Seems like a little upselling going on in the defense. That is mastery.
Tesla responds to "bricking" issue
231–240 of 249 posts
Re: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mentioned this yesterday [1], but I am repeating it here, because I believe that it is a critical piece of the conversation. The consequences of failing to maintain the battery are clearly stated by Tesla Motors in the owner's manual. Is it the fault of Tesla Motors that an owner did not read, understand and follow the maintenance procedures outlined in the owner's manual? Is it not the buyer's responsibility to pe…
You can put whatever you'd like into the warning. The fact of the matter is that this is a car. When a car runs out of gas, it's not forever bricked. People will, due to a hundred years of experience, expect the same from a new car that has a different power source. They can fix this. They have the technology.
No, but if it runs out of oil, and especially if you let it sit for a while, your engine can make a very good mimicry of a steel brick, and that's one of the more expensive pieces of your car to replace. Probably more than 4/10ths of the cost of the car, in many situations.
We haven't fixed this. Have we the technology?
Re: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
These (apparent) e-mails between an owner with the dead battery issue and Tesla seem to indicate that there is a a 'built-in notification system' for this, but it wasn't added for the first 500 cars : http://jalopnik.com/5887504/tesla-emails-gallery/gallery/1
A problem like this really needs advance warning, not just a notification when the problem is about to develop, since the owner may not be in a position to get the car plugged in if they don't know it could occur beforehand.
Which is why there are warnings in the manuals. Which puts it on par with changing the oil in a regular car, if less culturally-obvious. Reading a manual for something you spent $100k on seems a reasonable prerequisite, especially if you have any interest in keeping it running.
Re: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
I screwed up once and my car ran out of gas. Had to walk 3 miles. Didn't cost $40,000 to fix.
And yet in your "$40k to fix" scenario you were wealthy enough to be able to afford a $100k+ exotic electric sports car, in the first place. If you buy and wear a $20k watch, and you irresponsibly destroy it or lose it, it'll probably cost you $20k to replace it. And the obvious lesson for people considering buying $20k watches is you shouldn't buy one if you couldn't afford to lose it or pay to replace it. "If you h…
I call foul on the "if you paid 100k for a car you should be able to pay 40k to recover from a mistake" logic.
If we were talking about a regular gas car - many families have cars worth $60k and we'd still be asking serious questions if, by inaction, we ended up with a $24k repair bill.
Re: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
Running out of gas doesn't "brick" a car. You can either push or tow it to a gas station, or you can deliver more fuel to it, and it will continue working without missing a beat. Letting a Li-ion battery discharge completely damages the battery, which means you have to replace the entire battery, not just fill it back up. This is physics; Tesla can't change the laws of chemical reactions.
What about not keeping enough fresh oil? I believe keeping a minimum charge on an EV is analogous to the common knowledge of maintaining a gas-powered vehicle's oil. The problem is that people don't have experience with EVs. I'm sure in the early days of gas-powered vehicles, plenty of engines seized up because people were unaware they had to change the oil and keep it at a certain level. And it certainly still happe…
Timing is everything.
Assumine new vehicles, doing nothing to a Tesla for ~30 days means $40k. Changing your oil 6 month later than the service schedule in most cases means inmeasurable (by owner) reduction in overall engine lifetime.
Re: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
And yet in your "$40k to fix" scenario you were wealthy enough to be able to afford a $100k+ exotic electric sports car, in the first place. If you buy and wear a $20k watch, and you irresponsibly destroy it or lose it, it'll probably cost you $20k to replace it. And the obvious lesson for people considering buying $20k watches is you shouldn't buy one if you couldn't afford to lose it or pay to replace it. "If you h…
I call foul on the "if you paid 100k for a car you should be able to pay 40k to recover from a mistake" logic. If we were talking about a regular gas car - many families have cars worth $60k and we'd still be asking serious questions if, by inaction, we ended up with a $24k repair bill.
And to continue your logic, if you buy a new car for $20k, it's entirely possible through neglect and failure to follow manufacturer's maintenance requirements that you'll end up with a car that no longer works and requires at least $6k to get the engine and transmission back into good shape again.
R The pattern being that sometimes things which are expensive to buy are also expensive to repair. In a gas-powered car, the engine+transmission is probably the most expensive component to brick and replace. In an electric car, it seems to be the battery system.
Neglected maintenance on a $500k house can easily create situations requiring $100k in repairs or liability.
Re: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always just bought new batteries. They weren't expensive enough to bother with any redeeming a prorated warranty. If a battery goes out after several years, how much I going to get anyway? $10? There are definitely car owners who have never dealt with battery warranties.
Here's a photo of a typical car battery that is sold in the US, in fact this is one of the top brands, Sears DieHard. http://s.shld.net/is/image/Sears/02833023000-2 Sears has a nationwide network of car maintenance shops called Sears Auto Center that has been quite popular for tire, battery, and alignment work for decades. http://www.sears.com/automotive-services/c-1023947 Information about its warranty are printed i…
It says "3 Year Free Replacement". First, what does this have to do with the assertion about prorated warranties? Second, I don't know many people who have to replace their battery within three years.
Re: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is neglect of the car owner (assuming the rumors of these owners cars "bricking") the car manufacturers fault? If I buy an electric car I expect to plug it in regularly. I'll make an assumption here; most people expect to have to plug in an electric car on a regular basis. The expectation is to plug in the car regularly.
I don’t think you can allow yourself to think that way as a company. Fussy debates about whose fault it was – when your customers didn’t do anything outrageously unusual – lead nowhere, just to bad PR.
They did something outrageously stupid. No conventional car should be left sitting for months at a time without appropriate preparatory steps, and neither should an EV unless it's connected to power.
The EV actually has a distinct advantage here -- all you really have to do is plug in a power cord. A conventional car has several much more involved steps to be taken.
Re: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
> NONE of these things have ever been completely incapacitated because of this. I've never had to replace my laptop because I let it go flat. Maybe you're fortunate, but I've definitely had to replace laptop batteries because they got bricked. If you leave your battery discharged for a long enough time, you can never charge it again.
Now that you mention it, I've probably seen a couple of 'bricked' laptop batteries. At the time I didn't realize that was an issue inherent in the technology, but looking back that's probably what killed those batteries. Well at least this whole saga has taught me more about Li-ION batteries. I feel like this information is something that should be more generally known amongst the population, not just for cars but fo…
Every rechargeable device I've ever owned has had various warnings in its documentation about battery care. If you've never read the manual, that is 100% your fault. No one can force you not to be stupid, it's up to you.
Re: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue
#240Isn't the whole point of "electric cars" to save energy?
Here we learn that they need juice constantly to run "vital systems" and therefore consume energy at all times, even when not running. The owner cannot choose to let his car unplugged because then it'll break down completely and need to be repaired at a cost of 40% of the original price.
This is not progress.