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Wow - That sounds like a massive logistical efficiency failure. I could even see people tolerating higher prices (as it is a Tesla, etc) - but that long of a d

Wow - That sounds like a massive logistical efficiency failure. I could even see people tolerating higher prices (as it is a Tesla, etc) - but that long of a delay is insane. I wonder how many Tesla owners regret their purchase after experiencing a crazy-ass long delay like that. To be clear: I want Tesla to succeed. However I am also a realist - they have a lot of PR issues that would sink them if they were for example Ford/Chevy/BMW/Mercedes/Audi/etc.

dangrossman 7y ago
> To be clear: I want Tesla to succeed. Isn't it strange how often similar posturing appears in comments about Tesla. There aren't any secret SV police that are going to break down your door and take away your "we're saving the world" card if you say something "realist" about Tesla without a disclaimer.
- fisherjeff 7y ago
  Well I think that’s probably because there are a lot of very vocal people who seem to think that negative feedback must mean you’re a short seller and take that as permission to engage non-constructively. Disclaimer: I also want Tesla to succeed
  - gumby 7y ago
    Interesting, as it feels to me like people take anything positive about that company as gospel. Disclaimer: I don't give a fig either way whether the company succeeds or fails though I have a very hard time understanding how they can ever maintain their mkt cap.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      I’m for almost any company succeeding that doesn’t cause a lot of negative externalities and whose business model is you give them money and they give you stuff where in exchange for me getting a produce of value, they can be a profitable on going concern.
    - PButtNutter 7y ago
      The media in general hypes up Tesla way more than any other automaker. Like every Tesla crash makes headlines. Name any other automaker that faces the same scrutiny.
      - wpietri 7y ago
        The media is the one who hypes up Tesla? Musk has pursued an strategy that's built around very aggressive PR. This gives him lower marketing cost and lower cost of capital, so it's a reasonable approach. But he has to take the bad with the good. That includes critical articles as well as the many fawning ones.
      - fucking_tragedy 7y ago
        > Name any other automaker that faces the same scrutiny. Name any other automaker that makes claims like these about their automatic cruise control: "the person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself."[1] [1] https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2018/05/23/490104.htm https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2018/05/23/49...
        kjksf 7y ago
        How about Ford: full self-driving by 2021. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/15/ford-plans-a-ride-sharing-service-with-its-self-driving-cars-by-2021.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/15/ford-plans-a-ride-sharing-se... https://corporate.ford.com/articles/autonomous-technology/autonomous-2021.html https://corporate.ford.com/articles/autonomous-technology/au... Tesla thinks they can get there faster by a year.
        fucking_tragedy 7y ago
        Did you read my comment? Tesla didn't claim that they can get there faster, Tesla claimed that their automatic cruise control doesn't require a driver at all. Again, here is what Tesla claimed: > "the person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself." Ford has never made a claim that spurious and dangerous like Tesla has.
- TheTruth1234 7y ago
  Maybe it's just bullsh!t. Like 94.3% of content in the comments here. At least the disclaimer hints at that, whereas most do not.
- empath75 7y ago
  Any time anyone says anything negative about Tesla anywhere you get accused of being a shill for short sellers or the fossil fuel industry. That’s why people issue disclaimers.
  - close04 7y ago
    It's an attempt to fend off the inevitable wave of downvotes that come for any post with anything resembling negativity towards Tesla. I was downvoted for saying Tesla should build a proper network for after sale service (with all it entails). It's a polarizing topic and the disclaimer tries to soothe diehard fans.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  Tesla is like Apple a few years ago. Many people have emotional attachment to the idea of Tesla.
- dpkonofa 7y ago
  I think it's moreso that these problems are a minority. Yes, they're very bad problems but Tesla, for what I think are obvious reasons, tends to really get the spotlight shined on it when any kinds of issues arise. Media outlets want to get views and anything with Tesla gets views as long as its made out to be as bad as can possibly be. Case in point, I have a Model 3 that needed to get parts replaced (including a back seat) and I was back on the road in less than 48 hours and Tesla gave me a loaner car so that I didn't have to use my insurance benefits. There are definitely major issues and growing pains with Tesla but I don't think these issues are as common as stories like this are making them out to be. If that was actually the case, you'd see hundreds of these stories popping up. Additionally, I think the situation might be way worse for Silicon Valley just because of the sheer numbers of Teslas in use in that area. The rest of the country is probably not as backed up and strained as that.
  - hef19898 7y ago
    The experience you had is kind of standard for any dealership here in Europe, parts availability assumed to get the 48 hours turn around time. Which really puzzles me is that a high density of cars in one small region would cause these problems. In that case you can concentrate all kinds of parts locally without any inventory risks. You can have short delivery times for these parts due to the short distance. And you can build a dense network of repair shops as the demand is there. If you fail already at that, imagine to do the same in places with a lit less Teslas on the road and larger distances to your distribution centers. All this are things other OEMs figured out a long time ago. And no offense, but your experience is one data point and anecdotal. While true numbers will be impossible to come by, countering the article with a sample of size of one doesn't help.
- hef19898 7y ago
  It kind of is like that for SpaceX, too. At least with Tesla that kind of changed in last couple of months from my point of view.
- kartickv 7y ago
  Yeah, it's interesting that every community has its own strongly-held beliefs that you can't question. As an example, when I disagreed with criticism of AMP on HN, I was downvoted. This happened a few times. I had given a reason to back my point, but nobody gave a counter-argument. If anything, I got an angry retort or sarcasm or other kind of non-constructive behaviors. This suggests that we at HN are still prone to these biases and mob mentality (for lack of a better term, though it's exaggerated), even if we think we're better. This is the same (in kind, though not in degree) as Slashdot a decade ago where you could not praise Windows, unless you first declared your allegiance by saying, "I love Linux but" or "I don't like Windows but". One conclusion from all this is that I discount criticism of AMP or Google, or certain other topics that have become sacred cows. Not ignore, just discount.
burger_moon 7y ago
From reading articles on here for years about Teslas, it seems one of the major selling points is that you are expected to not have you car in a shop getting maintenance unlike ICE vehicles. I think most people forget about all the other stuff in that conversation then never considered what it takes to actually get a Tesla serviced because you'd expect it to be like every other car getting repaired.
- ajross 7y ago
  That's mixing three issues though. The fact that Teslas have stuff that can break (obviously true), that they're having supply chain problems with parts that cause long delays (seems true given the linked article), says absolutely nothing about the frequency of Tesla failures. By all accounts they seem to be quite reliable, as you would obviously expect given the lack of the whole fuel/combustion/exhaust and cooling subsystems.
  - dangrossman 7y ago
    > By all accounts they seem to be quite reliable Consumer Reports ranks Tesla #27 out of 29 manufacturers on reliability, and removed its recommendations for their cars. Several other surveys have similarly put Tesla's reliability dead last or nearly there.
    - alain94040 7y ago
      Part of that ranking is due to the baked-in assumptions: for instance you don't lose points for needing an oil change every year. That's just "normal". The fact that a Tesla doesn't need an oil change, somehow, doesn't give it more points with reliability, but if you think from first principles, it should.
      - base698 7y ago
        It does need a $400 annual service though, which you can pay for up front.
PorterDuff 7y ago
"To be clear: I want Tesla to succeed. However I am also a realist " That's my take. Good for them for taking such a huge chance and seeing an opportunity to take a chance on technology that is just now becoming practical. But...I can't see any reason why Toyota won't squash them like a bug in the low and medium end car biz once EV technology becomes a bit better and their adoption is more mainstream. It's a heckuva business to try to make a profit in in any case.
- bobsil1 7y ago
  I drive a Toyota Mirai, brother has a Model 3. Mirai is like a plasticky HP laptop vs. the Tesla's MacBook, not to mention the stillborn hydrogen network or the ML-centric team of Tesla autopilot.
  - bobsil1 7y ago
    I love this. We’re on “Hacker” News, and people are in denial that cars are going software-first :D
    - bobsil1 7y ago
      Hackers Snooze
- dpkonofa 7y ago
  Batteries, mostly. Tesla's battery technology is light years ahead of where anyone else is and their charging network is already better than anyone else out there, including the private companies using standards, and they've just recently made them even better and faster through a software update. If anyone catches up to them, I'll be very, very surprised.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
    Didn't Tesla open source all it's patents?[1] I am, really, only a casual observer, so can someone tell me if this means anyone can use their battery tech, and whatever else is important? 1. https://www.tesla.com/en_AU/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you https://www.tesla.com/en_AU/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-y...

dangrossman 7y ago

> To be clear: I want Tesla to succeed. Isn't it strange how often similar posturing appears in comments about Tesla. There aren't any secret SV police that are going to break down your door and take away your "we're saving the world" card if you say something "realist" about Tesla without a disclaimer.

fisherjeff 7y ago
Well I think that’s probably because there are a lot of very vocal people who seem to think that negative feedback must mean you’re a short seller and take that as permission to engage non-constructively. Disclaimer: I also want Tesla to succeed
- gumby 7y ago
  Interesting, as it feels to me like people take anything positive about that company as gospel. Disclaimer: I don't give a fig either way whether the company succeeds or fails though I have a very hard time understanding how they can ever maintain their mkt cap.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    I’m for almost any company succeeding that doesn’t cause a lot of negative externalities and whose business model is you give them money and they give you stuff where in exchange for me getting a produce of value, they can be a profitable on going concern.
  - PButtNutter 7y ago
    The media in general hypes up Tesla way more than any other automaker. Like every Tesla crash makes headlines. Name any other automaker that faces the same scrutiny.
    - wpietri 7y ago
      The media is the one who hypes up Tesla? Musk has pursued an strategy that's built around very aggressive PR. This gives him lower marketing cost and lower cost of capital, so it's a reasonable approach. But he has to take the bad with the good. That includes critical articles as well as the many fawning ones.
    - fucking_tragedy 7y ago
      > Name any other automaker that faces the same scrutiny. Name any other automaker that makes claims like these about their automatic cruise control: "the person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself."[1] [1] https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2018/05/23/490104.htm https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2018/05/23/49...
      - kjksf 7y ago
        How about Ford: full self-driving by 2021. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/15/ford-plans-a-ride-sharing-service-with-its-self-driving-cars-by-2021.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/15/ford-plans-a-ride-sharing-se... https://corporate.ford.com/articles/autonomous-technology/autonomous-2021.html https://corporate.ford.com/articles/autonomous-technology/au... Tesla thinks they can get there faster by a year.
        fucking_tragedy 7y ago
        Did you read my comment? Tesla didn't claim that they can get there faster, Tesla claimed that their automatic cruise control doesn't require a driver at all. Again, here is what Tesla claimed: > "the person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself." Ford has never made a claim that spurious and dangerous like Tesla has.
TheTruth1234 7y ago
Maybe it's just bullsh!t. Like 94.3% of content in the comments here. At least the disclaimer hints at that, whereas most do not.
empath75 7y ago
Any time anyone says anything negative about Tesla anywhere you get accused of being a shill for short sellers or the fossil fuel industry. That’s why people issue disclaimers.
- close04 7y ago
  It's an attempt to fend off the inevitable wave of downvotes that come for any post with anything resembling negativity towards Tesla. I was downvoted for saying Tesla should build a proper network for after sale service (with all it entails). It's a polarizing topic and the disclaimer tries to soothe diehard fans.
Spooky23 7y ago
Tesla is like Apple a few years ago. Many people have emotional attachment to the idea of Tesla.
dpkonofa 7y ago
I think it's moreso that these problems are a minority. Yes, they're very bad problems but Tesla, for what I think are obvious reasons, tends to really get the spotlight shined on it when any kinds of issues arise. Media outlets want to get views and anything with Tesla gets views as long as its made out to be as bad as can possibly be. Case in point, I have a Model 3 that needed to get parts replaced (including a back seat) and I was back on the road in less than 48 hours and Tesla gave me a loaner car so that I didn't have to use my insurance benefits. There are definitely major issues and growing pains with Tesla but I don't think these issues are as common as stories like this are making them out to be. If that was actually the case, you'd see hundreds of these stories popping up. Additionally, I think the situation might be way worse for Silicon Valley just because of the sheer numbers of Teslas in use in that area. The rest of the country is probably not as backed up and strained as that.
- hef19898 7y ago
  The experience you had is kind of standard for any dealership here in Europe, parts availability assumed to get the 48 hours turn around time. Which really puzzles me is that a high density of cars in one small region would cause these problems. In that case you can concentrate all kinds of parts locally without any inventory risks. You can have short delivery times for these parts due to the short distance. And you can build a dense network of repair shops as the demand is there. If you fail already at that, imagine to do the same in places with a lit less Teslas on the road and larger distances to your distribution centers. All this are things other OEMs figured out a long time ago. And no offense, but your experience is one data point and anecdotal. While true numbers will be impossible to come by, countering the article with a sample of size of one doesn't help.
hef19898 7y ago
It kind of is like that for SpaceX, too. At least with Tesla that kind of changed in last couple of months from my point of view.
kartickv 7y ago
Yeah, it's interesting that every community has its own strongly-held beliefs that you can't question. As an example, when I disagreed with criticism of AMP on HN, I was downvoted. This happened a few times. I had given a reason to back my point, but nobody gave a counter-argument. If anything, I got an angry retort or sarcasm or other kind of non-constructive behaviors. This suggests that we at HN are still prone to these biases and mob mentality (for lack of a better term, though it's exaggerated), even if we think we're better. This is the same (in kind, though not in degree) as Slashdot a decade ago where you could not praise Windows, unless you first declared your allegiance by saying, "I love Linux but" or "I don't like Windows but". One conclusion from all this is that I discount criticism of AMP or Google, or certain other topics that have become sacred cows. Not ignore, just discount.

burger_moon 7y ago

From reading articles on here for years about Teslas, it seems one of the major selling points is that you are expected to not have you car in a shop getting maintenance unlike ICE vehicles. I think most people forget about all the other stuff in that conversation then never considered what it takes to actually get a Tesla serviced because you'd expect it to be like every other car getting repaired.

ajross 7y ago
That's mixing three issues though. The fact that Teslas have stuff that can break (obviously true), that they're having supply chain problems with parts that cause long delays (seems true given the linked article), says absolutely nothing about the frequency of Tesla failures. By all accounts they seem to be quite reliable, as you would obviously expect given the lack of the whole fuel/combustion/exhaust and cooling subsystems.
- dangrossman 7y ago
  > By all accounts they seem to be quite reliable Consumer Reports ranks Tesla #27 out of 29 manufacturers on reliability, and removed its recommendations for their cars. Several other surveys have similarly put Tesla's reliability dead last or nearly there.
  - alain94040 7y ago
    Part of that ranking is due to the baked-in assumptions: for instance you don't lose points for needing an oil change every year. That's just "normal". The fact that a Tesla doesn't need an oil change, somehow, doesn't give it more points with reliability, but if you think from first principles, it should.
    - base698 7y ago
      It does need a $400 annual service though, which you can pay for up front.

PorterDuff 7y ago

"To be clear: I want Tesla to succeed. However I am also a realist " That's my take. Good for them for taking such a huge chance and seeing an opportunity to take a chance on technology that is just now becoming practical. But...I can't see any reason why Toyota won't squash them like a bug in the low and medium end car biz once EV technology becomes a bit better and their adoption is more mainstream. It's a heckuva business to try to make a profit in in any case.

bobsil1 7y ago
I drive a Toyota Mirai, brother has a Model 3. Mirai is like a plasticky HP laptop vs. the Tesla's MacBook, not to mention the stillborn hydrogen network or the ML-centric team of Tesla autopilot.
- bobsil1 7y ago
  I love this. We’re on “Hacker” News, and people are in denial that cars are going software-first :D
  - bobsil1 7y ago
    Hackers Snooze
dpkonofa 7y ago
Batteries, mostly. Tesla's battery technology is light years ahead of where anyone else is and their charging network is already better than anyone else out there, including the private companies using standards, and they've just recently made them even better and faster through a software update. If anyone catches up to them, I'll be very, very surprised.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  Didn't Tesla open source all it's patents?[1] I am, really, only a casual observer, so can someone tell me if this means anyone can use their battery tech, and whatever else is important? 1. https://www.tesla.com/en_AU/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you https://www.tesla.com/en_AU/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-y...