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Tesla: Not so easily bricked

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Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#111

Post by drone »

dodedo wrote: post #39
yardie wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A normal car engine unused for a long time has to be handled just as well. If you're lucky the worst you'll have is a dead battery. If you're unlucky the engine has seized and the tires are deformed and need to be replaced. Ask any university town mechanic what happens when students leave cars parked in the lot, untouched, for months. Actually as a former car owner (city dweller now), my biggest concern was making su…

I've run down the battery on my car, motorcycle, mower, or other vehicles I don't often use. It is not an expensive ($40,000) fix -- often it just takes a recharge because lead-acid batteries are not as easily damaged as lithium-ion. Replacement is relatively cheap too. When you talk about tire deformation, this is rare and would not happen before many years of disuse. And engine seizure? Again, unlikely to happen ev…

Firstly, given that gas contains up to 10% ethanol now, no, your engine will be seriously damaged if you leave your car with gasoline in it for ten years and then start it without flushing it first. That's because the ethanol attracts water, and water does not compress as easily as gasoline, and the attempt to spray a high volume of water into your cylinder and then compress it will likely destroy something along the way. Agreed though that what passes for gasoline in that tank is anything but gasoline.

Now, add further that all of the rubber hosing, if your car was built in the last two decades, will likely have dry-rot, and the vehicle is unlikely to run again without replacement on all of them. Should a rear main, or other important seal have been damaged, you'll be looking at around $1,000 in labor alone to disassemble the engine. How much was that car worth again?

I've had lifters separate on me while driving taking out the engine block, radiator, and several other components along the way - the cost to replace with a -new- engine and radiator exceeded 40% of what I paid for the vehicle. (Don't be confused by the pricing on a used, junk-yard engine, and a new crate engine. Gets even worse with a V8 - have you seen the price on a 6.1L crate Hemi?)

I still don't see what the big deal is - if I leave -any- electronic device with an li-ion battery in it discharged for a long period of time, that battery is toast. You think it's absurd that the battery in the car costs $40k? I'm sure mac laptop batteries would be even more expensive once you chained enough of them together to get to that level of sustained discharge capability.

Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#113

Post by drone »

motoford wrote: post #63
yardie wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A normal car engine unused for a long time has to be handled just as well. If you're lucky the worst you'll have is a dead battery. If you're unlucky the engine has seized and the tires are deformed and need to be replaced. Ask any university town mechanic what happens when students leave cars parked in the lot, untouched, for months. Actually as a former car owner (city dweller now), my biggest concern was making su…

Nobody said an electric car is maintenance free. The problem here is that it can total itself in a relatively short time just from not being used. Your statements about seized engine and deformed tires are not valid in the timeframe we are talking about here. It's unlikely even for the battery to go, and if it does that's a trip to the store and $100, not a $40k service plus getting an UNTOWABLE vehicle to California…

I find it seriously hard to believe that there's not a manual drivetrain disconnect. I do find it easy to believe that a tow-truck driver didn't know it had one, as I've seen them drag automatic vehicles rather than pull the transmission disconnect. I also don't find it hard to believe that most people don't know that these things exist.

Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#114

Post by feralchimp »

krschultz wrote: post #82
feralchimp wrote: post #51

This whole bricking story is a little ridiculous. There are any number of easy ways to 'brick' an internal combustion engine, and yet we're not all torches 'n' pitchforks over them. Partially because ICEs have been around so long that the relatively short list of "things to avoid" is burned indelibly into the popular consciousness. Partially because over a hundred-odd years of continuous engineering, a typical ICE ca…

When my grandfather was 85, he forgot to do all of the maitenance on his car. He drove like 40,000 miles without ever changing the oil and blew up the engine in his BMW 7 series. It wasn't exactly a cheap car. Replacing the engine in the car was something like $7,000. I see your point about safety - gas clearly isn't the safest substance in the world. But neither is electricity. My cousin is currently a police office…

> Replacing the engine in the car was something like $7,000.

Which, for many drivers, may as well be $40k.

> the solution is a combination of educating/warning owners & notifying them by phone or email if the car starts to get too low

I never advocated ignoring anything. My point is not that "Tesla is great" or "boo ICE yay electric," it's that all the hysteria around "OMG car bricking" doesn't actually promote whatever communication/engineering solutions would actually make the product better or more consumable for people.

Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#115

Post by feralchimp »

ruby_on_rails wrote: post #102
feralchimp wrote: post #51

This whole bricking story is a little ridiculous. There are any number of easy ways to 'brick' an internal combustion engine, and yet we're not all torches 'n' pitchforks over them. Partially because ICEs have been around so long that the relatively short list of "things to avoid" is burned indelibly into the popular consciousness. Partially because over a hundred-odd years of continuous engineering, a typical ICE ca…

I think the fact that you are agreeing with an article either written directly by Tesla PR or paid for by Tesla PR, which has a minority opinion on the matter, which is backed up by statements which are in disagreement to both knowledgeable parties and the Tesla owner's manual, is frankly unflattering. I bet I can find some blogger who can make a better argument about the holocaust never happening, then this lousy ex…

I stated an opinion and my reasons for holding it. I don't owe you a disclaimer about whether the linked article (which I didn't reference, btw) happens to be full of shit.

If you form all of your opinions worrying about all the idiots or evil people who might happen to agree with you, or use your arguments to further their own nefarious ends, you're destined to lead a very quiet life.

> ICE proved itself. ICE isn't on trial here.

The usability and cost/benefit of electric drivetrains versus the status quo is relevant. My point was not "we should distrust ICE," so much as "we should discuss cost/benefit tradeoffs of technology like reasonable people instead of resorting to ZOMG BRICKING".

Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#116

Post by quanticle »

feralchimp wrote: post #114
krschultz wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my grandfather was 85, he forgot to do all of the maitenance on his car. He drove like 40,000 miles without ever changing the oil and blew up the engine in his BMW 7 series. It wasn't exactly a cheap car. Replacing the engine in the car was something like $7,000. I see your point about safety - gas clearly isn't the safest substance in the world. But neither is electricity. My cousin is currently a police office…

> Replacing the engine in the car was something like $7,000. Which, for many drivers, may as well be $40k. > the solution is a combination of educating/warning owners & notifying them by phone or email if the car starts to get too low I never advocated ignoring anything. My point is not that "Tesla is great" or "boo ICE yay electric," it's that all the hysteria around "OMG car bricking" doesn't actually promote whate…

>Which, for many drivers, may as well be $40k.

Did you really go ahead and conflate $7,000 and and $40,000? $7000 buys me a decent used car. $40,000 buys me a brand new Toyota Prius (MSRP $24,700) with almost enough change left over to buy a brand new Hyundai Elantra (MSRP $15,345).

$7,000 is not a small chunk of change, by any means. It's a lot less, however, than $40,000. Conflating the two does no one any good.

Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#117

Post by ricardobeat »

othermaciej wrote: post #83

It turns out that the poster of the original story is the owner of one of the 'bricked' Teslas. This was apparently leaked to hurt his credibility but at least for me it only enhances it, as it seems he had a first-hand experience with the brick problem. http://jalopnik.com/5887499/who-is-trying-to-smear-the-tesla...

> "I'm not stupid, it wasn't a mistake"

Any lithium battery is damaged after 2 months at 0% charge. How isn't that a mistake?

Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#118

Post by vacri »

ams6110 wrote: post #100
feralchimp wrote: post #51

This whole bricking story is a little ridiculous. There are any number of easy ways to 'brick' an internal combustion engine, and yet we're not all torches 'n' pitchforks over them. Partially because ICEs have been around so long that the relatively short list of "things to avoid" is burned indelibly into the popular consciousness. Partially because over a hundred-odd years of continuous engineering, a typical ICE ca…

I'm pretty sure anyone ever burned in a gas-fueled vehicle fire would gladly go back in time to fork over $40k to avoid that experience. The reason gasoline is dangerous is that it stores a lot of energy. You need a lot of energy to move a heavy car a couple of hundred miles, and keep the occupants comfortable with heat and/or air conditioning. A battery in a Tesla contains a lot of energy. The dangers compared to a…

The real issue is that those events are extremely rare given the intensely frequent use of ICE vehicles. Replace all the ICE with electric vehicles, and you'd see just as many electrocuted people. It's simply not a real argument.

Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#119

Post by vacri »

feralchimp wrote: post #95
politician wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a world of difference between overuse leading to failure, and non-use leading to failure. It's disingenuous to claim that the messages are similar because they have abOut the same number of words.

From a marketing and CRM perspective, the messages are identical : "Here is a simple and cheap routine maintenance behavior that will prevent a catastrophic repair bill: X". In the ICE case, X is "maintain a minimum oil level while the engine is running." In the Tesla case, it's "maintain a minimum battery level, even during storage." Given that the underlying drivetrain technologies actually are worlds-of-difference…

'simple and cheap':

ICE: park it out the back... or in the street

Tesla: Park it out the back... plugged into a trickle-charger... which is a $2k specialist item you have to have installed... and you can't use a long extension cord... and you can't just have it in the street, it'll need to be undercover, protected from rain... and away from the public, even in a nice neighbourhood...

Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#120

Post by vacri »

ajays wrote: post #36

I think the original article also made the same claim: Tesla is "not so easily bricked" (given the fact that 'only' 5 cases could be found). So this isn't a rebuttal. If it was to be a rebuttal, the claim would be "Tesla cannot be bricked" or something like that. This article did not do any background work. Why didn't he talk to the Tesla service manager(s) who were quoted in the original article? Even if he managed…

'only 5' out of 300 is a failure rate of over 1%
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