Luckily i will probably be never in this situation:
1. My country has an law that says in the first 6 months the seller has to prove that i used it more than it can be expected or wrong(common sense wrong not you hold it wrong) to cause the damage and my behaviour must be the reason for breaking;
2. I mostly use public transport.
Since it's not clear from the article, this occurred in England.
Most states in the US have implied warranties for such defects and you should 100% talk to an attorney (or, more likely, your insurance will) if such a defect occurs to you. Here is the California "lemon law" summarized:
But, essentially, if it's within one year of purchase (inside the state) the manufacturer is responsible for any defects, damage or loss attributed to the vehicle outside the owner/operator's responsibility (e.g. an accident with another vehicle, neglect, etc).
Business Insider is well known for low quality posts. Just looking at the headline you know they chose to run a story without fact checking anything this guy said.
> Jain is one of tens of thousands of Tesla owners who have experienced premature failures of suspension or steering parts, according to a Reuters review of thousands of Tesla documents. The chronic failures, many in relatively new vehicles, date back at least seven years and stretch across Tesla’s model lineup and across the globe, from China to the United States to Europe, according to the records and interviews with more than 20 customers and nine former Tesla managers or service technicians.
Reuters cites official documents reviewed by Reuters staff, 20+ interviews with customers and 9+ interviews with managers or service technicians.
That... seems quite comprehensive to me? They've got customer-side, they've got insurance side, they've even got Tesla's side here. How much more evidence or citations do you want from a story like this?
The BI piece doesn’t really contextualise it well, and I’d agree that linking to the Reuters piece would better, but it doesn’t seem that egregious.
(I suspect that the reason the BI piece exists and is linked to in the first place is that the Reuters piece is _very long_, and a lot of people won’t have the patience to read it.)
> "The Reuters investigation — which cited interviews with more than 20 customers and 9 Tesla workers, as well as thousands of internal documents — found that Jain was one of thousands of Tesla owners to face issues with the company's suspension or steering over the past six years."
Business Insider clearly states they are drawing from a Reuters investigation story.
They are factually reporting that everything is sourced from Reuters.
If you want to take issue with what you see as "poor reporting" then take issue with the source:
Tesla blamed drivers for failures of parts it long knew were defective
Wheels falling off cars at speed.
Suspensions collapsing on brand-new vehicles. Axles breaking under acceleration.
Tens of thousands of customers told Tesla about a host of part failures on low-mileage cars.
The automaker sought to blame drivers for vehicle ‘abuse,’ but Tesla documents show it had tracked the chronic ‘flaws’ and ‘failures’ for years.
We can get @dang (or another moderator) to change this to point to the Reuter's article, which would be my preference. (I also hate it when a lazy website just copy/pastes from another website who did all the work).
But that being said: the facts on the ground seem to be solid. We can discuss the Reuter's article instead and try to elevate the discussion here.
> If you want to take issue with what you see as "poor reporting" then take issue with the source:
Reporting from a source means you take responsibility for it. If a publication keeps reposting poor reporting as fact while posting sources, it's a bad publication, and people should definitely take issue with it. It doesn't absolve BI if Reuters is doing poor reporting.
Not to mention a publication just reposting content from another source without fact checking of their own is just content-stealing blogspam with clickbait titles.
Would not have paid for that, even if I had to live in the car on the dealers forecourt while spending every waking moment explaining to any customer who came by what happened.
Those aren't Tesla dealers, those are Tesla stores.
Most (all other?) car manufacturers sell in the US via independently owned dealerships. Tesla sells directly to customers (where I am, at least) and they've had problems in some states because they have laws that prohibit direct sales by manufacturers.
They are different from dealers: you don't "buy" your Tesla at their store, it's for doing test rides. And they will walk you through filling out your purchase on the website. Part of this is semantic, part of it matters.
Parent probably meant that they don't have third-party dealers like most carmakers do. Yes, they have first-party stores, but those are corporate and run by them.
That is not a good look for Tesla. The cowboy in Elon Musk should take some cues from another cowboy, Les Schwab. Read his book for a primer in customer service. Pride in Performance: Keep It Going!
$14k is cheap. I got lightly rear-ended in my model y and the repair bill was over $15k. And it was in the shop for over 2 months waiting for parts.
The ridiculous cost to repair and the waiting time (insurance covers a rental car for up to 1 month) are things no one talks about when it comes to Teslas.
Body work is expensive. Even more expensive when claimed through insurance. That said, it's possible the repair is expensive because the supply for parts is still quite limited.
Only because Tesla allocates so few part to repairs instead of new cars. The Model Y is the best crossover in the US. They have parts, they just only go to new cars.
The perpetually long waits on Tesla parts is especially grating because they are the sole supplier of parts. They have enough parts to not have a wait, but not if they want to hit their production targets. Tesla as a company has chosen to make people wait months for parts that would take under a week with any other brand.
Crikey. The last time I had a prang was around 2006.
I was driving a two year old Honda S2000. I span out on a roundabout and rear ended a road sign pole, via a flower bed - it smashed a tail light cover, slightly crushed one of the two tail pipes/exhausts and the rear number plate and its holder fell out.
The car from new was something like £35,000. I had it on contract hire, which means I rented it. The insurance was quite expensive because it is a sports car, and I had a lot of no claims bonus etc, so I decided to get it fixed outside the insurance but they were notified as were Honda etc. I got a quote from the local Honda garage and it was roughly £3,500. A friend's dad owns a garage. He sourced original Honda parts and fixed it for around £1,600.
So we march forward 17 years and things are badly wrong.
That the owner had to resell their own car at a 10000 dollar loss instead of just taking it back to Tesla and demanding either a refund or a replacement seems ridiculous. Are there no consumer protection laws at all in the US?
That information is not in the linked article, and all the valuations in the article are listed in dollars. You have to click through to the linked Reuters article. So I’m not sure how you’d expect others to know that it’s a story about someone from the UK.
Oh sorry, but the linked article makes no mention of that and since the repair was priced in dollar I assumed it must have been in the US. Serves me right, I guess, for believing anything businessinsider says without triple checking.
Jain, an electronics engineer in Cambridge, England.
The Reuters investigation looked at many instances of Tesla repairs and "normalised" figures to US dollars. It's common for global reporting across several countries to report in a single currency after conversion.
The problem here isn't "believing businessinsider" just missing various cues.
Is it? Usually I don't conduct in depth research about a news article I have only little interest in. I expect this to be already done for me by the articles author.
Here in this instance "in depth research" consists of following the link given within the Business Inside article to the Reuters investigation piece which has more infomation, primary sources, names of researchers, etc.
If we exchange details the next time I make it to your part of the world I could visit and click the link for you.
Probably because the entire BI article linked makes no reference to it happening in England, and has various hints that it would have happened in America (like pricing things in USD, talking about taking it to the service center and not the service centre, referring to the NHTSA, etc).
Regardless, England has similar enough laws to America in this regard, such as the Consumer Rights Act of 2015.
In the US, the lemon law would have protected the buyer (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_law) I don’t see that here so I guess they were not in the US. In any case it is unconscionable for Tesla to shift the cost and headache to the buyer in this scenario, and also stupid. The brand continues to suffer and is going to be the butt of jokes pretty soon if they keep this up.
Something is wrong here. The owner is in the UK and we do have robust, consumer focussed laws.
Let's start with "suspension broke" - how did that happen? Then why did Jain continue to drive until "the suspension issue caused portions of the vehicle to come in contact with the road"
Quality is so suspect on Teslas. The worst panel gaps on a new car in 30 years is indicative of under-emphasis on quality control. That mentality doesn't only get applied to body panels, but everything like brake and suspension components too.
Then on top of it, they are very customer hostile if you are doing anything other than buying or praising their cars. So it'll break on you, and they'll make you foot the bill.
65 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 155 ms ] threadMost states in the US have implied warranties for such defects and you should 100% talk to an attorney (or, more likely, your insurance will) if such a defect occurs to you. Here is the California "lemon law" summarized:
https://www.severson.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/The-Cali...
But, essentially, if it's within one year of purchase (inside the state) the manufacturer is responsible for any defects, damage or loss attributed to the vehicle outside the owner/operator's responsibility (e.g. an accident with another vehicle, neglect, etc).
Reuters did the in-depth fact-chasing. Maybe this story should point to the original article instead?
It looks like this $14,000+ repair bill is real, confirmed by Reuters.
But even worse is that they didn't ask him for the claim report from the insurance company.
Reuters cites official documents reviewed by Reuters staff, 20+ interviews with customers and 9+ interviews with managers or service technicians.
That... seems quite comprehensive to me? They've got customer-side, they've got insurance side, they've even got Tesla's side here. How much more evidence or citations do you want from a story like this?
Yes, that would be a good thing to do.
Here's some quotes from the article:
> A Tesla owner received a $14,000 repair bill for a day-one issue with his Model Y, Reuters reported.
> Reuters found that Tesla had faced thousands of complaints over suspension and steering issues.
> Jain told Reuters ...
> The Reuters investigation — which cited interviews with more than 20 customers and 9 Tesla workers, as well as thousands of internal documents
I guess it'd have been possible for them to explain more that Reuters had done the investigation.
The BI piece doesn’t really contextualise it well, and I’d agree that linking to the Reuters piece would better, but it doesn’t seem that egregious.
(I suspect that the reason the BI piece exists and is linked to in the first place is that the Reuters piece is _very long_, and a lot of people won’t have the patience to read it.)
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-mu...
Maybe you should read the story and not just the headline.
They are factually reporting that everything is sourced from Reuters.
If you want to take issue with what you see as "poor reporting" then take issue with the source:
Tesla blamed drivers for failures of parts it long knew were defective
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-mu...It sounds as though there is more than "one guy" and that the claims made are backed by documents.
But that being said: the facts on the ground seem to be solid. We can discuss the Reuter's article instead and try to elevate the discussion here.
So blogspam without adding anything or checking authenticity is great reporting now?
> If you want to take issue with what you see as "poor reporting" then take issue with the source:
Reporting from a source means you take responsibility for it. If a publication keeps reposting poor reporting as fact while posting sources, it's a bad publication, and people should definitely take issue with it. It doesn't absolve BI if Reuters is doing poor reporting.
Not to mention a publication just reposting content from another source without fact checking of their own is just content-stealing blogspam with clickbait titles.
Or Tesla being very weird about fixing failures in their vehicles.
[1] https://www.tesla.com/findus/list/stores/United+States
[2] https://www.tesla.com/findus/list/stores/United+Kingdom
Most (all other?) car manufacturers sell in the US via independently owned dealerships. Tesla sells directly to customers (where I am, at least) and they've had problems in some states because they have laws that prohibit direct sales by manufacturers.
You can see more about the dispute here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_US_dealership_disputes
More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_US_dealership_disputes#U...
https://archive.org/details/lesschwabpridein0000schw
The ridiculous cost to repair and the waiting time (insurance covers a rental car for up to 1 month) are things no one talks about when it comes to Teslas.
Is it expensive because it is Tesla?
Or there isn’t many repair shops available? Or knowledge for repairing is well hidden and combined with the previous.
Ironically turning moot any environmental aspect of owning an EV.
I was driving a two year old Honda S2000. I span out on a roundabout and rear ended a road sign pole, via a flower bed - it smashed a tail light cover, slightly crushed one of the two tail pipes/exhausts and the rear number plate and its holder fell out.
The car from new was something like £35,000. I had it on contract hire, which means I rented it. The insurance was quite expensive because it is a sports car, and I had a lot of no claims bonus etc, so I decided to get it fixed outside the insurance but they were notified as were Honda etc. I got a quote from the local Honda garage and it was roughly £3,500. A friend's dad owns a garage. He sourced original Honda parts and fixed it for around £1,600.
So we march forward 17 years and things are badly wrong.
I like Teslas but parts availability is something that isn't talked about.
Edit: This did not happen in the US.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-mu...
which states that:
The Reuters investigation looked at many instances of Tesla repairs and "normalised" figures to US dollars. It's common for global reporting across several countries to report in a single currency after conversion.The problem here isn't "believing businessinsider" just missing various cues.
If we exchange details the next time I make it to your part of the world I could visit and click the link for you.
Regardless, England has similar enough laws to America in this regard, such as the Consumer Rights Act of 2015.
Let's start with "suspension broke" - how did that happen? Then why did Jain continue to drive until "the suspension issue caused portions of the vehicle to come in contact with the road"
Then on top of it, they are very customer hostile if you are doing anything other than buying or praising their cars. So it'll break on you, and they'll make you foot the bill.