You're Supposed to Be Glad Your Tesla Is a Brittle Heap of Junk

https://defector.com/youre-supposed-to-be-glad-your-tesla-is-a-brittle-heap-of-junk

by ColinWright • 3 years ago

109 117 3 years ago

jaggs• 3 years ago

Wow, reading the original Reuters report is extremely scary.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-mu...

A friend of mine bought a brand new Model S, and within weeks experienced the squeaking noise the article talks about. Tesla took months to sort it out, after making excuse after excuse.

He never bought another one.

matthewdgreen• 3 years ago

I had the front suspension do this on my 2018 Model 3 after about four years. In fairness, Tesla was extremely decent and replaced the entire front suspension without asking questions. However my car is now out of warranty, so I'm a little nervous about the next major event.

cantSpellSober6• 3 years ago

This article just seems like a rehash of the Reuters article written in the tone of a Gawker blog. The author adds an anecdote but little else.

All the upside-down incentives and warped prerogatives [sic] of the startup world are on display here

Interesting post to see on a site sponsored by Y Combinator.

rsynnott3• 3 years ago

I mean, are you denying that “make a barely-workable prototype, sell it, hope to improve it later” is a big startup-world thing? Like, you could argue it’s not, I suppose, but probably not… super-credibly?

Trouble is, as an approach it works a lot better with CRUD apps than with cars.

leereeves• 3 years ago

Scary is clearly what they were going for.

An unbiased news source would provide some context for comparison, but Reuters is on an anti-Musk crusade (they even mention a few other hit pieces they've written in that article).

Fortunately other people here have provided some context:

"In documents that Jeep provided to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the automaker [Jeep] says that it is aware of 21 instances of [rear coil] springs detaching"

https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-recalls-defects/jee...

"Honda said in documents filed to NHTSA that it has 61 customer complaints in the U.S. [of rear trailing arms detaching]"

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/honda-crv-recall-2023-rust-...

"Toyota warned owners of BZ4X electric SUVs to stop driving them because the wheels might fall off."

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/24/cars/toyota-bz4x-tundra-recal...

That Reuters article could have been written about any automaker. They all have catastrophic failures from time to time and they all have thousands of customer complaints out of millions of vehicles sold.

bundie• 3 years ago

We know it's you, Elon

moritzwarhier3• 3 years ago

It's a tragedy how this also puts other users of roads and sidewalks at great risk.

beretguy• 3 years ago

No, this is not a blog from 2012! It is also not a blog from 2015 or 2018 or 2022. It is not even a blog from two weeks ago about Tesla's self-driving systems killing people all over the place. It is a blog from today, Dec. 21, 2023

This sentence is not going to age well.

truculent• 3 years ago

Why?

hnfong• 3 years ago

Presumably because today is already 31 Dec 2023, and almost 2024.

It's going to age even less well in a couple years.

kanavs• 3 years ago

With all of this, I still don’t understand how Tesla manages to sell any cars, let alone 1.8M cars in 2023.

yoavm2• 3 years ago

Isn't the world filled with crap being sold in crazy amounts purely for marketing and branding? It seems to me like the only surprise is that somehow, generally speaking, the car industry had some correlation of cost:quality until Tesla came about. Other industries (I'm thinking fashion/food) had lost that correlation long ago.

Infinitesimus• 3 years ago

Not really until tesla - Mercedes has been excitedly shipping creaky piano black plastic for years and I'm sure there are many other brands cutting corners to reduce price. (Porsche doesn't seem to care which is good)

willcipriano2• 3 years ago

The magical part to me is these were the greatest cars ever until Musk bought Twitter.

acdha2• 3 years ago

You missed a decade of complaints? Under the previous ownership, videos of Tesla “FSD” making dangerous decisions were a Twitter staple for years.

SkyPuncher• 3 years ago

They did a few things right that the legacy manufacturers just can’t freaking figure out.

* their charging infrastructure is by far the best. Regardless of coverage, their chargers are typically in working condition.

* they actually put enough power in their powertrain. No dinky, slow cars. Fast, powerful cars. They’re fun to drive when you want them to be fun.

* technology.

LargeTomato6• 3 years ago

Tesla hired extremely talented engineers to design their cars. You can't really say the same for e.g. Ford. Tesla tackled the engineering problem from a hardware and software perspective. You can't say the same of really any traditional automaker.

rcpt2• 3 years ago

Also skipping the dealership salesman

chris22212• 3 years ago

If you look at the things people care about in modern BEVs its easy to see why Tesla is winning.

Price, range, charging speed & reliability, performance and software.

It’s pretty obvious at this point with the entire auto indistry switching to NACS that Tesla won.

maximus-decimus2• 3 years ago

The Toyota EV also had tires falling off and recent Hyundai/Kia cars were catching on fire because the engine was overheating from the automatic stop/start when you stop. Jeep has transmission issues where theirs cars would go to neutral on their own, which ended up with Anton Yelchin dying at 27 years old crushed against a fence by his own car. I believe Honda has problems with manual transmissions going out of gear while you were driving and just refused to address the problem for a long ass time.

They're all bad. There's a whole scene in the Fight Club movie where they explain every car company will refuse to fix a deadly problem unless they calculate the lawsuits will cost them more than the fix, and I believe it.

rad_gruchalski4• 3 years ago

Tires falling off must be a special magical failure. Wheels I’d understand but tires?

Rebelgecko3• 3 years ago

They're still the best (especially with the Bolt being discontinued) option in the US if you want an EV under $40k

chris22212• 3 years ago

All cars have these issues. The article is more hit peice than real journalism which would include statsitics from all automakers. Remember we have lemon laws? Writing negative things about Tesla just gets more hits.

SV_BubbleTime4• 3 years ago

It’s hard to determine how many people actually hate the product, or just now really hate the figurehead. I’ve seen the mask slip some here and there.

hef1989819• 3 years ago

Actually no, most cars don't have suspension failures...

rcpt2• 3 years ago

What else are you going to buy? A Chevy?

chris22212• 3 years ago

Despite this hit peice they still make some of the best BEVs when you consider range, price, charging speed/network and software. These are things customers care the most about. Every brand has reliability and quality issues and tesla is in the middle of the pack statistically.

You might want to study the issues with the non-tesla fast chargers in the United States to see what customers really care about.

belltaco5• 3 years ago

Because issues with other cars are not given wide media attention like Teslas. And HN is far worse in that regard.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Ford issued 55 safety recalls in 2023, down from 67 last year. The repair campaigns affected 5.9 million vehicles, down from 8.6 million in 2022, which put the automaker in second place for the total number of vehicles recalled. Honda’s 19 recalls affected 6.3 million cars.
Chrysler issued the second-highest number of recalls, at 45. Kia came in third for the total number of recalled cars, with more than 3 million affected by its 20 repair campaigns.

https://www.kbb.com/car-news/in-2023-ford-again-led-nation-i...

How many of those did you see reported on HN?

And many of Tesla's recalls are OTA updates, and even software update recalls show up on HN.

chris22212• 3 years ago

So true. Elsewhere in this thread I cited 3 major recent suspension recalls for issues that were as bad or worse than Teslas.

4b11b4• 3 years ago

I think you answered your own question: there isn't a "with all of this".

Kaibeezy2• 3 years ago

New things. Is it really a surprise? People not understanding tradeoffs. Governments slow to regulate. Are these surprises either?

I drive a Saab. Also no surprise.

moritzwarhier3• 3 years ago

Government was quick to hand out subsidies to buyers of these cars, after handing out huge subsidies to buyers of the previous generation of cars less than 15 years ago, here in Germany.

So regulation is quick actually!

And no lack of motivation to tap into the great magic generator of wealth and prosperity that is building a couple billion more vehicles with giant batteries because that will obviously help the environment. Regulation works!

I guess they'll find some way to also regulate this awesome technology so that it doesn't endanger people in immediate proximity.

Ah yes, "tradeoffs" about "new things". The main innovation in electric cars are large rechargable batteries.

// I know this comment might sound incisive, off-topic or unreasonable to many readers, but i'm gonna leave it here and gladly collect downvotes because it's my unfiltered opinion. Nothing against electric vehicles, but their current treatment by society as innovative technology with a positive impact when used in the same way we use cars today is ludicrous to me. And when it comes to the cost of cars, direct or societal costs, I am strictly opposed to subsidies. There are already too many cars per capita and the number keeps increasing.

Regarding article:

I don't see anything specific to electric cars here, not even in most of the defective parts. The safety regulations shouldn't require much or even anything specific to electric cars here. Especially no exceptions or loopholes. Should be the same framework as with combustion cars.

rad_gruchalski4• 3 years ago

after handing out huge subsidies to buyers of the previous generation of cars less than 15 years ago

And Euro diesel subsidies 4 years ago.

building a couple billion more vehicles with giant batteries because that will obviously help the environment

There was a new memo. Not only environment, also good for the grid because batteries in cars are good oversupply storage. Apparently.

hollywood_court4• 3 years ago

I managed an import repair shop for quite a few years. People would bring their cars from all over to have our techs work on them. We routinely had people ship in classic Rolls and Japanese sports cars from all over the country to our little shop in Alabama. The techs could work on anything.

Saabs were the only cars not allowed on our lot. The lead tech refused to even look at them. My neighbor two houses down owns 3 Saabs. None of them run of course. I often wonder “what was he thinking.”

Kaibeezy2• 3 years ago

Specifically considering reliability, that's a mild outlier anecdote in my experience; not common, but not unheard of. With no specialists nearby, I was warned off the classic 900 or 9000, but my 9-5 has been no bother. Considering a larger array of factors -- safety, performance, UX, design, current prices, parts availability, enthusiast community, etc. -- Saabs have, on balance, a lot going for them right now.

hollywood_court4• 3 years ago

I was tempted to buy a Model 3 a few months ago when the prices were lower than ever.

I daily a Land Cruiser and I thought picking up a Tesla simply for my work commute would be a wise decision.

However the nearest dealer and service center is 2+ hours away. That combined with all the anecdotes from my friends who had bad experiences with the them have kept me away.

chris22212• 3 years ago

They have a pretty reliable service that will come to your house for most of the repairs. You should see if thats available in your area. I have a 2018 Model 3 and two friends have 2019s and we have not had these issues. I think they are overblown, there are millions of Teslas out there now.

rasz• 3 years ago

Tesla model 3 wouldnt work in the environment demanding a 4x4 truck.

hollywood_court4• 3 years ago

The Tesla wouldn't replace the Land Cruiser. I treat vehicles like hammers. You have to have different ones for different purposes. I have the Land Cruiser for recreation and driving my 4 year old son to and from school which happens to be on the way to my office so it is more often than not my daily commuter.

My pickup truck only gets used when I need a pickup truck. I believe I've only put ~500 miles on it in the past 3 years. But it is a single cab 2500 so my son cannot ride in it. Maybe when he's older and out of the carseat.

The Tesla would simply be to haul my son to school and myself to my office. I'm looking at just getting a Prius or a CRV Hybrid now. The Land Cruiser only gets ~10 MPG so that's a bit of an annoyance for me. Getting a steady daily commuter would mean the Land Cruiser can be simply for recreation and longer road trips where we need the storage space.

pylua2• 3 years ago

Can anyone vouch for an alternative such as rivian when it comes to better quality?

hef1989819• 3 years ago

If build quality, mechanical build quality that is, matters to you: take an EV from a legacy car manufacturer.

Rebelgecko3• 3 years ago

This is the route I went, and I'm super happy with it. Some warts, especially on the software side, but still a great car.

LargeTomato6• 3 years ago

If you want your car to hold together on the freeway get a legacy car. But if you want the sickest software updates and Full Self Driving™ get yourself a Tesla.

chris22212• 3 years ago

Rivians have lots of documented issues. It’s pretty much the case with every car. Tesla and Rivian are no different than other brands just because they are pure EV companies.

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/another-critical-...

claar• 3 years ago

I suggest you get a Tesla and enjoy it; I love my Model Y.

These hit pieces are stupid. Look at the high satisfaction rates - equal to other luxury brands - mentioned in another comment. I'm nowhere near alone in loving my Tesla and plan to purchase more in the future.

Yep, I had to have my trunk latch replaced (service center is 2 hours away, but they sent a mobile service vehicle to replace it free in the parking lot at my work - super convenient!). And the 12v battery died, which was annoying.

Other than that it's been rock solid and soooo fun to drive. No oil changes no gas station visits, and I use full self driving every day. Every single time I accelerate, I floor it and it throws me back in the seat. It holds 7 passengers (I have small kids for the tiny back two seats) and does 0-60 in 4.7s. Woo hoo!

It's the best purchase I've ever made and gives me joy every day. Your mileage may vary!

pylua2• 3 years ago

I am definitely considering it when my current car dies. Do the insurance premiums rise for these electric vehicles rise since they are more costly to repair?

childintime• 3 years ago

Tesla has responded to the Reuters article, basically saying Reuters is the shoddy one: https://twitter.com/Tesla/status/1740097070789198241

hef1989819• 3 years ago

No big surprise, is it? I guess Reuters will get "nuclear" law suite by Tesla for this...

JohnFen• 3 years ago

That's the expected response. What else would they say?

pimlottc• 3 years ago

By saying they have great principles, cool technology and high pay. They don't really offer any evidence to dispute the rate of failures and quality issues brought up in the article.

hef1989819• 3 years ago

Tesla doesn't have a PR department anymore, they sure have a legal one.

cantSpellSober6• 3 years ago

Did Twitter expand the character limit for tweets, or just remove it for accounts Elon likes?

Rebelgecko3• 3 years ago

This rebuttal is kinda embarrassing

Misleading headline: “Tesla blamed drivers for failures of parts it long knew were defective.”
Reality (buried in the article): Tesla paid for most of the 120,000 vehicle repairs under warranty.

So potentially 59k people had to pay for it themselves?

chris22212• 3 years ago

Funny they write about Tesla which is selling like crazy with mostly satsified owners and a middle of the pack quality score. There are vehicles like the Cadillac Lyirq that have a near 100% issue rate.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CadillacLyriq/

gambiting• 3 years ago

Does it have mostly satisfied owners? Tesla literally just landed at the bottom of the most recently released reliability rankings in the US, if the owners are still satisfied despite that, then maybe they are gaslighting themselves.

chris22212• 3 years ago

Yes if you look at customer satisfaction scores.

https://www.autoblog.com/amp/article/car-brands-highest-cust...

dangus• 3 years ago

Consumer Reports ranks Tesla reliability right in the middle of the pack, close to brands like Nissan and Cadillac.

On the one hand I don’t doubt Reuter’s reporting at all. I’m sure there are defective vehicles and Tesla has a history of passing their mistakes down to customers and being evasive.

On the other hand, critics of Tesla seem to get a little hysterical, too. It’s like people are offended that Tesla dares to sell a Nissan Sentra-like vehicle with leather seats, an electric motor, and some tech toys for boys.

People buy shitty vehicles like Jeep Wranglers all the time and they’re satisfied because that’s what they want. They could spend less time in the shop if they bought a Toyota Camry but that’s not what they wanted.

j452• 3 years ago

Established ICE automakers will not receive the same scrutiny in EVs as their competitors

chris22212• 3 years ago

By the mainstream media press sure. But are customers really following their bullshit? Tesla sales are still outpacing the entire BEV market except for BYD in China.

exabrial• 3 years ago

...sort of like anything '"engineered" in California' these days.

greenthrow• 3 years ago

Tesla has build quality issues and has done some shady stuff. But this article is an extremely poorly written rehash of the Reuters piece.

The author's assertion that they have never had a wheel fall off or suspension collapse is completely meaningless. Of course they haven't. These are extremely rare events, and it has no bearing on whether, for example, the mentioned suspension collapse was due to a faulty part or due to the driver having hit a really bad pothole at speed previous to the collapse or something else. We don't really know based on the information available. We'd have to look at the telemetry that Tesla has on the vehicle and examine it for events prior to the suspension collapse.

lcordier• 3 years ago

Flying is like the physical internet, a true miracle in human evolution, step in and in a few short hours you step out on the other side of the world. And yet the insane complaints about lack of comfort, especially in Y, blows my mind. Finally some sanity in a thread about 192Y easyJet A320s.

Quoting flyingturtle (Reply 20): I'm 1.7 m (5.57742782 feet), and I felt more squeezed in a German long-distance bus than in any LCC I've ever flown. The bus ride? Six hours.

I Elon, if you are reading these, I would pay R2 for a Tesla S, but wait it is a NFT. https://lcordier.github.io/blog/20231231

I have one customization request thou. We can discuss.

jauntywundrkind• 3 years ago

There's a broader message here, that scares the shit out of me,

The reason Tesla hasn't "worked all the bugs out yet" is that the company is run by people who hold established best practice in ideological contempt, and is defined by a tech-industry culture that fetishizes innovation and regards product quality as a third-order concern. There simply isn't as much investment money and credulous tech-media adulation to suck up in the promise of iterating on what already works. You must reinvent, almost literally in this case, the wheel—this time, apparently on the premise of "...and what if it sucked?"

So much of capitalism is about convincing people things are hard, bad, wrong, & that your product/service and your product/service alone have it right.

The top post in "I'm skeptical of low code" works at a low-code shop, and was a perfect example of this, of blasting code & showing off a form builder & wowwing folks. But then the hard part really starting. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38820160

My dream is for humanity to have a better relationship with technology. One where the tech shows itself off better, is more observable, so we can understand it's upsides and it's downsides more honestly, tweak it some. And from that better position, we can steer and adjust the way forward. Rather than just serve us, giving us the option to see in and learn what's afoot, empowering us; that's like the first steps on the path to Engelbart-ian Augmenting Intellect. And it's how we escape humanity being victims to this Phoenix cycle of capitalism constantly burning everything down to let vc's and founders attempt a new ascent.

1vuio0pswjnm7• 3 years ago

"Tesla cars are shoddily built pieces of shit liable to fall apart and malfunction in dangerous ways at inopportune moments."

sshine• 3 years ago

Tesla cars are shoddily built pieces of shit

I read these pieces because I own a Tesla and I'm not a fanboy.

But starting an article like this, I have to subtract a lot of emotion.

I assume someone starting an article like this don't know the depth of their own bias.

Just deliver the facts. They should speak for themselves.

wagwan• 3 years ago

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You're Supposed to Be Glad Your Tesla Is a Brittle Heap of Junk

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