15 ms·

A Grain of Salt

803 points by dwaxe 10y ago

gnoway 10y ago
Looking at Mr. Niedermeyer's linkedin profile[0] and what he's doing/where he's worked was kind of enlightening as to his purpose and motivations. It probably works for him, though. I think 99+% of people, myself included, do not often look at who is writing what they read online. And I'd guess a majority percentage don't think about the fact that they are reading opinion vs. news. [0] https://www.linkedin.com/in/edward-niedermeyer-35942261 https://www.linkedin.com/in/edward-niedermeyer-35942261
- blatant 10y ago
  Please explain how it was enlightening. I do not have a LinkedIn account, so I might not be able to see his while profile, but it looks fine to me.
  - gnoway 10y ago
    I was going on the public profile as well. The profile notes that Mr. Niedermeyer works in the PR and Communications industry, and the bio blurb says he has written Op/Ed for several major publications. His listed work history is at TTAC, followed by Argot Industries and, mostly concurrently with Argot, an unnamed startup. He founded Argot, which is an automotive industry research/analysis/communication/consulting firm serving private clients. His startup promises to redefine strategic communications. I came away from this thinking Mr. Niedermeyer's work is more about influencing readers than informing them; that he is more PR flack than journalist. It's not always clear what a blog or blog writer is all about. A lot of sites I read are literally subject enthusiasts recounting personal experience, testing something and reporting on the result, etc. You can often just take that information at face value: this is what this does, this is how this works, I did this and/or this happened, etc. Based just on work history, I don't think Mr. Niedermeyer falls into this category at all, which is what I meant by enlightening.
    - blatant 10y ago
      Thanks, I obviously didn't go deep enough into it. Yes, he is definitely not trustworthy.
NeutronBoy 10y ago
> With respect to the car that is discussed in the blog post that led to yesterday’s news (more on the blog post below), the suspension ball joint experienced very abnormal rust. We haven’t seen this on any other car, suggesting a very unusual use case. The car had over 70,000 miles on it and its owner lives down such a long dirt road that it required two tow trucks to retrieve the car. (One to get the car to the highway and one to get it from the highway to the service center.) When we got the car, it was caked in dirt. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in this post, but a dirty car has nothing to do with a rusty ball joint. Dirt doesn't cause rust. It means, as they note, the owner lives on a dirt road. The two tow-trucks line is such a red-herring - nothing to do with the issue at hand.
- etendue 10y ago
  It's also not clear what is meant when the road is being described as a dirt road: often people will describe a gravel road as a dirt road, but I think this is an error. A gravel road of several inches of 21A, properly graded, compacted, and maintained, has little in common with a dirt road.
- throwaway2048 10y ago
  quite right, i live in a rural area and drive extensively on dirt roads every day and have for decades across maybe a dozen+ vehicles, i have never had a ball joint failure, nor have i heard of one.
  - saulrh 10y ago
    I bet that you chose all of your dozen-plus vehicles knowing that you'd be driving extensively on dirt roads every day for the life of the car. I also bet that if you tried it with a $70k luxury sedan it'd have a major mechanical fault within a year traceable directly to it not being an off-road vehicle.
    - throwaway2048 10y ago
      dirt road is not "off road", ive owned minvans, and compact cars that have had no issues with suspension.
steve19 10y ago
NY Times says.. "The nation’s top auto safety regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said on Thursday that at least some Tesla customers who experienced suspension failures with Model S luxury cars were asked to sign confidentiality agreements about the issue." http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/business/tesla-model-s-nhtsa-suspension-failure.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/business/tesla-model-s-nht...
- Cyph0n 10y ago
  They were asked to sign agreements if they wanted a free repair from Tesla. If these customers didn't want to sign the agreement, they could have just paid for the repairs, so I don't see the issue here. The fact that they felt the need to tell NHTSA about it is proof that the agreement is a smart move on Tesla's part.
  - Vik1ng 10y ago
    You are making it sound like that's just fine. Most people would sign something like that over spending thousands of dollars for a repair. Just imagine it is the battery and they choice is like "well, you can pay $20000 yourself or sing this paper and we take care of it".
    - Cyph0n 10y ago
      Of course it's fine. They are doing you a favor, and in exchange would like you to sign an agreement. Remember, we're talking about out-of-warranty repairs here. But if you don't like the terms of the agreement, you have the choice to fix it on your own dime. Again, it's your problem if you can't afford to not take the offer. You should be thankful that all you need to do is sign some kind of NDA. What I find hilarious is that people sign the agreement to get the free repairs, then go ahead and complain about the agreement anyways. Well next time you need an expensive out-of-warranty repair, you're not getting a free pass :P
      - lafar6502 10y ago
voiper1 10y ago
Hmm. http://cdn.dailykanban.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/TeslaGoodwill.jpg http://cdn.dailykanban.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/TeslaG... (via https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/06/09/2122208/tesla-suspension-breakage-its-not-the-crime-its-the-coverup https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/06/09/2122208/tesla-suspen...) On it's surface, that definitely looks like a full NDA: "don't speak of this" (IANAL) However, I can see Tesla's interpretation/spin: "It just means: we aren't admitting liability, don't sue us for this, and don't say we paid for part of the repairs" -- which doesn't include "don't report a safety issue". Still, it seems rather strongly worded for that...
- emn13 10y ago
  That agreement is completely unreasonable. "In accepting the Goodwill, you hereby release and discharge Tesla and related persons or entities from any and all claims or damages arising out of or in any way connected with any claims or incidents leading or related to our provision of the Goodwill." (etc, with similar language concerning talking about incidents.) in other words: we'll fix your car for you, but only if you keep quiet about a broadly and unclearly defined set of events, oh, and only if you agree not to hold us accountable for any wrongdoing on our part that's in any way "related or leading to" this agreement. That's absurd, and shameful, especially the excessively broad scope of the incidents and the fact that even actual wrongdoing by Tesla is protected.
  - ghayes 10y ago
    Your quote and your statement don't make sense together. > but only if you keep quiet about a broadly and unclearly defined set of events Where are you reading that?
    - emn13 10y ago
      Read the rest of the agreement; the quote is merely an excerpt (which is why I followed it with "etc, with similar language concerning talking about incidents.") - similar language to that of the excerpt restricts other activities, not just claims.
  - 10y ago
biokoda 10y ago
Crazy how Tesla as an entire company is scrutinized for car incidents that no one would even remotely care about if it was any other car manufacturer. If this guy had a range rover, or even some other electric car this would be a nonstory.
- rplnt 10y ago
  (Most* ) shorted stock means a lot of people would like it to fall. Can't hurt to help. (*edited, not the most)
  - Fej 10y ago
    Most shorted? Really?
    - danbruc 10y ago
      I guess it is Most (shorted stock) means [...] not (Most shorted) stock means [...].
      - rplnt 10y ago
        I actually meant the latter, but I think I was wrong as I can't find any reliable source. Just found one weird that placed Tesla in the top 10. I must have read it in some discussion I guess.
        danbruc 10y ago
        Now I realize that the first one would have to continue with mean not means.
      - jsjohnst 10y ago
        Or worded more clearly... "Most of the time, shorted stock means [...]"
- legulere 10y ago
  It's the same as with Apple. If you put out so much marketing about how your products are perfect every little flaw will be hyped just as much as you hype the positive traits.
awestroke 10y ago
70,000 miles is an incredible distance. I am impressed the car held together that long. I see nothing wrong with the agreement. If I fix your car for free, I will make you agree to not thank me with a lawsuit. It's very simple, really. The customer gets a free repair, Tesla does not have to deal with lawsuit-wielding psychopaths.
- snovv_crash 10y ago
  Agreed. Drive a Mercedes or BMW for 70k miles, with a decent portion of that on dirt road, and a ball joint failure will be the least of your worries.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    How come? Brother-in-law has been doing 30-40 000 km per year on a Ford Mondeo for years, much of that on dirt roads. It is of course to be expected that worn-out parts have to be replaced, but we should not need to worry about road safety based on mileage, even if driving on dirt roads.
    - snovv_crash 10y ago
      Luxury cars are a lot heavier, putting more strain on the suspension on rough roads. Also, a bad ball joint would have shown up as loose steering when the tyres were being changed - I'm surprised it wasn't picked up earlier.
      - lostlogin 10y ago
        What if the luxury car is a Jaguar X-type?
      - ptaipale 10y ago
        Not that much heavier. Current Ford Mondeo, the boring, economical workhorse, has curb weight ~1550 kg, MB E-class is 1600-1800 depending on model (engine and drivetrain). Tesla Model S is further away at 1960-2240 kg. However, what's essential is that in car design, you of course dimension the parts so that they match with the expected load. It is totally not acceptable if the parts cannot take normal use and become dangerous, and driving on dirt-surfaced roads is normal use.
rplnt 10y ago
This is what caused Tesla to dip so much yesterday? https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ATSLA https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ATSLA
- marincounty 10y ago
  "We don’t know if Mr. Niedermayer’s motivation is simply to set a world record for axe-grinding or whether he or his associates have something financial to gain by negatively affecting Tesla’s stock price, but it is important to highlight that there are several billion dollars in short sale bets against Tesla. This means that there is a strong financial incentive to greatly amplify minor issues and to create false issues from whole cloth." They really have it out for Niedermayer? Or, Niedermayer is is really playing the system? Personally, I wouldn't make these claims unless I had proof.
- LeonM 10y ago
  I'm no expert on the subject, but unless something else happened at Tesla yesterday, this was indeed what caused the dip. About a year ago a youtube video popped up of a Tesla caught fire after it hit a metal object which pierced the battery pack. The stocks immediately plummeted, even though car fires are a common thing. Like the article states, it is likely the negative news story was fabricated to drive prices down, to gain profit for those selling short on tesla stocks.
- awesomerobot 10y ago
  Tesla stock is absurdly fickle.
hbhakhra 10y ago
"Recently, a Model S was in a very high speed accident in Germany that caused it to fly 82 feet through the air, an event that would likely be fatal in vehicles not designed to the level of safety of a Tesla. All five occupants were able to exit the vehicle under their own power and had no life-threatening injuries." That is a pretty impressive feat for a car. Also, the voluntary recalls are an interesting case because to me they did something positive in doing a recall before any injury happened. When the news of the recall broke though, people were complaining about the recalls. Part of the problem is that any announcement by Tesla makes the news round while a similar recall by Toyota or anther company, that would affect many more people, wouldn't get a tenth of the attention.
- FreeFull 10y ago
  One thing that helps Tesla cars out in comparison to most other cars is that there is no engine in the front, so it's all just a huge crumple zone.
  - pedrocr 10y ago
    The four wheel drive models do have an electric motor in the front as well but since it's small most of that benefit should still be there.
  - creshal 10y ago
    Why? Motors can be part of a crumple zone, too. Look at e.g. the Smart – its engine gets pulverized in heavier crashes, and absorbs lots of the impact energy.
    - zelos 10y ago
      Presumably there are mechanical (heat, pressure, shock etc.) limits to how you build an engine that limit what you can do to improve safety? As light and small as modern engines are, they're still a big lump of iron/steel/aluminium.
      - 10y ago
usaphp 10y ago
Looking at all the blog posts that blogger Edward Niedermeyer wrote on his blog [1] I can't find a single positive thing he ever said about Tesla, it looks like he has some obligation to just write all the negativity he can come up with. [1] - http://dailykanban.com/author/bjorn/ http://dailykanban.com/author/bjorn/
sathishvj 10y ago
http://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/ARwBOWvU7QI/edward-niedermeyer http://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/ARwBOWvU7QI/edwar... A list of articles by said Edward Niedermeyer. There definitely are a lot of anti-Tesla articles.
miander 10y ago
So are the documents customers were allegedly asked to sign real, or fabricated? This post calls Mr. Niedermayer everything short of a liar, and yet they didn't answer the obvious question. I am still withholding judgement.
- shawn-butler 10y ago
  I agree, if it is true they executed even a soft-NDA in exchange for repairs (ala hush money), regulators rightly need to start looking alot closer at Tesla. Nothing illegal about it but it would definitely be a symptom. Fanboys will be fanboys, and haters will be haters but auto safety is not something to take lightly. We have had auto manufacturers and parts suppliers outright lie to regulators and the public about safety issues. It seems to be a recent pattern in the industry.
- mcherm 10y ago
  The post claimed that such documents exist but do not contain language preventing the signer from contacting government regulators.
SFJulie 10y ago
A whole company going after one person. Whether they are right or wrong makes is irrelevant compared to the door to company bullying it opens: if a customer speaks against a company right or wrongfully the arsenal of legal retaliation a company has against him/her is disproportionate (libeling, doxing, mass PR/reputation, secrecy of affair new laws), resulting in de facto possibility for companies to control public space communication. Government are just giving the key of censorship to corporation. Private owned interests that do not represent the people. Tesla and its owner's arrogance are creepy.
- tomp 10y ago
  > A whole company going after one person What do you mean by "goinf after"? Shouldn't they be able to defend themselves?!
  - mpclark 10y ago
    And this should also be read in the context of a whole industry going after one company... Tesla's PR often seems slightly combative, but that's because the company is engaged in a never-ending fight for its life against an array of deep pocketed interests that are not at all afraid to play dirty.
    - anon1385 10y ago
      To be honest it feels like a lot of this stuff is their method of resolving difficult issues with customers. If somebody makes a serious complaint about their Tesla and Tesla disagrees with them about it then it has become standard for the customer to be personally attacked in the media by Musk. It doesn't make me want to buy a Tesla. I'm sure we've all experienced situations where we had to argue strongly with a company to get a repair or refund over something. I wouldn't want to buy a product where arguing with the company ends up with me getting attacked in the media.
      - mpclark 10y ago
        Isn't that exactly what this is about though? They don't take these issues to the media, the customers/reviewers etc do. And when that happens, Tesla simply can't afford to take it lying down. Where it jars for me is that if I publicly complained about treatment from a doctor or a hospital I'm fairly confident they wouldn't just produce my medical records and splash details that support their position all over the web. Tesla's approach is a little too close to doing this for me.
pedrocr 10y ago
This was perhaps not the best phrasing: "A few things need to be cleared up about the supposed safety of Model S suspensions:" Maybe it's just me but it seems to imply that Model S suspensions aren't safe. The whole post is written in a pretty aggressive tone as well. Not your run of the mill PR piece that's for sure. If what Tesla states about this case and about the blogger is true I can see why they would be angry about it though.
- Havoc 10y ago
  >The whole post is written in a pretty aggressive tone as well. Well they (the team) obviously feel like they're being victimised here. And given the Tesla Death Watch thing I'm inclined to say they might be right.
- colinbartlett 10y ago
  I always find Tesla's responses like this astonishing because they are clearly not written by a traditional PR team. In fact, they always read to me like they are written by Mr. Musk himself. Like the stereotypical CEO gone wild who writes from his heart and doesn't care what the guys in suits want him to say. Which makes the byline "The Tesla Team" always so strange to me, as I never quite believe they were written by a team.
  - schneidmaster 10y ago
    I'd actually suspect it's a content team that ghostwrites for Elon. So they're probably intending to use his tone while also keeping relatively minor things like drafting PR off his plate.
ktRolster 10y ago
"the blogger who fabricated this issue, which then caused negative and incorrect news to be written about Tesla by reputable institutions, is Edward Niedermayer. This is the same gentle soul who previously wrote a blog titled “Tesla Death Watch,” which starting on May 19, 2008 was counting the days until Tesla’s death. It has now been 2,944 days."
- bionsuba 10y ago
  I, too read the article.
jacquesm 10y ago
What strikes me about this whole saga is that if the dealership had simply recognized that those joints should not have failed this early in the vehicles life and fixed them it would have ended right there. Also I think that to have a 'will not sue' clause in the agreement to fix issues that are out of warranty is fine but the explicit consent not to talk about it is the kind of thing that will make your lawyer happy in the short term but that will damage your reputation in the longer one. Manufacturers should never try to control the speech of their consumers, even if it benefits them in the short term. It will look like you're trying to cover something up, even when you don't.
icu 10y ago
What a coup de grâce this blog post is! I have never read any corporate communication that pushed me to finish the whole thing, enhanced my perception of their brand, increased my desire to own one of their products and become a shareholder.
scythe 10y ago
>my wife's Ô.o There are no published or verifiable cases, but it's happened to you? Seen any UFOs lately?
- trhway 10y ago
  man, just google for "car goodwill repairs". Many automakers do it to various degree. Tesla is the first who i heard doing it with NDA. May be the others who do NDA too just do better NDAs - "better" meaning that we haven't heard about them :)
- dang 10y ago
  Please don't be rude. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11875100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11875100 and marked it off-topic.
yellowpug 10y ago
Big fan of Tesla and their achievement even thus far, but perplexed that they didn't take the high ground, and decided to call out the individual by name in a derogatory and spin-like manner whilst still hiding behind the anonymity of authorship attributed to "The Tesla Team".
- makomk 10y ago
  This is their standard M.O of late. Remember the misfeature where depending on the Summon Mode settings, accidentally double-tapping rather than single-tapping Park would cause the Model S to start driving forward a few seconds after leaving and how Tesla blamed the driver after this caused their car to crash into a truck, obfuscated how easy it was to activate, and made it sound like they'd deliberately activated it.
- robbiemitchell 10y ago
  Every time there's a Tesla PR flare-up, it risks damaging the company disproportionately, both immediately (stock price) and long term (public perception). They respond swiftly and directly.
gloves 10y ago
> A Grain of Salt The Tesla Team June 9, 2016 A few things need to be cleared up about the supposed safety of Model S suspensions: First, there is no safety defect with the suspensions in either the Model S or Model X. Since we own all of our service centers, we are aware of every incident that happens with our customer cars and we are aware of every part that gets replaced. Whenever there is even a potential issue with one of those parts, we investigate fully. This, combined with extensive durability testing, gives us high confidence in our suspensions. With respect to the car that is discussed in the blog post that led to yesterday’s news (more on the blog post below), the suspension ball joint experienced very abnormal rust. We haven’t seen this on any other car, suggesting a very unusual use case. The car had over 70,000 miles on it and its owner lives down such a long dirt road that it required two tow trucks to retrieve the car. (One to get the car to the highway and one to get it from the highway to the service center.) When we got the car, it was caked in dirt. Second, NHTSA has not opened any investigation nor has it even started a “preliminary evaluation,” which is the lowest form of formal investigatory work that it does. On April 20th, as part of what it has told us it considers “routine screening,” NHTSA informally asked us to provide information about our suspensions. On April 30th, we provided all relevant information to NHTSA. NHTSA has since told us that we have cooperated fully and that no further information is needed. Neither before nor after this information was provided has NHTSA identified any safety issue with Tesla’s suspensions. This can be confirmed with NHTSA. Third, Tesla has never and would never ask a customer to sign a document to prevent them from talking to NHTSA or any other government agency. That is preposterous. When our customers tell us something went wrong with their car, we often cover it even if we find that the problem was not caused by the car and that we therefore have no obligations under the warranty. In these situations, we discount or conduct the repair for free, because we believe in putting our customers’ happiness ahead of our own bottom line. When this happens, we sometimes ask our customers to sign a “Goodwill Agreement.” The basic point is to ensure that Tesla doesn’t do a good deed, only to have that used against us in court for further gain. These situations are very rare, but have sometimes occurred in the past. We will take a look at this situation and will work with NHTSA to see if we can handle it differently, but one thing is clear: this agreement never even comes close to mentioning NHTSA or the government and it has nothing to do with trying to stop someone from communicating with NHTSA or the government about our cars. We have absolutely no desire to do something like that. It is deeply ironic that the only customer who apparently believes that this document prevents him from talking to NHTSA is also the same one who talked to NHTSA. If our agreement was meant to prevent that, it obviously wasn’t very good. Fourth, Tesla’s own actions demonstrate just how rigorous we are about bringing issues to NHTSA’s attention. Not only do we regularly meet with NHTSA, we have also shown that we won’t hesitate to conduct proactive and voluntary recalls even when there is only a slight risk of a safety issue. Most recently, Tesla recalled third row seats in the Model X even though not a single problem had been reported by any customer. Before that, Tesla recalled a front seat belt pretensioner, even though not a single injury had occurred. In both of these situations and others before them, Tesla took these actions before anyone reported a concern to NHTSA. We did them on our own, because it was the right thing to do. There is no car company in the world that cares more about safety than Tesla and our track record reflects that. The Model S is 5-star safety rated in every category and sub-category and Model X is expected to receive the same rating as soon as the government finishes testing. Recently, a Model S was in a very high speed accident in Germany that caused it to fly 82 feet through the air, an event that would likely be fatal in vehicles not designed to the level of safety of a Tesla. All five occupants were able to exit the vehicle under their own power and had no life-threatening injuries. Finally, it is worth noting that the blogger who fabricated this issue, which then caused negative and incorrect news to be written about Tesla by reputable institutions, is Edward Niedermayer. This is the same gentle soul who previously wrote a blog titled “Tesla Death Watch,” which starting on May 19, 2008 was counting the days until Tesla’s death. It has now been 2,944 days. We just checked our pulse and, much to his chagrin, appear to be alive. It is probably wise to take Mr. Niedermayer’s words with at least a small grain of salt. Boom.
quocble 10y ago
Edward Neidermeyer is a douchebag. Look at all the articles he wrote. http://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/ARwBOWvU7QI/edward-niedermeyer http://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/ARwBOWvU7QI/edwar...
franciscop 10y ago
Some of Edward Niedermayer recently written article titles in bloomberg [1]: - Worker Discontent Makes Tesla a Union Target - Tesla Needs More Than Elon Musk - Tesla Will Get Trampled by the Mass Market - Tesla's Radical Update Is Just More of the Same - Tesla Has to Start Acting Like a Car Company - Tesla Stock Shifts Into 'Insane Mode' [negative] - The Empire Strikes Back at Tesla - Why Tesla Has a Target on Its Back - ... And the original cited in teslamotors.com: http://dailykanban.com/2016/06/tesla-suspension-breakage-not-crime-coverup/ http://dailykanban.com/2016/06/tesla-suspension-breakage-not... It seems that yes, we should take a grain of salt and a lot more. There's definitely something fishy going on here. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/ARwBOWvU7QI/edward-niedermeyer http://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/ARwBOWvU7QI/edwar...
- makomk 10y ago
  Wow. A Tesla owner's complaints on the unofficial Tesla forums were reposted by an apparently-unrelated blogger who complains about Tesla a lot. Clearly this proves that the blogger "fabricated this issue" and was the one who "caused negative and incorrect news to be written about Tesla by reputable institutions" by doing so. I mean, it's not like this argument could be used to discredit any issues customers have with Tesla no matter how genuine - that'd require this anti-Tesla blogger who supposedly latches onto any perceived failure to write about them, after all.
  - a13n 10y ago
    You didn't read the blog post
- bedhead 10y ago
  Thank you for posting. Reminds me of the NYT article that bashed Amazon and Bezos a while back. Didn't take much digging to conclude the author/organization has a preconceived bias against the subject.
  - fluxquanta 10y ago
    >Didn't take much digging to conclude the author/organization has a preconceived bias against the subject. Doesn't every journalist when reporting on any newsworthy item? Everybody has their biases, and they'll naturally come out in reporting. There is no "fair and balanced", it's just a matter of what extent these biases are hidden in the work. I think the onus is on us, the consumers of this media, to take every piece as only part of the whole truth, and make up our own minds about the subject.
abpavel 10y ago
Material science lifecycles are measured in decades. Just because you "haven't seen it before" does not mean it can't happen. It means you're not testing well enough, or that your data sample is not good enough. Noone is clairvoyant, and excuses such as "dirt" and "70000 miles" don't make you either. Why automatically attack the victim? Is it not remotely possible, that the fault lies with Tesla?
- delinka 10y ago
  "remotely possible" and "beyond reasonable doubt" are not equivalent. Just because you had a problem, once, with a product doesn't mean the manufacturer made a mistake. Isn't it remotely possible that it's your mistake instead?
- OliverJones 10y ago
  Yes, the fault may lie with Tesla. They fixed it! I bet they also put the failed part on a test bench to figure out what happened.
antihero 10y ago
> we believe in putting our customers’ happiness ahead of our own bottom line. Fuck off with this shit. Your customers happiness IS what defines your bottom line in the long run. Can we stop with all this fucking corporate lies. I think we need a new trend. Blunt honesty. I'd trust a company far more if they just came out and said yes, we're here to make money and expand. If this means treating you well as a customer, we will do that, but at the end of the day, we make money for our shareholders and to fund other crap we want to do, and we provide you with a thing you are cool with paying for and give you good service in order to do that.
abpavel 10y ago
Very interesting Tesla's response: 1. The car was not brand new and was actually driven, which is horrible. 2. NHTSA did not investigate anything, they just asked us for the documents. 3. We don't ask customers to sign anything, just demand that they sign "the agreement". 4. We're the best. Customers are idiots. 5. We'll even publicly expose the identity of the customer for you to hate. Here is his name, address, and SSN. Have fun!
- jdbernard 10y ago
  You must have read a different article than I. 1. Every manufacturer will point out that extreme conditions affect the performance and life of a car. I don't remember Tesla marketing the Model S as an off-road vehicle. I think it is fair for then to point out how different the driving conditions where in this case. 2. Cooperating with federal regulators is what we want, right? NHTSA hasn't opened even a preliminary investigation. Surely the agency talks with car manufacturers on a regular basis. 3. "When [we discount or conduct the repair for free] we sometimes ask our customers to sign a “Goodwill Agreement.” The basic point is to ensure that Tesla doesn’t do a good deed, only to have that used against us in court for further gain. [...] this agreement never even comes close to mentioning NHTSA or the government and it has nothing to do with trying to stop someone from communicating with NHTSA or the government about our cars. We have absolutely no desire to do something like that." 4. What? How are you even pulling that from the article. The fourth point was about Tesla's record of addressing safety concerns before customers experience problems. 5. First, they never said he was the owner of the car, but maybe that's obvious of you read his blog. But if that is true, then Tesla didn't expose him, he already exposed himself. Second, I didn't see any addresses or SSNs in the article, so you are exaggerating to the point of lying at this point.
- dingo_bat 10y ago
  Though all other points in your comment are quite juvenile, I think the first one is valid. >the suspension ball joint experienced very abnormal rust. We haven’t seen this on any other car, suggesting a very unusual use case. The car had over 70,000 miles on it and its owner lives down such a long dirt road that it required two tow trucks to retrieve the car. (One to get the car to the highway and one to get it from the highway to the service center.) When we got the car, it was caked in dirt. So what, Tesla? Cars are meant to be caked in dirt, sand, water, whatever elements they may encounter in the course of use by people who buy them. Most people drive on roads but some do go off-road and the cars should be able to handle it. Just the information provided here does not indicate misuse. It may still turn out that way, but not right now. It is more likely, IMO, that your engineers failed to consider some particular scenarios and the suspensions in your cars are a bit less rust-resistant than they should be.
djaychela 10y ago
OK, not as tech as many on here, but I've spent the last 25 years as an amateur mechanic, and spent 10 preparing and driving my own rally car, right up to World Rally Championship level, as well as having owned more cars than most people have had hot dinners, and fixed even more than that (sadly!) The balljoint in question has failed because the rubber boot on it has failed, allowing water/dirt in, and it's rusted out from there. This is nothing specific to Tesla, it can happen on any car - I've seen it on quite a few FWD cars, but never to this degree (total failure) - they will go on for a LONG time with play in them, and take a LOT of abuse before failing. To have failed in this manner, it would have needed to go un-noticed for some considerable time - I've had ones which have had a year of abuse in extreme circumstances and still been nowhere near as bad as this, so I think you have to ask about the servicing that had been done on this car - whether or not it had been inspected. In addition, this would have had significant play in it for some time, leading to noise which would be noticeable to most drivers when on the road, and easily noticed during any kind of worthwhile inspection (such as the MOT in the UK) - not sure if the state in question has a mandatory inspection? Yes, being on a dirt road could have exacerbated the problem, but it's not something that a "normal" car can't take - you'd be amazed the amount of physical abuse a mechanically-standard car can take on rough gravel roads at speed. Components such as this are usually sourced from sub-contractors, who produce them by the thousands/millions without issue, does anyone know if Tesla makes these themselves? Seems unlikely to me. As has been said elsewhere here, if this had happened on a Ford Focus, no-one would give a monkey's, it's only because it's a Tesla and this guy has an axe to grind.
- Unklejoe 10y ago
  [In addition, this would have had significant play in it for some time, leading to noise which would be noticeable to most drivers when on the road, and easily noticed during any kind of worthwhile inspection (such as the MOT in the UK) - not sure if the state in question has a mandatory inspection?] True. I've had to replace a few lower control arms on various cars due to loose ball joints. In all of the cases, the car made terrible sounds during normal driving long before the ball joint was actually loose enough to pop out. It was always very evident that something in the wheel was loose. Of course, anything can happen... [Components such as this are usually sourced from sub-contractors, who produce them by the thousands/millions without issue, does anyone know if Tesla makes these themselves? Seems unlikely to me.] I agree. I doubt that Tesla is making their own ball joints. It seems like to much NRE considering there are tons of off-the-shelf options available.
schneidmaster 10y ago
Since I've seen this mentioned a few times in the comments, it's worth noting: Tesla did not expose the identity of the customer who had the suspension problem. Edward Niedermayer is a blogger who uncovered a post on a car forum[1] and then made hay out of it[2] causing some national media to report about it. Tesla was merely commenting that this blogger has a pretty clear anti-Tesla bias in his other writing. If anyone's responsible for exposing the customer to scrutiny, it's Niedermayer (who linked to the semi-anonymous forum post and turned it into a media story). 1: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/suspension-problem-on-model-s.69204/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/suspension-problem-o... 2: http://dailykanban.com/2016/06/tesla-suspension-breakage-not-crime-coverup/ http://dailykanban.com/2016/06/tesla-suspension-breakage-not...
OliverJones 10y ago
I have a first-generation Honda Insight. It's sixteen years old and still going. At about 110K miles, the power pack failed, someplace in the Central Valley of California. Honda (I guess some zone office) had it towed 50 miles to the nearest dealership, which happened to be in Bakersfield. They then replaced the power pack without charging me for it. Now, I knew I was an early adopter. I knew this could happen. I was prepared to pay for it. And Honda decided to treat me like an early adopter. (They sent the old power pack back to Japan; I suppose they wanted to inspect it.) It never occurred to me to slag them in the media, or try to get a class action suit going, or some such foolishness. I was stuck in "the desert" for a few hours. But it might have made a good story. The media love stories about design defects in cars, and the big car companies' coverups play right into those stories. If it bleeds it leads. These EVs don't need oil changes. So the temptation may be to treat them like Soviet tanks and never maintain them. That seems a bad idea. They still have rubber seals on ball joints. They still have pads on the disc brakes. All that stuff is expendable, and needs to be looked at. Tesla is right to debunk this "big story." One guy who could have been using a 20-year-old jalopy pickup truck experienced a typical failure and turned it into his fifteen minutes of fame.
- knorker 10y ago
  > They still have rubber seals on ball joints. Do they? I seem to remember Musk saying they motor brake (picking up the power to charge the batteries) to brake. Maybe secondary brakes.
  - michael_h 10y ago
    Those two things are unrelated. The ball joint lets you position the wheels (ie steer). I would be monumentally shocked if Tesla didn't put rubber seals on the ball joints.
    - gervase 10y ago
      You can judge for yourself[1] whether the joints are sealed with rubber or not; it appears to me that they are. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgdKZMlzQog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgdKZMlzQog
post_break 10y ago
The real crime here is Tesla dangling repairs in front of owners only if they sign an NDA.
castratikron 10y ago
That ball joint is in miserable condition. How had the owner not noticed any problems? The ball joint would be visible to anyone who would have had to replace the tires, which should have happened before 70K miles. Something feels off about this story. And about the $3k repair bill: You will see that with any luxury car. Low number of cars means a smaller market for used parts, so what usually happens is only the manufacturer sells used parts. When they're the only supplier, they can charge whatever they want for the parts, and they often do. Maybe the owner did know about the problem, but chose not to replace it because it was too expensive. It doesn't sound like Tesla is at fault at all, but I suppose they feel the need to protect their brand.
reubensutton 10y ago
I love how non-corporate the Tesla blog is: "It is deeply ironic that the only customer who apparently believes that this document prevents him from talking to NHTSA is also the same one who talked to NHTSA. If our agreement was meant to prevent that, it obviously wasn’t very good."
S_A_P 10y ago
Edward Niedermayer seems to be more concerned with click bait and controversy than really promoting discourse. The Truth About Cars has almost become readable since his departure, but its still a car tabloid at best. The dude is young and was given a pretty good sized platform, decided he didn't like Elon Musk and has now spent a significant percentage of his time to prove Tesla is a scam. I wouldn't call myself a die hard tesla fan, and Im not willing to spend the kind of money required to own a model s or x. But I would certainly call them compelling reasons to look into an electric car and they are easily 10-15 years ahead of the entrenched auto makers. I think that Tesla definitely has challenges ahead as well. The biggest is that they need to have cars fully baked and delivered on time. They need to start showing positive balance sheets regularly and they need to get the gigafactory done. I dont see them failing in the near term but their balance sheet and stock price need to reconcile eventually. As to the claims of reliability, Ive not seen anything that looks to be egregiously worse than cars in the target market. Ive yet to own a single car that has never had a defect or something break that required a warranty/out of warranty repair. I have had cars that were better than average (My current 2014 A4 has had one thing break in 55k miles) and some that were much worse (2009 Chevrolet silverado - everything electric broke, power rear glass, power windows, cruise control, fuel pump, power seats; 2001 VW GTI vr6 had the check engine light on every 6 weeks after I exceeded the ridiculously short 24000 mile warranty- I think they knew that was all that car was good for. I replaced the MAF twice, several other engine electrics as well) Whatever happens I have to give Tesla(not just Musk) a lot of credit for taking on a hard problem and creating a credible product.
Shivetya 10y ago
Great news. Still Tesla obviously expects this type of news to break and it will be an ever constant duty for them to refute or acknowledge issues. They must also understand that eventually some customers will want to work on their own cars, do preventive service and the like. They need to accommodate them as well. It is one thing to be serving almost exclusively early adopters, when the III comes along its going to be very interesting to see how they handle it. There will be a whole lot of people who simply don't know how to treat their cars well combined with many who are louder about issues simply because its a bigger investment to them
HeavyStorm 10y ago
"That said, sometimes Tesla does make genuine mistakes. We are not and have never claimed to be perfect. However, we strongly believe in trying to do the right thing and, when we fall short, taking immediate corrective action." This is what makes me feel confident about a company. Doesn't ring like false humbleness or a disclaimer, just something that you'd hear on a open conversation, where the other party is being sincere. And the worse thing about the whole situation is that damage is already done. Because people will believe anything they read.
geomark 10y ago
Musk tweeted that "37 of 40 suspension complaints to NHTSA were fraudulent, i.e. false location or vehicle identification numbers were used"[1] [1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/741411531582115841 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/741411531582115841
hartator 10y ago
I think it's worth noting that Tesla models seems to have issues with leaks and water infiltrations that can explain the rust. Anyway, if they beleive in stock manipulation, they should sue.
heisenbit 10y ago
Ok, someone has an axe to grind and there is a blogger with an vendetta. But at the end there was this surprising update: Of greater concern: 37 of 40 suspension complaints to NHTSA were fraudulent, i.e. false location or vehicle identification numbers were used — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 10, 2016 If true this goes beyond telling blown up stories and may cross the threshold over to criminal behavior.

803 points by dwaxe 10y ago

Looking at Mr. Niedermeyer's linkedin profile[0] and what he's doing/where he's worked was kind of enlightening as to his purpose and motivations. It probably works for him, though. I think 99+% of people, myself included, do not often look at who is writing what they read online. And I'd guess a majority percentage don't think about the fact that they are reading opinion vs. news. [0] https://www.linkedin.com/in/edward-niedermeyer-35942261 https://www.linkedin.com/in/edward-niedermeyer-35942261

blatant 10y ago
Please explain how it was enlightening. I do not have a LinkedIn account, so I might not be able to see his while profile, but it looks fine to me.
- gnoway 10y ago
  I was going on the public profile as well. The profile notes that Mr. Niedermeyer works in the PR and Communications industry, and the bio blurb says he has written Op/Ed for several major publications. His listed work history is at TTAC, followed by Argot Industries and, mostly concurrently with Argot, an unnamed startup. He founded Argot, which is an automotive industry research/analysis/communication/consulting firm serving private clients. His startup promises to redefine strategic communications. I came away from this thinking Mr. Niedermeyer's work is more about influencing readers than informing them; that he is more PR flack than journalist. It's not always clear what a blog or blog writer is all about. A lot of sites I read are literally subject enthusiasts recounting personal experience, testing something and reporting on the result, etc. You can often just take that information at face value: this is what this does, this is how this works, I did this and/or this happened, etc. Based just on work history, I don't think Mr. Niedermeyer falls into this category at all, which is what I meant by enlightening.
  - blatant 10y ago
    Thanks, I obviously didn't go deep enough into it. Yes, he is definitely not trustworthy.

NeutronBoy 10y ago

> With respect to the car that is discussed in the blog post that led to yesterday’s news (more on the blog post below), the suspension ball joint experienced very abnormal rust. We haven’t seen this on any other car, suggesting a very unusual use case. The car had over 70,000 miles on it and its owner lives down such a long dirt road that it required two tow trucks to retrieve the car. (One to get the car to the highway and one to get it from the highway to the service center.) When we got the car, it was caked in dirt. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in this post, but a dirty car has nothing to do with a rusty ball joint. Dirt doesn't cause rust. It means, as they note, the owner lives on a dirt road. The two tow-trucks line is such a red-herring - nothing to do with the issue at hand.

etendue 10y ago
It's also not clear what is meant when the road is being described as a dirt road: often people will describe a gravel road as a dirt road, but I think this is an error. A gravel road of several inches of 21A, properly graded, compacted, and maintained, has little in common with a dirt road.
throwaway2048 10y ago
quite right, i live in a rural area and drive extensively on dirt roads every day and have for decades across maybe a dozen+ vehicles, i have never had a ball joint failure, nor have i heard of one.
- saulrh 10y ago
  I bet that you chose all of your dozen-plus vehicles knowing that you'd be driving extensively on dirt roads every day for the life of the car. I also bet that if you tried it with a $70k luxury sedan it'd have a major mechanical fault within a year traceable directly to it not being an off-road vehicle.
  - throwaway2048 10y ago
    dirt road is not "off road", ive owned minvans, and compact cars that have had no issues with suspension.

steve19 10y ago

NY Times says.. "The nation’s top auto safety regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said on Thursday that at least some Tesla customers who experienced suspension failures with Model S luxury cars were asked to sign confidentiality agreements about the issue." http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/business/tesla-model-s-nhtsa-suspension-failure.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/business/tesla-model-s-nht...

Cyph0n 10y ago
They were asked to sign agreements if they wanted a free repair from Tesla. If these customers didn't want to sign the agreement, they could have just paid for the repairs, so I don't see the issue here. The fact that they felt the need to tell NHTSA about it is proof that the agreement is a smart move on Tesla's part.
- Vik1ng 10y ago
  You are making it sound like that's just fine. Most people would sign something like that over spending thousands of dollars for a repair. Just imagine it is the battery and they choice is like "well, you can pay $20000 yourself or sing this paper and we take care of it".
  - Cyph0n 10y ago
    Of course it's fine. They are doing you a favor, and in exchange would like you to sign an agreement. Remember, we're talking about out-of-warranty repairs here. But if you don't like the terms of the agreement, you have the choice to fix it on your own dime. Again, it's your problem if you can't afford to not take the offer. You should be thankful that all you need to do is sign some kind of NDA. What I find hilarious is that people sign the agreement to get the free repairs, then go ahead and complain about the agreement anyways. Well next time you need an expensive out-of-warranty repair, you're not getting a free pass :P
    - lafar6502 10y ago

voiper1 10y ago

Hmm. http://cdn.dailykanban.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/TeslaGoodwill.jpg http://cdn.dailykanban.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/TeslaG... (via https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/06/09/2122208/tesla-suspension-breakage-its-not-the-crime-its-the-coverup https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/06/09/2122208/tesla-suspen...) On it's surface, that definitely looks like a full NDA: "don't speak of this" (IANAL) However, I can see Tesla's interpretation/spin: "It just means: we aren't admitting liability, don't sue us for this, and don't say we paid for part of the repairs" -- which doesn't include "don't report a safety issue". Still, it seems rather strongly worded for that...

emn13 10y ago
That agreement is completely unreasonable. "In accepting the Goodwill, you hereby release and discharge Tesla and related persons or entities from any and all claims or damages arising out of or in any way connected with any claims or incidents leading or related to our provision of the Goodwill." (etc, with similar language concerning talking about incidents.) in other words: we'll fix your car for you, but only if you keep quiet about a broadly and unclearly defined set of events, oh, and only if you agree not to hold us accountable for any wrongdoing on our part that's in any way "related or leading to" this agreement. That's absurd, and shameful, especially the excessively broad scope of the incidents and the fact that even actual wrongdoing by Tesla is protected.
- ghayes 10y ago
  Your quote and your statement don't make sense together. > but only if you keep quiet about a broadly and unclearly defined set of events Where are you reading that?
  - emn13 10y ago
    Read the rest of the agreement; the quote is merely an excerpt (which is why I followed it with "etc, with similar language concerning talking about incidents.") - similar language to that of the excerpt restricts other activities, not just claims.
- 10y ago

biokoda 10y ago

Crazy how Tesla as an entire company is scrutinized for car incidents that no one would even remotely care about if it was any other car manufacturer. If this guy had a range rover, or even some other electric car this would be a nonstory.

rplnt 10y ago
(Most* ) shorted stock means a lot of people would like it to fall. Can't hurt to help. (*edited, not the most)
- Fej 10y ago
  Most shorted? Really?
  - danbruc 10y ago
    I guess it is Most (shorted stock) means [...] not (Most shorted) stock means [...].
    - rplnt 10y ago
      I actually meant the latter, but I think I was wrong as I can't find any reliable source. Just found one weird that placed Tesla in the top 10. I must have read it in some discussion I guess.
      - danbruc 10y ago
        Now I realize that the first one would have to continue with mean not means.
    - jsjohnst 10y ago
      Or worded more clearly... "Most of the time, shorted stock means [...]"
legulere 10y ago
It's the same as with Apple. If you put out so much marketing about how your products are perfect every little flaw will be hyped just as much as you hype the positive traits.

awestroke 10y ago

70,000 miles is an incredible distance. I am impressed the car held together that long. I see nothing wrong with the agreement. If I fix your car for free, I will make you agree to not thank me with a lawsuit. It's very simple, really. The customer gets a free repair, Tesla does not have to deal with lawsuit-wielding psychopaths.

snovv_crash 10y ago
Agreed. Drive a Mercedes or BMW for 70k miles, with a decent portion of that on dirt road, and a ball joint failure will be the least of your worries.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  How come? Brother-in-law has been doing 30-40 000 km per year on a Ford Mondeo for years, much of that on dirt roads. It is of course to be expected that worn-out parts have to be replaced, but we should not need to worry about road safety based on mileage, even if driving on dirt roads.
  - snovv_crash 10y ago
    Luxury cars are a lot heavier, putting more strain on the suspension on rough roads. Also, a bad ball joint would have shown up as loose steering when the tyres were being changed - I'm surprised it wasn't picked up earlier.
    - lostlogin 10y ago
      What if the luxury car is a Jaguar X-type?
    - ptaipale 10y ago
      Not that much heavier. Current Ford Mondeo, the boring, economical workhorse, has curb weight ~1550 kg, MB E-class is 1600-1800 depending on model (engine and drivetrain). Tesla Model S is further away at 1960-2240 kg. However, what's essential is that in car design, you of course dimension the parts so that they match with the expected load. It is totally not acceptable if the parts cannot take normal use and become dangerous, and driving on dirt-surfaced roads is normal use.

rplnt 10y ago

This is what caused Tesla to dip so much yesterday? https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ATSLA https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ATSLA

marincounty 10y ago
"We don’t know if Mr. Niedermayer’s motivation is simply to set a world record for axe-grinding or whether he or his associates have something financial to gain by negatively affecting Tesla’s stock price, but it is important to highlight that there are several billion dollars in short sale bets against Tesla. This means that there is a strong financial incentive to greatly amplify minor issues and to create false issues from whole cloth." They really have it out for Niedermayer? Or, Niedermayer is is really playing the system? Personally, I wouldn't make these claims unless I had proof.
LeonM 10y ago
I'm no expert on the subject, but unless something else happened at Tesla yesterday, this was indeed what caused the dip. About a year ago a youtube video popped up of a Tesla caught fire after it hit a metal object which pierced the battery pack. The stocks immediately plummeted, even though car fires are a common thing. Like the article states, it is likely the negative news story was fabricated to drive prices down, to gain profit for those selling short on tesla stocks.
awesomerobot 10y ago
Tesla stock is absurdly fickle.

hbhakhra 10y ago

"Recently, a Model S was in a very high speed accident in Germany that caused it to fly 82 feet through the air, an event that would likely be fatal in vehicles not designed to the level of safety of a Tesla. All five occupants were able to exit the vehicle under their own power and had no life-threatening injuries." That is a pretty impressive feat for a car. Also, the voluntary recalls are an interesting case because to me they did something positive in doing a recall before any injury happened. When the news of the recall broke though, people were complaining about the recalls. Part of the problem is that any announcement by Tesla makes the news round while a similar recall by Toyota or anther company, that would affect many more people, wouldn't get a tenth of the attention.

FreeFull 10y ago
One thing that helps Tesla cars out in comparison to most other cars is that there is no engine in the front, so it's all just a huge crumple zone.
- pedrocr 10y ago
  The four wheel drive models do have an electric motor in the front as well but since it's small most of that benefit should still be there.
- creshal 10y ago
  Why? Motors can be part of a crumple zone, too. Look at e.g. the Smart – its engine gets pulverized in heavier crashes, and absorbs lots of the impact energy.
  - zelos 10y ago
    Presumably there are mechanical (heat, pressure, shock etc.) limits to how you build an engine that limit what you can do to improve safety? As light and small as modern engines are, they're still a big lump of iron/steel/aluminium.
    - 10y ago

usaphp 10y ago

Looking at all the blog posts that blogger Edward Niedermeyer wrote on his blog [1] I can't find a single positive thing he ever said about Tesla, it looks like he has some obligation to just write all the negativity he can come up with. [1] - http://dailykanban.com/author/bjorn/ http://dailykanban.com/author/bjorn/

sathishvj 10y ago

http://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/ARwBOWvU7QI/edward-niedermeyer http://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/ARwBOWvU7QI/edwar... A list of articles by said Edward Niedermeyer. There definitely are a lot of anti-Tesla articles.

miander 10y ago

So are the documents customers were allegedly asked to sign real, or fabricated? This post calls Mr. Niedermayer everything short of a liar, and yet they didn't answer the obvious question. I am still withholding judgement.

shawn-butler 10y ago
I agree, if it is true they executed even a soft-NDA in exchange for repairs (ala hush money), regulators rightly need to start looking alot closer at Tesla. Nothing illegal about it but it would definitely be a symptom. Fanboys will be fanboys, and haters will be haters but auto safety is not something to take lightly. We have had auto manufacturers and parts suppliers outright lie to regulators and the public about safety issues. It seems to be a recent pattern in the industry.
mcherm 10y ago
The post claimed that such documents exist but do not contain language preventing the signer from contacting government regulators.

SFJulie 10y ago

A whole company going after one person. Whether they are right or wrong makes is irrelevant compared to the door to company bullying it opens: if a customer speaks against a company right or wrongfully the arsenal of legal retaliation a company has against him/her is disproportionate (libeling, doxing, mass PR/reputation, secrecy of affair new laws), resulting in de facto possibility for companies to control public space communication. Government are just giving the key of censorship to corporation. Private owned interests that do not represent the people. Tesla and its owner's arrogance are creepy.

tomp 10y ago
> A whole company going after one person What do you mean by "goinf after"? Shouldn't they be able to defend themselves?!
- mpclark 10y ago
  And this should also be read in the context of a whole industry going after one company... Tesla's PR often seems slightly combative, but that's because the company is engaged in a never-ending fight for its life against an array of deep pocketed interests that are not at all afraid to play dirty.
  - anon1385 10y ago
    To be honest it feels like a lot of this stuff is their method of resolving difficult issues with customers. If somebody makes a serious complaint about their Tesla and Tesla disagrees with them about it then it has become standard for the customer to be personally attacked in the media by Musk. It doesn't make me want to buy a Tesla. I'm sure we've all experienced situations where we had to argue strongly with a company to get a repair or refund over something. I wouldn't want to buy a product where arguing with the company ends up with me getting attacked in the media.
    - mpclark 10y ago
      Isn't that exactly what this is about though? They don't take these issues to the media, the customers/reviewers etc do. And when that happens, Tesla simply can't afford to take it lying down. Where it jars for me is that if I publicly complained about treatment from a doctor or a hospital I'm fairly confident they wouldn't just produce my medical records and splash details that support their position all over the web. Tesla's approach is a little too close to doing this for me.

pedrocr 10y ago

This was perhaps not the best phrasing: "A few things need to be cleared up about the supposed safety of Model S suspensions:" Maybe it's just me but it seems to imply that Model S suspensions aren't safe. The whole post is written in a pretty aggressive tone as well. Not your run of the mill PR piece that's for sure. If what Tesla states about this case and about the blogger is true I can see why they would be angry about it though.

Havoc 10y ago
>The whole post is written in a pretty aggressive tone as well. Well they (the team) obviously feel like they're being victimised here. And given the Tesla Death Watch thing I'm inclined to say they might be right.
colinbartlett 10y ago
I always find Tesla's responses like this astonishing because they are clearly not written by a traditional PR team. In fact, they always read to me like they are written by Mr. Musk himself. Like the stereotypical CEO gone wild who writes from his heart and doesn't care what the guys in suits want him to say. Which makes the byline "The Tesla Team" always so strange to me, as I never quite believe they were written by a team.
- schneidmaster 10y ago
  I'd actually suspect it's a content team that ghostwrites for Elon. So they're probably intending to use his tone while also keeping relatively minor things like drafting PR off his plate.

ktRolster 10y ago

"the blogger who fabricated this issue, which then caused negative and incorrect news to be written about Tesla by reputable institutions, is Edward Niedermayer. This is the same gentle soul who previously wrote a blog titled “Tesla Death Watch,” which starting on May 19, 2008 was counting the days until Tesla’s death. It has now been 2,944 days."

bionsuba 10y ago
I, too read the article.

jacquesm 10y ago

What strikes me about this whole saga is that if the dealership had simply recognized that those joints should not have failed this early in the vehicles life and fixed them it would have ended right there. Also I think that to have a 'will not sue' clause in the agreement to fix issues that are out of warranty is fine but the explicit consent not to talk about it is the kind of thing that will make your lawyer happy in the short term but that will damage your reputation in the longer one. Manufacturers should never try to control the speech of their consumers, even if it benefits them in the short term. It will look like you're trying to cover something up, even when you don't.

icu 10y ago

What a coup de grâce this blog post is! I have never read any corporate communication that pushed me to finish the whole thing, enhanced my perception of their brand, increased my desire to own one of their products and become a shareholder.

scythe 10y ago

>my wife's Ô.o There are no published or verifiable cases, but it's happened to you? Seen any UFOs lately?

trhway 10y ago
man, just google for "car goodwill repairs". Many automakers do it to various degree. Tesla is the first who i heard doing it with NDA. May be the others who do NDA too just do better NDAs - "better" meaning that we haven't heard about them :)
dang 10y ago
Please don't be rude. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11875100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11875100 and marked it off-topic.

yellowpug 10y ago

Big fan of Tesla and their achievement even thus far, but perplexed that they didn't take the high ground, and decided to call out the individual by name in a derogatory and spin-like manner whilst still hiding behind the anonymity of authorship attributed to "The Tesla Team".

makomk 10y ago
This is their standard M.O of late. Remember the misfeature where depending on the Summon Mode settings, accidentally double-tapping rather than single-tapping Park would cause the Model S to start driving forward a few seconds after leaving and how Tesla blamed the driver after this caused their car to crash into a truck, obfuscated how easy it was to activate, and made it sound like they'd deliberately activated it.
robbiemitchell 10y ago
Every time there's a Tesla PR flare-up, it risks damaging the company disproportionately, both immediately (stock price) and long term (public perception). They respond swiftly and directly.

gloves 10y ago

> A Grain of Salt The Tesla Team June 9, 2016 A few things need to be cleared up about the supposed safety of Model S suspensions: First, there is no safety defect with the suspensions in either the Model S or Model X. Since we own all of our service centers, we are aware of every incident that happens with our customer cars and we are aware of every part that gets replaced. Whenever there is even a potential issue with one of those parts, we investigate fully. This, combined with extensive durability testing, gives us high confidence in our suspensions. With respect to the car that is discussed in the blog post that led to yesterday’s news (more on the blog post below), the suspension ball joint experienced very abnormal rust. We haven’t seen this on any other car, suggesting a very unusual use case. The car had over 70,000 miles on it and its owner lives down such a long dirt road that it required two tow trucks to retrieve the car. (One to get the car to the highway and one to get it from the highway to the service center.) When we got the car, it was caked in dirt. Second, NHTSA has not opened any investigation nor has it even started a “preliminary evaluation,” which is the lowest form of formal investigatory work that it does. On April 20th, as part of what it has told us it considers “routine screening,” NHTSA informally asked us to provide information about our suspensions. On April 30th, we provided all relevant information to NHTSA. NHTSA has since told us that we have cooperated fully and that no further information is needed. Neither before nor after this information was provided has NHTSA identified any safety issue with Tesla’s suspensions. This can be confirmed with NHTSA. Third, Tesla has never and would never ask a customer to sign a document to prevent them from talking to NHTSA or any other government agency. That is preposterous. When our customers tell us something went wrong with their car, we often cover it even if we find that the problem was not caused by the car and that we therefore have no obligations under the warranty. In these situations, we discount or conduct the repair for free, because we believe in putting our customers’ happiness ahead of our own bottom line. When this happens, we sometimes ask our customers to sign a “Goodwill Agreement.” The basic point is to ensure that Tesla doesn’t do a good deed, only to have that used against us in court for further gain. These situations are very rare, but have sometimes occurred in the past. We will take a look at this situation and will work with NHTSA to see if we can handle it differently, but one thing is clear: this agreement never even comes close to mentioning NHTSA or the government and it has nothing to do with trying to stop someone from communicating with NHTSA or the government about our cars. We have absolutely no desire to do something like that. It is deeply ironic that the only customer who apparently believes that this document prevents him from talking to NHTSA is also the same one who talked to NHTSA. If our agreement was meant to prevent that, it obviously wasn’t very good. Fourth, Tesla’s own actions demonstrate just how rigorous we are about bringing issues to NHTSA’s attention. Not only do we regularly meet with NHTSA, we have also shown that we won’t hesitate to conduct proactive and voluntary recalls even when there is only a slight risk of a safety issue. Most recently, Tesla recalled third row seats in the Model X even though not a single problem had been reported by any customer. Before that, Tesla recalled a front seat belt pretensioner, even though not a single injury had occurred. In both of these situations and others before them, Tesla took these actions before anyone reported a concern to NHTSA. We did them on our own, because it was the right thing to do. There is no car company in the world that cares more about safety than Tesla and our track record reflects that. The Model S is 5-star safety rated in every category and sub-category and Model X is expected to receive the same rating as soon as the government finishes testing. Recently, a Model S was in a very high speed accident in Germany that caused it to fly 82 feet through the air, an event that would likely be fatal in vehicles not designed to the level of safety of a Tesla. All five occupants were able to exit the vehicle under their own power and had no life-threatening injuries. Finally, it is worth noting that the blogger who fabricated this issue, which then caused negative and incorrect news to be written about Tesla by reputable institutions, is Edward Niedermayer. This is the same gentle soul who previously wrote a blog titled “Tesla Death Watch,” which starting on May 19, 2008 was counting the days until Tesla’s death. It has now been 2,944 days. We just checked our pulse and, much to his chagrin, appear to be alive. It is probably wise to take Mr. Niedermayer’s words with at least a small grain of salt. Boom.

quocble 10y ago

Edward Neidermeyer is a douchebag. Look at all the articles he wrote. http://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/ARwBOWvU7QI/edward-niedermeyer http://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/ARwBOWvU7QI/edwar...

franciscop 10y ago

Some of Edward Niedermayer recently written article titles in bloomberg [1]: - Worker Discontent Makes Tesla a Union Target - Tesla Needs More Than Elon Musk - Tesla Will Get Trampled by the Mass Market - Tesla's Radical Update Is Just More of the Same - Tesla Has to Start Acting Like a Car Company - Tesla Stock Shifts Into 'Insane Mode' [negative] - The Empire Strikes Back at Tesla - Why Tesla Has a Target on Its Back - ... And the original cited in teslamotors.com: http://dailykanban.com/2016/06/tesla-suspension-breakage-not-crime-coverup/ http://dailykanban.com/2016/06/tesla-suspension-breakage-not... It seems that yes, we should take a grain of salt and a lot more. There's definitely something fishy going on here. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/ARwBOWvU7QI/edward-niedermeyer http://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/ARwBOWvU7QI/edwar...

makomk 10y ago
Wow. A Tesla owner's complaints on the unofficial Tesla forums were reposted by an apparently-unrelated blogger who complains about Tesla a lot. Clearly this proves that the blogger "fabricated this issue" and was the one who "caused negative and incorrect news to be written about Tesla by reputable institutions" by doing so. I mean, it's not like this argument could be used to discredit any issues customers have with Tesla no matter how genuine - that'd require this anti-Tesla blogger who supposedly latches onto any perceived failure to write about them, after all.
- a13n 10y ago
  You didn't read the blog post
bedhead 10y ago
Thank you for posting. Reminds me of the NYT article that bashed Amazon and Bezos a while back. Didn't take much digging to conclude the author/organization has a preconceived bias against the subject.
- fluxquanta 10y ago
  >Didn't take much digging to conclude the author/organization has a preconceived bias against the subject. Doesn't every journalist when reporting on any newsworthy item? Everybody has their biases, and they'll naturally come out in reporting. There is no "fair and balanced", it's just a matter of what extent these biases are hidden in the work. I think the onus is on us, the consumers of this media, to take every piece as only part of the whole truth, and make up our own minds about the subject.

abpavel 10y ago

Material science lifecycles are measured in decades. Just because you "haven't seen it before" does not mean it can't happen. It means you're not testing well enough, or that your data sample is not good enough. Noone is clairvoyant, and excuses such as "dirt" and "70000 miles" don't make you either. Why automatically attack the victim? Is it not remotely possible, that the fault lies with Tesla?

delinka 10y ago
"remotely possible" and "beyond reasonable doubt" are not equivalent. Just because you had a problem, once, with a product doesn't mean the manufacturer made a mistake. Isn't it remotely possible that it's your mistake instead?
OliverJones 10y ago
Yes, the fault may lie with Tesla. They fixed it! I bet they also put the failed part on a test bench to figure out what happened.

antihero 10y ago

> we believe in putting our customers’ happiness ahead of our own bottom line. Fuck off with this shit. Your customers happiness IS what defines your bottom line in the long run. Can we stop with all this fucking corporate lies. I think we need a new trend. Blunt honesty. I'd trust a company far more if they just came out and said yes, we're here to make money and expand. If this means treating you well as a customer, we will do that, but at the end of the day, we make money for our shareholders and to fund other crap we want to do, and we provide you with a thing you are cool with paying for and give you good service in order to do that.

abpavel 10y ago

Very interesting Tesla's response: 1. The car was not brand new and was actually driven, which is horrible. 2. NHTSA did not investigate anything, they just asked us for the documents. 3. We don't ask customers to sign anything, just demand that they sign "the agreement". 4. We're the best. Customers are idiots. 5. We'll even publicly expose the identity of the customer for you to hate. Here is his name, address, and SSN. Have fun!

jdbernard 10y ago
You must have read a different article than I. 1. Every manufacturer will point out that extreme conditions affect the performance and life of a car. I don't remember Tesla marketing the Model S as an off-road vehicle. I think it is fair for then to point out how different the driving conditions where in this case. 2. Cooperating with federal regulators is what we want, right? NHTSA hasn't opened even a preliminary investigation. Surely the agency talks with car manufacturers on a regular basis. 3. "When [we discount or conduct the repair for free] we sometimes ask our customers to sign a “Goodwill Agreement.” The basic point is to ensure that Tesla doesn’t do a good deed, only to have that used against us in court for further gain. [...] this agreement never even comes close to mentioning NHTSA or the government and it has nothing to do with trying to stop someone from communicating with NHTSA or the government about our cars. We have absolutely no desire to do something like that." 4. What? How are you even pulling that from the article. The fourth point was about Tesla's record of addressing safety concerns before customers experience problems. 5. First, they never said he was the owner of the car, but maybe that's obvious of you read his blog. But if that is true, then Tesla didn't expose him, he already exposed himself. Second, I didn't see any addresses or SSNs in the article, so you are exaggerating to the point of lying at this point.
dingo_bat 10y ago
Though all other points in your comment are quite juvenile, I think the first one is valid. >the suspension ball joint experienced very abnormal rust. We haven’t seen this on any other car, suggesting a very unusual use case. The car had over 70,000 miles on it and its owner lives down such a long dirt road that it required two tow trucks to retrieve the car. (One to get the car to the highway and one to get it from the highway to the service center.) When we got the car, it was caked in dirt. So what, Tesla? Cars are meant to be caked in dirt, sand, water, whatever elements they may encounter in the course of use by people who buy them. Most people drive on roads but some do go off-road and the cars should be able to handle it. Just the information provided here does not indicate misuse. It may still turn out that way, but not right now. It is more likely, IMO, that your engineers failed to consider some particular scenarios and the suspensions in your cars are a bit less rust-resistant than they should be.

djaychela 10y ago

OK, not as tech as many on here, but I've spent the last 25 years as an amateur mechanic, and spent 10 preparing and driving my own rally car, right up to World Rally Championship level, as well as having owned more cars than most people have had hot dinners, and fixed even more than that (sadly!) The balljoint in question has failed because the rubber boot on it has failed, allowing water/dirt in, and it's rusted out from there. This is nothing specific to Tesla, it can happen on any car - I've seen it on quite a few FWD cars, but never to this degree (total failure) - they will go on for a LONG time with play in them, and take a LOT of abuse before failing. To have failed in this manner, it would have needed to go un-noticed for some considerable time - I've had ones which have had a year of abuse in extreme circumstances and still been nowhere near as bad as this, so I think you have to ask about the servicing that had been done on this car - whether or not it had been inspected. In addition, this would have had significant play in it for some time, leading to noise which would be noticeable to most drivers when on the road, and easily noticed during any kind of worthwhile inspection (such as the MOT in the UK) - not sure if the state in question has a mandatory inspection? Yes, being on a dirt road could have exacerbated the problem, but it's not something that a "normal" car can't take - you'd be amazed the amount of physical abuse a mechanically-standard car can take on rough gravel roads at speed. Components such as this are usually sourced from sub-contractors, who produce them by the thousands/millions without issue, does anyone know if Tesla makes these themselves? Seems unlikely to me. As has been said elsewhere here, if this had happened on a Ford Focus, no-one would give a monkey's, it's only because it's a Tesla and this guy has an axe to grind.

Unklejoe 10y ago
[In addition, this would have had significant play in it for some time, leading to noise which would be noticeable to most drivers when on the road, and easily noticed during any kind of worthwhile inspection (such as the MOT in the UK) - not sure if the state in question has a mandatory inspection?] True. I've had to replace a few lower control arms on various cars due to loose ball joints. In all of the cases, the car made terrible sounds during normal driving long before the ball joint was actually loose enough to pop out. It was always very evident that something in the wheel was loose. Of course, anything can happen... [Components such as this are usually sourced from sub-contractors, who produce them by the thousands/millions without issue, does anyone know if Tesla makes these themselves? Seems unlikely to me.] I agree. I doubt that Tesla is making their own ball joints. It seems like to much NRE considering there are tons of off-the-shelf options available.

schneidmaster 10y ago

Since I've seen this mentioned a few times in the comments, it's worth noting: Tesla did not expose the identity of the customer who had the suspension problem. Edward Niedermayer is a blogger who uncovered a post on a car forum[1] and then made hay out of it[2] causing some national media to report about it. Tesla was merely commenting that this blogger has a pretty clear anti-Tesla bias in his other writing. If anyone's responsible for exposing the customer to scrutiny, it's Niedermayer (who linked to the semi-anonymous forum post and turned it into a media story). 1: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/suspension-problem-on-model-s.69204/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/suspension-problem-o... 2: http://dailykanban.com/2016/06/tesla-suspension-breakage-not-crime-coverup/ http://dailykanban.com/2016/06/tesla-suspension-breakage-not...

OliverJones 10y ago

I have a first-generation Honda Insight. It's sixteen years old and still going. At about 110K miles, the power pack failed, someplace in the Central Valley of California. Honda (I guess some zone office) had it towed 50 miles to the nearest dealership, which happened to be in Bakersfield. They then replaced the power pack without charging me for it. Now, I knew I was an early adopter. I knew this could happen. I was prepared to pay for it. And Honda decided to treat me like an early adopter. (They sent the old power pack back to Japan; I suppose they wanted to inspect it.) It never occurred to me to slag them in the media, or try to get a class action suit going, or some such foolishness. I was stuck in "the desert" for a few hours. But it might have made a good story. The media love stories about design defects in cars, and the big car companies' coverups play right into those stories. If it bleeds it leads. These EVs don't need oil changes. So the temptation may be to treat them like Soviet tanks and never maintain them. That seems a bad idea. They still have rubber seals on ball joints. They still have pads on the disc brakes. All that stuff is expendable, and needs to be looked at. Tesla is right to debunk this "big story." One guy who could have been using a 20-year-old jalopy pickup truck experienced a typical failure and turned it into his fifteen minutes of fame.

knorker 10y ago
> They still have rubber seals on ball joints. Do they? I seem to remember Musk saying they motor brake (picking up the power to charge the batteries) to brake. Maybe secondary brakes.
- michael_h 10y ago
  Those two things are unrelated. The ball joint lets you position the wheels (ie steer). I would be monumentally shocked if Tesla didn't put rubber seals on the ball joints.
  - gervase 10y ago
    You can judge for yourself[1] whether the joints are sealed with rubber or not; it appears to me that they are. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgdKZMlzQog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgdKZMlzQog

post_break 10y ago

The real crime here is Tesla dangling repairs in front of owners only if they sign an NDA.

castratikron 10y ago

That ball joint is in miserable condition. How had the owner not noticed any problems? The ball joint would be visible to anyone who would have had to replace the tires, which should have happened before 70K miles. Something feels off about this story. And about the $3k repair bill: You will see that with any luxury car. Low number of cars means a smaller market for used parts, so what usually happens is only the manufacturer sells used parts. When they're the only supplier, they can charge whatever they want for the parts, and they often do. Maybe the owner did know about the problem, but chose not to replace it because it was too expensive. It doesn't sound like Tesla is at fault at all, but I suppose they feel the need to protect their brand.

reubensutton 10y ago

I love how non-corporate the Tesla blog is: "It is deeply ironic that the only customer who apparently believes that this document prevents him from talking to NHTSA is also the same one who talked to NHTSA. If our agreement was meant to prevent that, it obviously wasn’t very good."

S_A_P 10y ago

Edward Niedermayer seems to be more concerned with click bait and controversy than really promoting discourse. The Truth About Cars has almost become readable since his departure, but its still a car tabloid at best. The dude is young and was given a pretty good sized platform, decided he didn't like Elon Musk and has now spent a significant percentage of his time to prove Tesla is a scam. I wouldn't call myself a die hard tesla fan, and Im not willing to spend the kind of money required to own a model s or x. But I would certainly call them compelling reasons to look into an electric car and they are easily 10-15 years ahead of the entrenched auto makers. I think that Tesla definitely has challenges ahead as well. The biggest is that they need to have cars fully baked and delivered on time. They need to start showing positive balance sheets regularly and they need to get the gigafactory done. I dont see them failing in the near term but their balance sheet and stock price need to reconcile eventually. As to the claims of reliability, Ive not seen anything that looks to be egregiously worse than cars in the target market. Ive yet to own a single car that has never had a defect or something break that required a warranty/out of warranty repair. I have had cars that were better than average (My current 2014 A4 has had one thing break in 55k miles) and some that were much worse (2009 Chevrolet silverado - everything electric broke, power rear glass, power windows, cruise control, fuel pump, power seats; 2001 VW GTI vr6 had the check engine light on every 6 weeks after I exceeded the ridiculously short 24000 mile warranty- I think they knew that was all that car was good for. I replaced the MAF twice, several other engine electrics as well) Whatever happens I have to give Tesla(not just Musk) a lot of credit for taking on a hard problem and creating a credible product.

Shivetya 10y ago

Great news. Still Tesla obviously expects this type of news to break and it will be an ever constant duty for them to refute or acknowledge issues. They must also understand that eventually some customers will want to work on their own cars, do preventive service and the like. They need to accommodate them as well. It is one thing to be serving almost exclusively early adopters, when the III comes along its going to be very interesting to see how they handle it. There will be a whole lot of people who simply don't know how to treat their cars well combined with many who are louder about issues simply because its a bigger investment to them

HeavyStorm 10y ago

"That said, sometimes Tesla does make genuine mistakes. We are not and have never claimed to be perfect. However, we strongly believe in trying to do the right thing and, when we fall short, taking immediate corrective action." This is what makes me feel confident about a company. Doesn't ring like false humbleness or a disclaimer, just something that you'd hear on a open conversation, where the other party is being sincere. And the worse thing about the whole situation is that damage is already done. Because people will believe anything they read.

geomark 10y ago

Musk tweeted that "37 of 40 suspension complaints to NHTSA were fraudulent, i.e. false location or vehicle identification numbers were used"[1] [1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/741411531582115841 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/741411531582115841

hartator 10y ago

I think it's worth noting that Tesla models seems to have issues with leaks and water infiltrations that can explain the rust. Anyway, if they beleive in stock manipulation, they should sue.

heisenbit 10y ago

Ok, someone has an axe to grind and there is a blogger with an vendetta. But at the end there was this surprising update: Of greater concern: 37 of 40 suspension complaints to NHTSA were fraudulent, i.e. false location or vehicle identification numbers were used — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 10, 2016 If true this goes beyond telling blown up stories and may cross the threshold over to criminal behavior.