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Edinburgh couple are handed £17K bill by Tesla as they 'drove in rain'
- raydiatian 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y agoWe've banned this account for posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- yawnxyz 3y agocurious why this hasn't happened more often? (edit: if it's a real problem and it damages the batteries; I don't have a Tesla so I have no idea)
- wmf 3y agoMaybe it's a one-in-a-million problem. When you make two million cars most will be fine but a handful will have inadequate sealing so the battery will get flooded.
- quickthrower2 3y agoThat story has cost Tesla more than 17000 quid! It makes sense for Elon et al. to cover this one.
- bell-cot 3y agoCould you tell me about Elan's track record wrt/decisions which make sense?
- quickthrower2 3y agoHopefully someone wise in middle management can sort this out without the X-man knowing.
- inopinatus 3y agoHis companies start performing when he stops trying to run them.
- machdiamonds 3y agoLeading the worlds most valuable automaker?
- floxy 3y agoCan we assume that comprehensive auto insurance is available in the UK?
- quickthrower2 3y agoWould this be covered? This is a warranty issue. Or arguably a “mechanical” issue.
- floxy 3y agoIf this is truly a weather related thing, seems like should be covered. Of course, the story sounds a bit sketchy.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kranke155 3y ago[flagged]
- VincentEvans 3y agoIs the story untrue?
- firecall 3y agoit's certainly disingenuous!
- VincentEvans 3y agoPerhaps to you, but not to me.
- fiddlerwoaroof 3y agoWhat I’ve noticed (as a Tesla owner) is that the impression you get from reading things on the internet is completely different from the impression you get as an owner. I’m sure there are people with these issues: Tesla has sold enough cars for all sorts of low-probability events to happen (and I have my own share of annoyances with the car) but, overall, the car is the best car I’ve driven and my experience as an owner has been consistently better than the impression I get from the news stories about Teslas.
- kranke155 3y agoCan you read the story and tell me how the car was damaged, exactly ?
- VincentEvans 3y agoThe battery was damaged by water according to the article. Is there a point to this exercise other than to frustrate me into not responding?
- 3y ago
- mcpackieh 3y agoNot surprising, Tesla is notorious for pulling this kind of shit. > The thing is, Elon Musk could buy everyone in the world a Tesla if he wanted to.” Is there a name for this kind of math error? For this to be true, a Tesla would have to cost something like $30.
- fredsmith219 3y agoThe word you’re looking for is “lie”
- VincentEvans 3y agoMy kids say I am the best daddy in the world - also a lie? This is a quote from a frustrated car owner who conversationally exaggerated. Did you read the article?
- fullshark 3y agoThere's also an entire clickbait industry built around Musk hate. I'd look into their story before believing them / the headline on face value.
- ssalka 3y ago"correct within several orders of magnitude"
- carabiner 3y agoPeople keeping making this error. There's a good video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6egeUxIEQnM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6egeUxIEQnM
- TRiG_Ireland 3y agoI'm not sure that there's a name for that kind of maths error, but there is a reason why people keep making it, as Matt Parker discusses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6egeUxIEQnM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6egeUxIEQnM.
- inopinatus 3y ago
- monlockandkey 3y agoTesla would have been the electric car to buy many years ago, but the well established auto makers have proceduced excellent electric vehicles that outmatch in terms of build quality, features and support. A car is not a joke. It's one of the more expensive purchases in one's life and having confidence in your vehicle is important. Quality, reliability and after care support is what the established automakers do well.
- stcredzero 3y agoexcellent electric vehicles that outmatch in terms of build quality, features and support Well, not so much. Some of them get the build quality right. But generally features and specs like efficiency, range, and acceleration lag behind. And in the charging experience Tesla is still leading by a long shot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1TFZuIUviQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1TFZuIUviQ
- Rebelgecko 3y agoIf I had to rank those features, I'd put build quality way ahead of acceleration. I can't think of a situation where the difference between 0-60 in 3.5 seconds vs 4 seconds actually matters, but build quality impacts the car whenever you're in it. TBH i find it a little concerning that anyone can buy a 4.5 ton car like the Hummer EV that can accelerate to 60mph in 3 seconds and change
- stcredzero 3y agoIf I had to rank those features, I'd put build quality way ahead of acceleration The most critical one is the actual charging experience. Tesla is literally in a league of its own, until the NACS switchover gets implemented by the various other manufacturers who have agreed to. The second most critical one is Autopilot/FSD. Even in Beta, FSD is a life-changer / game-changer! Seriously, road trips have gone to basically zero stress and fatigue. Arguments with my wife about driving have also become a thing of the past. Then third, would be the over the air updates. The car poses basically Zero maintenance burden on me, but continually gets better over time. There’s a distorted view of people who don’t own an EV. The reality is different, and it’s one that most people don’t want to go back from, ever!
- firecall 3y agoI'm wondering if they did infact submerge the part of the car in water. They all but say that in the article. The headline is Tesla clickbait, as it clearly wasn't just related to driving in the rain, but rather submerging part of the car in water. Probably from driving through a deep enough puddle of water on the road!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- willcipriano 3y agoAs I kid I rode along as my neighbor drove his pickup truck up to the headlights through a flood in order to save some animals from drowning. If the truck had a stalled we probably would've been pushed off the road and ended up heading down the river. Electric cars have to do better than this.
- bombcar 3y agoWhat they don’t tell you about vehicles designed to do this (a deuce and a half can go almost submerged with the right snorkel kit) is that you get to replace the grease in basically every seal afterwards.
- willcipriano 3y agoIt wasn't designed for it. A f150 I think. He had it for years after that.
- barbazoo 3y agoApples and oranges. An EV truck maybe but an ICE sedan wouldn’t have made through the puddle either probably.
- batch12 3y agoGotta be careful with this. Many vehicles have to be modified so the exhaust is higher, electric, etc. Also, I've always heard that cold water on a hot engine block can cause cracks, but not sure how true that is. Most cars can't ford water like this.
- gustavus 3y agoFor those interested in the meat: > An Edinburgh couple say they are “in shock” after claiming Tesla gave them a £17,000 bill to fix their battery that was ‘damaged by the rain’. > He continued: “They said that the battery is effectively submerged in water. How can that be our fault? “After finally getting to speak to a manager, he told me it had water in it due to the fact the weather in Scotland has been so bad. That was the issue. They said it’s not necessarily my fault but it’s not Tesla’s to pay under warranty. He reminded me there was a yellow weather warning in some parts of Scotland.
- placesalt 3y agoThe article also says > Obviously, it was wet with the weather last week, but I honestly can’t remember any huge puddles or anything like that. It’s not like I was driving my car through the Cairngorms.
- Jtsummers 3y agoSomeone trying to get out of a £17k bill will likely not admit to having driven in too deep water, certainly not on the record with a reporter.
- bombcar 3y agoYeah they talk like than and then you see a picture of the car and it’s clearly covered in mud up to the roof.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- remotefonts 3y agoThe only photo I saw of the car in TFA shows it shinning. Direct link to that photo, please?
- toddmorey 3y agoFair but nor will a car company quickly admit to a manufacturing deficit that requires an expensive repair.
- dekhn 3y agoThere's information missing from this that prevents me from being outraged at Tesla. In particular, was the car driven through standing water higher than the bottom lip of the car? my guess is that it was.
- supergirl 3y agois the battery not sealed? what if a random splash gets in? battery is positioned quite low
- dekhn 3y agocars designed to drive 100s of thousands of miles aren't susceptible to random splashes even if the battery is low. I think the most likely explanation here is that the battery compartment was damaged in a way that allows water intrusion, and then they drove in extremely wet weather which splashed into the compartment.
- ensignavenger 3y agoHmm, not sure who to beleive on this. If it was caused by extreme weather, then their car insurance should cover it? If it was caused by poor seal in manufacturing, it would be a warranty issue. The poor customer service is something I can beleive though!
- somethoughts 3y agoPerhaps that'd be an interesting thought experiment - what recourse do you have if you are purchasing Tesla along with a Tesla auto insurance? Is there any expectation - in the event of a manufacturing defect - that the Tesla auto insurance division is firewalled enough from the Tesla auto division to aggressively go after claims on your behalf?
- WirelessGigabit 3y agoLegislative body that oversees insurance.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- youngtaff 3y agoIf they bought it new they should just make a claim against Tesla UK As much as Tesla might not like it UK consumers have rights and a sealed car battery getting flooded seems like a manufacturing fault
- ensignavenger 3y agoMaybe, I have no expertise in the subject. It seems to me that any vehicle that gets submerged in water will have issues. (If that is what happened).
- youngtaff 3y agoThere’s nothing in the story that says it was submerged in water
- NSMutableSet 3y agoI am very curious about this, because my understanding was that any EV would fare better in wet conditions than most ICE vehicles, because the battery has so much insulation around it. When I first got my EV, I was worried about how it would fare in the rain, especially when driving over large puddles. After reading about the insulation, I felt comfortable driving it in extremely wet conditions. Now I'm worried that I may have to rethink that. Am I supposed to be worried about splash getting into the pack, staying there, and slowly ruining the battery? If I keep driving long enough, will motion plus the heat of the battery pack be enough to dissipate the moisture? Since I live in an extremely humid location, is that a concern too? I've seen footage of Model 3s operating in flood zones, with the rear wheels essentially serving as propellers. Of course, I've never seen the results of what happened afterwards. Presumably the water got into the batteries, and the car would no longer start. In that case, the driving-through-water functionality would mainly be for an emergency where the only other option is a complete loss of the vehicle, and/or something more valuable than the batteries, whether its a life or possessions. I didn't think about that until now, because my previous assumption was that it was fine to drive an EV over water. I thought that the the only exposure that the batteries had to the outside world was through the charge port and the engine, and everything else was protected by insulation. But I didn't think about what the insulation actually was. I imagined it as some sort of metal or plastic shell. edit: I hadn't seen this video before, but I know there's at least one other tweet Elon made where he doesn't disapprove of something that, as I now understand, is probably going to render the vehicle inoperable in the near future due the battery pack failing after exposure to water: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1615397502798409729 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1615397502798409729
- nomel 3y ago> at least one other tweet Elon made where he doesn't disapprove Of course, lack of disapproval doesn't mean approval, and visa-versa. The documents that were signed, not an silly two word tweet, is what determines liability.
- _ea1k 3y agoThe batteries have breather valves. If subjected to enough pressure, they can lead to water ingress. Despite Musk's statements, submersion isn't recommended. I have never heard of one failing from a puddle or just "rain", though. It makes me think there is more to this story.
- rkagerer 3y agoAnyone else run into trouble with the Reject All button not working in the Reach cookies popup on that page?
- mysterydip 3y ago"you can pick any color you want, as long as it's black"
- hristov 3y agoYeah you have to first press reject all and then press the save and exit button on the bottom. It is getting tougher and tougher to opt out of tracking.
- rkagerer 3y agoI misread and thought you wrote tracketeering - an apt term which I hereby coin!
- magic_hamster 3y agoEven if the story is false, Tesla, launched to the stratosphere (literally and figuratively) in just a few years, keeps on showing it is still very green in the automotive industry. Long term reliability is a crucial factor for a vehicle, and is something that Tesla seems to be struggling with. I'm not very keen on building your car around a huge touch screen. This alongside stories of locking features for certain customers, or geofencing features in certain areas, kept me from jumping on the Tesla wagon. Tesla definitely transformered the automative industry, but I feel like they have a long way to go still, and they really need to focus on their car being a car, first and foremost.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- machdiamonds 3y agoI'm guessing they actually waded through a significant amount of water, like this, instead of merely driving in the rain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzA0U53HF2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzA0U53HF2g
- Macha 3y agoHaving lived in the Irish countryside for a number of years in my teens, I would absolutely expect any car to successfully manage the depth shown from the third car until the nighttime shots. My parents drove some cheap cars late in their lifespan through worse.
- _ea1k 3y agoHaving seen those videos before, a lot of people cause ICE failures. Having said that, their approach and speed are often a big part of it. The Teslas should be fine, but submersion is really not recommended and this is getting really close. The breather valves can leak if subjected to enough force. Leaking leads to corrosion which leads to really expensive repairs.
- somethoughts 3y agoPerhaps a factor which exacerbates things is the placement of the battery/electronics due to the Tesla skateboard design which means the battery is quite low off the ground - especially for the Model 3 and Model S. In a traditional ICE car or an ICE/EV/PHEV platform I can imagine there are more options to put things higher up within in the front chassis.
- machdiamonds 3y agoIn most cases, I'd guess that an EV would outperform an ICE vehicle when wading through water, as the battery can be fully sealed and there's no risk of water-locking the engine due to the absence of intakes or exhausts.
- supergirl 3y ago
- Macha 3y agoDid they have an AI generate the links in this article? "An edinburgh couple" links to a different edinburgh couple's lottery win. "car stopped working" links to an unrelated car crash. etc.
- robotnikman 3y agoNot sure, but it's now not unheard of for websites to now be using AI for articles (eg: CNET) I think in this case, it is just some algorithm that automatically adds links to text which may have related articles.
- expazl 3y agoI mean the owner pretty much admits to driving through puddles, the question is how deep they were, but my bet would be that they did in fact submerge the bottom of the car. Most electric car owners would be aware enough about what type of car they have and what the limitations are to not do such a thing. Then relevant quote is: > I’ve been driving for 30 years and this is my most premium car to date and this is what it does when Edinburgh’s roads get puddles or a little wet!” So he's been driving ICE-cars through puddles for 30 years, and because his Tesla cost more than his previous cars he expects it should be able to do at least as much. But obviously there are going to be fundamental differences between an electric car and a gasoline car when it comes to semi amphibious endeavors, and a Tesla Model S doesn't store the batteries in the ceiling.
- rstat1 3y agoIf a car can't handle a puddle, it's not fit to be driven. That's ridiculous. Doesn't matter what kind of car it is.
- II2II 3y agoIt depends upon what they are calling a puddle. I've seen a ten foot span of road covered by nearly a foot of water (at it's deepest point). Going at speed in a car, it may not look like much. I have also seen photos of people trying to go through fairly significant chunks of flooded roads. If there are people willing to do that, there are probably even more people who would go through something they perceive as a puddle.
- expazl 3y agoMy laptop can't handle being submerged in a puddle why would a car? It's batteries being submerged, the doors aren't waterproof. It's not a amphebian vehicle. If the puddles are deep enough to leak water into your car and your car has batteries you shouldn't drive through it. If you do and the batteries die, then you can't expect your warranty to cover you. Nothing prevents you from taking your laptop in the shower, but if you drop it and it dies, then you gotta pay for it. Seems reasonable enough.
- 3y ago
- jupp0r 3y agoNot defending Tesla's horrible response to this specific incident, but obviously this happening in the first place is an outlier. On any given day, there are millions of Teslas driving in the rain without problems.
- maccard 3y agoEdinburgh Live is the absolute bottom of the barrel of news websites, so I'm a little surprised to see it on here. We've also had what can only really be described as "biblical" rain in the last week - according to the met office [0] it was the wettest 2 day period on record. The flooding was really something else [1] [2]. That doesn't mean that they're not lying, but I would hold judgement on Tesla in this case. [0] https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/metofficegovuk/pdf/weather/learn-about/uk-past-events/interesting/2023/2023_07_scotland_rain.pdf https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/metoffi... [1] https://twitter.com/NetworkRailSCOT/status/1710579288192307238 https://twitter.com/NetworkRailSCOT/status/17105792881923072... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb0-QobUA0Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb0-QobUA0Q
- doctorhandshake 3y agoI drove an early model 3 through about 3” of standing water on the BQE in Brooklyn and immediately heard a dragging sound from the undercarriage. Turned out the water spray had torn (or finished tearing) the acoustic dampening material on the underside of the chassis and flaps of it were now dragging on the ground. I took it to Tesla and they said the repair would be hundreds (can’t remember the amount) but that it wouldn’t happen again because the part they were replacing it with had been redesigned. I said something along the lines of ‘you’re telling me ~2 years into the life of this model and you’ve redesigned the part, but that you want me to pay for the one that doesn’t fail when driving through a puddle?’ They comped the repair. This is one of many disappointing Tesla service stories I wish I didn’t have. The incentives of the manufacturer being the exclusive service provider for warranty issues are not aligned, IMO.
- easylogin 3y agoWild. My Yamaha(motorcycle, 12k usd) recently had an RMA due to potential water issues. Yamaha fixed the potential problem, and would have resolved any further issues from the root cause of water/corrosion. This only concretes my lack of interest in Tesla.
- dekhn 3y agoI overfilled the oil in my Subaru forester which caused the engine to explode and coat the interior of the engine housing with hot oil. When I brought it in they said "the car is still under warranty so we'll replace the engine for free. BTW, Joe had to spend an entire day with the pressure washer. Next time, don't overfill the oil."
- syntaxing 3y agoI was daydreaming a lot about what I would do if I encountered the unprecedented floods in NYC. Seems like your best bet for a ICE car is a Bronco and a Rivian R1T/S for EV.
- readthenotes1 3y agoWhat's wrong with these people? It didn't burn down their house, they should be grateful!
- cvccvroomvroom 3y agoDoesn't say if they drove through flood waters or just heavy rain. If the former, then perhaps the owners were expecting something for nothing. This article seems bent on spreading irresponsible misinformation rather than bringing evidence or clarity.
- 7e 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y agoComments like this are against the site guidelines because perceptions like this are nearly always wrong. "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... In the Tesla case I'm sure the flags are coming almost entirely from users who are simply tired of the repetitive noise and drama aorund this topic.