12 ms·

Tesla sends untrained employees to work on cars as service becomes problematic

140 points by heavyset_go 4y ago

de6u99er 4y ago
It seems very much to me as if Musk doesn't know what he is doing. If this is feliberate it looks like he is trying to reduce costs to make Tesla's stock price go up again.
- MBCook 4y ago
  Wouldn’t the negativity of the reports of damaged/poorly repaired cars be a bigger drain than any reduction in costs may be a plus?
  - toast0 4y ago
    As someone with no horse in the race, the negativity of reports of damaged/nonfunctional/poorly assembled cars straight from manufacturing didn't seem to be a very big drain, so I don't see why moving to shody work later would be a red flag.
    - rodgerd 4y ago
      Exactly. Shoddy assembly, inadequate paint coverage, bumpers that fall off while driving, "whompy wheels" that were due to badly put together suspension, chassis damage from the factory and so on haven't really dented Tesla's reputation - although that's in an atmosphere where most buyers feel the need to write multi-paragraph attestations to how much they love Tesla before discussing those things.
      - judge2020 4y ago
        The majority of people (probably at least 7 nines) who buy a Tesla will never experience anything like this and will reap the rewards of a car with low average maintenance costs (the majority of that being lower-than-average tire lifetimes). Tons of cars from other manufacturers often have similar issues from the factory, eg The Stellantis (Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram) family supposedly has one lemon every 100k cars produced[0] and that's only if the issue isn't fixed within 3 visits to the dealership's auto repair shop. 0: https://lemonlawexperts.com/list-of-lemon-cars/ https://lemonlawexperts.com/list-of-lemon-cars/
        ahahahahah 4y ago
        > probably at least 7 nines Wtf are you on? At most 1 in ten million people who buy Tesla will experience this? So, considering that Tesla has sold significantly less that that, do you think all those reports have secretly just been from one person?
  - mikkergp 4y ago
    He might be hedging on "eventually"
  - rurp 4y ago
    Sure, if customer satisfaction is what you want to optimize for. But in this case: > the main concern is reducing the metric of “next available appointment,” Later on the article talks about how short sellers have been using that metric to gauge service levels, which Tesla wants to undermine. So it looks like the company is explicitly targeting a vanity metric as a knee jerk response to short sellers. Not the best long term strategy...
  - ineedasername 4y ago
    You would think so but cars with lots of defects on delivery to the customer have been an issue for years yet Tesla is still able to sell as many cars as it can make. At some point it may catch up to them & they'll have to do something about it, but by then it may be too late to avoid major damage to the company. The fact that it hasn't hurt them yet might make it even worse: it may mean leadership stays in denial over the problem even longer past the point of keeping it manageable.
- paulcole 4y ago
  Elon Musk knows more about manufacturing than anyone alive on planet Earth. How do I know? He said so himself!
  - CamperBob2 4y ago
    Basically he's Trump with twice the IQ. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.
    - rchaud 4y ago
      For years I thought of him as "Steve Jobs without the charisma" but increasingly the wild Monorail style promises about Mars and Hyperloop are also leading me to think Trump.
      - api 4y ago
        I will always have a spot for him in my respect list for SpaceX. No we don’t have a Mars settlement but what they have accomplished is truly huge. If Starship actually works it will be a new space age. I do suspect we will have a base on the Moon and maybe a little space tourism long before we do anything more than a small not-to-stay trip to Mars. The rocket is only a small part of the tech tree to settle a planet 6mos journey away. The moon is only about three days and there is a daily launch window. That being said I’m also well aware that Gwynne Shotwell and numerous others are at least as responsible. He gets some but by no means all credit. I also give Tesla immense credit for helping tip EVs, though I am less bullish on them by far than SpaceX. They seem to be very different companies.
      - CamperBob2 4y ago
        If he could just stay focused, I have no doubt that he'd make it to Mars. But he evidently can't.
        paulcole 4y ago
        When you realize his #1 goal is fame and attention, it’s clear that he’s very focused.
- LoveGracePeace 4y ago
  "It seems very much to me as if Musk doesn't know what he is doing." Didn't he put like, a whole car, into orbit around the Sun?
  - kumarvvr 4y ago
    Its easy to think of this stunt as some sort of playboyy thing, but I felt it was a brilliant PR move. They needed a known weight to test the rocket and orbital flight mechanics. Instead of putting any random thing, he put his car and the world went gaga over the stunt. It brought Tesla and SpaceX tremendous amount of press. As a founder, he made full use of an opportunity.
  - magic_hamster 4y ago
    Actually, all cars orbit the sun. But seriously, that stunt has nothing to do with production Teslas. Tesla is still a very new player we are now seeing more and more growing pains, especially on the customer side, which is too bad but honestly should have been expected. We are the first adopters to discover what kind of shelf life a Tesla car has, what it works like after 5, 10 and 15 years. Personally, I'm not optimistic about it. It seems to break down quite easily for a lot of people - add a decade of wear and tear on top of that, and it's not a great picture.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      The idea that we are only now seeing growing pains is wrong. Service has always been a major issue. As far back as Model S it has been a consistent topic. The base electronic, motors and batteries seem to be pretty reliable for most people. They had very few major issues with those things compared to most companies much smaller EV efforts.
- oxplot 4y ago
  > It seems very much to me as if Musk doesn't know what he is doing. Teslas are ever more in demand, with wait times extending to a year. They are the highest selling EVs in the world by a large margin and they make the highest margin on EVs they sell, while others are losing money and stopping production (latest of which is Ford Mache E). He knows what he's doing.
  - misiti3780 4y ago
    I generally do not understand how people can accuse Musk of being incompetent in 2022.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Given the year over year growth from Tesla for 13+ years in a row it seems a bit silly to suggest he doesnt know what he is doing. He took direct control of a company when it was going straight to shit and now its by far the largest EV company on the planned and they are still growing like a startup. The public perception that everything Musk does it to optimize short term stock price seems to me totally and completly wrong. I think far more accurate assesment would be that he focus on long term planning off the core limitation his companies are facing. And that will be positive for long term. And so far this has proven out very successful. I can give many exapmles. And in that he pays sometimes for not doing as well on the sideshows. Aguable that is the only way you can even consider running multible comapanies like that.
- 93po 4y ago
mint2 4y ago
What can go wrong with untrained office workers setting up steel forges in their back yards or performing car services. Also why does a Tesla even need service other than a quick safety check. It’s not like the brake pads should be worn fast with regen and there’s no oil to change.
- dubswithus 4y ago
  Because Tesla’s build quality is very poor. Instead of fixing that problem they have decided to focus on producing more cars.
  - LanceJones 4y ago
    Not that they shouldn't address quality issues that persist over many cars, but the demand curve and customer satisfaction ratings suggest Tesla doesn't need to focus heavily on class-leading quality (yet).
    - klyrs 4y ago
      Public sentiment can change pretty quickly. Combine halfass build quality with halfass repair service, and "bought once, it was a massive headache to repair, still didn't work, won't buy again" is a common customer story. It'll be hard to come back from that.
      - badwolf 4y ago
        Similarly, people getting hyped up on finally getting a new car, a Tesla. Only to have to take it in after 1 day and being told it would be 2-3 weeks to service it. Then having to take it back in for service again less than a month old, only to be told there's no parts, it will be another 2-3 weeks... People can go from mega hype-person to mega detractor quite fast.
      - Adraghast 4y ago
        Yep. I was an early adopter, but now when people ask if I’d recommend buying a Model 3 my answer has changed to that I probably wouldn’t in 2022, mostly due to shoddy build quality and subpar service experiences.
thrwyoilarticle 4y ago
For a long time I thought that Tesla's headstart would diminish, that eventually legacy automakers would catch up and overtake with their greater economics. This misconception was dispelled when I then bought a car new from the world's largest car manufacturer. It's difficult to overestimate how much they can screw it up.
- bhauer 4y ago
  Precisely. Because it's about Tesla, this gets reported and generates clicks. But anyone who pays attention to cars knows horror stories about service, from any manufacturer you name. Dealerships aren't just awful for the buying experience. They're also awful for the service experience. If anything, Tesla's model of providing at-home service for small or routine work is an exception from the norm that, in my experience, raises it above other premium brands.
  - clouddrover 4y ago
    > Because it's about Tesla, this gets reported and generates clicks. So you're saying Electrek, a website which focuses almost exclusively on electric vehicle news, wrote an article about an electric vehicle company? No way.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  To try to decrypt that, you bought a Volkswagen ID.4 and it was so screwed up you didn't like it ? Could you expand ?
- quickthrowman 4y ago
  What’s wrong with your Toyota? I bought a 2-year old used RAV4 almost a year ago. Its been a pleasure to drive, and all I’ve done is change the oil once.
davewritescode 4y ago
This is where the rubber hits the road for Musk’s dealer free model. Dealers are terrible awful places to buy a car but they’re generally excellent at fixing cars quickly. Sure, they’re very expensive but they also have most parts available for a their brands and an army of techs available. As Teslas age, there’s going to be an army of technicians needed to fix them. This is going to be 100% Tesla’s problem and is going to eat into margins in significant ways.
- jmisavage 4y ago
  They swap out parts so much when one supplier can't deliver I wonder if they could even have a reasonable amount of replacement parts at all their service centers. It's part of the reason why you see big auto makers reuse parts between models and for several years. It can make recalls costly if the part in question is garbage, but at least you know everything is the same.
  - mynameisvlad 4y ago
    Do they? I've heard of them removing features (ie. radar, lumbar support) from new revisions, but rarely have I heard of alternatives to existing parts. One that I know is rumored is a 1st party Radar sensor that is supposed to be coming soon, which would be them replacing the Continental radars that exist on older models. There's also battery changes, with the biggest being the LFP batteries on the new SR 3. I wouldn't necessarily categorize that under "swapping out" but testing out a new chemistry that will likely go fleet-wide at some point. One of the big things they wanted to do was create a lower cost model (3/Y) by trying to reuse as many parts and moulds as possible between the two, so I'd actually be surprised to hear of a lot of part substitution since it goes directly against that logic.
    - influxmoment 4y ago
      Tesla reuses parts same as any manufacture. When there were computer chip supply problems they swap out for alternatives. So only refering to some chips
LeoPanthera 4y ago
Service is the reason I'm selling my Tesla. (Well, it was the first reason. What Elon says in public is the other. Embarrassing.) It took a a year to get my Model X into an "acceptable" state, and it still has seven outstanding issues, six of which they simply refuse to fix. If I wanted to get another service appointment now I would have to wait at least a month, and if they decide they're actually going to try to fix something (they often refuse), they keep it for at least a week and no, you don't get a loaner car in return. It is an absolute disaster and I would recommend no-one ever buy a Tesla simply for this reason. Here's the full list of issues with my car: https://ibb.co/VJJdNVk https://ibb.co/VJJdNVk (Thanks for the suggestion of imgbb)
- arcbyte 4y ago
  Onedrive, Google drive, icloud, s3. Take your pick.
  - LeoPanthera 4y ago
    Of those I only use iCloud, but the sharing function doesn't just show other people the image, it just gives you a button to add it to your own iCloud Drive. Not what I want.
  - judge2020 4y ago
    Why not all at once[0]? https://rclone.org/union/ https://rclone.org/union/
- 4wsn 4y ago
  Not to derail from your main point, but how does Musk's public conduct play into your reason for selling your Tesla? I'm not a fan of the man but that shouldn't really be a factor in whether or not I use a product he's involved in.
  - mrfusion 4y ago
    Welcome to the culture war?
toss1 4y ago
>>To be fair, they are focusing on easier tasks, like changing tires, ... Even changing tires requires at least some training, including proper threading of the lug nuts and especially proper torquing. Too much or too little torque will both lead to problems, and just braaapp-ing them on with the air wrench is definitely not cool (and no, the "torque bars" between the drive lug and socket do not work properly either, I've had to redo more nuts some yahoo put on with those than I can count). So, ya, this is really not cool.
- bink 4y ago
  Not to defend Tesla's use of untrained personnel to perform service, but the examples you've given are great examples of what can be performed by untrained personnel. You've perfectly explained pretty much everything that can go wrong when rotating tires and it can be explained to a monkey in about 3 sentences.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - toss1 4y ago
    Sure, that will work great — IFF — we're explaining it to an experienced person who's already developed has a feel for the physical properties of materials, selection and use of tools, and shop safety. To people like you and I with that kind of experience and sensibility already trained in, a few sentences and we're more than good to go, because we'll intuit the rest from our pre-existing knowledge. And, even to a person with general feel for tools and materials but new to automotive, even eplaining torquing takes more than a few sentences. You can't just say "pull the towque wrench until it clicks" - you need to explain that you cannot push it faster, and you cannot keep clicking it mutiple times, as both of those will result in overtorquing. Ensuring that both stud and lug nut threads are clean & properly lubricated, or the spec'd torque won't actually create the required thread tension to hold... it's not just 3 sentences, it's more like a 15min lecture. For everyone else, it is like explaining it to a monkey — they might hear it, but will get some of the explicit instructions wrong and make bad or random judgements about everything else. Even if some of the major things are gotten right, there's a 100 other things that can go wrong - they don't mount the socket quite right on the nut, push too hard and slip with the wrench, scratching the adjacent body panel, and sure, they redo it and ultimately get the torque right, but now there's a scratch on the customer's car... or something is off and they don't have the shop sense to know it, then some accident happens... I've had even good mechanics who properly torque things spin the nuts on then forget to torque one wheel (maybe distracted by a call, didn't get back to it). We've all been around the cringefest of people with zero (or negative) mechanical or tool sense in a shop — constantly hoping that they'll leave soon or learn fast. At least the people who want to learn probably will with good experience and guidance. But I sure as heck wouldn't want some poor salesguy who doesn't even want to be there working next to me or working on my car. I do get the personnel shortage, and Tesla definitely needs to address their constantly reported nearly Google-horrible service. I also think it would be OK if they asked for volunteers from other staff who has experience. but somehow, it looks more like it's just another mad scramble. Some will get it right and learn something, but it'll mostly be more fckups, done faster. Edit fmt
formerkrogemp 4y ago
I think shorting TSLA is still tenable.
userbinator 4y ago
It's widely believed that most automotive mechanics have turned into parts-swappers anyway, and I suspect a Tesla is "smart" enough to tell them what to replace, which makes me wonder what sort of training the actually-trained ones have gotten. How to access the notoriously-locked-down service manuals? When I was young, learning to work on cars was just a normal part of adolescence.
RobertWHurst 4y ago
Yet another hit piece from the same outlet. This must be like the 10th article I've seen from them obsessing over musk and his companies this month. Piss off the woke and they will make sure you understand it. Just look at this comment section.
- leobg 4y ago
  Electrek, from my perspective, went downhill when Fred started to use his platform to complain about issues with a car he bought (presumably from the money he made by writing about Tesla). When he didn’t get special treatment, he tried himself as “investigative”, which is to say, the tone of his articles changed. Musk then stopped replying to Fred on Twitter. And so it went. Musk actually did compliment Fred one more time on something funny the had written. But he eventually blocked him on Twitter, and since then, Electrek is basically all sour grapes posing as investigative journalism. Edit: My personal interpretation is this: It is very difficult for a man to sit on the sidelines and watch another man do things. And yet that is what every journalist has to go through. While others are doing things and changing things, he is merely sitting there and commenting. While the other is the artist, he is the mere critic. While the other seems to have power of a nature, all the critic seems to have is power over people’s opinions. Now, if such a person focused on the greater whole, he would still be able to find purpose in what he is doing. After all, we need good journalism. But if he is focused on his own ego, the act of comparing himself to the person he is writing about will make him bitter and resentful. He will feel as though he is standing in the shadows of this other person. As if, if he could only make this other person smaller, he himself would become bigger. That the very act of comparing himself to another person and trying to derive his sense of self-worth from such a comparison is itself what makes him feel small doesn’t even occur to him.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

140 points by heavyset_go 4y ago

It seems very much to me as if Musk doesn't know what he is doing. If this is feliberate it looks like he is trying to reduce costs to make Tesla's stock price go up again.

MBCook 4y ago
Wouldn’t the negativity of the reports of damaged/poorly repaired cars be a bigger drain than any reduction in costs may be a plus?
- toast0 4y ago
  As someone with no horse in the race, the negativity of reports of damaged/nonfunctional/poorly assembled cars straight from manufacturing didn't seem to be a very big drain, so I don't see why moving to shody work later would be a red flag.
  - rodgerd 4y ago
    Exactly. Shoddy assembly, inadequate paint coverage, bumpers that fall off while driving, "whompy wheels" that were due to badly put together suspension, chassis damage from the factory and so on haven't really dented Tesla's reputation - although that's in an atmosphere where most buyers feel the need to write multi-paragraph attestations to how much they love Tesla before discussing those things.
    - judge2020 4y ago
      The majority of people (probably at least 7 nines) who buy a Tesla will never experience anything like this and will reap the rewards of a car with low average maintenance costs (the majority of that being lower-than-average tire lifetimes). Tons of cars from other manufacturers often have similar issues from the factory, eg The Stellantis (Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram) family supposedly has one lemon every 100k cars produced[0] and that's only if the issue isn't fixed within 3 visits to the dealership's auto repair shop. 0: https://lemonlawexperts.com/list-of-lemon-cars/ https://lemonlawexperts.com/list-of-lemon-cars/
      - ahahahahah 4y ago
        > probably at least 7 nines Wtf are you on? At most 1 in ten million people who buy Tesla will experience this? So, considering that Tesla has sold significantly less that that, do you think all those reports have secretly just been from one person?
- mikkergp 4y ago
  He might be hedging on "eventually"
- rurp 4y ago
  Sure, if customer satisfaction is what you want to optimize for. But in this case: > the main concern is reducing the metric of “next available appointment,” Later on the article talks about how short sellers have been using that metric to gauge service levels, which Tesla wants to undermine. So it looks like the company is explicitly targeting a vanity metric as a knee jerk response to short sellers. Not the best long term strategy...
- ineedasername 4y ago
  You would think so but cars with lots of defects on delivery to the customer have been an issue for years yet Tesla is still able to sell as many cars as it can make. At some point it may catch up to them & they'll have to do something about it, but by then it may be too late to avoid major damage to the company. The fact that it hasn't hurt them yet might make it even worse: it may mean leadership stays in denial over the problem even longer past the point of keeping it manageable.
paulcole 4y ago
Elon Musk knows more about manufacturing than anyone alive on planet Earth. How do I know? He said so himself!
- CamperBob2 4y ago
  Basically he's Trump with twice the IQ. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.
  - rchaud 4y ago
    For years I thought of him as "Steve Jobs without the charisma" but increasingly the wild Monorail style promises about Mars and Hyperloop are also leading me to think Trump.
    - api 4y ago
      I will always have a spot for him in my respect list for SpaceX. No we don’t have a Mars settlement but what they have accomplished is truly huge. If Starship actually works it will be a new space age. I do suspect we will have a base on the Moon and maybe a little space tourism long before we do anything more than a small not-to-stay trip to Mars. The rocket is only a small part of the tech tree to settle a planet 6mos journey away. The moon is only about three days and there is a daily launch window. That being said I’m also well aware that Gwynne Shotwell and numerous others are at least as responsible. He gets some but by no means all credit. I also give Tesla immense credit for helping tip EVs, though I am less bullish on them by far than SpaceX. They seem to be very different companies.
    - CamperBob2 4y ago
      If he could just stay focused, I have no doubt that he'd make it to Mars. But he evidently can't.
      - paulcole 4y ago
        When you realize his #1 goal is fame and attention, it’s clear that he’s very focused.
LoveGracePeace 4y ago
"It seems very much to me as if Musk doesn't know what he is doing." Didn't he put like, a whole car, into orbit around the Sun?
- kumarvvr 4y ago
  Its easy to think of this stunt as some sort of playboyy thing, but I felt it was a brilliant PR move. They needed a known weight to test the rocket and orbital flight mechanics. Instead of putting any random thing, he put his car and the world went gaga over the stunt. It brought Tesla and SpaceX tremendous amount of press. As a founder, he made full use of an opportunity.
- magic_hamster 4y ago
  Actually, all cars orbit the sun. But seriously, that stunt has nothing to do with production Teslas. Tesla is still a very new player we are now seeing more and more growing pains, especially on the customer side, which is too bad but honestly should have been expected. We are the first adopters to discover what kind of shelf life a Tesla car has, what it works like after 5, 10 and 15 years. Personally, I'm not optimistic about it. It seems to break down quite easily for a lot of people - add a decade of wear and tear on top of that, and it's not a great picture.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    The idea that we are only now seeing growing pains is wrong. Service has always been a major issue. As far back as Model S it has been a consistent topic. The base electronic, motors and batteries seem to be pretty reliable for most people. They had very few major issues with those things compared to most companies much smaller EV efforts.
oxplot 4y ago
> It seems very much to me as if Musk doesn't know what he is doing. Teslas are ever more in demand, with wait times extending to a year. They are the highest selling EVs in the world by a large margin and they make the highest margin on EVs they sell, while others are losing money and stopping production (latest of which is Ford Mache E). He knows what he's doing.
- misiti3780 4y ago
  I generally do not understand how people can accuse Musk of being incompetent in 2022.
panick21_ 4y ago
Given the year over year growth from Tesla for 13+ years in a row it seems a bit silly to suggest he doesnt know what he is doing. He took direct control of a company when it was going straight to shit and now its by far the largest EV company on the planned and they are still growing like a startup. The public perception that everything Musk does it to optimize short term stock price seems to me totally and completly wrong. I think far more accurate assesment would be that he focus on long term planning off the core limitation his companies are facing. And that will be positive for long term. And so far this has proven out very successful. I can give many exapmles. And in that he pays sometimes for not doing as well on the sideshows. Aguable that is the only way you can even consider running multible comapanies like that.
93po 4y ago

mint2 4y ago

What can go wrong with untrained office workers setting up steel forges in their back yards or performing car services. Also why does a Tesla even need service other than a quick safety check. It’s not like the brake pads should be worn fast with regen and there’s no oil to change.

dubswithus 4y ago
Because Tesla’s build quality is very poor. Instead of fixing that problem they have decided to focus on producing more cars.
- LanceJones 4y ago
  Not that they shouldn't address quality issues that persist over many cars, but the demand curve and customer satisfaction ratings suggest Tesla doesn't need to focus heavily on class-leading quality (yet).
  - klyrs 4y ago
    Public sentiment can change pretty quickly. Combine halfass build quality with halfass repair service, and "bought once, it was a massive headache to repair, still didn't work, won't buy again" is a common customer story. It'll be hard to come back from that.
    - badwolf 4y ago
      Similarly, people getting hyped up on finally getting a new car, a Tesla. Only to have to take it in after 1 day and being told it would be 2-3 weeks to service it. Then having to take it back in for service again less than a month old, only to be told there's no parts, it will be another 2-3 weeks... People can go from mega hype-person to mega detractor quite fast.
    - Adraghast 4y ago
      Yep. I was an early adopter, but now when people ask if I’d recommend buying a Model 3 my answer has changed to that I probably wouldn’t in 2022, mostly due to shoddy build quality and subpar service experiences.

thrwyoilarticle 4y ago

For a long time I thought that Tesla's headstart would diminish, that eventually legacy automakers would catch up and overtake with their greater economics. This misconception was dispelled when I then bought a car new from the world's largest car manufacturer. It's difficult to overestimate how much they can screw it up.

bhauer 4y ago
Precisely. Because it's about Tesla, this gets reported and generates clicks. But anyone who pays attention to cars knows horror stories about service, from any manufacturer you name. Dealerships aren't just awful for the buying experience. They're also awful for the service experience. If anything, Tesla's model of providing at-home service for small or routine work is an exception from the norm that, in my experience, raises it above other premium brands.
- clouddrover 4y ago
  > Because it's about Tesla, this gets reported and generates clicks. So you're saying Electrek, a website which focuses almost exclusively on electric vehicle news, wrote an article about an electric vehicle company? No way.
makeitdouble 4y ago
To try to decrypt that, you bought a Volkswagen ID.4 and it was so screwed up you didn't like it ? Could you expand ?
quickthrowman 4y ago
What’s wrong with your Toyota? I bought a 2-year old used RAV4 almost a year ago. Its been a pleasure to drive, and all I’ve done is change the oil once.

davewritescode 4y ago

This is where the rubber hits the road for Musk’s dealer free model. Dealers are terrible awful places to buy a car but they’re generally excellent at fixing cars quickly. Sure, they’re very expensive but they also have most parts available for a their brands and an army of techs available. As Teslas age, there’s going to be an army of technicians needed to fix them. This is going to be 100% Tesla’s problem and is going to eat into margins in significant ways.

jmisavage 4y ago
They swap out parts so much when one supplier can't deliver I wonder if they could even have a reasonable amount of replacement parts at all their service centers. It's part of the reason why you see big auto makers reuse parts between models and for several years. It can make recalls costly if the part in question is garbage, but at least you know everything is the same.
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  Do they? I've heard of them removing features (ie. radar, lumbar support) from new revisions, but rarely have I heard of alternatives to existing parts. One that I know is rumored is a 1st party Radar sensor that is supposed to be coming soon, which would be them replacing the Continental radars that exist on older models. There's also battery changes, with the biggest being the LFP batteries on the new SR 3. I wouldn't necessarily categorize that under "swapping out" but testing out a new chemistry that will likely go fleet-wide at some point. One of the big things they wanted to do was create a lower cost model (3/Y) by trying to reuse as many parts and moulds as possible between the two, so I'd actually be surprised to hear of a lot of part substitution since it goes directly against that logic.
  - influxmoment 4y ago
    Tesla reuses parts same as any manufacture. When there were computer chip supply problems they swap out for alternatives. So only refering to some chips

LeoPanthera 4y ago

Service is the reason I'm selling my Tesla. (Well, it was the first reason. What Elon says in public is the other. Embarrassing.) It took a a year to get my Model X into an "acceptable" state, and it still has seven outstanding issues, six of which they simply refuse to fix. If I wanted to get another service appointment now I would have to wait at least a month, and if they decide they're actually going to try to fix something (they often refuse), they keep it for at least a week and no, you don't get a loaner car in return. It is an absolute disaster and I would recommend no-one ever buy a Tesla simply for this reason. Here's the full list of issues with my car: https://ibb.co/VJJdNVk https://ibb.co/VJJdNVk (Thanks for the suggestion of imgbb)

arcbyte 4y ago
Onedrive, Google drive, icloud, s3. Take your pick.
- LeoPanthera 4y ago
  Of those I only use iCloud, but the sharing function doesn't just show other people the image, it just gives you a button to add it to your own iCloud Drive. Not what I want.
- judge2020 4y ago
  Why not all at once[0]? https://rclone.org/union/ https://rclone.org/union/
4wsn 4y ago
Not to derail from your main point, but how does Musk's public conduct play into your reason for selling your Tesla? I'm not a fan of the man but that shouldn't really be a factor in whether or not I use a product he's involved in.
- mrfusion 4y ago
  Welcome to the culture war?

toss1 4y ago

>>To be fair, they are focusing on easier tasks, like changing tires, ... Even changing tires requires at least some training, including proper threading of the lug nuts and especially proper torquing. Too much or too little torque will both lead to problems, and just braaapp-ing them on with the air wrench is definitely not cool (and no, the "torque bars" between the drive lug and socket do not work properly either, I've had to redo more nuts some yahoo put on with those than I can count). So, ya, this is really not cool.

bink 4y ago
Not to defend Tesla's use of untrained personnel to perform service, but the examples you've given are great examples of what can be performed by untrained personnel. You've perfectly explained pretty much everything that can go wrong when rotating tires and it can be explained to a monkey in about 3 sentences.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- toss1 4y ago
  Sure, that will work great — IFF — we're explaining it to an experienced person who's already developed has a feel for the physical properties of materials, selection and use of tools, and shop safety. To people like you and I with that kind of experience and sensibility already trained in, a few sentences and we're more than good to go, because we'll intuit the rest from our pre-existing knowledge. And, even to a person with general feel for tools and materials but new to automotive, even eplaining torquing takes more than a few sentences. You can't just say "pull the towque wrench until it clicks" - you need to explain that you cannot push it faster, and you cannot keep clicking it mutiple times, as both of those will result in overtorquing. Ensuring that both stud and lug nut threads are clean & properly lubricated, or the spec'd torque won't actually create the required thread tension to hold... it's not just 3 sentences, it's more like a 15min lecture. For everyone else, it is like explaining it to a monkey — they might hear it, but will get some of the explicit instructions wrong and make bad or random judgements about everything else. Even if some of the major things are gotten right, there's a 100 other things that can go wrong - they don't mount the socket quite right on the nut, push too hard and slip with the wrench, scratching the adjacent body panel, and sure, they redo it and ultimately get the torque right, but now there's a scratch on the customer's car... or something is off and they don't have the shop sense to know it, then some accident happens... I've had even good mechanics who properly torque things spin the nuts on then forget to torque one wheel (maybe distracted by a call, didn't get back to it). We've all been around the cringefest of people with zero (or negative) mechanical or tool sense in a shop — constantly hoping that they'll leave soon or learn fast. At least the people who want to learn probably will with good experience and guidance. But I sure as heck wouldn't want some poor salesguy who doesn't even want to be there working next to me or working on my car. I do get the personnel shortage, and Tesla definitely needs to address their constantly reported nearly Google-horrible service. I also think it would be OK if they asked for volunteers from other staff who has experience. but somehow, it looks more like it's just another mad scramble. Some will get it right and learn something, but it'll mostly be more fckups, done faster. Edit fmt

formerkrogemp 4y ago

I think shorting TSLA is still tenable.

userbinator 4y ago

It's widely believed that most automotive mechanics have turned into parts-swappers anyway, and I suspect a Tesla is "smart" enough to tell them what to replace, which makes me wonder what sort of training the actually-trained ones have gotten. How to access the notoriously-locked-down service manuals? When I was young, learning to work on cars was just a normal part of adolescence.

RobertWHurst 4y ago

Yet another hit piece from the same outlet. This must be like the 10th article I've seen from them obsessing over musk and his companies this month. Piss off the woke and they will make sure you understand it. Just look at this comment section.

leobg 4y ago
Electrek, from my perspective, went downhill when Fred started to use his platform to complain about issues with a car he bought (presumably from the money he made by writing about Tesla). When he didn’t get special treatment, he tried himself as “investigative”, which is to say, the tone of his articles changed. Musk then stopped replying to Fred on Twitter. And so it went. Musk actually did compliment Fred one more time on something funny the had written. But he eventually blocked him on Twitter, and since then, Electrek is basically all sour grapes posing as investigative journalism. Edit: My personal interpretation is this: It is very difficult for a man to sit on the sidelines and watch another man do things. And yet that is what every journalist has to go through. While others are doing things and changing things, he is merely sitting there and commenting. While the other is the artist, he is the mere critic. While the other seems to have power of a nature, all the critic seems to have is power over people’s opinions. Now, if such a person focused on the greater whole, he would still be able to find purpose in what he is doing. After all, we need good journalism. But if he is focused on his own ego, the act of comparing himself to the person he is writing about will make him bitter and resentful. He will feel as though he is standing in the shadows of this other person. As if, if he could only make this other person smaller, he himself would become bigger. That the very act of comparing himself to another person and trying to derive his sense of self-worth from such a comparison is itself what makes him feel small doesn’t even occur to him.
deleted 4y ago
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