Off road usage (ie track) might well be excluded from the warranty - so in that case you'd be correct. But I was merely thinking of punching the gas at a stoplight on the road - in which case I think the warranty must cover any driveunit failures.
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My request that the Arizona Attorney General's office investigate Tesla's changes to Ludicrous Mode
- Thread starter azdryheat
- Start date
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
I was trying to think of similar contexts and headed over to read a thread on denial of warranty on Jeeps that broke while off-roading.
There appears to be implied language that includes avoiding abuse, acting reasonably and normatively.
And in the "I was never told" and "Tesla never said" bin I offer the following:
A Tesla is advertised to tow,
to go up hills
and offers Ludi
Will warranty cover my daily fun racing my friends up the steepest hills while towing the maximum rated ?
There appears to be implied language that includes avoiding abuse, acting reasonably and normatively.
And in the "I was never told" and "Tesla never said" bin I offer the following:
A Tesla is advertised to tow,
to go up hills
and offers Ludi
Will warranty cover my daily fun racing my friends up the steepest hills while towing the maximum rated ?
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Tesla reduced power on all the affected vehicles regardless of how they had been used. Look, this is simple, Tesla pushed the power level too high and realized after the fact that this was going to cause them warranty issues. They decided to dial back the power level, after the sale, with no financial compensation. Are you really incapable of seeing how this was simply unacceptable? What if Tesla finds out the window motors will burn out after a number of full cycles and then does an update to allow the window to only go half way down? They never explicitly said the windows would always go all the way down, right? You can apply similar logic to any part of the car, maybe the wiper motors will last longer if they can't be used on high speed...
jerjozwik
Active Member
JohnnyG
Weee!
Forget about all the marketing for a second...
The simple fact is: if you want to limit your liability, then define your parameters before entering into a sales contract. That is what's fair, moral, and ethical. Not to mention, this is how you attract the customers you want, detract the customers you don't want, and keep the customers loyal.
Back to one of the main highlighted specs form the manufacturer:
If you make a huge part of your news coverage to be about a certain feature of your product (in this case, quickest acceleration to 60MPH), then you understand that this is the crowd you are going to attract (want to attract?). If this is the crowd you attract, this crowd is going to want to use that feature (which they agreed to your sales terms on) at their leisure.
Example: I bought a sports watch rated at 5ATM. I use it primarily in the dry safety of my home or office. However, I also go swimming with it and snorkeling, because it was touted as having a rating conducive to that. If later the manufacturer deems that the device can't really handle a 5ATM rating and now prevents me from swimming and snorkeling with the watch more than an undisclosed amount of times, this is not very ethical. They should either deal with the warranty claims for the product they sold, or even more ethical would be to recall the device and correct it so that it can meet the specs given at the time of sale. The reason for this is that maybe I don't go swimming enough until the warranty has ended, and now my watch is water-logged and I'm left to deal with it. Not cool....
The simple fact is: if you want to limit your liability, then define your parameters before entering into a sales contract. That is what's fair, moral, and ethical. Not to mention, this is how you attract the customers you want, detract the customers you don't want, and keep the customers loyal.
Back to one of the main highlighted specs form the manufacturer:
If you make a huge part of your news coverage to be about a certain feature of your product (in this case, quickest acceleration to 60MPH), then you understand that this is the crowd you are going to attract (want to attract?). If this is the crowd you attract, this crowd is going to want to use that feature (which they agreed to your sales terms on) at their leisure.
Example: I bought a sports watch rated at 5ATM. I use it primarily in the dry safety of my home or office. However, I also go swimming with it and snorkeling, because it was touted as having a rating conducive to that. If later the manufacturer deems that the device can't really handle a 5ATM rating and now prevents me from swimming and snorkeling with the watch more than an undisclosed amount of times, this is not very ethical. They should either deal with the warranty claims for the product they sold, or even more ethical would be to recall the device and correct it so that it can meet the specs given at the time of sale. The reason for this is that maybe I don't go swimming enough until the warranty has ended, and now my watch is water-logged and I'm left to deal with it. Not cool....
n2mb_racing
Active Member
Killed Watts: Tesla Restores Power after Model S Owner Files Suit
Mods didn't like the free advice for Tesla, so here is just the link.
Key point: 100x or 1000x people read Car and Driver vs Electrek and this forum. Those people just read that the long term fleet test car in C&D possession for a year received an over the air update that made it slower. (See article for data) AND owners had to sue to get their original performance back.
Mods didn't like the free advice for Tesla, so here is just the link.
Key point: 100x or 1000x people read Car and Driver vs Electrek and this forum. Those people just read that the long term fleet test car in C&D possession for a year received an over the air update that made it slower. (See article for data) AND owners had to sue to get their original performance back.
Sayeth the warranty:
Interestingly the battery/DU warranty doesn't have the "normal use" language, but it does exclude "abuse" and remind buyers that batteries normally degrade both power and capacity.
https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/Model_S_New_Vehicle_Limited_Warranty_201602_en_NA.pdf
"Basic Vehicle Limited Warranty Subject to separate coverage for certain parts and the exclusions and limitations described in this New Vehicle Limited Warranty, the Basic Vehicle Limited Warranty covers the repair or replacement necessary to correct defects in the materials or workmanship of any parts manufactured or supplied by Tesla that occur under normal use for a period of 4 years or 50,000 miles (80,000 km), whichever comes first."
Interestingly the battery/DU warranty doesn't have the "normal use" language, but it does exclude "abuse" and remind buyers that batteries normally degrade both power and capacity.
"Despite the breadth of this warranty, damage resulting from intentional actions (including intentionally abusing or destroying your vehicle or ignoring active vehicle warnings), a collision or accident (excluding from Battery fires as specified above), or the servicing or opening of the Battery or Drive Unit by non-Tesla personnel, is not covered under this Battery and Drive Unit Limited Warranty.
"The Battery, like all lithium-ion batteries, will experience gradual energy or power loss with time and use. Loss of Battery energy or power over time or due to or resulting from Battery usage, is NOT covered under this Battery and Drive Unit Limited Warranty."
"The Battery, like all lithium-ion batteries, will experience gradual energy or power loss with time and use. Loss of Battery energy or power over time or due to or resulting from Battery usage, is NOT covered under this Battery and Drive Unit Limited Warranty."
https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/Model_S_New_Vehicle_Limited_Warranty_201602_en_NA.pdf
If you look at Elon's Tweet's, I think you will find accelerating quickly is normal use.
Tesla is aware that I was going to do some 0-60 runs and test the power at the dragstrip.
They were ok with it.
we agree -- normal use can include accelerating quickly.
I'll even go out on a limb and say normal use can include stopping quickly and turning left quickly and turning right quickly.
Care to consider the more interesting question? What reasonably constitutes abnormal or abusive use?
Of course, being in the English language that is a vague term, subject to differing reasonable interpretations, but probably commonly used in product warranties in general and there is probably some precedent developed on its interpretation.
More importantly, I wouldn't want my car power limited so that the MTBFs were within an acceptable range for use cases that were wildly abnormal use. The MTBFs should be within an acceptable range for normal sporty spirited driving but not to cover cases like TRC cars.
Thinking about this more Tesla's better strategy was probably to simply remind people of the traditional warranty language that covers normal use and excludes abusive driving, and use the car logs and counters to document whether usage was within the bounds of normal (including of course normal spirited) and not abusive -- that's all they ever warranted anyway.
But since they took so much time to implement another software change after stating that something was coming way back in May, it seems they probably either did more testing and actuarial calculations of MTBFs tolerances, or changed something in the BMS to be more protective -- or both.
I'll even go out on a limb and say normal use can include stopping quickly and turning left quickly and turning right quickly.
Care to consider the more interesting question? What reasonably constitutes abnormal or abusive use?
Of course, being in the English language that is a vague term, subject to differing reasonable interpretations, but probably commonly used in product warranties in general and there is probably some precedent developed on its interpretation.
More importantly, I wouldn't want my car power limited so that the MTBFs were within an acceptable range for use cases that were wildly abnormal use. The MTBFs should be within an acceptable range for normal sporty spirited driving but not to cover cases like TRC cars.
Thinking about this more Tesla's better strategy was probably to simply remind people of the traditional warranty language that covers normal use and excludes abusive driving, and use the car logs and counters to document whether usage was within the bounds of normal (including of course normal spirited) and not abusive -- that's all they ever warranted anyway.
But since they took so much time to implement another software change after stating that something was coming way back in May, it seems they probably either did more testing and actuarial calculations of MTBFs tolerances, or changed something in the BMS to be more protective -- or both.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
What's yours? Tesla admitted they did the wrong thing, you're the only one who didn't get the message.
my point was to quote the exact warranty language.
my point was to simply inform the discussion as to what was and was not covered in the warranty.
apparently that caused people upset and suffering.
I don't think any warranty is black and white, for a reason.
If you damaged something at a dragstrip, I would not be surprised if they denied warranty coverage. Something that happened later would have to be difficult (impossible?) to determine if it was related to racing. And with Tesla openly promoting rapid acceleration, 1/4 mile times, etc., I think it would slew the benefit to the owner. Just my opinion and as far as I know has not had to be tested.
The good thing is that from what I know, the drive train actually is very sturdy.
The point of upgrading to P+Ludicrous mode was to achieve "10.9" in the quarter mile. How can you void warranty while performing exactly what you spent a $35,000 premium for? I don't care if Tesla needs to tow the car from the dragstrip...
Walta
Member
I would hope that going forward we can all leverage off the efforts of @azdryheat , in protecting the product we purchased, post purchase. And that over the air updates won't be used anymore to degrade the cars value in any way.
Now that the can has been kicked down the road - it will be even more interesting if this results in consistent battery failures for V3 owners. If Tesla is going to keep replacing batteries with V3 batteries? And not address the design issue that is causing the failures? Owners will need to rally again to protect themselves when the warranty period expires, or face serious costs to replace the battery. I would guess that if owners show that the battery keeps failing though they are driving it as advertised? That there should be some legal option to support Tesla being responsible even out of warranty? Like the lemon law approach? Where Tesla is not fixing the initial problem after repeated attempts? Time will tell as V3 owners go back to driving with full power more frequently. Wonder if Tesla can legally replace the V3 batteries with the lower performance V1 or V2 versions to mitigate warranty risks?
Now that the can has been kicked down the road - it will be even more interesting if this results in consistent battery failures for V3 owners. If Tesla is going to keep replacing batteries with V3 batteries? And not address the design issue that is causing the failures? Owners will need to rally again to protect themselves when the warranty period expires, or face serious costs to replace the battery. I would guess that if owners show that the battery keeps failing though they are driving it as advertised? That there should be some legal option to support Tesla being responsible even out of warranty? Like the lemon law approach? Where Tesla is not fixing the initial problem after repeated attempts? Time will tell as V3 owners go back to driving with full power more frequently. Wonder if Tesla can legally replace the V3 batteries with the lower performance V1 or V2 versions to mitigate warranty risks?
n2mb_racing
Active Member
I think the V2 batteries were affected as well. My power was limited and then restored with this update.
A software limited 100 kW pack would be a great fix, if the problem shows up again...
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