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New images and video confirm Austin-made Tesla model Y has cracked front casting
- kevingadd 3y agoLight being able to shine straight through part of your car that's meant to be solid is scary. Does anyone know how common it is for cast metal of this sort to have damage like this? I am kind of surprised their manufacturing would have this issue
- sadhorse 3y agoIn a well controlled process it should not be common. Bigger parts have been casted before without issue. Tesla cutting corners?
- XorNot 3y agoNo it's just poor QA. You can live with bad parts coming out of the prices provided you catch them when they do. This shouldn't ever happen if QA is being done properly. EDIT: which I recognise is "cutting corners" but the point is, any idiot can make one in-spec part. Making them consistently is the challenge.
- kramerger 3y ago> Tesla cutting corners? Given what we have seen from Twitter, cutting corners and ignoring laws and regulations seems to be an Elon thing. The guy is even skipping rent. So why not?
- Zigurd 3y agoRumint: Tesla has designed castings that are too big and/or too complex for the casting presses to produce a good yield. Tesla blames IDRA. But another maker of those machines turned down Tesla's RFP.
- causi 3y agoCast parts are more brittle than forged parts. Once the cracks are visible you've already lost a great deal of strength. I wouldn't ride in this car.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoIsn't the alternative actually a bunch of smaller cast parts bolted together, not forged parts?
- ImPostingOnHN 3y agothe alternative could also be a forged part, or a cast part that was properly made
- causi 3y agoI'm not saying there's a better alternative. I'm just saying seeing those types of cracks in cast parts scares the shit out of me. That's the kind of stuff you see after decades of rust damage.
- AlexandrB 3y agoIt's not clear what purpose this cast part serves. I assume the body of a Tesla is formed/stamped from sheets of steel like most modern cars and that this provides most of the structure. It looks like this part is near the top of the hood, so is it structural? Is it just holding a bunch of other parts in place? Hard to tell.
- ceejayoz 3y agoYou assume incorrectly. https://electrek.co/2021/10/05/tesla-building-model-y-bodies-single-front-rear-castings-manufacturing-first/ https://electrek.co/2021/10/05/tesla-building-model-y-bodies... > In an auto manufacturing first, Tesla has started building Model Y bodies with two giant single casting pieces for the front and back of the electric SUV.
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- thworp 3y agodisclaimer: I have no first-hand experience, just second-hand. It should be impossible to leave the factory like this. Let's say the issue is a substandard batch from a supplier that cracks from stress at some stage of the frame assembly (like when adding the battery pack, welding or adhesive bonding). The car should be inspected after all structural parts are added, at minimum visually but ideally with some kind of spectroscopy. Also, if this is a whole batch with this issue it should have been noticed when doing QC on the shipment. One option is that this happened at some stage during shipping (maybe the car rolled off a trailer and fell half a meter). Still, the dealership should be doing an inspection before handing the car over. All in all, if this really isn't the result of some accident it is a total failure.
- manuelabeledo 3y agoAnother option is that workers at the factory are now pushing bad parts knowingly, to get the truck out of the door. Let's not forget that the truck has been delayed for over two years now. In the meantime, a few competitors have been eating Tesla's lunch, and Musk is notorious for pushing unfinished products.
- lnsru 3y agoNormally cast metal parts shouldn’t have issues detectable with optical inspection system. I worked for a company doing welding inspection systems. It is absolutely crazy when such part ends in the final product. This company clearly overstretched cutting corners on this.
- becurious 3y agoWould a part like this get x-ray inspected? I had a summer job working at a machine shop and structural castings would often get sent for x-ray inspection.
- lnsru 3y agoIt’s the best way and most expensive. For mass production of automotive parts probably too expensive. I mean these guys can’t or don’t want to afford 20000$ camera system for quality assurance.
- digdugdirk 3y agoDefinitely not too expensive for automotive parts. Cast wheels are often 100% X-Ray inspected already. This is purely a lack of proper quality control systems.
- dncornholio 3y agoI have absolutely no knowledge about casting metal but I'm 100% sure you can cast these parts without any cracks. This is a very obvious quality control issue, we've been casting metal for decades..
- steveBK123 3y agoThis is kind of the perfect Tesla story. New delivery buyer is digging around under the hood to confirm their brake fluid reservoir cap is in place, as there had been recent reports of missing caps. Finds the cap is good, but that the cars frame is cracked instead.
- akmarinov 3y ago"It's within spec" - Tesla
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoThe spec tolerances being as wide as their panel gaps.
- steveBK123 3y ago"Frame gap within spec"
- viknesh 3y agoIf this vehicle were truly unsafe to drive (according to US safety standards), what legal recourse would an individual consumer have to have this fixed? Unless the user gets in an accident, is there a way to actually prove the frame is structurally defective?
- print_goto_ten 3y agoLemon law likely applies
- raverbashing 3y ago> is there a way to actually prove the frame is structurally defective? I think the photos do that just fine
- foooorsyth 3y agoThis is a Lemon Law slam dunk
- owenmarshall 3y agoLawsuit. Tesla's service center might be willing to say "within spec!" but I suspect they'll have a much harder time finding an engineer willing to put their license on the line in court.
- throwboatyface 3y agoPretty sure the onus is on the manufacturer to produce cars in a repeatable fashion such that crash test samples are representative. If they can't make the cars consistently they shouldn't be making cars.
- adionionio 3y agoLawyers prove things in court for a living. They wouldn't have any trouble proving the frame being cracked nearly in half is a defect. It probably wouldn't get to court, though. The government deals with lemons all the time. Every state has ways to get lemon buyers relief quickly and at minimal expense.
- HumblyTossed 3y ago
- AlexandrB 3y ago> The Tesla Files episode revealed that the BEV maker instructs its technicians always to provide feedback orally. Internal documents obtained by Handelsblatt stated: "Do not copy the report below into an email, text message, or leave it in a voicemail to the customer." I don't know how serious a crack in the front casting on a Tesla is, but this kind of policy is pretty egregious.
- kramerger 3y ago"Do this only orally" is always to hide evidence from a future court discovery. I don't think Tesla would do this unless management consider it very serious.
- peeters 3y agoThat kind of policy should mean that in any court case where a customer's version of events/conversations differs from Tesla's, the customer is assumed to be telling the truth until definitely proven otherwise. The legal liability of this policy should be so great that no sane company would have this policy over just creating a paper trail in the first place.
- jejeyyy77 3y agolol, thats not how it works at all.
- vikramkr 3y agoI think that's why the parent comment was using the word "should" a lot
- Zarathustra30 3y agoFor those unclear on the definitions, https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119
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- stephenr 3y agoThe weirdest part of this to me is the customer. You knew the manufacturer had a reputation of forgetting hard to check parts... and you still bought one. What else could it be missing that you can't practically check for? Still I guess at least it's good to see Tesla living up to the reputation for American cars to be generally shit build quality. I feel like they're going a bit overboard on that factor though.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago>You knew the manufacturer had a reputation of forgetting hard to check parts... and you still bought one. Yeah but the company is run by a hip cool memelord who's gonna get us to mars, and his cars have nice softwares like my iPad. Who cares about the metal parts of the car's rigidity structure? That's just something old boring people think about. Everyone knows EVs are more reliable than ICE so no need to ever look under the hood. $TSLA to the moon! /s >Still I guess at least it's good to see Tesla living up to the reputation for American cars to be generally shit build quality. The shit build quality has less to do with being American, and more to do with Tesla chasing higher margins, high margins which in part come from cutting a lot of corners in places where customers aren't looking for, which in a tracic-comedy way is what most American auto-makers did to get to their shit-build quality reputation. To be fair, many brands have QA issues all the time, but that one from the article is so big and obvious it should never have made it passed inspection.
- stephenr 3y ago> The shit build quality has less to do with being American I'm not suggesting they're shit because they're American. I'm just saying it's nice to see them living up to the existing standard of shitness set by the existing American manufacturers. I'm sure each American car manufacturer has their own unique and interesting reasons for having reliably shit build quality compared to European or Japanese manufacturers.
- boilerupnc 3y agoI posted an HN comment [0] a while back that is one example from prior work experience. It shares how specification differences between the domestics and Japanese auto-makers impacts downstream and overall system reliability/quality. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25627762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25627762
- mcpackieh 3y agoAre cast structural parts common on modern cars? I thought the structure of modern cars was forged parts welded together by robots.
- gwbas1c 3y agoGoogle "Gigapress." Tesla pioneered cast frames as a way of dropping the cost to manufacture the car.
- zeroping 3y agoRelatively new for such large parts, and an innovation by Tesla, although other manufacturers are picking the idea up too.
- nottorp 3y agoDoesn't that mean it's not cost effective to repair in case of accidents? Small bump - got to dismantle the whole car and replace half of it.
- cypress66 3y agoHas the car owner shown a full video of the car? Are we sure we're not just looking at a crashed car? It'd be nice for the article to include a video like that so there's no doubt.
- piva00 3y agoThe article says: > NK denied his car was ever involved in any collisions. And given that the owner took it to an official service center to check the issue I believe the service center would have detected if it was the result of a collision instead of: > The manager of the service center said multiple times that 'the car is safe to drive' and that he had been assured by 'engineers' that it is 'safe.' However, he will not give me anything in more detail or any official Tesla documentation to confirm that.
- cypress66 3y agoHas the owner provided any proof of such interaction at the service center, other than his words? A simple video of the whole car would cast all doubts away.
- ImPostingOnHN 3y agotesla is free to release their correspondence with him, provided they don't have a sketchy company policy to avoid communicating about such matters in retainable form > The Tesla Files episode revealed that the BEV maker instructs its technicians always to provide feedback orally. Internal documents obtained by Handelsblatt stated: "Do not copy the report below into an email, text message, or leave it in a voicemail to the customer." oh... never mind.
- chroma 3y agoAnyone who owns a Tesla knows that isn’t true. The Tesla app lets you see all kinds of history related to any service requests. I can see plenty of feedback in text form, including cancelled appointments because the service center couldn’t fix my car. (I had to take it to a body shop.)
- mjhagen 3y agoMeanwhile, TSLA is up 2% pre market.
- manuelabeledo 3y agoFurther evidence that its product is the stock.
- misiti3780 3y agowhat does that even mean ?
- Workaccount2 3y agoThe people buying Tesla stock buy it because it just goes up, regardless of the health or future of the underlying company.
- sebzim4500 3y agoEither that or a defect in a single car is not going to affect the value of a company that sells millions of cars a year
- misiti3780 3y agoThe share price hasn't only risen; over the past two years, it has fluctuated between $100 and $400 per share. Also - one defect means absolutely nothing. They make solid cars, everyone that owns one knows that.
- manuelabeledo 3y ago> They make solid cars, everyone that owns one knows that. Data seems to disagree with this statement [0] Tesla is also notorious for glaring QC issues, like missing bits and obvious panel gaps. [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/edgarsten/2023/02/09/tesla-tanks-while-industry-improves-in-long-term-dependability-study/?sh=8ab6a241ff5f https://www.forbes.com/sites/edgarsten/2023/02/09/tesla-tank...
- Cockbrand 3y agoIf the issue hadn't been noticed in time, it could have become a textbook example of "The Front Fell Off" [0] Good thing that this hasn't happened, though. [0] https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM
- HankB99 3y agoIs this in the US? I was surprised I could find no mention of the NTSB. At Tesla's first attempt to reject a warranty claim I would have at least been thinking about filing an incident report.
- gwbas1c 3y agoThis is a slam-dunk for the typical American lemon law. The owner of the car should go out and find a lemon law lawyer. When I had to work with one I didn't have to pay a thing. (I had a Subaru where the GPS / Stereo would reboot while I drove and loose its settings. After a bunch of replacements, the car still had the problem. I had to catch it on video, though. Subaru ended up declaring the car a lemon after trying to fix it multiple times.) FWIW: I own two Teslas and their service is horrible. Every time I take it in, they never put the car back together and I have to take it back.
- rsynnott 3y ago> I own two Teslas and their service is horrible. Genuinely curious; why did you buy the second one? I might possibly be slightly over-vindictive with brands, but once a brand fails me I’m very reluctant to buy something else from them (a Samsung TV with some silly quality control and firmware issues was enough to make me swear off Samsung, and the Nexus 7 (original one; the one that tended to degrade after about a year) was enough to convince me never to buy hardware from Google again, say). In particular, I would never buy the _same thing_ (most current Tesla cars are ~the same thing) from a company where I’d already bought one defective thing.
- toddmorey 3y agoI’m shopping for anything EV other than a Tesla now. There are many options now, but Tesla is still way ahead with the power train. Most competitors aren’t at the same place on range & performance yet. It’s an amazing power train glued inside a 90s-era Oldsmobile.
- stef25 3y agoMercedes EQ ?
- SauciestGNU 3y agoBeautiful car and great competition against the Model S. I've been ogling one at the dealership I bike past regularly.
- EGreg 3y agoFinally! How long have they been working on it? Front casting is not an easy technique to pull off, but confers a lot of advantages. I expect it will come standard on new Teslas starting next year.
- seattle_spring 3y agoWhat an extremely odd comment to make, given the context of the article. > Front casting is not an easy technique to pull off They're obviously not able "pull [it] off" if people are finding dangerous structural problems that Tesla is sweeping under the rug
- EGreg 3y agoI was joking, because the title reads like they’ve finally “cracked it”.
- throw9away6 3y ago50% failure rate is going to result in a large number of defects leaking into production. You can’t screen that high a defect rate very well
- drewg123 3y agoSounds like not much has changed since 2015. A good friend ordered a new Model S in 2015. It arrived with a "squeak" that turned out to be due to missing welds in structural components of the chassis. They wanted him to sign an NDA to get a replacement vehicle (which he refused to do, both on principle, and because he'd talked to friends about it already). So he was forced to keep his vehicle, which was then repaired under warranty for what they initially said was not a warrantable defect. To quote him "They took a huge proponent and turned them into someone who will never, ever, recommend them" And this is how they treated their early adopters that were paying $100K in 2015 for their higher end cars.
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoWho's to stop the victim from recording evidence, accepting the replacement car, and submitting said evidence anonymously to the media and / or consumer protection and / or the car safety institutions? Are NDAs like that actually enforceable?
- nimajneb 3y agoMy bet is that becomes a scenerio where the party with the most money for lawyers wins. If it was me, I would have almost no money for lawyers.
- latchkey 3y agoNo money for lawyers, before or after you spent $100k on a car?
- thejazzman 3y agoIt's pretty painful to drop thousands on lawyers when you know they have significantly more money and better lawyers I say this as a person who very much wanted to sue Tesla and backed down on the advice of my lawyer friend -- I was most likely only increasing my net loss and severely stressing myself out
- m3kw9 3y agoEven regular car has cracks what’s new?
- toddmorey 3y agoThis is the frame of the car. Don’t accept a new car with cracks in the frame. Ever.
- m3kw9 3y agoI mean why is this news that a car can have defects? Are most tesla y from the same press like this?
- seattle_spring 3y agoArticle isn't really about the crack, it's about the fact that Tesla refuses to acknowledge it's a safety issue. They won't even acknowledge that it's cracked in writing, only verbally.
- kayodelycaon 3y agoThere's a massive visible crack in a frame that you couldn't have missed if you're assembling the car... that's beyond defect to intentionally and actively contributing to harm. It's the same level of malice as knowingly installing an odd brick of brown putty in the steering wheel instead of an air bag. The worker clearly didn't know C4 doesn't belong in a car.
- throw9away6 3y agoThe crack may have grown or not been visible until it was covered up or moved into a position where it was not subjected to inspection
- opwieurposiu 3y agoThis looks to me like a "cold shut", which is a type of casting defect. "Cold shuts occur when two relatively cold streams of molten metal from different gates meet and do not fuse together properly during the casting process. This problem is visible to the naked eye – giving the appearance of a crack separating the two sections." https://www.haworthcastings.co.uk/news/the-differences-between-cold-shuts-and-misruns https://www.haworthcastings.co.uk/news/the-differences-betwe... Cracks caused by impact have sharp edges and cracks caused by cold shuts have more rounded or sandy looking edges.
- dopamean 3y agoIs there a functional difference? Would cracks from a cold shut not disqualify the product (whatever it is) from going into service?
- padjo 3y agoI think it’s safe to say cracks in a structural member are always bad. I think the point the OP is making is that it looks like a manufacturing defect not the result of a crash.
- gaze 3y agoAny sort of defect like this should disqualify the product. It’s embarrassing and alarming that this casting wasn’t scrapped.
- contingencies 3y agoIt seems they have no automated optical inspection (AOI) system. Why? Theories. (1) Manufacturing site footprint availability. AOI on large assemblies with high throughput requirements may be extremely spatially and temporally inefficient as the need to control lighting means a substantial facility footprint may be required. (2) manufacturing operation build time pressures (3) assessments and claims by the casting equipment provider (4) the potential unavailability of an off the shelf solution suitable for parts of this scale. Stable process control could eliminate the need, but AOI is relatively cheap insurance.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- specialist 3y agoThere's a learning curve parable about the fastest way to learn how to make quality clay pots. Team A focuses on making 1 perfect pot. Specifications, research, process, testing, verification, etc. They get pretty close with their initial pots, but they struggle to scale up. Team B just starts making pots. As fast they can. Make incremental tiny improvements. Most pots are total losses. But they do manage to start making pretty good pots. And they hit scale. Which approach is better? -- Tesla's QA/QC will not improve, stabilize until their rate of change slows down. They are hellbent on scaling up (20m vehicles, build out charging network, etc) while reducing costs (new tech, fewer parts, etc). A lot of mistakes will be made. In the future, I'd consider buying a budget (~$25k?) Tesla vehicle. Maybe after they ship a few million. Hopefully, we'll have many options to choose from (BYD, Kia, etc).
- chronicsunshine 3y agoBeing that your life depends on your car not failing catastrophically while using it, I think your analogy would make more sense if you replaced clay pots with pacemakers.
- bityard 3y agoI would not bank on Kia or Hyundai... A large swath of of their engines made within the last decade or so have a reputation for not lasting within or much beyond the warranty period, which has lead to multiple class-action lawsuits. I have a Kia Sorento and overall it's a simple, honest car that's easy to work on and pretty well-built overall. But at 80k miles, the engine burns a quart every 1k miles which is entirely stupid. By comparison, our Mazda 5 (a very cheaply-made car!) engine lasted something like 150k miles and burned no oil with practically no maintenance to the engine. I think a Toyota is in our near future.
- specialist 3y agoConceptually, Mazda 5 BEV is exactly what I want. For my dogs, road-trips, and runs to the hardware store. I'd accept a passenger-oriented Ford Transit Express BEV.
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- samstave 3y agoBrings "Move Fast and Break Things" to a ludicrous new level. - Is this just one vehicle, or systemic? If there is one instance like this in a space vehicle - wouldnt you immediately go and inspect EVERY SINGLE space vehicle you've ever made that's flying around in space to make sure they don't crash into all the other things flying around in space? -- Also, my Aunt's best friend (can't recall his name) was the designer for the original electrical harness for the very first tesla roadsters... I only met him a few times, at parties at my aunts house, but I do recall him to be 'pretty hacky' (in a good way) and he told me all about it, though I recall very little now, but I am sure a lot of the maverick hacker dna from the original team still exists?
- Humboldtsnee 3y ago[dead]
- ParadisoShlee 3y agoAre these parts being made with the gigapress? or is this older casting methods?
- whalesalad 3y agoyes this is gigapress
- FredPret 3y agoI took an Uber in a Tesla (the small flat one) recently. I could not believe the squeaking. Every Tesla driver I talk to loves theirs though. I hope the Cybertruck is much better built.
- dopamean 3y agoIt wont be. It's being built in the same place this cracked Tesla was built. Also it's so over due I've got to imagine they're rushing to get it out the door.
- chrisco255 3y agoSqueaking? That's usually a signal the brakes need replacement.
- FredPret 3y agoNo, the seat was loud. Every time anything moved, including the car, or me breathing, it sounded like a clown folding a balloon schnauzer.
- pengaru 3y agoThat's an exceptionally poor quality casting, Tesla clearly has a QC problem.
- mrcwinn 3y agoIt's one car, so I don't want to pretend like it's every car, but certainly Tesla has earned a reputation at poor quality control. It seems obvious to me they optimize for factory output even at the cost of delivering a correct product. Anecdotally, a close friend had a Model S Plaid. He took delivery roughly a year after they were announced. Tesla forgot to install weather stripping in the frunk. "Flood" is too strong a word, but yes, during a rain storm water seeped into the frunk. This car is very expensive, but honestly I would expect an entry-level Toyota to have correct weather stripping. Elon is all about "hardcore." He belittles his own employees and plays classes against one another — claiming information workers should continue to commute on the Bart just like factory workers. But oh, by the way, he takes a private jet from meeting to meeting. So what baffles me is how Elon Musk continues to say casually that production ramp is "really hard." I have no doubt that it is, but the Model S was released in 2012. It's been, what, 11 years, and you're still delivering like this? Not good enough.
- kkielhofner 3y agoThey also prioritize manufacturing capacity for new product at the expense of replacement parts. Many Tesla owners have had the experience of waiting forever for replacement parts because of an accident, component failure, etc. A minor fender bender can result in having a damaged (potentially undriveable) Tesla for months whereas for other cars you're reliably back on the road in a week or less.
- sangnoir 3y ago> It's one car, so I don't want to pretend like it's every car, but certainly Tesla has earned a reputation at poor quality control This is like discovering one roach in your hotel room. Sure, you only have the evidence of the existence of the one roach, and it might be the only one in the entire chain of hotels - but what are the odds?
- jfb 3y agoIt is so amazing to me that Elon set himself the simplest possible problem in car manufacturing and is till terribly bad at it.
- thfuran 3y agoWhat problem is that?
- 7789123 3y ago[dead]
- chaos_emergent 3y agoFor industrial manufacturing engineers in the audience - what is the threshold of cracking that’s acceptable in a casting this size given the constraints of safety and reliability? Curious if selling this casting to a customer was an intentional decision, and if so, what the tolerances are for this type of deviation in a factory making cars.
- digdugdirk 3y agoZero. A defect like this absolutely should have been caught by quality control. Even if they only take some sample size of parts for detailed analysis from every run, this would have been readily apparent. If it wasn't visible at time of manufacture (sometimes there can be a thin "skin" that covers underlying defects like this) this would have been evident from other inspection methods - X-ray analysis is commonly used to check for internal porosity or cracks in safety critical applications like this.
- Roark66 3y agoManufacturing aluminum castings at scale efficiently (without using excessive amounts of metal) is a difficult problem to solve. This kind of stuff has plagued other car manufacturers too and with much smaller components. For example aluminum Ice engine heads and blocks. Certain vehicle years (for example 2005 Golf tdi) are known for "porous" and cracking castings. There is a very good reason (other than "they" want cars to rust) for using steel. Just based on my hobbyist knowledge it's a metal that behaves a lot more predictably.
- digdugdirk 3y agoThis isn't accurate. Aluminum casting is a well known and understood process, the only issues are either from poor manufacturing control or a poor design. In Tesla's case, it seems to be a mix of both, with a bit of "we're doing something gigantic that few companies have experience with" sprinkled on top.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoThe problem with how difficult aluminum casting is or is not is totally irrelevant. The real problem is that this structural member with a giant visible crack in it somehow made it through Tesla's QA process. I think I could give Tesla some slack when they were originally ramping up Model 3 production (it was a "succeed or the company goes under" moment), but reports of their sub-par QA keep coming and coming.
- pengaru 3y agoThis company is supposedly sophisticated enough to develop AI technology capable of driving their cars. Surely they can point some of those cameras at the gigapress output with their AI magic rejecting any parts letting light through where none is expected.
- Mizoguchi 3y agoIf the recall is more expensive than the possibility of mass lawsuits, then Tesla will leave the owners deal with the issue. To be fair, this is typical behavior of any automaker, not just Tesla. I myself had my ordeal with Honda over a poorly designed auto braking system on a new $40K vehicle that almost got me killed. The response I got from Honda both the dealer and service was pretty much the same, we checked the computer logs and didn't find anything wrong with the car so it is safe to drive. I decided to trade it in for a Toyota and take a $10K loss. A couple of years later there was a class action lawsuit for the same exact problem I had and eventually a settlement, obviously Honda never acknowledged any wrongdoing. Shortly afterwards my Toyota got recalled for the airbag malfunction after many people got killed or badly injured.
- jm4 3y agoExcept for the motors and batteries, Tesla cars are awful. I would never buy another one or recommend it to others. The only car that was put together worse than this one is a Mitsubishi I had back in the 90's. Elon Musk is a con man. I feel like it's only a matter of time before people get wise to his bullshit. My next EV will be from a reputable manufacturer, even if it's not as fast or as flashy.
- mft_ 3y agoAh, more confirmation (bias) making me doubt the wisdom of ever buying a Tesla in the future. I had a Model 3 LR as a company car and really liked it - even being fine with most of the usual concerns or dislikes people share. I even like the brand (although I dislike most of Musk's other shenanigans over the past few years). I've since given the car back and am considering purchasing a BEV in the future. I've obviously been considering another Tesla, but my single (small) negative experience with their customer service, plus myriad stories online (including this one) make it a total lottery: you must cross your fingers that your car is perfectly reliable, else be launched into a world of potential frustration and difficulty (not to mention potentially huge cost, if not warrantied) gettings things fixed.
- maxerickson 3y agoGiven the pretty consistent advancement in batteries over the last 20 years, it doesn't pay to be in a hurry. Between that and various automakers starting to produce, it's likely enough that a new 2027 will be cheaper and better than a new 2024.
- frumper 3y agoThat lottery extends to every other car maker/dealer. Lemon laws existed before Tesla for a reason. Dealerships put a bitter taste in peoples mouths for a reason.
- mft_ 3y agoI agree. However, with most other manufacturers there are options beyond the dealerships. In contrast, Tesla is notable for the lack of spare parts available to the public (making DIY repairs difficult) and a relative lack of third-party specialist garages.
- GaryNumanVevo 3y agoAfter I realized the Base M3 was just the M3LR with a software locked battery, that settled it. So if you buy a base M3 you're just hauling around 20-30% of that battery weight for literally no reason.
- mvdtnz 3y agoWhat part of the car are we looking at here? "Front casting" is not a standard car part. I am going to assume the Tesla does not use castings for it chassis. The article did not make this clear at all.
- WA 3y agoIs Tesla a) car quality and b) customer service better in the EU?
- thehappypm 3y agoSure you didn’t get in an accident?