I stick with my ICE cars since, IMO, they are much better overall than EV's. I leave for Disneyland in the morning, 500 miles, I think stop once for 5 minutes for gas, and have 7 folks in the car.
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Does Everyone have to wait a long time for Tesla Energy to Resolve an issue?
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I stick with my ICE cars since, IMO, they are much better overall than EV's. I leave for Disneyland in the morning, 500 miles, I think stop once for 5 minutes for gas, and have 7 folks in the car.
Lol you cath everybody who boards so they go in a bag? 7 people... 500 miles... and a brief stop only to get gas? You must be serious about seeing the Mouse.
I guess I will stop at the rest stops on I5 every hour for a little break. But, no charging stations needed.
And yep, tons of luggage with us, and a big strollerThis attitude is purely due to lack of competition in EVs and energy storage...This is why I think it's a good thing if consumers get more choice because like you say, Tesla has 0 incentive to improve service. I feel there are some decent options coming up now in EVs.
Lucid sounds like a decent competitor to the Model S and Rivian has been getting a lot of great reviews from everything I've seen so far.
If you had the Lucid Air Dream Edition Range, you won't even need to stop for that 5 minute gas break with it's 520 mile range.
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We are all speculating, but in my opinion its a combination of:
1. Demand for product far far outstripping ability to support.
2. lack of desire to spend the kind of money it would take to have a large *competent* support organization (good support costs a LOT of money)
3. Multiply the above by a general lack of people resources (people willing to "take less money for the mission"), leading to an inability to find support people who will take what tesla pays for office worker support.
4. Tesla field people do ok from a compensation standpoint, but there are not enough trained (good) people who wont just "work for themselves instead" when it comes to contractor work, especially right now, when business is good all over.
Tesla wont scale up to support the current demand because they dont want to pay a premium for people, and cant find enough qualified people willing to take less. They figure it will all balance out at some point, and the number of people who are "ok" with "support available through the app, but no one really to call and expedite stuff with" is growing as us older people get even older, and people who grew up online and used to "ghosting and being ghosted" get older.
shrug... my opinion anyway.
Adding another thing to the list, I've worked in a lot of companies that fail to grasp the concept that as their sales grow, they have a larger body of clients and stakeholders to support. So the focus is on the growth; not on supporting the customer population. No company makes valuation multiples on their NPS or Call Center resolution time. They make revenue or EBITDA multiples and take that to the bank all day.
But for the customers, the reality is frontline staff have to deal with both. But when it's all about new sales, service will be in the toilet.
Let's pretend there is a 1% chance an existing customer calls in for support in a given month. And there are 100,000 existing customers out there so that results in 1,000 tickets coming into a call center. But you know executives whacked call center staffing to the bone to get their metrics up and all that jazz. So the call center is barely staffed to handle touchpoints from new/pipeline clients let alone 1,000 complex tickets coming from existing customers.
And this is just random inquiries. Now assume 1/10 of each inbound ticket actually results in an on-site visit. That's 100 dispatched requests that suddenly need available field labor hours. And again, the same people responsible for these support hours are being whacked because the same executive is running the field teams super-lean.
As more and more new customers come in (and fat executive bonuses get paid), the support team size remains mostly the same or even shrinks as finance people talk about EPS and margins and stuff. The problem never gets better unless the company's reputation gets so bad it costs sales. But Tesla doesn't have to worry about that for now.
Systems should be off grid tested prior to the PTO, during the installation.
Systems should be commissioned post PTO to ensure they are operating as intended.
Systems should be commissioned post PTO to ensure they are operating as intended.
We pulled up next to a Lucid Air with manufacturer plates the other day. Very pretty and big. Looked even bigger than a Model S, but that may have just been the straight lines of the body. Lots of displays, even in the sun visors.
We likely get an X (or F-150 Lightning if I hate the yoke). But I am quite a ways down the F-150 list and a new lease on the X or perhaps Y could be up before I am up for the F-150. Right now if you want an EV SUV Tesla is the best one with more than a couple of years in production. And after being raised in a family of mechanics I never get the 1st production year of a car.
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That it matters, I spoke to my attorney and she basically said I was up the creek. There's no legal standard for how fast a company must respond to warranty service. I have to incur some kind of damage first - for example. a loss of power (which could have been prevented by timely service) that leads to a basement being flooded due to a inoperative sump pump, or a burglary due to an inoperative alarm system, etc. The court system doesn't seem to be very proactive....
Fruitcake
Fruitcake
If you are stuck waiting around and it seems Tesla keeps on installing new solar roofs without coming to help you out... you can probably rattle their cage in a very aggressive way by submitting a report against their state license. I'm sure Tesla posted the license # they're using for your rooftop solar somewhere in your contract.
A planned 6 weeks delay to address your warranty claim is in violation of California Civil Code Section 1793.2... @Fruitcake is less fortunate since it seems Jersey doesn't give a damn about establishing minimum warranty delivery times.
A company could say the the 30 day window is impossible to meet if some unforeseen circumstance beyond their control prevents it (such as a COVID 19 outbreak, parts shortage, labor shortage, fire in their building, etc). But since Tesla continues to handle new customers all over California at the same time they're telling you to wait, you can assert they have intentionally de-prioritized their warranty obligation to chase new business instead.
Their telling you 6 weeks without a reasonable explanation of an event beyond their control is a violation and worth needling if they keep slow rolling you.
As I've said before, IANAL and my avatar is a guy holding a disconnect. My previous avatar was a squirrel getting electrocuted. That should help make me trustworthy? No? Guess not.
After being raised in the USA and working in Detroit... I'm amazed you'd ever get a Ford if you're at all concerned about reliability. I mean... have you driven a Ford lately? (I hope you get the reference...)
All the more reason to get an SLA in writing before picking an installer.
Thank god I don't have an actual Tesla inverter. Even though they installed my SE, if I have a problem with the SE I can call them directly and they will deal with me including even issuing an RMA and shipping a new unit all without first having talked with the installer which is Tesla.
The promise was that cheaper came from scale and was not supposed to be at the expense of service. I'd be fine with a month wait provided they pay for my lost production. The importance of a service level agreement that defines what happens when failure occurs can't be overstated.
I think it was supposed to come from scale, no marketing, and fewer options. But, I agree, it certainly would not be clear - particularly to a prospective customer - that it would be at the expense of what seems like reasonable service expectations.
I have also thought that an SLA would be great, particularly since we are talking about a somewhat unique product in the sense that it has a direct, measurable financial impact. And, to me, in the most basic sense, that is what I am contracting for - paying $X now to get Y kWh of energy annually (dependent only on weather, and slowly declining over time as the PV ages.) However, I would be interested to know how prevalent this is in the consumer solar industry. I would not be surprised to find it for commercial/industrial-scale installs, but do other consumer solar companies have SLAs that will reimburse customers for lost usage? If so, that would certainly be an opportunity to differentiate from Tesla. I know there had been some discussion a while back that Tesla might not be the only company that has challenges with service, so some of the issues may be common across the industry.
Yeah I posted above about California Civil Code Section 1793.2. Customers aren't supposed to need clearly spelled out SLA's for timely warranty work in California.
Sellers in California have a legal-SLA of sorts to provide reasonable warranty service and to have service centers available. They are supposed to complete warranty repair within 30 days; with provisions for unforeseen circumstances.
If Tesla wants to declare they cannot even inspect a customer's existing install to repair/replace a Solar Edge Inverter for 6 weeks, then a reasonable person would also expect Tesla to be unable to perform a brand new SolarEdge installation since the only reason for the delay would be unavailable parts or lack of personnel.
New installs are not protected by California Code yet since they haven't been paid for/sold... but Tesla seems to have parts/labor for new installs while warrantied systems are left stranded.
The problem we see on TMC time and time again is that Tesla simply doesn't care. They prioritize new sales over service. So while existing customers are stuck waiting months for repair Tesla puts new hardware in with impunity since it seems customers aren't savvy enough to bring forth a claim.
I'm talking to a different attorney now, one that specializes in consumer protection law. They talked about a number of things that are way over my head, like "warranties or merchantability" that are automatically conferred by law, even if the vendor contract disclaims them. There is also something called the "Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act" which states that warranty repairs must occur "within a reasonable time" - exactly what is "reasonable" strikes me as subjective.
Will keep everyone posted.
Fruitcake
Tesla aren’t even particularly cheap anymore with the mandatory battery which I have no need for.
Good service is essential and Tesla just don’t have it.
I went with a local company. Marginally more expensive but excellent service. Tesla big national competition is also terrible in my opinion.
Good service is essential and Tesla just don’t have it.
I went with a local company. Marginally more expensive but excellent service. Tesla big national competition is also terrible in my opinion.
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