Now that Elon spoke about the awesome loaner car program and they mention that the annual service check up is NOT mandatory, I was wondering if people are going to opt out getting it done. I feel my P85 will deserve a "day at the spa" to check things and now that I can get a Roadster delivered as a loaner, I actually am looking forward to it. Thoughts? Here's from the Tesla web: Annual Service Contract Unlike gasoline cars, an electric car doesn’t need oil changes, fuel filters, spark plugs, smog checks, etc., which are only needed if the mode of locomotion involves burning oil derived products. For an electric car, you don’t even need to replace the brake pads, because most of the braking energy is regeneratively captured by the motor and returned to the battery. As such, we are comfortable making the annual checkup entirely optional. There is still value to having Tesla look at the car once a year for things like tire alignment, to address a few things here & there and perform any hardware upgrades – our goal is not just to fix things, but to make the car better than it was. However, even if you never bring in the car, your warranty is still valid. http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/creating-world%E2%80%99s-best-service-and-warranty-program-0
Well I plan on driving 20-25k miles a year. I will probably bring my car in on an annual basis. But not the semi-annual basis the 12.5k mile service interval would have set me up on.
We already prepaid the $1,900 for our first four checkups... and I'm okay with that. Elon's blog post today mentioned "hardware upgrades" as part of service, which I will certainly find hard to resist! I wonder, will the software updates be provided if you don't do the annual service? I believe they've always said that the $600/year covers the software updates. I'm also still hoping they'll include 3G/data with that $600/year...which I think would certainly make that annual price point much more reasonable.
One of the choices on the poll should be: "I'm not sure what the heck I'm going to do, my head is spinning!" because I think that's where most of us are!
Cannot do the poll at this time, need to know more. If you do not bring the car in for yearly service visits, do you still get all updates, both software and hardware. I would think that if you have a warranty problem and bring the car in for that, they would then do the above updates at that time. Software is done wifi, so,it would just be hardware issues. Once we get more detailed info then I can make a decision.
Service contract for $600 or less per year (if getting the 4 year plan), for a car that costs $70-100k? It seems little to pay for piece of mind. Then you don't have to worry what Tesla will cover/not cover under warranty. They pretty much have to cover everything (except tires) between the warranty and service plan. Plus a performance 85 when my 60 is in the shop, I like that!
I thought this part was interesting: So we'll get hardware upgrades, for the price for the price of annual service? Like parking sensors, of ACC? That would be great! But otherwise, I don't see how an annual service visit is worth $600.
I am buying 8 years of service on the assumption that the cost is now locked in. My expectation is that as the maintenance program matures those managing it will identify the need for more revenue from service visits and raise the asking price. Because I will for sure put more than 12,500 miles/year on the car I am taking the position that Tesla must be less focused on a mileage number and more on a calendar count. Having prepaid service is one lever for making my point to our service center manager.
This could be a significant benefit. We're probably not talking about feature upgrades, but rather reliability and performance updates (by performance I mean better operation, not faster 0-60!). My Roadster has had the HVAC system condenser/fan unit upgraded. It has had the PEM and motor fan upgraded, plus a shroud to help protect it from ingesting road salt etc. - and that required replacing the rear sway bar. All of that was done at no extra cost.
Technically, it's a 1.31.11 product. Unless you want to include the Roadster, in which case I'm not sure what we call it.
I just was thinking about parts of the vehicle that they improve and make changes to that involve hardware. Could be anything that they feel needed improvement and decide to make those changes, usually based on a vin# ranges. Not sure exactly what Tesla means specifically, Elon made that comment today relative to the service visits.
Did the Roadster have something equivalent to the Model S's Service Plan and is that why you got those upgrades?
For example the door handles, which got improved. I'm sure those with the old door handles and the service plan will get them replaced during the first annual service.
Correct. Even though I do not have my 'S' yet, my future service manager and I talked about that very thing yesterday.