Tesla owner blows up his Model S with dynamite over $22,000 battery replacement

https://electrek.co/2021/12/23/tesla-owner-blows-up-model-s-dynamite-battery-replacement/

by lando2319 • 5 years ago

61 51 5 years ago

JPKab• 5 years ago

Idiot. He easily could have found one of many groups nationwide who know exactly how to fix these batteries for a fraction of the price. There are numerous YouTube videos featuring various places that know how to do this now.

goldenchrome• 5 years ago

They run a YouTube channel. It's entertainment.

naikrovek4• 5 years ago

no, the owner reached out to the YouTube channel; the owner of the car is not otherwise affiliated with the channel.

alamortsubite• 5 years ago

Idiot.

His video has 2.5 million views, having only been uploaded a couple days ago. He doesn't come across as an idiot to me.

barbazoo• 5 years ago

"They can't be an idiot, they have millions of views" is not something I've heard before I must say.

RF_Savage• 5 years ago

Not only that, the battery pack and drivetrain ware removed prior to blowing it up. Notice how there's no burning batteries in the video.

This is mentioned in the Beyond The Press's video, but not in the one by Pommijätkät.

sschueller• 5 years ago

He also gutted the car before blowing it up so I'm sure he made some cash selling those parts.

clouddrover3• 5 years ago

Idiot. He easily could have found one of many groups nationwide who know exactly how to fix these batteries for a fraction of the price.

Or, alternatively, he could get many eyeballs looking at his monetized YouTube video and buy a better car with the profits.

naikrovek4• 5 years ago

it's not even the Tesla owner's YouTube channel.

would someone please read the effing article before commenting on it?

0xdeadb00f• 5 years ago

Yeah, I think he'd agree, it was pretty idiotic for him to but a Tesla in hindsight.

naikrovek4• 5 years ago

He's in Finland. Read.

solarkraft4• 5 years ago

nationwide

Which nation? The guy's in Finland. Though they have so many EVs this should've been a possibility too. They have already had a third party replacement however and may have opted to not get another this time due to the bad experience.

quassy• 5 years ago

Katainen didn’t like the value proposition considering used 2013 Model S vehicles go for about 35,000 euros in Finland and he didn’t have access to a third-party shop to fix the pack.

It's literally in the article that that wasn't an option.

perihelions• 5 years ago

Timestamp link, for HN's sophisticated ædification:

https://youtu.be/7_9aVzf5fC4?t=288

JudasGoat2• 5 years ago

He is correct in highlighting the very poor 3rd party service available to Tesla owners specifically because Tesla is reluctant to release repair information and software. A Tesla service subscription to get access to schematics and troubleshooting help cost $3178 per year. Contrast that with GM's $550 annual charge and you will see the bleak future of Tesla repair.

Maursault• 5 years ago

A Tesla service subscription to get access to schematics and troubleshooting help cost $3178 per year. Contrast that with GM's $550 annual charge and you will see the bleak future of Tesla repair.

That doesn't sound all that unreasonable, at first. Auto repair business average between $250K-$500K in annual revenue, but average annual profit might only be $100K. I suspect many that repair domestic ICE vehicles don't bother with subscriptions and rely on the experience of their mechanics. There must be some threshold of Tesla repair customers to make a subscription worthwhile. Though, I live on the East Coast, rural setting, but I have travelled from PA to FL more than a few times since 2019, and it just occurred to me that I have never seen a Tesla in the wild.

JudasGoat2• 5 years ago

As an auto tech, Tesla has fire walled their information from the usual distributors. A AllData Or Mitchell repair subscription cover every (popular) brand except Tesla. Their cost for a single mechanic is cheaper than Tesla's.

jevoten• 5 years ago

That doesn't sound all that unreasonable, at first.

Selling an item, then selling the repair manual to that item, isn't unreasonable - it's an insult to your customers, and only a few steps removed from extortion. It's the manufacturer saying "I want to use technical means to control how you can use the item, even after you've bought it - and by extension, to control you."

I hope the right to repair movement makes this practice illegal.

anakaine2• 5 years ago

Revenue is not equal to profit. Adding in $3000 from each manufacturer could add a huge amount to the operational costs of one of these businesses, further reducing margin and therefore profitability. Additionally, your average home mechanic should be able to deal with most things on a Tesla with the exception of high voltage electronics. That schematic charge prices your average Joe out of the self repair market almost instantly.

bmitc• 5 years ago

It is definitely unreasonable.

I am excited for Hyundai and Kia's EV vehicles with their insane warranties and third party support.

google234123• 5 years ago

550 isn't that far from 3178 to be fair.

anakaine2• 5 years ago

Its only 5.7 times the cost. Not far at all.

mikewarot• 5 years ago

Considering the $22,000 replacement of the battery would come with no warranty, writing off the car seems like the wise choice. He extracted the high value components, and blew up what remained in a spectacular and profitable fashion.

beckman4663• 5 years ago

blew up what remained in a spectacular and profitable fashion

profitable?

this kind of spectacle is a net loss for the natural world, for humanity and for all the other species we share the earth with. if you think i'm exaggerating you're not seeing how much waste and destruction our current proprietary paradigm is responsible for.

this whole doing 'fun' experiments on non-modular black-box consumer-grade tech by destroying it or blowing it up for 'content' is the definition of insanity. we will look back from our communist open source future society and shiver with horror, disbelief and fear as we watch back 1080p videos showing how some of us poisoned our watersheds and laughed hysterically while creating the toxic, plastic, holocenic sludge.

think i'm being a crybaby? see images of global north e-waste giving cancer to children in the global south. it's devastating to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mleQVO1Vd1I

hn_go_brrrrr• 5 years ago

I don't think you're being a crybaby, but you do seem to be deliberately misinterpreting the parent post.

porknubbins3• 5 years ago

Interesting business model though- unlike traditional cars which don’t particularly degrade that much while sitting (except cosmetic/cheap wear items) Teslas are apparently like giant iPhones that the battery just dies on after a certain number of years.

fooker• 5 years ago

Traditional cars degrade quite a bit while sitting for years. Components get rusted, essential rubber belts crack, ignition system degrades. These can add up to a lot of money.

ragingrobot2• 5 years ago

essential rubber belts crack

Any soft material degrades, and probably faster than most people think, only a few months. Oil pan gaskets, brake seals, injector o-rings, you name it. Modern cars probably suffer less, but it still happens.

I have a 30 year old pony car that I only get to take out once every few months due to lack of time. Every time I do get the chance to take it out, something fails due to that lack of use.

porknubbins3• 5 years ago

Lots can go wrong unpredictably or fail over time but that is not the same as the way a chemical battery degrades (roughly) linearly. If I let my car sit for 5 years my experience is you can’t really predict what needs to be relaced (besides wear items like tires, battery etc).

kumarvvr• 5 years ago

A lot wrong can go with ICE engines if not used for a long time.

I guess keeping a Tesla charged every week is a good way to extend shelf life.

porknubbins3• 5 years ago

Possibly if stored outside but I have fixed lots of old engines and if it was working when parked you can usually just change the oil and carburetor and hoses. Everything else is metal after all.

solarkraft4• 5 years ago

The batteries are generally holding up better than initially expected. This is more of a warranty/repair cost issue than something inherent to the battery.

tromp• 5 years ago

In the video, the owner says the car was nice for the first 1500km, then reported errors after which it had to be towed. I'm having trouble believing that the battery pack could go bad and be out of warranty with such low mileage.

Was that a translation error from Finnish to English subtitles?

solarkraft4• 5 years ago

The battery was out of warranty because it was replaced by a third party, IIRC.

ragingrobot2• 5 years ago

Perhaps the subtitle is off by a factor of ten (or multiple)? It would seem more reasonable to have issues at 15,000km (although still disappointing), or even moreso at 150,000km.

wayvey• 5 years ago

Transltion is correct. He says "puolitoista tuhatta kilsaa" so "one and a half thousand kilometers". It does seem like an oddly small number though.

ZeroGravitas• 5 years ago

This feels like it's playing into anti-EV sentiments about battery replacement.

Yes, the service sucks or whatever, but I had to read pretty far down to find out that they removed all the items that had value, including the battery, before blowing up the remains.

And selling that for scrap would probably also have been a better option economically if they didn't have the option of earning ad revenue on YouTube clickbait.

I'd genuinely like to know exactly how much you'd be out financially if this happened to you, and the likelihood of it happening.

I presume the NPV is still positive compared to other options and is growing even more so over time.

jarolinvargas• 5 years ago

Probably made more $ than what the Tesla cost him from ad revenue.

Tesla owner blows up his Model S with dynamite over $22,000 battery replacement

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