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.
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.
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.
It's a broad brush to paint with on a site dedicated to startups.
Is Tesla even still a startup? They're 20 years old, the world's most valuable automaker, publicly traded and part of the S&P. Seems like a cheap jab they needed to add something to the Reuters article.
I mean, they’re claiming that they’re such a startup that dealing with _water_ is beyond them, so…
(Strictly speaking a random employee rather than the company itself, but “cars from [non-Tesla manufacturer] are only non-horribly-broken because they’re 100 years old” seems to be an _extremely_ common line taken.)
A quick spurce tinred up this root cause: clogged sun roof drainage.
Quite different from water running into the car in heavy rain or in a car wash.
That being said, despite being leagues ahead of Tesla, or US brands in general, German premium car build quality is not what theor reputation would make people think.
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"
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.
> 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
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.
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)
Aslo, this list is based on owners reporting everything from nuissances to serious stuff. That alone is highly subjective, and we didn't even get into the root causes for each reported issue...
My BMW X5 just was driven back to me yesterday after nearly 3 weeks away for 1) a puncture and 2) a recall of some sort. 3 weeks because they decided run flats would save them money, and also got rid of the garages courtesy car fleet, also tyre sizes which are near unobtainium and never in stock anywhere.
This is my second X5 G05, and this one is definitely of lower quality than the first. Removed bits here/there, replaced aluminium parts inside with coated plastic, replaced leather with synthetic-like thing and plenty of other cost cutting markers.
Don't tell me 'oh don't buy another one' as demonstrated by this article (and others), they all do it to pretty much the same degree, all you can hope is not to run out of warranty before something mind bogglingly expensive breaks.
Sad to see. I had an X5 from 2002 with manual 5-speed transmission (had to search hard), and it was excellent. Still somewhat regret trading it in after 287,500 miles, with very few issues. The only issue was that the brake calipers would start to drag slightly and warp the rotors, but I discovered that it was because I was using them too lightly; occasionally doing some serious braking (not quite as hard as bedding new race pads) was enough to get >100k miles out of a set of rotors & calipers. Similar with an E36 that I used for track days & time trials.
I found it really sad to see that Mini (owned by BMW) and BMW are pushing hard on run-flats. Hard NOPE from me, as I drive a good amount in fairly rural areas, and driving 50mi from a random point (the flat-driving range spec of a run-flat tire) still leaves me at a random point with no service. And the quality is just gone way down, as you've noted. Too bad.
BMW X models are special. Manufactured in the USA. I’m driving an X3 now. Front carpets disintegrated after 500km. BMW cars built in Europe (non-SUVs) are of a much better quality.
A couple years ago I was routinely down voted on here and other social media sites for making fun of Teslas emergency vehicle homing feature. Then Musk bought Twitter and I stopped hearing all the justifications for them and former defenders of Tesla started saying what I was saying years ago.
I can’t say anything about the down votes but from what I saw, I the criticism was always there but it grew over time as the stuff Musk promised customers drifted years and years further away, and his increasingly unhinged social media antics made it harder and harder to give him the benefit of the doubt. It felt a lot like what happened with President Bush where some people who really wanted democracy in the Middle East or Afghanistan kept coming up with these 5-dimensional chess theories based on the assumption that he shared their goal and must have some deeper plan where it all made sense, only to eventually accept that it was just as disorganized as it appeared on the surface.
While HN was rather _late_ to figure out that Naughty Old Mr Car was full of shit (people defended him for the Thailand diver thing!) it does finally seem to have figured it out. HN’s hive mind tends to be rather slow on the uptake, but gets there eventually; see also Bitcoin (the savior of the world on this website until 2019 or so).
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.
Got it, all those automotive engineering PhDs were unemployed before Tesla showed up. And given bad Tesla's buold quality is, maybe Tesla should have all thise specialized teams as well.
But yes, this hyperspecialization is the main reason I didn't fo to automotive. Benefit of mounting the same light so, the guy doesn't mount it in a way that doesn't light the intended area or causes cable fires.
- Tesla almost went under due attempted over-automation
- Tesla had to resort to rework cars in tents after they left the assembly line with serious quality issues
- Teslas are among the worst built cars according to technical inspection numbers
- Tesla installed touchscreens not rated for environment or use case
- Tesal still has reliably figured out how to install hod and trunks
- Tesla still doesn't know how to keep water out of the interior of their cars
I am inclined to say those PhDs were right. Not that redicule is something to level against your competition, but hiring PhDs to built cars who never did so is just a bad idea.
I have a serious problem with bad engineering being promoted, yes.
And believe it or not, I want Tesla to make good cars that don't pose a hazard for various reasons. And I think one of the sadest things about Tesla is all the stupid, ignorant mistakes they made, all easily avoidable. Just image where they could be now, if it wasn't for all those sheninigans. I hate to see it, when people and companies blow opportunities that are once in a, heck multiple, lifetimes.
There's a gap between extremely talented and whatever Ford does. It's like comparing IBM and Open AI. IBM is full of smart people but we're kidding ourselves by drawing an equivalence.
True. One is a sustainable company employing thousands of people, the other is a hyped company kept alive by investor money with dysfunctional leadership.
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.
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.
A failure while driving is very different from a recall. Especially if the brand in question knows about the issues for years!
Edit:
From your own links:
>> Jeep Grand Cherokee SUVs Recalled Because Suspension Parts Might Fall Off
Might =|= did fall off, pro-active =|= waitimg for four years until being forced to do a recall
>> Honda is recalling nearly 564,000 of its older model CR-V sport utility vehicles because road salt can cause the frame to rust and rear suspension parts to come loose.
Emphasis on older, rust and can cause -> recalled before suspension parts broke, and definitely not on brand new cars
>> Subaru is recalling nearly 875,000 cars and SUVs in the U.S. because the engines can stall or a rear suspension part can fall off.
Again, can, and not did fall off.
Sometimes it seems reading comprehension, or the lack thereof is directly linked to technical understanding, or again lack thereof.
Not if the recall is safety relevant, the don't. Because there is only one car maker out there that intentionally plays with the lives of its customers and everyone who happens to be around one their cars.
> Because there is only one car maker out there that intentionally plays with the lives of its customers and everyone who happens to be around one their cars.
Do you mean GM or Honda?
> On September 17, 2015, General Motors entered into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the United States Department of Justice, in which GM admitted that "from in or about the spring of 2012 through in or about February 2014, GM failed to disclose a deadly safety defect to its U.S. regulator ... It also falsely represented to consumers that vehicles containing the defect posed no safety concern."[5] As part of the Deferred Prosecution Agreement, GM agreed to forfeit $900 million to the United States.[5][51] GM gave $600 million in compensation to surviving victims of accidents caused by faulty ignition switches.[52][53]
I mean all of them, but only one has made it a habit, a design philosophy even. And only one went so far to charge customers a premium for those features.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
"Right now" is an interesting choice of words; I don't believe Saab has made a production vehicle for ~10 years now. I personally think Saabs are far better than VW/Audi, Mini (the absolute worst in terms of repairs) and Land Rover/Jaguar (second worst). But my techs refused to work on them due to the electrical systems being finicky and not worth the diagnostic and labor times.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Want to know how to treat such a problem properly? From ypur own article:
>> “No one should drive these vehicles until the remedy is performed,” the Japanese brand’s US arm said in a statement.
Now compare that to Tesla's approach.
By the way, hub bolts getting loose are a serious, and weird, issue. Less serious so than the suspension falling apart so, and not having a proper suspension design after sears of knowing about the issue.
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.
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!
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
It’s an intentional choice by both the automaker and the customer. If the reliability issues were so bad they affected sales significantly than Tesla would likely change. You see this all the time with every automaker. There will be various issues and then a quality/reliability push and then things will revert when the beancounters have sway again.
These issues are bad enougj, that they did hurt Teslas quarterly results due to the warranty repair bills. Once warranty repairs costs are almost 2x ypur quartly profits, you have a very serious product quality problem. If ypu decide then, in order to save money, to pass your product quality costs and problems to your customers, you are a shobby business with shobby products.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Comment sections here reminds me of a Hacker who i equally met through the review of friends when i was at the edge of losing my funds, it happen that Mrs Theresa Michelle on Linkedln whom i got texting with earlier this year prolly mislead me into investing in an online digital cryptocurrency company that offers investors great profit in return. my first investment seems to be successful but after that i invested more money then after awhile when it was time for me to take my profits as well reinvest as usual the company system suddenly deactivate me from making withdrawals, i contacted Mrs Theresa but she asked me to invest more funds which isn’t normal, i tried to contact the customer care system for help they rather ask that i deposit an extra $35k usd for maintenance fee after i already have a total of $171k usd on hold, the whole situation got me really depressed and mad at a point that was when i got into looking out for a hacker who could be of help Luckily enough i came across HACKCOPERATION @ G M A I L . C O M , i first texted him on his Telegram account @ HACKCOPERATION He replied and i explained the whole scenario to him and he assured me to be of help, i trusted him and we got going after some time he asked for wallet for transfer of my funds i couldn’t still believe everything not until i saw my funds back in my wallet. i thanked him enough for being such a savior as well paid him off as we agreed even with more
121 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 203 ms ] threadhttps://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.
> 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.
Trouble is, as an approach it works a lot better with CRUD apps than with cars.
Is Tesla even still a startup? They're 20 years old, the world's most valuable automaker, publicly traded and part of the S&P. Seems like a cheap jab they needed to add something to the Reuters article.
(Strictly speaking a random employee rather than the company itself, but “cars from [non-Tesla manufacturer] are only non-horribly-broken because they’re 100 years old” seems to be an _extremely_ common line taken.)
Quite different from water running into the car in heavy rain or in a car wash.
That being said, despite being leagues ahead of Tesla, or US brands in general, German premium car build quality is not what theor reputation would make people think.
Similar to the BMW cupholders that couldn't get wet without damaging electrical parts.
https://www.courthousenews.com/bmw-cupholders-not-designed-t...
So again, do those faulty designs mean that BMW is a startup?
And yes, BMW having those issues is embarrasing as well.
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.
This sentence is not going to age well.
It's going to age even less well in a couple years.
Lexus/Toyota being the most reliable.
Tesla is middle of the pack at #14 and some surprises (branding?) include Volvo at position 25.
Source: https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-s...
This is my second X5 G05, and this one is definitely of lower quality than the first. Removed bits here/there, replaced aluminium parts inside with coated plastic, replaced leather with synthetic-like thing and plenty of other cost cutting markers.
Don't tell me 'oh don't buy another one' as demonstrated by this article (and others), they all do it to pretty much the same degree, all you can hope is not to run out of warranty before something mind bogglingly expensive breaks.
I found it really sad to see that Mini (owned by BMW) and BMW are pushing hard on run-flats. Hard NOPE from me, as I drive a good amount in fairly rural areas, and driving 50mi from a random point (the flat-driving range spec of a run-flat tire) still leaves me at a random point with no service. And the quality is just gone way down, as you've noted. Too bad.
These issues with Tesla aren't recent, they've been talked about for a decade at least.
* 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.
Slobs, no. Specialized to a degree you can’t imagine, yes.
Tesla hires PHDs, normal OEs will hire kids out of a few MI or IL schools, train them, and then put them in 200 person teams.
There is a guy that does nothing but dog light mounting on 4 models of vehicles.
That is not how Tesla works.
But yes, this hyperspecialization is the main reason I didn't fo to automotive. Benefit of mounting the same light so, the guy doesn't mount it in a way that doesn't light the intended area or causes cable fires.
People at OEs made fun of them for this. For awhile.
- Tesla almost went under due attempted over-automation
- Tesla had to resort to rework cars in tents after they left the assembly line with serious quality issues
- Teslas are among the worst built cars according to technical inspection numbers
- Tesla installed touchscreens not rated for environment or use case
- Tesal still has reliably figured out how to install hod and trunks
- Tesla still doesn't know how to keep water out of the interior of their cars
I am inclined to say those PhDs were right. Not that redicule is something to level against your competition, but hiring PhDs to built cars who never did so is just a bad idea.
And believe it or not, I want Tesla to make good cars that don't pose a hazard for various reasons. And I think one of the sadest things about Tesla is all the stupid, ignorant mistakes they made, all easily avoidable. Just image where they could be now, if it wasn't for all those sheninigans. I hate to see it, when people and companies blow opportunities that are once in a, heck multiple, lifetimes.
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.
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.
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-recalls-defects/jee...
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/honda-crv-recall-2023-rust-...
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1264789
Edit:
From your own links:
>> Jeep Grand Cherokee SUVs Recalled Because Suspension Parts Might Fall Off
Might =|= did fall off, pro-active =|= waitimg for four years until being forced to do a recall
>> Honda is recalling nearly 564,000 of its older model CR-V sport utility vehicles because road salt can cause the frame to rust and rear suspension parts to come loose.
Emphasis on older, rust and can cause -> recalled before suspension parts broke, and definitely not on brand new cars
>> Subaru is recalling nearly 875,000 cars and SUVs in the U.S. because the engines can stall or a rear suspension part can fall off.
Again, can, and not did fall off.
Sometimes it seems reading comprehension, or the lack thereof is directly linked to technical understanding, or again lack thereof.
Carmakers often know of issues for years prior to a formal recall. This is standard.
Do you mean GM or Honda?
> On September 17, 2015, General Motors entered into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the United States Department of Justice, in which GM admitted that "from in or about the spring of 2012 through in or about February 2014, GM failed to disclose a deadly safety defect to its U.S. regulator ... It also falsely represented to consumers that vehicles containing the defect posed no safety concern."[5] As part of the Deferred Prosecution Agreement, GM agreed to forfeit $900 million to the United States.[5][51] GM gave $600 million in compensation to surviving victims of accidents caused by faulty ignition switches.[52][53]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch....
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/business/air-bag-flaw-lon...
Or one of the dozens of carmakers that hid faults that resulted in actual deaths?
I can Google all day and find dozens of such issues with other automakers, but you seem hell bent on hating on Tesla so nothing will change your mind.
Cars are recalled because a part might fail during operation, worst case that risk is found once the part did fail.
Only a bunch of incompetent frauds would:
a) ignore their own data and wait four years to recall, and then only in one market
b) need years to find a solution, as it seems, still isn't good enough
c) issue a policy to blame these failing parts, well known and identified internally, on their customers
You might want to study the issues with the non-tesla fast chargers in the United States to see what customers really care about.
> 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.
I drive a Saab. Also no surprise.
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.
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.
[1] Not the inventor, the company.
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.”
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.
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.
/s
>> “No one should drive these vehicles until the remedy is performed,” the Japanese brand’s US arm said in a statement.
Now compare that to Tesla's approach.
By the way, hub bolts getting loose are a serious, and weird, issue. Less serious so than the suspension falling apart so, and not having a proper suspension design after sears of knowing about the issue.
https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/another-critical-...
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!
>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?
https://www.reddit.com/r/CadillacLyriq/
https://www.autoblog.com/amp/article/car-brands-highest-cust...
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.
https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2023/05/11/ford-...
What does this all add up to now? It just tells me Tesla is a real established automaker now.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.