@jeffro01 - I think you're dead on.
Service and final assembly under warranty are significant issues from what I have read right here.
Service is a cost to the manufacturer for MRO for vehicles delivered in less than perfect condition, or, for repairs of overly ambitious ideas [gull wing doors come to mind - as do presenting door handles] or for other chronic issues which best lay in the weeds. Which means expanding the service department when 70% of the cars on the road have their original or extended warranties - is a total cost center. Not a profit center.
The Model 3 QC issue may doom the company. You cannot sell a vehicle which the public sees as just an expensive Corolla or Civic and have it end up being like the early Hyundais or god forbid the Yugo. They will have major production growth issues - and they have not hired ANYONE from any major auto manufacturers to help them manage the
vast expansion of production.
The problem with any competitor is that of battery and motor production. It requires vast access to resources and the potential for environment contamination in the mining and smelting and production of lithium is significant.
If a major manufacturer commits to a full blown EV production line with 3 or 4 different vehicles arising from a common chassis and can maintain the quality at an Asian or German manufacturer - they'l eat Tesla's lunch just for the QC part of the equation.
Tesla has tons of gee whiz features - many of them are problematic from a maintenance and repair perspective.
The issue for most owners is not battery and electric propulsion reliability - its the screens and door handles [and gull wings] and little doo dads and whiz bangs that seems to account for 80% of the warranty service.
The car itself is basically reliable - the batteries, motors, charging system, brakes and basic systems are tried and true. Its the whiz kid high tech stuff that fails - and that type of failure is impossible for a shade tree mechanic to fix. You NEED the screens and computers to drive the car.
Then you have Solar City. . . . I had a solar city guy in. The sales man promised me a new 200 amp panel as part of the install. He promised me seamless net metering negotiation and a stellar customer planning experience.
Nope. Nope and No. The actual written contract specified NONE of those things. The corporate staff locally told me a flat no on panel expansion. A price for the net metering agreement [which was more than I could hire a lawyer to negotiate for me - since it is a take or leave agreement with Edison] And they had panels everywhere on my roof instead of where I wanted them, facing 200 [south], they were unwilling to work with me and completely unwilling to commit to not drilling my steel roof. [They make special solar panel clamps that fit at the seams to hang the panels to prevent penetration of the roof since the roof panels cannot support the weight directly].
They were $2500 more than the other guys, all of whom were outrageously priced to begin with.
You can buy solar for $1 a kwh for panels, wire, supports and inverters as needed. Electrical work might be $2000-3000 from a union shop. And then you have $1000 of labor [2 guys, 8 hour day] and then $1000 to pay someone to negotiate the net meter agreement if you don't think you can sign the form yourself. a 6kwh system should cost no more than $12k - yet - its routinely priced $20-21k but you get 30% back in tax credit, which conveniently takes it to $12k. And no one in a place with a net metering rate system should ever need more than 6-8kwh.
