[Closed] Tesla response to concerns that their cars parts were failing

and if the main drive fails they can flintstone it?

If the indicators fail you and a passenger can wave arms out the windows. Assuming the windows work

Sounds fair enough to me. Both our cars are over ten years old at the minute so very few "driver aids" onboard. Over christmas the MX-5 got pranged and was in for repairs so I had a loaner Qashqai for a week. What an annoying little shit of a drive that was.

Warning! Potential for Ice!
Warning! Out of lane!
Warning! Another vehicle in blind spot!
Warning! Speed limit change!
Warning! Approaching Barnsley!
Warning! Seatbelt violation! (aka 2 litre milk carton next to me)
Etc, etc.

It's working close to new car time for us, which with the money saved to do it ought to be a nice, maybe fun process, but really I'm dreading it.

This is just graceful degradation, you'd be more pissed off if it said 'in the event that this fails, you can't use the vehicle at all'

Warning! Approaching Barnsley!

I think that one stands

Seems not unreasnoble, although wasn't it a cache memory issue that meant it never cleared so after a few years it ended up completely full?

My Berlingo had an airbag light on and on and pings at me. It's down to a plastic connector block under the drivers seat.

Should I start a new thread for that? I don't think Citoren have ever responded to the issue dispute it being common across several of their cars not just one.

Seems fairly sensible, honest advice. They should be commended for it 😉

As above, seems like a decent bit of advice to give to drivers.

At the time, Tesla acknowledged the issue but said if the display was not working, “the driver can perform a shoulder check and use the mirrors”.

“If the screen is not visible to control the climate control and defroster settings, the driver will be able to manually clear the windshield,” it added.

Nothing unusual about motor manufactures being a bit low key with these kinds of announcement. Early BMW MINIs had an issue with a spark from static discharge being created when a petrol pump touched the neck of the fuel tank . Sometimes this caused the fuel to ignite. Off course theres no better place to be setting petrol alight than in a petrol station. BMW sought to allay fears by explaining that this was a rare occurrence and that anyway any fire would only be very brief.

And that is very reassuring - in the event of an explosion its nice to be able to think 'well, at least this won't take long'.

I work in the automotive industry and you would not believe the number of companies that approach us, identifying themselves as "the next Tesla" and they all seem to quietly disappear. For all the flak Tesla gets that've come from pretty much nowhere and now dominate electric cars, dragging all the other mainstream manufacturers behind them. It's pretty amazing given they started with an electric version of a Lotus Elise. Lots of other people have tried and failed (e.g. Dyson)

Airbag warnings are annoying, and expensive to fix as you can't use an ODBC reader to clear them usually. Most are caused by connection issues, and with age these get worse. My 19 year old car throws a wobble once a year. I unplug the side air bag connector, spray with contact cleaner then plug back in. There is fortunately a sequence of ignition turns which intiates a reset and rescan. If no fault, it turns off.

Warning! Seatbelt violation! (aka 2 litre milk carton next to me)

When I first got my current car I had been in the habit of putting my bag on the front passenger seat. Got confused and annoyed why the car was beeping at me and a light flashing momentarily when going round some corners. Problem was it was flashing so fast it was hard to spot what random light it was. Took a few repetitions and a longer corner to see what it was and move the bag off the seat.

Warning! Approaching Barnsley!
Warning! Seatbelt violation! (aka 2 litre milk carton next to me)

I just drive my car around with the passenger seatbelt plugged-in...

Thus far, Tesla has been charging customers to upgrade or replace the screens, but the costs of official recall repairs are supposed to be absorbed by the vehicle manufacturer. Tesla said in its letter to NHTSA that it will make the recall repairs for free and will offer a discount on upgraded screen hardware.

I suspect that Elon Musk's contemptuous attitude is making a minor technical issue into a bad P.R. issue.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/02/business/tesla-screen-recall/index.html

I can't can't make the guy out. He's achieved an incredible amount, why does he need to be such an arse? Where is the gain?

I think he has a similar personality to Donald Trump, except that Musk actually does have some useful ability beyond bullshitting. They are both visionaries who assign others to sort out the details and refuse to be constrained by existing norms. Steve Jobs was similar too - a raging **** who pushed engineers very hard to meet his demands. That sort of personality is useful for generating innovation, but it needs to be kept on a tight leash or the contempt for legal niceties will eventually be your undoing, which is where Trump is right now. The problem for that sort of personality is that they just can't publicly back down, so little issues blow up into huge P.R. disasters, the "pedo guy" and "inauguration crowd" things, for example.

To steal a long forgotten phrase, there is something of the night about him. He is obviously a key figure in a positive future for EVs sooner than we would have otherwise but it would be good if he could just disappear into the productive background. In public his persona is rarely a source for good.

There is a really good video on YouTube about a guy who repairs Tesla's. The thing is Tesla will not sell spare parts so he basically has his own private Tesla breakers yard.

The thing is Tesla will not sell spare parts

I thought this sort of monopoly had effectively been halted in Europe at least as being bad for the consumer?

Can you imagine if Ford said - sorry we won't sell OEM spares to independent repairers?

Or have I misunderstood?

He’s achieved an incredible amount, why does he need to be such an arse?

He's always been an arse - just very successful along with it (and perhaps because of it for some things).

Well in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king. It's easy enough to succeed in a market with no competition. What Elon is good at is convincing investors to keep pumping money into his Tesla venture. Its not so much of an amazing achievement in the automotive industry, but more of an achievement in the investor industry where Tesla investors are behaving in a completely abnormal way and driving the 'success' (really survival) of Tesla, though how you can consider a company with $10bn of debt and making a loss on every car a success is odd, but Tesla corp is a success based upon the share price performance.

Tesla's been a classic disruptor. The challenge with disruptors is that once the cat is out of the bag and the others have caught up where do you go next? It's hard to keep disrupting and if you can't secure the market share quickly enough you're doomed. Tesla global sales last year was something like £350,000 cars. VW alone global sales was something like 10 million cars. It doesn't look like Tesla has secures anywhere near enough market share to guarantee survival now the likes of VW are coming to the party with EV's. We'll see if the Tesla bubble will burst. Who know's. Many people have bet against Elon and regretted it, but even the best run of luck and good fortune cannot last forever.

It's a bigger conversation but what makes me very uneasy about EVs as the sustainable future is that we appear to be fixating on the fuel/energy source but not about the long term sustainability of the product.

A truly sustainable EV needs to a vehicle that is still running successfully in 20/30 years time. A trigger's broom of modularity and simple economical fixing. A car with ample and affordable spare parts that the 4th or 5th owner could replace to keep the car going and still relatively desirable. This should come ahead of trinkets and whiz bang fluff for the first owner to show off with. A return to utilitarian.

I just don't seem a 15 year old current Tesla being a desirable purchase.

The same effect can be had in a Tesla by restarting the MCU while driving. All the main screen features disappear while it restarts but the car continues to work uninterrupted. No safety features are affected. For example,  the indicators still work, there’s just no noise to accompany them (no clicking, or sleigh bells if you have Christmas mode on). Same with putting autopilot on or the car moaning at you that you are straddling the centre line: the feature works but there are no audible alerts.

Tesla identified the problem and eventually, as you’d expect from any car manufacturer, offer free replacement of the defective part. Or a £2,500 upgrade/replacement if you’re feeling flush.

The thing is Tesla will not sell spare parts

spares are very hard to get hold of though the problem I understood was that they have very few surplus ones with their super-tight just in time production methods and incredibly high vehicle demand.

A truly sustainable EV needs to a vehicle that is still running successfully in 20/30 years time.

Have you driven a 30 year old car recently? They suck compared to a modern car. The key to sustainability is making them recyclable, not patching up old junkers for decades. The metal components, especially non-ferrous metals, are generally easy to recycle. Problem is the plastics aren't.

I thought this sort of monopoly had effectively been halted in Europe at least as being bad for the consumer?

guy was us based, maybe different in Europe?

It’s a bigger conversation but what makes me very uneasy about EVs as the sustainable future is that we appear to be fixating on the fuel/energy source but not about the long term sustainability of the product.

The only hope is that a aftermarket parts industry grows such as exists for vw vans. In some ways due to the greater reliance on software and hacker culture there maybe grater opportunity for this. I suspect it will be like the VW van though, some brands / model will have a cult status and may develop aftermarket hacks / replacement parts other will just end up on the lithium scrapheap.

Have you driven a 30 year old car recently? They suck compared to a modern car. The key to sustainability is making them recyclable, not patching up old junkers for decades. The metal components, especially non-ferrous metals, are generally easy to recycle. Problem is the plastics aren’t.

You are still thinking in old money. There is no reason why this needs to be the case moving forwards.

Have you driven a 30 year old car recently? They suck compared to a modern car. The key to sustainability is making them recyclable, not patching up old junkers for decades. The metal components, especially non-ferrous metals, are generally easy to recycle. Problem is the plastics aren’t.

Say, a gen 1 Mondeo? Would be quite happy to have one as a daily driver. My current motor is a 18 year old Honda and I like it plenty good enough to patch it up and run it for a good while yet. YMMV of course.

My understanding was that "reuse" trumped "recycle" by quite a long way.

Obviously both are way behind "reduce".

The key to sustainability is making them recyclable,

Er, no, the key to sustainability is not making them in the first place. Personal transport is an outmoded concept and is in no way as sustainable as mass transit.

Now I get that mass transit isn't an option for everyone and that the tech has to start somewhere but changing the fuel source is just tinkering round the edges. What is really required is a societal modal shift involving infrastructure provision and legislation to ensure the service is in place.

My understanding was that “reuse” trumped “recycle” by quite a long way.

Obviously both are way behind “reduce”.

Quite.

At the time, Tesla acknowledged the issue but said if the display was not working, “the driver can perform a shoulder check and use the mirrors”.

There will always be people with zero common sense. Look at the number who've allowed their Teslas to kill them while playing video games or texting because of an implicit and very misplaced trust in technology.

Er, no, the key to sustainability is not making them in the first place. Personal transport is an outmoded concept and is in no way as sustainable as mass transit.

And you need to make the alternatives to personal vehicles recyclable. There will always be some demand for personal transport - taxis, rentals, etc. - because sometimes you need to go doorstep to doorstep, and mass transit won't do that. The ownership model of having a personal vehicle will probably change, but there will still be millions upon millions of vehicles, and those need to be recycled.

Off course theres no better place to be setting petrol alight than in a petrol station.

Weirdly, it might not be the perfect place to do it - but I think there are a lot worse places! Petrol stations are well prepared for the inevitable fire risk, so you have fire extinguishers around, easy egress from the burning vehicle into wide open space, equipment designed with the fire risk in mind so not likely to spread far and remote stops for all the pumps etc (and almost certainly a big 999 response when called in).

I'd much rather be in a car whose fuel tank ignited in a petrol station than asleep above an integrated garage when a fire starts, or even working at the back of the garage with no way past the car.

and those need to be recycled.

But only as a last resort after everything has been done to keep the bulk of the material and components on the road in a functional and relevant form.

It's a dualit vs tefal toaster senario - a well made chassis where every component is available and replaceable with minimum of fuss by someone with barely competent skill levels. So a toaster for life. As opposed to a very recyclable tefal where the whole thing needs replacing and recycling too frequently.

Or maybe like a house - same building that can have it's guts replaced and a new more efficient boiler inserted as new technology becomes available but is still materially mostly the same house.

Houses might not be your absolute best example there.

Look at the number who’ve allowed their Teslas to kill them while playing video games..

1 person isn't it?
"one accident for every 4.34 million miles driven in which drivers had Autopilot engaged"

Houses might not be your absolute best example there.

true - thinking/typing when I'm meant to be working!

But only as a last resort after everything has been done to keep the bulk of the material and components on the road in a functional and relevant form.

Problem is, you're thinking of cars in terms of 1950s technology. Modern cars are highly integrated, they are really built around the electronic systems now, not a collection of separate mechanical systems. Those electronic systems quickly become outdated, but they are integrated into all the other parts of the vehicle. Rebuilding an engine is fairly simple but upgrading outdated electronic systems to modern standards is not feasible. Older vehicles won't meet modern safety and environmental regulations without being rebuilt into a completely new vehicle. It would be like trying to keep an old laptop running - it can be done, but very few people want a 20 year old computer that is incompatible with modern standards.

DezB
Full Member

Look at the number who’ve allowed their Teslas to kill them while playing video games..

1 person isn’t it?

This site suggests 6 verified autopilot deaths.

https://www.tesladeaths.com/

Just another chink in the Telsa financial armour - as well as losing money on every car it sells, it only makes money by selling its 'green emission' credits to other car dealers so that they can avoid big fines. As the other dealers make electric cars, the market for these green credits reduces so less money for Tesla

This fine for VW shows why it is worth other manufacturers gaming the system. BERLIN, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Volkswagen faces a fine of more than 100 million euros ($121 million) for missing EU targets on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from its 2020 passenger car fleet, the world’s largest carmaker said on Thursday.

It cut average CO2 emissions in the fleet in the European Union by around 20% to 99.8 g/km, but that was around 0.5 g/km above its target, Volkswagen said.

That implied EU fines amounting to a “very low triple-digit million amount”, a spokesman said.