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I'd say your expectations around car ownership are significantly out of line with a typical car buyer or someone who may be reading Consumer Reports. I don't th

by macNchz 11y ago

I'd say your expectations around car ownership are significantly out of line with a typical car buyer or someone who may be reading Consumer Reports. I don't think most people buying cars have any real expectation about communication or any relationship with the manufacturer of their car, and having the drivetrain replaced twice would seemingly be a dealbreaker in terms of brand loyalty for a great many car owners. Obviously early adopters make for a different market, but I think your experience only serves to confirm Consumer Reports' latest report.

secabeen 11y ago
Out of curiosity, why would a drivetrain replacement be a dealbreaker? The replacement is usually a one or two day job in the service center, and they give you a loaner Tesla while they have it. Why do you care if they pre-emptively replace your drivetrain?
- foobarian 11y ago
  It's hard to gauge how widespread these failures are if only people who had problems report in. My anecdata point is that my 2014 Ford had no issues whatsoever and I would find it extremely annoying if I had to waste time driving to/from service centers for things that most modern cars haven't been failing at for years. Even more so if I paid as much as the Teslas cost.
- macNchz 11y ago
  Any sort of repeated major problem with an essentially brand new car would be a dealbreaker to many people because it's so rare with most modern cars. It's an inconvenience in day-to day-life caused by something you paid a premium on to buy new, and it's an indication that once the warranty runs out, you're stuck with potentially expensive repairs. Even if you don't intend to keep the car, reliability problems hurt the resale value.
toomuchtodo 11y ago
I don't see the problem. Early adopters are shaking out the bugs in the Model S and the Model X. If Tesla adopts the Uber model, you're never going to care if the car has problems, it'll be Tesla's problems. All of this hand wringing assumes car ownership is going to continue as it has in the past. I'd say the tea leaves are showing something different with self driving cars advancing as quickly as they are. Tesla Model: * Sell expensive cars to people who are rabid enthusiasts. * Hustle hard to get Superchargers and Gigafactory done (funded by expensive cars from step 1) * Perfect autopilot/autonomous systems * Sell Model 3 to those who want to buy it, rent by the mile to those who don't want to buy * Profit hard.
- jarek 11y ago
  If the car drives itself and you rent a trip rather than buy and own a specific vehicle, why would most people care to pay a premium for a Tesla trip rather than just getting a Nissan Leaf With Google or Hyundai e10 With Uber or a self-car2go or...?
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    My model assumes Tesla is the innovator, and has self-driving cars first (possibly in a partnership with Google). Uber is playing catchup, and incumbent auto manufacturers won't want to lose 90%+ of their demand to by-the-mile rentals.
    - jarek 11y ago
      How much does being first matter here, though? A self-driving taxi service is not easy to scale because in addition to good maps of anywhere you want to service, you need to own and maintain physical cars (starting with nightly cleaning on weekends). This isn't an app, and being popular in California won't help you operate vehicles in Barcelona. On the other hand, once someone makes a good-enough software platform, they can just license it to any local Addison Lee-type taxi/minicab company that already owns the cars and has experience maintaining them. If that someone is Google, they might just give it away like the rest of their products. Uber got relatively large adoption by largely avoiding trying to scale too much horizontally, by using local drivers with their own cars - routing is the only thing they've done (and it's not as good as local knowledge). They claim to not be a transportation company at all, they just connect contractors. That sort of thing won't be possible with self-driving Tesla taxis. Plus, we don't yet know if Tesla is any good at making non-premium cars. Regarding incumbents trying to avoid cannibalisation - are you familiar with carshare systems operated by BMW and Daimler?

by macNchz 11y ago

secabeen 11y ago

Out of curiosity, why would a drivetrain replacement be a dealbreaker? The replacement is usually a one or two day job in the service center, and they give you a loaner Tesla while they have it. Why do you care if they pre-emptively replace your drivetrain?

foobarian 11y ago
It's hard to gauge how widespread these failures are if only people who had problems report in. My anecdata point is that my 2014 Ford had no issues whatsoever and I would find it extremely annoying if I had to waste time driving to/from service centers for things that most modern cars haven't been failing at for years. Even more so if I paid as much as the Teslas cost.
macNchz 11y ago
Any sort of repeated major problem with an essentially brand new car would be a dealbreaker to many people because it's so rare with most modern cars. It's an inconvenience in day-to day-life caused by something you paid a premium on to buy new, and it's an indication that once the warranty runs out, you're stuck with potentially expensive repairs. Even if you don't intend to keep the car, reliability problems hurt the resale value.

toomuchtodo 11y ago

I don't see the problem. Early adopters are shaking out the bugs in the Model S and the Model X. If Tesla adopts the Uber model, you're never going to care if the car has problems, it'll be Tesla's problems. All of this hand wringing assumes car ownership is going to continue as it has in the past. I'd say the tea leaves are showing something different with self driving cars advancing as quickly as they are. Tesla Model: * Sell expensive cars to people who are rabid enthusiasts. * Hustle hard to get Superchargers and Gigafactory done (funded by expensive cars from step 1) * Perfect autopilot/autonomous systems * Sell Model 3 to those who want to buy it, rent by the mile to those who don't want to buy * Profit hard.

jarek 11y ago
If the car drives itself and you rent a trip rather than buy and own a specific vehicle, why would most people care to pay a premium for a Tesla trip rather than just getting a Nissan Leaf With Google or Hyundai e10 With Uber or a self-car2go or...?
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  My model assumes Tesla is the innovator, and has self-driving cars first (possibly in a partnership with Google). Uber is playing catchup, and incumbent auto manufacturers won't want to lose 90%+ of their demand to by-the-mile rentals.
  - jarek 11y ago
    How much does being first matter here, though? A self-driving taxi service is not easy to scale because in addition to good maps of anywhere you want to service, you need to own and maintain physical cars (starting with nightly cleaning on weekends). This isn't an app, and being popular in California won't help you operate vehicles in Barcelona. On the other hand, once someone makes a good-enough software platform, they can just license it to any local Addison Lee-type taxi/minicab company that already owns the cars and has experience maintaining them. If that someone is Google, they might just give it away like the rest of their products. Uber got relatively large adoption by largely avoiding trying to scale too much horizontally, by using local drivers with their own cars - routing is the only thing they've done (and it's not as good as local knowledge). They claim to not be a transportation company at all, they just connect contractors. That sort of thing won't be possible with self-driving Tesla taxis. Plus, we don't yet know if Tesla is any good at making non-premium cars. Regarding incumbents trying to avoid cannibalisation - are you familiar with carshare systems operated by BMW and Daimler?