Many of the new model Y's delivered during last months to Scandinavia(Finland, Sweden, Norway) has issues now during the winter when the heat pump is not working and it is only blowing cold air. Some owners get issues only after a couple of days after taking delivery and there have even been cars where the heat pump has not worked during delivery. Some get the problems after some weeks. It seems like it is depending on outside temperature and is a matter of when, not if, the problems will occur.
What is going on and when will this issue be fixed?? It has been known now for a year almost. Anyone knows anything about the solution which Tesla still seems to be working on?
I'm not a Tesla owner yet, but I'm considering a Y. (So far it's a toss-up between the Y and an Ioniq 5.) I read about this issue last winter and thought it was pretty embarrassing for Tesla after all the fanfare about octovalves and 'revolutionary' heat pump technology. My research turned up the fact that Tesla is doing a 'silent recall' where any time any heat-pump-equipped Tesla shows up at a Service Center, it gets all its heat-pump-related sensors replaced. (And it seems it's not so silent now - I think they're now contacting owners to come in as part of a Customer Service program?)
Through all of this there has been no indication that the sensor replacement fixes the problem. Which is why I put off any decision on which car to buy until this winter, when we confirm that a genuine solution has been found.
Let that sink in a moment. We need to check forums to confirm that a fixable problem - and a rather crucial problem at that - has been fixed. And it turns out it hasn't.
Now we find that more Y heat pumps are going belly-up when they're needed most. A year later, when winter hits again. This may seem a provocative question, but I'm forced to ask it: Does Tesla even have a test facility with proper environmental chambers where the design of a new heat pump could be tested? And if a problem should slip through, where the problem can be confirmed, the root cause identified and a solution validated? You'd think with the size of the various Gigafactories and the
gigantic market cap of the Tesla organization, that such mundane infrastructure would be seen as a fundamental need. I'm a retired engineer. I know from personal experience this stuff is not that hard.
Or do problems get minimum-effort, half-baked solutions thrown at them, and all Tesla owners are considered beta testers? Keep in mind here that heat pumps are pretty mature technology. There shouldn't be any surprises here.
If I seem overly negative I'm sorry. I know there are a lot of Tesla haters out there, and I'm not one of them. I've been involved in EVs long enough to have built my own decades ago. I know the terrain. I have profound respect for what Musk has done. I want Tesla to succeed.
But DAMN! How can I trust a manufacturer who fumbles an established, mature technology in a critical application, doesn't have a real solution for it a full year later, and provides no indication when or if a solution might be coming? I simply can't consider a Y until this is resolved.
I can't even....
I don't want to seem like a hater of the brand that has done so much to advance EVs, for which I've been a booster for decades. But I also don't see how I'm wrong. Can someone show me? Please?
