curve) and a whole lot of PR to explain it.

Gearbox?

Teslas have a single speed gearbox that reduces the electric motor down 9.7-something to 1. This is likely the source of the "milling" noise. These gears degrade rapidly at the insane torque levels of an electric motor starting full blast from stop. Something they would never face from their ICE brethren.

Seems like something that could be fixed by a software update.

Static friction is the same in equivalent spec'd ICEs, so if the Tesla is overtorquing, wouldn't they be able to back off on wattage for a few ms when starting out, and retain virtually the same accelerations?

There are not a lot of equivalent spec'd ICE vehicles.

The BMW 550i[1] has very similar size, peak power, and peak torque ratings compared to the Tesla[2][3], so let's use that as a comparison.

Obviously, torque availability at 0 rpm with a flat curve is the notable difference, but remember that launch control in the BMW will also occur at peak power RPMs with a clutch or torque converter taking up the difference in road "RPMs", so it's not that dissimilar a comparison at least in regard to the strength of gearboxes, half-shafts, differentials, axles, CV joints, et cetera. (Consider too that the BMW has changeable gears, not a fixed ratio; the complexity should give Tesla a nod for transmission strength)

  BMW 550i (base) vs Tesla Model S P85
  Cost:  $63,900 vs $87,070
  Curb Weight: 4277 vs 4647 lbs
  Peak Power: 445 vs 416
  Peak Torque: 480 vs 443 lb-ft
  0-60 mph: 4.5 vs 4.2 seconds
  Top Speed: 130 mph for both

So I think my point stands; I suspect a software update in the Tesla could likely alleviate strain to the gearbox, without much tangible sacrifice in specs.

I'm curious what "to the wheel" power looks like after the final differential ratio, but have to leave :)

1 http://www.bmwusa.com/Standard/Content/Vehicles/2014/5/550iS...

2 http://www.teslamotors.com/models/specs

3 http://www.teslamotors.com/models/features#/battery

Thanks for the info. I think we can conclude that BMW is better at mass producing transmissions than Tesla. The BMW is only slightly lighter and slower to accelerate.

Overall the Tesla seems like a Range Rover (owned one, wife worked at dealership). Amazing technical features, but with all that bleeding edge technology comes high maintenance needs. Don't get me wrong, Range Rovers are amazing vehicles to own, but you have to accept that you'll be using that loner-Rover a handful of times each year.

When you skip annual maintenance of your car, you don't have much to complain about when it breaks.

That is why it should be inspected, to catch problems before they become serious.

This kind of stuff is actually what is less likely to make me purchase a Tesla. If it becomes common for these kinds of failures, it isn't a risk that I want to have.

What is magic about annual maintenance? In my gasoline car, I change the oil around every 7500 miles (when the car tells me) and rotate the tires at the same time. Total cost about $50 a year. Brakes when they need it for around $200, and when I need it four tires for a little under $1000. Throw in a yearly emissions and safety inspection for $37.

Most gasoline cars will have a 5/60, or 10/100 powertrain warranty. But even outside of warranty, I know I am not going to have to pay $15,000 to fix it. I'm also not stuck going to the manufacturer, price shopping is possible and I'm sure would save money over a dealership.

That car has been driven 30,000 miles in ONE year.

How would a gas car do with that kind of non-stop driving?

Ask anyone that runs a rental car fleet.

Rental car fleets usually dump their cars between 30K-40K miles, depending on the brand. Its cheaper to just buy new cars and sell the used ones.

Fine. My dad used to put 150k miles on a mid 90s Ford Escort annually. The car was taken out by a deer at 480k and totaled.

Something tells me that the deer's representative would object that it was actually the deer who got taken out by a car.

That almost sounds impossible. Do you mind me asking what he did, driving for so many hours a day? At 150k a year, that amounts to over 410 miles a day, which is 6-10 hours of driving at normal speeds, quite a feat!

Assuming that the car was driven that much every single day of the year, including weekends, holidays, vacations, family emergencies, etc.

Yeah. I was giving the benefit of the doubt. The numbers look better if you assume every day. If it's not, then it's nearly superhuman :)

Courier of some sort? Seven days a week, 80 km/h still makes for 8+ hours/day which is pretty insane.

Or a 4-hour each way commute for a Mon-Fri work week. Or 3 hours each way for seven days a week at 110km. That'd be soul destroying.

I have a co-worker who has a 4 day a week - 112 mile commute into work (Sacramento into Redwood City) - by avoiding rush hour he does it in a little over 2 hours each way, he puts almost 50,000 miles/year onto his vehicle. I thought that was the most insane soul crushing thing I had ever heard of.

Why does your co-worker do that? Redwood City, or even areas in the south bay are reasonably affordable, especially if you adjust for the cost of fuel and attrition from that commute.

I'm guessing family ties in the current location and then the abstraction of fuel use from fuel costs?

I complain about my 6km (4 mile) commute which takes about 10-15 minutes. Cannot fathom driving hours daily to do work. Even with ridesharing or podcasts or whatever else, that strikes me as a huge waste of life time.

He owns a house there, has family ties there, etc...

One thing I've noticed about many of my colleagues in California - when they get a new job, they don't move. Indeed, I've actually had colleagues who've changed the company they work at to reduce their commute, rather than just moving.

Unintended consequences of prop 13

And why shouldn't they change jobs over homes?

When moving you're not just leaving a home behind, but (often) a social environment. Once there's family, you have to coordinate the move with their job/school/etc situation as well.

Switching jobs is the option with the least friction in those scenarios.

That seems odd to you? In the US, most people don't move around that much. This is certainly the case for people with families. I've been in the same house for 8 years and am in the process of moving across town - it's a multi-year process that's extremely personally taxing for my entire family, and we're only moving 2 miles away. I've had 5 jobs in the time I've lived in my current house, and my commute has ranged from 15 minutes (by car) to my current 1.25 hours (by train/bike), depending on the job. A major factor of choosing where I'm going to work is what it will do to my daily commute. I wouldn't consider moving for literally any job, but I wouldn't hesitate to change jobs so I could move.

As a family, perhaps. As a single person - I want a commute of 5 minutes or less, and when I get a new job - I always move. In the last 8 years I've lived in seven places - one of which was a Condo that I owned / sold.

I think the Prop13 issue explains why most home owners can no longer sell their homes.

You're right! He commuted about 150 miles each day for a few years. I actually got the number wrong -- it was more like 75k miles a year. (I called him and asked, I thought he had that car for a shorter time than he actually did)

We moved after my dad and my mom got jobs, but he basically got laid off due to a restructuring on his first day. Due to some complications with pension/benefits, it was very expensive for him to go somewhere else, so he ended up going back to his old job.

I did know a few people who had extreme driving conditions. Our neighbor was an RFD postal carrier who had to drive a personal vehicle for delivery. His mileage wasn't extreme, but he replaced his brake pads monthly.

That is 400 miles a day and 7 hours of driving @ 60mph.

It is actually more miles than you can get on one tank of gas in an Escort.

I owned one, decent car but it needs a lot of maintenance.

Not that badly, really:

8x oil change

4x inspect brakes & rotate tires (tesla would need this, too)

2x inspect axle boots and axle shaft joints, inspect clutch operation, inspect steering and suspension (tesla, too)

and 1x (right at 30k):

inspect drive belts

inspect timing belt

replace automatic transmission fluid

replace brake fluid (tesla, too)

replace engine air filter

replace engine coolant (tesla, although different)

replace front/rear diff fluid

replace manual transmission fluid

>> 8x oil change

what? Are you changing your oil every 3.5k miles?

Recommendations for some brand new cars is an oil change once every 10k miles. This is because of the design of the newer engines, the synthetic oil, etc..

Mine says in the warranty booklet that I should change oil once a year or every 18,000 miles, whichever comes first. I've just done my first 10k miles and I rang the official Nissan garage asking if I need to do an oil change - they said that if I haven't done the mileage indicated in the warranty booklet yet then there is no need to change oil yet. That's why I am surprised that OP suggests 8 oil changes for 30k miles driven.

The "rule of thumb" I was told when I got my first car was to change the oil every 3 months or every 3000 miles, whichever came first. My current vehicle requires oil changes at 7.5k miles or 7.5 months, sooner under "severe" driving, so that rule has definitely changed.

For a car in taxi service, I can see that. As they spend a lot of time idling and in city traffic. But 30k miles in one year - I would expect those to be mostly highway miles and those are easier on engines -- so you can stretch the oil change intervals by 25% or more.

Taxis do it a lot. There are plenty of Prius taxis out there, and they seem to do pretty well too.

Ask just about anybody with a 1-hour (freeway) commute. For example, anybody who lives in SF and commutes by car to Cupertino.

Hours don't really matter though. I have a 2 hour commute one way but it's only about 55 miles. That's about 38k miles commuting to work if I drive every day, which I don't. Getting to 150k in a year could be a challenge.

edit: I thought you were replying to the guy that said he did 150k per year. Tons of people do 30k per year with basic maintenance.

I have a Citroen (the brand does not have too good reputation for reliability), and obviously it's anecdotal, but in 30k miles (in 1.5 years) nothing happened (except oil/filter changes). I expect that to continue for the next 100k miles.

As long as the actual driving is normal, it shouldn't matter. Cars don't need rest and time isn't kind to them. Continuous driving is the ideal state for the longevity (in terms of miles) of a car. 30,000 miles in one year should be better, not worse, than 30,000 miles spaced out over 2-3 years as would be more typical.

A modern, reliable car is virtually good as new at 30,000 miles with routine maintenance. Doing it all in one year wouldn't change that.

30,000 miles a year is really not that much if you are a taxi driver or traveling salesperson/rep. A friend put 180,000km on MB C240 in two years. No issues.

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