Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters

#111

Post by giobox » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #93

giobox wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Update: reread the article, customer has the 50kWh rear wheel drive car. That means he’s been offered a battery at 320 bucks per kWh - at that price, of course tesla are profiting from the sale. If you have the 75 kWh car the bill is presumably then north of $20k… We can speculate pretty easily on how profitable that $16k pack is. Let’s assume the customer has the largest pack Tesla fit to a model 3 (~75kwh). He has…

Not that I disagree, but I'm sure these packs have a significant amount of overhead costs as well.

I’m more surprised there are people out there who think Tesla would by design offer after sales parts “at cost” or a loss personally!

Re: Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters

#112

Post by throwawayboise » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #71

olyjohn wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The benefit of buying it is that you can drive it well after it's paid off. Leasing and trading up all the time means you're constantly making never-ending payments. It's not that hard to sell your car when the time comes to get rid of it.

Those never-ending payments are covering depreciation. Unless you keep your car for 10+ years and it’s one of the rare models that holds value after that, you’re not much better off buying it.

Buying 10 year old cars that are nearly fully depreciated is where you save big money. You can get a dependable car for a few thousand dollars, and even if it needs more repairs than a new car you still come out money ahead especially if you can do small repairs yourself.

Re: Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters

#113

Post by bitexploder » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

Pyramus wrote: post #91

I'm a bit surprised the original video (from Youtube channel Rich Rebuilds) that this article bases on, is not more prominently mentioned in the discussion. I've linked the part below [1] where Chad (ex Tesla repair technician) explains why Tesla do what they do, i.e. only replace the whole battery pack (which costs 16k) when some sub unit is broken. The main reason is cost effectiveness (for Tesla): Instead of train…

Kind of like modern laptops. Any issues on a modern MacBook means logic board replacement, even if the problem is diagnosable and fixable. Though it is rare a laptop is truly very fixable these days when something goes awry.

Re: Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters

#114

Post by judge2020 » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

giobox wrote: post #66

belval wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another question to consider is why the repair is 16k. Does is actually cost Tesla that much or do they just quote that much because they are realistically the only ones who can fix it so they can charge the price? The quote is to replace the whole battery pack so I really doubt that they are making a profit on it since it's one of the actually expensive part of the car. As GP pointed out this is hardly right to re…

Update: reread the article, customer has the 50kWh rear wheel drive car. That means he’s been offered a battery at 320 bucks per kWh - at that price, of course tesla are profiting from the sale. If you have the 75 kWh car the bill is presumably then north of $20k… We can speculate pretty easily on how profitable that $16k pack is. Let’s assume the customer has the largest pack Tesla fit to a model 3 (~75kwh). He has…

> at that price, of course tesla are profiting from the sale.

Auto manufacturers are allowed to sell the spare parts at a profit as well.

Re: Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters

#115

Post by giobox » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #114

giobox wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Update: reread the article, customer has the 50kWh rear wheel drive car. That means he’s been offered a battery at 320 bucks per kWh - at that price, of course tesla are profiting from the sale. If you have the 75 kWh car the bill is presumably then north of $20k… We can speculate pretty easily on how profitable that $16k pack is. Let’s assume the customer has the largest pack Tesla fit to a model 3 (~75kwh). He has…

> at that price, of course tesla are profiting from the sale. Auto manufacturers are allowed to sell the spare parts at a profit as well.

Of course, I didn’t disagree. OP suggests they are being sold at cost.

Re: Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters

#116

Post by toomuchtodo » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:49 PM UTC

passivate wrote: post #102

namdnay wrote: post #3

A bit of a stretch to classify this under right to repair.. if you rent a car from tesla, it’s going to be up to tesla to choose how it’s repaired. And it doesn’t seem unreasonable that they won’t accept a hack fix (however safe it may be) - that car is going to be sold to someone once the lease expires, they just can’t take the risk I would read this as a cautionary tale against renting your cars. If you can’t buy i…

>that they won’t accept a hack fix (however safe it may be) - that car is going to be sold to someone once the lease expires, they just can’t take the risk But why are you calling it a hack fix? Also, why would a competent third-party repair shop be "risky"? A customer should be free to pick out an experienced and competent repair-shop just the way they currently do for their cars. And if they don't want to, they can…

> A customer should be free to pick out an experienced and competent repair-shop just the way they currently do for their cars. And if they don't want to, they can take it to the dealership like they would have anyway.

I would agree, as long as that third party has insurance in the event their fix (due to work performed on the high voltage battery pack) causes a failure resulting in the loss of the vehicle and liability from that failure event.

In this specific case, I hope Mr. Benoit or his garage has robust liability coverage (at least $1M, hopefully more), especially if a failure event happens while the vehicle is fast DC charging or charging in someone's home overnight.

(disclosure: Tesla owner who performs his own work)

Re: Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters

#117

Post by judge2020 » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:49 PM UTC

passivate wrote: post #102

namdnay wrote: post #3

A bit of a stretch to classify this under right to repair.. if you rent a car from tesla, it’s going to be up to tesla to choose how it’s repaired. And it doesn’t seem unreasonable that they won’t accept a hack fix (however safe it may be) - that car is going to be sold to someone once the lease expires, they just can’t take the risk I would read this as a cautionary tale against renting your cars. If you can’t buy i…

>that they won’t accept a hack fix (however safe it may be) - that car is going to be sold to someone once the lease expires, they just can’t take the risk But why are you calling it a hack fix? Also, why would a competent third-party repair shop be "risky"? A customer should be free to pick out an experienced and competent repair-shop just the way they currently do for their cars. And if they don't want to, they can…

> But why are you calling it a hack fix?

Because there is no official process to repairing/replacing parts within the pack.

Re: Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters

#118

Post by bitexploder » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #86

cartoonworld wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This repair is R&D that is definitely worth the price. There's no way this is a $200 repair, that Tesla took up a bunch of shop time and their specialized technician for the better part of a day, carefully researching and installing this repair fitting. If you are charging $25/hr labor you are out of business. If the repair fails, they will likely take it back and improve the fix. Your plastic mystery fitting would l…

"R&D" ?? It's replacing a molded hose barb with a threaded fitting. Also FTA: "the shop had another significantly cheaper solution it had used once before ". What's pictured in the article looks like 2 hours of labor, which would be a few hundred dollars at the rate for generic labor. I'm specifically highlighting the additional premium that Tesla expertise is commanding right now. > mystery fitting You do realize th…

You have to know that repair is safe and meets all the coolant system design constraints. It certainly isn’t something most shops are going to just have a standard procedure for. That was what caused the problem in the first place.

Re: Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters

#119

Post by throwawayboise » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

turtlebits wrote: post #27

Considering that a 3rd party was able to repair it, I'm not sure why this is classified as "right to repair". That said, while 16k is outrageous (and the part is not well designed), no dealer/manufacturer would repair a car by cutting off a broken part, adding threads both ends and joining them together.

Do you work as a dealer repair tech? I'm wondering where your idea comes from that they won't improvise repairs particularly on a non-safety-critical part.

Re: Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters

#120

Post by xtracto » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:52 PM UTC

ademup wrote: post #5

I heartily agree with the premise, and there's this compounding problem: "To make matters worse, the owner's insurance policy didn't cover comprehensive claims from road debris..." So when you combine these two issues, you end up with an unwritten, mob-boss-esque command of something like "Buy the most expensive insurance for all of your expensive widgets so that you can (maybe) be covered in the event that something…

Aaah Insurance strikes again. Insurance is a scam that somehow as a society we have allowed to normalize in our society. The Insurance system just doesn't make sense, that's why we see so many problems with car, health, death and other types of insurance.

The problem lies in that both parties have misaligned and often oposite objectives: The Insurer's main goal is to maximize their profit, and the levers it has is to avoid paying the insured as much as possible. That's why we have so many denied payments and abuse in the case of health insurance.

Moreover, given that every insurance claim is a single case for the Insurer, they have the upper hand and oftentimes there is no recourse for the insured to really fight an unjust insurance denial.

We must find an alternative for this terrible system...