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I found this part very interesting: In the case of the Model S’s suspension, Tesla took care of repairs for some customers who complained to the company, on th

I found this part very interesting: In the case of the Model S’s suspension, Tesla took care of repairs for some customers who complained to the company, on the condition that they agreed in writing not to talk about the issue or how Tesla dealt with it. The agreements, however, stirred up discussion on online bulletin boards. Dailykanban.com, an auto industry blog, posted excerpts from what it said was an agreement. It said, in part: “You agree to keep confidential our provision of the Goodwill, the terms of this agreement and the incidents or claims leading or related to our provision of the Goodwill.” “Goodwill” is the term Tesla used to refer to any repairs or compensation it made because of a suspension failure. The agreement posted on the blog released Tesla from any liability and barred the car owners from filing legal proceedings against the company. --- More and more I get the sense that Musk is in firm control of everything I read about his companies.

Shivetya 10y ago
What they have done is pure crap. Considering how long Tesla has been in the business this type of activity should never have occurred. It will now certainly get the NHTSA digging into more than just the suspension issue.
sigmar 10y ago
>More and more I get the sense that Musk is in firm control of everything I read about his companies. Everything? Isn't the text you quoted proof that you've read something that isn't controlled by Musk?
- hackuser 10y ago
  I'd say that was the cleverest comment I've ever read, but I'm afraid the hyperbole, satire, and sarcasm might be overlooked. I do admit that I usually think hyperbole is far too much overused here and on the Internet in general. My apologies to HN for this grievous oversight.
untilHellbanned 10y ago
Though they have actually shipped a product, this Jobsian-no divulging obsession sounds like that other, recently imploded T-named startup...Th..th..eranos. Worked for Apple because iPhone can't kill anyone. Not gonna fly, er drive, for Tesla. Tightly regulated market, good luck with maintaining that secrecy-based business plan.
saulrh 10y ago
He kind of had to be if electric vehicles were going to have a chance. Look at the "batteries are fire hazards" shitstorm - because his company is new and interesting, the press is going to be much harder on it than they would be on any other manufacturer. Given how much I hear about Tesla, I suspect that his information control roughly balances out the muckraking into something like the truth.
- gordon_freeman 10y ago
  NHTSA did review all the fire incidents involving Tesla cars and found that the outside shell in the bottom was too thin and the debris broke it and damaged the batteries to cause fire. As far as I know that's a legitimate issue media has brought up and Tesla then took steps to make the shell stronger so that debris couldn't damage the batteries.
  - LeifCarrotson 10y ago
    Sure, if by "too thin" you mean it fails under impacts from objects like concrete blocks and receiver hitches that would puncture the passenger compartment, gas tank, or probably even the oil pan of a gasoline engine. The media loves to portray new things as dangerous. Perhaps it actually was too thin because these completely reasonable failures were able to happen, causing bad press that they ought to have guarded against with total overkill undercarriage shielding.
    - userbinator 10y ago
      Physically damaging batteries can directly cause a fire, whereas a punctured gas tank won't unless the leaking fuel finds a source of ignition. This is a failure mode unique to electric cars with batteries located there.
      - mdorazio 10y ago
        Wait, what? There were over 160,000 vehicle fires on highways in 2013 [1]. ICE vehicles catch on fire all the time, often even without a punctured gas tank, and definitely can catch on fire with a punctured gas tank. If you damage a vehicle's fuel source, whether it's lithium-ion or gasoline, you're going to have a bad time. [1] http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-reports/fire-statistics/vehicle-fires/highway-vehicle-fires http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-re...
bigiain 10y ago
FWIW, I've seen that sort of language about "goodwill repairs" for instances where a company agrees to fix things that are out of warranty - a friend signed something similar to that to get a replacement frame on a Ducati ST4 which was ~3 years out of warranty. They covered the cost of a new frame and several thousand dollars worth of labour to install, but asked for an NDA (rumours from the time suggest they didn't enforce the NDA requirement, and fixed people's bikes anyway if they refused to sign).
- honkhonkpants 10y ago
  Yamaha does the exact thing with cracked frames. They present an NDA but if you refuse they replace it anyway, which of course is the right thing to do.
- lsaferite 10y ago
  Funny that you get quotes like "Ms. Krebs said she had never heard of a car company requiring customers to sign confidentiality agreements in exchange for repairs of potential safety defects" in the article and then here you immediately get two anecdotes of the same thing from two other automobile manufacturers. (Motorcycles are automobiles, right?)
- joezydeco 10y ago
  Wouldn't an NDA also prevent an avalanche of owners making similar requests from the manufacturer? If you happen to convince the manufacturer to give you a free fix out-of-warranty and then you tell all the other owners, you could be asking for big headaches, and probably even more lawsuits, when the rest ask for the same treatment and are denied...
ultramancool 10y ago
I think the reliability of the current Model S could be a major problem - there's a good reason Consumer Reports took away their recommended rating on it even after their testers absolutely loved the car. Sure, they're fixing everything for free right now, but wait and see what happens with the Model 3, it'll be more mass market and we'll get a good sense of what they can really produce.
- hackuser 10y ago
  They are in a tough spot with so much riding on every model. If GM makes a bad car, it's one of many current products and one dud in a century-long track record. If Tesla makes a flop ... they might be bought by GM (which, after all, was originally an agglomeration of smaller car companies). And unlike a small software company, they can't just fix the problem (at least, not a hardware problem) with an update. Then again, they may have more room for error than someone making spaceships.
verytrivial 10y ago
> “Goodwill” is the term Tesla used to refer to any repairs or compensation it made because of a suspension failure. That is a misleading and incomplete characterization. The repairs in this case were for suspension failure, yes, but it was termed "Goodwill" because the work was performed outside the warranty period (it we are to believe Elon^D^D^D^DThe Tesla Team).

Shivetya 10y ago

What they have done is pure crap. Considering how long Tesla has been in the business this type of activity should never have occurred. It will now certainly get the NHTSA digging into more than just the suspension issue.

sigmar 10y ago

>More and more I get the sense that Musk is in firm control of everything I read about his companies. Everything? Isn't the text you quoted proof that you've read something that isn't controlled by Musk?

hackuser 10y ago
I'd say that was the cleverest comment I've ever read, but I'm afraid the hyperbole, satire, and sarcasm might be overlooked. I do admit that I usually think hyperbole is far too much overused here and on the Internet in general. My apologies to HN for this grievous oversight.

untilHellbanned 10y ago

Though they have actually shipped a product, this Jobsian-no divulging obsession sounds like that other, recently imploded T-named startup...Th..th..eranos. Worked for Apple because iPhone can't kill anyone. Not gonna fly, er drive, for Tesla. Tightly regulated market, good luck with maintaining that secrecy-based business plan.

saulrh 10y ago

He kind of had to be if electric vehicles were going to have a chance. Look at the "batteries are fire hazards" shitstorm - because his company is new and interesting, the press is going to be much harder on it than they would be on any other manufacturer. Given how much I hear about Tesla, I suspect that his information control roughly balances out the muckraking into something like the truth.

gordon_freeman 10y ago
NHTSA did review all the fire incidents involving Tesla cars and found that the outside shell in the bottom was too thin and the debris broke it and damaged the batteries to cause fire. As far as I know that's a legitimate issue media has brought up and Tesla then took steps to make the shell stronger so that debris couldn't damage the batteries.
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago
  Sure, if by "too thin" you mean it fails under impacts from objects like concrete blocks and receiver hitches that would puncture the passenger compartment, gas tank, or probably even the oil pan of a gasoline engine. The media loves to portray new things as dangerous. Perhaps it actually was too thin because these completely reasonable failures were able to happen, causing bad press that they ought to have guarded against with total overkill undercarriage shielding.
  - userbinator 10y ago
    Physically damaging batteries can directly cause a fire, whereas a punctured gas tank won't unless the leaking fuel finds a source of ignition. This is a failure mode unique to electric cars with batteries located there.
    - mdorazio 10y ago
      Wait, what? There were over 160,000 vehicle fires on highways in 2013 [1]. ICE vehicles catch on fire all the time, often even without a punctured gas tank, and definitely can catch on fire with a punctured gas tank. If you damage a vehicle's fuel source, whether it's lithium-ion or gasoline, you're going to have a bad time. [1] http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-reports/fire-statistics/vehicle-fires/highway-vehicle-fires http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-re...

bigiain 10y ago

FWIW, I've seen that sort of language about "goodwill repairs" for instances where a company agrees to fix things that are out of warranty - a friend signed something similar to that to get a replacement frame on a Ducati ST4 which was ~3 years out of warranty. They covered the cost of a new frame and several thousand dollars worth of labour to install, but asked for an NDA (rumours from the time suggest they didn't enforce the NDA requirement, and fixed people's bikes anyway if they refused to sign).

honkhonkpants 10y ago
Yamaha does the exact thing with cracked frames. They present an NDA but if you refuse they replace it anyway, which of course is the right thing to do.
lsaferite 10y ago
Funny that you get quotes like "Ms. Krebs said she had never heard of a car company requiring customers to sign confidentiality agreements in exchange for repairs of potential safety defects" in the article and then here you immediately get two anecdotes of the same thing from two other automobile manufacturers. (Motorcycles are automobiles, right?)
joezydeco 10y ago
Wouldn't an NDA also prevent an avalanche of owners making similar requests from the manufacturer? If you happen to convince the manufacturer to give you a free fix out-of-warranty and then you tell all the other owners, you could be asking for big headaches, and probably even more lawsuits, when the rest ask for the same treatment and are denied...

ultramancool 10y ago

I think the reliability of the current Model S could be a major problem - there's a good reason Consumer Reports took away their recommended rating on it even after their testers absolutely loved the car. Sure, they're fixing everything for free right now, but wait and see what happens with the Model 3, it'll be more mass market and we'll get a good sense of what they can really produce.

hackuser 10y ago
They are in a tough spot with so much riding on every model. If GM makes a bad car, it's one of many current products and one dud in a century-long track record. If Tesla makes a flop ... they might be bought by GM (which, after all, was originally an agglomeration of smaller car companies). And unlike a small software company, they can't just fix the problem (at least, not a hardware problem) with an update. Then again, they may have more room for error than someone making spaceships.

verytrivial 10y ago

> “Goodwill” is the term Tesla used to refer to any repairs or compensation it made because of a suspension failure. That is a misleading and incomplete characterization. The repairs in this case were for suspension failure, yes, but it was termed "Goodwill" because the work was performed outside the warranty period (it we are to believe Elon^D^D^D^DThe Tesla Team).