First Road trip with model 3.....really sucks.....

[Darren Donovan]

I detect a sentiment by some TMC members that Tesla is "still a young company". I do see that aspect. However, when will we stop using that as a crutch for whenever something goes wrong (be it mechanically, or something else relating to parts availability, customer communication,....) and hold Tesla accountable? After all, you just can't say "well, the other manufacturers have 100 years of experience, and Tesla only has xx years of doing this. Well, Tesla will ALWAYS be behind in the count of "years of experience", they have to cross that mature threshold somehow, some time. Can't be getting a free pass forever.

 

[virtualsmack]

for the folks disagreeing with @Electroman ... do you guys disagree that OP should have tested the supercharger first?

Personally, if I was going to go on a camping trip, I'd make sure my gear worked properly before I head out. I'd open up the tent to make sure there were no holes, etc. Or if I just bought a gas grill, I'd fire it up a handful of days before having people over. In either case, the camping gear or crappy grill company would be at fault for bad equipment (to some degree), but I'd be at fault for actually having people come over or going on a trip without testing it out first.

I do think it's possible for Tesla to be at fault but for OP to have benefited from doing a test first, so I see @Electroman's point.

But let's be real - if I didn't test the grill out and had people over, my wife would blame me and I would totally blame the grill company.

I stand by my analogy. You are the one that needs to think. Tesla is trying to break into mainstream, and they state their car is supposed to be maintenance free and easy/reliable to operate. That is the standard we should hold them to and that they should be accountable for that.Try telling Joe Sixpack that "oh you need to test SC before you go on a roadtrip because there might be a 1% failure rate". That crap is not going to fly.

 

[brkaus]

By you logic if we drove an ICE car off the lot do we need to "trust and verify" that we can pump gas into it? That the wheels are not going to fall off after 100 miles? No, we just expect it to work. We are at the point where Teslas are more mainstream, and so we can't rely on this anymore.

Power steering went out in my Dodge in the first few hundred miles. Mainstream RAM truck.

 

[gavine]

The only cars I am aware of that weren't 'supercharger enabled' were the 40kWh model S cars. Any others?

Supercharging was an optional upgrade on the original 60kWh. I had one without supercharging. This brings-up a question. Now that they give the capability to pay-to-charge (on Model 3), I wonder if those original 60's can now supercharge for a fee?

 

[smak]

yes I may get luck and unlocked a hidden feature in V9!!

For the people still waiting for your car, please add supercharge test to your checklist, otherwise you may stuck somewhere on your way home after picking up.......

I think this is a no brainer. I stopped at a local SC for a 10 minute charge a week before I was going to take a 300 mile trip.

 

[Canuck]

I detect a sentiment by some TMC members that Tesla is "still a young company".

It's not a "sentiment". It's a fact. No opinion, which is basically what a sentiment is, can change a fact.

Whether you cut Tesla slack for being a young company (and especially so compared to other auto makers) is another issue. But please let's not change facts by trying to call them sentiments.

Can't be getting a free pass forever.

Who is giving Tesla free pass on this one? I want them to give the OP free supercharging. I also said it's not right to rake Tesla over the coals for basically a one-off. We need a little reason on all sides.

do you guys disagree that OP should have tested the supercharger first?

I do, even though the first thing I did was test mine for my wife's trip when our 3 was new, even though I've had no problem with my S for over 4 years road tripping. But it's still an absurd proposition to me to suggest everyone should be testing them first. However, it's not absurd to say that if he had tested it, he could have perhaps avoided the problem during his road trip. I hope everyone sees the difference. No blame to the OP at all -- but perhaps some advice to others since we live in an imperfect world -- and maybe we'll save one person from going through what the OP endured. So no need to jump on people for suggesting it (not that you are) since it may have some merit but if it doesn't people can ignore it. If you live a long way from a supercharger, of course, the testing first is out.

 

[Shoal007]

I live 100 mi away from the nearest supercharger. First time I used it was when I needed it. I bought a second umc and took it out to use it and they sent me a Europen model. Thankfully I was near a supercharger but could have been 100 mi plus from one. This is a Tesla problem. I have a vin in the 5xxx range so quite aware of the bumps and lumps but basic usability should work imo.

 

[Canuck]

I live 100 mi away from the nearest supercharger. First time I used it was when I needed it. I bought a second umc and took it out to use it and they sent me a Europen model. Thankfully I was near a supercharger but could have been 100 mi plus from one. This is a Tesla problem. I have a vin in the 5xxx range so quite aware of the bumps and lumps but basic usability should work imo.

So they sent you a wrong UMC when you ordered a second one, and you say this is same as the OP's problem? Or, did your car not charge too when first hit that supercharger 100 miles away?

If it's the former and not the latter, then I've heard it all when trying to link problems to blame on Tesla. I know many people like to complain, but unless you couldn't supercharge, you're not really in the same boat as the OP, at least in my view.

 

[TexasEV]

Supercharging was an optional upgrade on the original 60kWh. I had one without supercharging. This brings-up a question. Now that they give the capability to pay-to-charge (on Model 3), I wonder if those original 60's can now supercharge for a fee?

No, it’s still a $2500 upgrade, then free supercharging. The option was to pay for the supercharging hardware and software in the car, kind of like autopilot now, contrary to common belief it wasn’t about the electricity cost. All cars had it built in but you had to pay to activate it. Even if you just wanted to charge with CHAdeMO and not the superchargers, it costs almost as much to activate the DC charging capability for that in the original 60s ($1900) as it does to activate it to use both CHAdeMO and superchargers.

 

[GregRF]

for the folks disagreeing with @Electroman ... do you guys disagree that OP should have tested the supercharger first?

Honestly I'm not sure if testing would have helped. OP seemed to have some software issues creep up right before his trip.

Personally I plugged my car into a Supercharger for 5 minutes when I stopped for service just to see if it worked.

 

[David99]

We

That is quite the story... Well at least they do have some decent hotels in town.

Yeah they offered me a room for $20 a night. No light, no heating, no hot water, no breakfast. They had no power either. :-/

 

[ebmcs03]

There is no such thing as "free" and "paid" superchargers. They are all the same, and when you plug in it should connect with your account automatically. If you don't have free supercharging, it gets charged to a credit card. It's very simple.
t be.

Yes there is. My car was plugged into a supercharger when it was in service. I have a screen capture to prove it. I was not billed for that charge. I’m assuming the charger is in the show room at Costa Mesa are super Chargers too

 

[slipnslider]

I have my model 3 for about two weeks. And decide to have our first road trip from Bay Area to LA. There are so many super charge along I-5. So I was not worry about charging, even with my 2 years old in the car...... I never used super charge before since I always charge at work. After read a few view for supercharge and it seems very easy to use.

Everything went well at first, and EAP is awesome, which I used most of the time. we stopped at Kettleman super charge and plan to have dinner and refill it to 80%so we can heading LA without stop. After plug in charge cable I got error message “unable to change , supercharging option not enabled”, I switch several charge station, same issue and same error message.

Called custom service, waited half hour in the queue, trouble shooting another 30mins with technician, they cannot fix it and told me need send to another engineer team review will get back to me tomorrow morning!!

Now I am stuck at supercharge station with two years old. Luckily they have a wall charge here, it is slow but it is something...... after 6 hours charging.... I may be able to head to LA.....

First road trip, really sucks.......

Yeah production is still far too sloppy to trust these cars on a road trip without thoroughly checking them out first. I took my first road trip a few weeks ago, but I first went to a supercharger here in town to make sure supercharging worked, because I didn't want to end up in a situation exactly like yours. Sorry man.

Bottom line - tesla build quality is still too sloppy to trust right now.

 

[Electroman]

Yeah production is still far too sloppy to trust these cars on a road trip without thoroughly checking them out first. I took my first road trip a few weeks ago, but I first went to a supercharger here in town to make sure supercharging worked, because I didn't want to end up in a situation exactly like yours. Sorry man.

Bottom line - tesla build quality is still too sloppy to trust right now.

This is the kind of knee jerk reaction I suspected you would see in these threads. I have been reading and following TMC before Tesla rolled out its first 'S'. There have been a handful - in single digits - of Super Charging issues reported here the first year, and after that almost none. And now this one. Supercharging has been quite robust but that doesn't mean occasionally there will be a failed component.

To somehow use that occasional failure to make an observation that, "production is sloppy' is quite SeekingAlpha'ish. (that is a derogatory term worse than trolling )

How many other reports have you read that people had troubles that impacted their road-trips in Model 3, or in any SX build in the last two years? All i am hearing over and over again are panel gaps, paint bubbles and bluetooth issues, and almost nothing about drive-ability issues in Model 3.

Model 3 has been extremely reliable driving machine.

These kind of comments - 'sloppy production', 'not fit for any serious use' - is an after effect of those trollish articles we have seen in dozens on Yahoo and other new media sites that is pushed to us every day, so that any such one-off incident is not seen as a one-off but as vindication of a pattern - even though no such pattern exists.

 

[daniel]

for the folks disagreeing with @Electroman ... do you guys disagree that OP should have tested the supercharger first?

It never occurred to me to try to find a supercharger to test before taking my road trip this summer. The nearest one to me would have been an hour's drive round trip, including a brief test of the charger. I did phone Tesla first to make sure that my car has supercharger capability. But I just assumed it would work. (And it did.)

This may be an object lesson to all of us, but I'm more inclined to think of it as a defect in the car, and there's no way you can check a car for every possible defect before a trip. Sure, now we know: If you've never used a supercharger, and you're planning your first road trip, and if there's a convenient supercharger, try it out first. But I don't think there was any reason why the OP should have thought of this as a needed step. And it's certainly not a common problem.

The OP is not to blame. The car is.

 

[woodisgood]

Did we hear from the OP as to what happened at the SC? Hope it turned out ok. I combed the thread but perhaps missed it amongst the bickering.

 

[slipnslider]

To somehow use that occasional failure to make an observation that, "production is sloppy' is quite SeekingAlpha'ish.

No that observation is made by many many many other problems that have been created by rushing cars off a new production line. These are not occassional issues, they affect a huge portion of brand new cars.
Not charging specifically, but you'd be foolish not to test if before taking a road trip, knowing all the other flaws the cars have had.

 

[Zaxxon]

Help us, OP-one... You're our only hope [to bring this thread back on track].

 

[SoCalGuy]

Ugh I just had to read through 3 pages of useless banter just to see if OP got Tesla to resolve it... I wish TMC had some filter to just show me on topic relevant content in a thread

 

[Electroman]

No that observation is made by many many many other problems that have been created by rushing cars off a new production line.

Did you forget a few more 'manys' ?

These are what is known as 'dog whistle phrases' that is frequently used in many negative click bait articles that has been flooding the internet the last few months.

So here is question: what would be those 'many many many' drive-ability problems have you noticed from M3 owners? Not dirt under the bumpers or scratches under the wheel well. But issues that inhibit driving have you heard of in Model 3?

This comment from slipnslider is a clear evidence that shorts and haters are winning the mindset struggle. That is exactly why Musk is focusing so much on squeezing the shorts.

I was just having a dinner with a friend who has no interest and doesn't follow any news about Tesla. But during the ride on my M3, he did ask me about the troubles the company is in. I asked what would that be?

"I heard most of the reservations have been cancelled due to poor quality. Is that true?".

Shorts and haters are winning.

 

[gtmotor]

I'm surprised this thread isn't a top story on Seeking Alpha or Yahoo finance yet. At least the car still took a charge, if you hang around other luxury car forums there are a lot of posts like there where a new car simply refused to start and/or run due to some issue that got through QC.

I don't disagree but really, should you have to check such things?

I checked to make sure the supercharging worked on mine too... at a 72 kW station and a 120 kW one just to make double sure since I also have a 2 year old