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Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work
- ohnocentral 7y ago"There are unique challenges that come with working on these cars. You might have to rebuild a circuit board one day, and fabricate a new hood the next day. Actually, if any body parts are damaged, you'll have to fabricate them. Tesla doesn't sell parts to anyone, so Medlock has taken to fashioning new panels out of carbon fiber himself. " Didn't expect to see circuit board rebuilding until ~2023 (15y is my recollection for MTBF curves starting to climb).
- twblalock 7y agoThe boards can get damaged in accidents and perhaps by water intrusion, so I wouldn't be surprised if the shop needs to replace them on a regular basis.
- tyingq 7y agoJust plain old MTBF says there will be (some) early failures. Nobody's perfect, and outlier conditions, like really high temps or humidity, high salt, etc, exist in some buyer environments. And, as you mention, special circumstances like crashes, fires, theft/vandalism, and flooding.
- kube-system 7y agoI thought federal law required mass market vehicle manufacturers to make parts available for 10 years? Am I mistaken or did Tesla manufacture these under some low-volume exception?
- damienkatz 7y agoYou’re probably thinking about cars bought by the federal gov.
- droithomme 7y ago> federal law required mass market vehicle manufacturers to make parts available for 10 years That's what I always heard as well, but it doesn't apply to Tesla for some reason, which is not being discussed even though it should be. https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/14049/are-auto-manufacturers-required-under-us-federal-law-to-provide-parts-for-a-set https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/14049/are-auto-... According to the above link, parts for cars and other consumer products only need to be available in some form (and not from the manufacturer) for the stated warranty period, whatever it is. After that you have no protection. Seems the 10 yr thing is an urban legend widely promulgated to rubes like us. The thread has evidence that laws are different overseas. In Israel it is claimed parts must be available for 7 years, as an example.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoI don’t think the Tesla Roadster was ever a mass market car? Someone elsewhere suggested only 2500 of them were made.
- johnbatch 7y agoThere is a California law requiring consumer electronics And appliances (not cars) to have parts for 7 years. CIVIL CODE SECTION 1792-1795.8 (b) Every manufacturer making an express warranty with respect to an electronic or appliance product described in subdivision (h), (i), (j), or (k) of Section 9801 of the Business and Professions Code, with a wholesale price to the retailer of one hundred dollars ($100) or more, shall make available to service and repair facilities sufficient service literature and functional parts to effect the repair of a product for at least seven years after the date a product model or type was manufactured, regardless of whether the seven-year period exceeds the warranty period for the product
- latchkey 7y agoThis guy is great, he found a niche full of customers and became the expert. I wish more startups would do this. With regards to Tesla, it is always interesting to me to see how as companies grow, they become more political, less effective and generally suck more. All the good people, like this guy, get pushed out or leave on their own. Makes me generally not want to build or work for a large company ever again.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoFind a niche. Build a profitable business around it. Stay small. Make your customers and your staff happy (make a path to shared ownership for them if that tickles your fancy). Enjoy doing it. You won’t regret it. More money, more problems (my apologies to Mr B.I.G.)
- edoceo 7y ago"Mo" not "More". Respect.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jacquesm 7y ago> Find a niche. Build a profitable business around it. Stay small. Make your customers and your staff happy (make a path to shared ownership for them if that tickles your fancy). Wow. This is exactly what I'm doing!
- toomuchtodo 7y agoI wish you much success. I’d love to buy you a coffee or other beverage and hear all about it.
- jacquesm 7y agoAnytime, jacques@modularcompany.com
- twblalock 7y agoA lot of early adopters were probably worried that Tesla would go out of business and they wouldn't be able to get parts. Tesla is still in business and there still aren't parts. Hopefully enough of the current Tesla models will end up on the road to make it profitable for aftermarket suppliers to make some parts. So far it doesn't seem like that is happening at very much scale.
- gok 7y agoThe roadster is a uniquely weird product in that it was hacked together from Lotus parts. Lotuses are already hard to get parts for, and Lotus and Tesla split on bad terms. Plus the electric parts were basically one-offs; they made less than 2500 units in total.
- jonknee 7y agoParts are hard to come by for their mass market models too, it's crazy.
- ianai 7y agoWhat are owners supposed to do? Are there any indications these cars fail so rarely?
- twblalock 7y agoMost of the problems I've heard of with the newer Tesla models involve replacement body parts to repair damage from accidents, especially the glass roofs of the new Model 3.
- coldtea 7y ago>What are owners supposed to do? Take a lesson and buy more wisely next time?
- pjc50 7y agoIt's smartphone engineering: when it breaks, you're supposed to throw it away and buy a new one. /s
- paulddraper 7y agoWow. I had a '91 Saturn sedan until 2015. Despite my model being out of production for decades, and Saturn having closed up shop for years, I could still find aftermarket auto parts. How common of a problem is this? Any other manufactures/models notorious for poor part availability?
- RickJWagner 7y agoBut they made a lot more Saturns than they did Tesla Roadsters. That's got a lot to do with the strength of the parts market. BTW-- congrats on the Saturn! I had a '94 SC1, first car I ever bought brand new. Good car.
- paulddraper 7y agoMine was an SL2. I wish I knew how many miles I had on it; the odometer broke at 186,000 in 2003.
- pmorici 7y agoPretty big difference between a model that sells 2,500 total units and one that sells millions over 2 decades. A better comparison would be to look at what parts availability is on a limited run sports car.
- paulddraper 7y agoYou're right; that's a good point. The are specialized vehicles akin to a rare sports car; it's unfair to compare it to mass market vehicles.
- mbreese 7y agoNot only the limited run nature, but part of this has also got to be the big supplier network that is available for other cars. How many custom parts are there on a Tesla Roadster compared to other cars? There are large supplier networks that can supply many (most? all?) of the internal parts required to build a complete car (sport or otherwise). I’ve got to think that the ratio skews heavily to the side of custom for any of the Tesla. This is where Tesla’s intense vertical integration starts to be a detriment. I was just reading an article about how the vertical integration of Tesla was amazing in that it made it possible for custom components to be used that saved space and weight by performing more than one job [0]. This is great - until you need to replace that one specialized part and you can’t seem to find it. I laughed when I was looking at the cup holder for my new car. It’s a 2018 Audi A3. The rear cup holder is the same junky design that I had to replace multiple times in an old 2000 Jetta. It’s not a great design, even-though it saves space. However, because of all of the available suppliers for that part, I know I’ll be able to find a replacement of this for years. This type of parts availability is a blessing (you can find one cheap) and a curse (you are limited in how you can design the car by the parts that are already available, thus you can only have a barely functional cup holder). [0] https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-superbottle-disruption-video/ https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-superbottle-disrupti...
- RickJWagner 7y agoI've wanted one since "Nash Bridges". Cool car.
- droithomme 7y agoThat they won't service them or supply parts shows the future for all Tesla owners. We need legislative reform that requires any companies selling products in US jurisdiction put enough parts and cash in escrow to guarantee for a reasonable time period the ability to service anything that costs more than $500.
- wmf 7y agoIt's more like the present; every part they manufacture goes into a new Tesla while owners wait weeks for replacement parts.
- jacques_chester 7y agoThis is the key: Tesla's goal is increasing new-car production. Diverting intermediate assemblies into spare parts inventories directly competes with that goal. If Tesla had spare manufacturing capacity this wouldn't be as pressing. As they bring more online it would presumably ease, though with lag while the backlog of demand is drained.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoIt’s unknown if Telsa has spare parts capacity. What is know is that distributing parts for warranty repairs is a cost to the company. It seems their plan is to let warranty claims languish until at least the next financial period.
- droithomme 7y agoSounds like a brillant plan. Do you feel that knowledge of total lack of serviceability for cars more than a few years old might discourage more that a modicum of potential new buyers. And if so would it make financial sense to hire 50¢ armies to annihilate any attempts to share such information online and discredit its promulgators.
- Scoundreller 7y agoDepends on the part and who the supplier is. Some parts are more easily ramped up in production. Are parts buyers struggling for some parts, or all parts equally? If it's the latter, Tesla is either really good, or really nasty. If you're getting stamped steel body panels from a manufacturer that can't ramp up its supply, you're with the wrong manufacturer.
- pfarnsworth 7y agoMy wife damaged the skirt at the bottom of the car, driving over a bump. It dented the skirt pretty badly, so we got it replaced. $10,000 and 4 weeks labor (but waited months to get it fixed), because they had to disassemble the whole damn car. I was livid at what should have been maybe a $200 part required practically the entire car to be disassembled. One front seat and the back seats were both removed as were the entire side panel of the car. Until Tesla solves the maintenance and replaceability of parts, I'm never getting another Tesla again. It's simply bad design. It's like an iPhone where you can't just replace the battery, you need to disassemble the entire thing just to get to the battery. With no commitment to their Roadster customers, it makes me wonder how long they will be committed to their Model 3 customers in providing parts? Already the parts market takes months to get parts, how will it be 6 years from now?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bognition 7y agoWhat model do you have?
- natch 7y agoTo be fair it was their first car. They have come a long way since then.
- segmondy 7y agoThis is exactly what put an end to my plan to buy a Tesla. I went nuts like everyone and most of my friends and coworkers bought one. I held out then I read about how the repair can take forever and how the parts are so tightly coupled that you have to almost disassembly the car to make repairs and I decided to pass. Until they figure this out, I'll probably get a used volt or bolt whenever I decided to get my next car.
- natch 7y agoThere are a few clickbait articles out there, but don't believe everything you hear. Repairs, the very few I've had (two flat tires and one camera issue) have not been that bad. Flat tires were: mobile service came to where I was within 20 minutes, had me sign a paper, and put on an identical loaner wheel. That was that. Took like 2 minutes of my time. Then had to go to the service center for the swap back, which took around 20 minutes. Camera was a drop off at the shop and then I ubered to work on Tesla's dime for two days, because they were out of loaner Teslas at that time. Yeah could have been faster but it wasn't bad at all. The horror stories were a catalyst for a lot of changes, I believe... the reality may be not as bad as you fear.
- cromka 7y agoIt's only a matter of time until it becomes profitable enough to salvage that one orbiting the Earth...
- gpm 7y agoIt's not orbiting Earth, it's orbiting the sun. I think it's fair to say that it would be the most ambitious space mission we've ever taken to try and retrieve it, at least when not adjusting for our increased technical sophistication since the appolo era...
- thejenk 7y agoI was going to mention that the one that has broken earth's orbit is the wrong vehicle and is not a first generation Tesla Roadster, but then I realised the repair woes are likely to be even worse for second generation Roadster owners. They're not likely to be produced in significantly more volume, and they're made totally in house, not based on a Lotus platform like the last one.
- greglindahl 7y agoThe first Roadster had a Lotus Elise shell, not the "platform". The "platform" is not the outside of the car, in automobile industry terms.
- jaakl 7y agoIt seems that Musk realized that the only sane fate for the cars is to throw them away as far as you can.
- 7y ago
- jdnenej 7y agoThis is becoming more and more of a problem as everything becomes more complex. I remember when I was a child my dad repaired the power switch on the vacume cleaner by going to the local electrical store and buying the exact same switch. Now every single device has its own custom part and the switch isn't just connecting 2 wires, it's contacting a main board telling it the button has been pressed triggering the power toggle code which will probably perform a bunch of checks and processes before powering on. If anything goes wrong you either have to replace half of the device if you can or just bin it because it would take you a lifetime to work out everything that happens when you press the power button.
- WalterBright 7y agoWhen it doesn't work, I just apply more voltage.
- jacobush 7y agoHow do you refill the white smoke which escapes sometimes when you do that?
- taneq 7y agoIf you apply even more voltage, you can make more smoke. :D
- WalterBright 7y agoThat's the whole point. The smoke is clogging up the electronics, need to blow it out.
- jandrese 7y agoThe good news is you can get almost anything on the Internet. I've found so many weird parts from shady eBay sellers that worked perfectly in the end. Other times I've had to order a similar part off of Mouser and hack it to make it fit, with varying levels of success.
- Scoundreller 7y agoBasically the Apple philosophy. On the plus side, it really drives up re-sale values and part-out values when you don't have the manufacturer undercutting you. Source: I parted out my old Macbook and ended up with a pretty good downpayment on my next done. Got new mid-2015 Macbook Air new by parting my mid-2011 and ~CAD$300 by selling the promo "free" Beats headphones.
- pvg 7y agoTesla threw together of a couple of thousand prototype-ish cars based on an already-uncommon sports car. Apple makes zillions of devices and supports them for years. What's the connection here?
- burke 7y agoIndividual parts are not readily available from either manufacturer.
- userbinator 7y ago...and neither of them are fond of anyone but themselves doing the repairs. Some references, for the disbelievers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20641424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20641424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20674591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20674591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11233898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11233898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11255160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11255160
- pvg 7y agoYou can't get 'individual parts' for most consumer electronics. They don't require the sort of maintenance a car does, as this user's story about selling an 8 year old laptop and buying a 4 year old laptop with the proceeds illustrates.
- Scoundreller 7y agoApple keeps a much tighter grip on their supply chains than the rest. If you're willing to search around on Ebay/AliExpress, you usually can get individual parts: either gray market from a service centre, 2nd shift or overruns. The big exception's for Apple parts. Contrast with Sears: Here's 250+ parts available for each fridge they distribute, shipped to you direct, with manuals: https://www.searspartsdirect.com/category/1234589/refrigerator-parts https://www.searspartsdirect.com/category/1234589/refrigerat... I bought repair parts for my parents' 20 year old garage door opener from them. PSA: open it up and grease the nylon gears every decade so they don't turn into a snowmaker.
- irjustin 7y agoI love listening to this. It's all the beauties of a great business. There's a problem, a loyal group and someone willing to solve and love the problem at the same time. It's sad to see that the Roadster community was left behind so quickly. For better or for worse, Tesla plays cars like the startup game. Pivot, deploy, traction?, repeat. As terrible as that sounds, I do hope Tesla is here to stay. Even in its current form, the world is better with Tesla than without.
- jacquesm 7y agoIt seems that abandoning the userbase of the people that got you there is a staple ingredient for start-ups beyond a certain size too.
- leesalminen 7y agoMy wife has a 2020 Toyota Corolla. Less than 3 months old and it’s got a bad crack in the windshield. Toyota says a replacement is 6 months out and there are 800 on backorder in North America right now. So, it’s not just Tesla. Can happen to any manufacturer.
- JohnJamesRambo 7y agoCan’t you just go to one of the dozens of windshield replacement businesses in your area? You drive it there and they plop in a new windshield for very reasonable rates. They will often even come to you to fix it.
- raverbashing 7y agoRight?! Six months for a windshield replacement is ridiculous, especially for such a name brand
- jedberg 7y agoMost likely if the dealer is replacing it, it's a manufacturing defect. In which case you can't go to a third party if you want OEM glass and/or have Toyota pay for the replacement, not to mention possibly voiding the warranty.
- Infernal 7y agoI have wondered about this between my 2008 Honda and my 2019 Honda. The 2008, I have had the windshield replaced twice, no sweat, once due to a rock from the road and once due to a hailstone. On the 2019, there is a suite of sensors behind the rearview mirror that (I presume) handle lane detection and object avoidance (emergency braking) duties. I don't know what assumptions those sensors (or the software behind them) might make about the properties of the glass they're looking through, but I wouldn't blindly have the shop on the corner replace the 2019 windshield like I would on my 2008.
- leesalminen 7y agoPretty much. Same deal on the Corolla. Just out of curiosity I checked safelite.com and they don’t even offer a replace option on this year/make/model. Only repair, and this crack is well beyond the repair limit.
- mcguire 7y ago"Actually, if any body parts are damaged, you'll have to fabricate them." I thought car markers provided parts for, like, 30 years.
- kllrnohj 7y agoMass-market cars tend to yes. The economics work out for them to do that, along with trying to get those repeat customers. The low-volume exotics not as much. They didn't make extra parts when the factory was doing the initial batch, and they sure aren't going to go spin it up for the odd one-off.
- olivermarks 7y agothe Roadster is a Lotus Elise with an EV drivetrain installed by Tesla, there is good parts supply for the original Elise. https://www.elise-shop.com/original-lotus-parts-c-17.html https://www.elise-shop.com/original-lotus-parts-c-17.html The EV conversion made the car a lot heavier and was a pretty complex conversion https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/09/18/elon-musk-converting-lotus-elise-to-build-the-tesla-roadster-was-a-super-dumb-strategy/#62b5c24b540f https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/09/18/elon-mu...
- greglindahl 7y agoThat's not very accurate. The "sled" is completely different, not just the drivetrain.
- olivermarks 7y agoThe EV conversion made the car a lot heavier and was a pretty complex conversion https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/09/18/elon-mu.. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/09/18/elon-mu....
- tyingq 7y ago"Only the windshield, the dashboard (complete with the airbags and the wheel), the front wishbones, the rear-view mirrors...and the removable soft top were carried over from the Elise"
- alkonaut 7y agoA small run exotic car won't be as easy and cheap to service as a mass market car. But 2500 isn't 25. Lots of manufacturers of exotic cars in a LOT smaller runs than 2500. And they make sure to procduce the parts required to service the cars for a very long time if they want to look like a serious car manufacturer.
- ak39 7y agoWhy would Tesla send a C&D to this guy who is helping their brand??? Mind-boggling decision.
- audiometry 7y agoWonder if these are good collectible-candidates? Though I guess maintaining the battery for 25 years would be an absolute nightmare. Do these things, used, trade at a premium or discount to their original price?
- dmix 7y agoI find it crazy when any company doesn't fully adopt the hackers and aftermarket people. Like the guy said they need to have a certification process and official pipelines to support 3rd party vendors. This would significantly increase the UX of owning the car which would offset any risks of backlash from bad work. A car waiting 1.5yrs for a small component is a way worse outcome IMO.