Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

thedrive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 564 posts

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

#361

Post by filoleg »

nerdponx wrote: post #322
Meph504 wrote: post #222

Pretty sure, you loose the right to repair when you are leasing something, as all lease agreements for vehicles I've seen have direct stipulations on the requirements, and penalties of performing and not performing maintenance and repair to their vehicle. I fully support right to repair YOUR PROPERTY, but I also support as part of that, that if the car is owned by Tesla, they have the right to dictate maintenance req…

2027: automakers gradually stop selling cars and transition to a lease-only "subscription" model.

If anything, Tesla seems to be going in the opposite direction, because their cars usually become available for lease only a a couple of years after the release. All while most other car manufacturers tend to offer lease options immediately on release.

Case in point: Model 3 came out in 2017, but wasn't available for lease until April 2019[0].

Other car manufacturers tried getting into subscription-based models a few years ago, but don't seem to be that successful with that. BMW introduced their All Access subscription model in 2018, it got discontinued just earlier this year[1]. The rest who tried similar subscription models seem to be going the exact same way too.

0. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2019/04/12/tesla-m...

1. https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/14/22231451/bmw-access-subsc...

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

#362

Post by rdtwo »

Sebb767 wrote: post #349
lolinder wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that be? If I'm leasing a vehicle, not only does the manufacturer need to earn back the cost of manufacturing plus some margin, they also need to earn back the cost of administrating a lease and the cost of selling the car again later (with depreciation). They're not going to cover those extra costs for free, they're going to pass them on to the consumer. So how can leasing a vehicle possibly work out in th…

Via risk miscalculation or bad luck on the side of the manufacturer. The lease conditions are usually fixed at the start; if the car ends up requiring a lot of warranty covered repairs or deprecates faster than anticipated (for example because they cheated on emissions), the manufacturer ends up with a bad deal.

The miscalculation is often intentional. Manufacturers for example know that Low end EVs depreciate faster than equivalent ic cars but still assign similar depreciation tables because otherwise they couldn’t get rid of the cars or would have to sell em at steep discounts and take immediate losses

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

#363

Post by dexterdog »

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…

Fine, then Tesla should not be charging the price of a full battery replacement plus labor for the fix since they are getting a full battery that can be very simply refurbished and then sold as such.

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

#364

Post by causality0 »

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…

Do you have a right to reasonable charges for damage of rented items? If you rent a jackhammer and break the trigger is it fair to charge the customer five hundred dollars to repair a ten dollar piece of plastic? If you rent a wedding dress and rip a seam should you be expected to pay a fashion designer for the stitching? Nobody would ever rent anything if every object was a minefield of potential absurd over-charges.

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

#365

Post by userbinator »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #174
ethbr0 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brass is downright professional. https://www.jbweld.com/product/j-b-weld-professional-size

Agreed. The brass part is obviously higher quality, but I also wonder if it was intentionally plastic so that it would breakaway instead of damaging the battery in an event like this. If that was a design decision (not a cost decision), it would actually be a better idea to stick with the jb weld plastic part than go with brass.

It was intentionally plastic in that they were designing a molded part and chose to not have the nipples a separate part, but molded them in to save on the expense of designing and assembling a separate part.

Tesla really loves to integrate parts together - look up the "superbottle" for a previous example.

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

#366

Post by pmorici »

nerdponx wrote: post #322
Meph504 wrote: post #222

Pretty sure, you loose the right to repair when you are leasing something, as all lease agreements for vehicles I've seen have direct stipulations on the requirements, and penalties of performing and not performing maintenance and repair to their vehicle. I fully support right to repair YOUR PROPERTY, but I also support as part of that, that if the car is owned by Tesla, they have the right to dictate maintenance req…

2027: automakers gradually stop selling cars and transition to a lease-only "subscription" model.

A subscription model isn't ideal for a physical depreciating asset like a car. Maybe for software features but having the customer pay outright for the vehicle is more beneficial to Tesla.

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

#367

Post by zamalek »

jws wrote: post #202
passivate wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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? My first question would relate to "dezincification". A chemical process where the zinc leaves brass and leaves a copper sponge behind. Does the coolant cause dezincification? Is zinc tolerable in the coolant? Learned this one in my home when my city water dezincified a kitchen faucet causing water to escape through to "solid" surfaces. My second question would be about how tha…

> Does the coolant cause dezincification? Is zinc tolerable in the coolant?

I watched the actual video. The mechanic, who previously worked at Tesla, indicated that brass would handle the coolant just fine; a friend of his had been driving the same fix for quite some time.

> My second question would be about how that female threaded material holds up under vibration over time.

Adhesive.

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

#368

Post by errno22222 »

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…

Isn't the universal saying if it drives, flies or fcuks rent it, don't buy it? I believe commonly attribute to Buffett but I never verified source.

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

#369

Post by hellbannedguy »

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…

You are absolutely right, and I am a huge Right to Repair guy.

I hope people that lease vechicles see this.

(I was under the assumption that all leases had to have full coverage auto insurance before you even signed the lease? And yes--on most insurance policies road hazard insurance is extra, but just assumed on a lease it would be included. I still remember the battle axe who kept questioning me over a broken windshield. She wouldn't shut up, until I mentioned CA has an Insurance Commissioner.)

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

#370

Post by neximo64 »

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…

Are you a fan of tesla by any chance?
Post reply on HN