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Press Conference July 17
- Thread starter dandurston
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It seems a lot of people glossed over the "working on goal to make a one million mile drive unit" in the blog post. The ones that noticed it thought "wow look at them go!" But frankly I find it rather disturbing and as an admission of a fleet wide defective drive unit problem.
So while it all sounds great, earlier today I tweeted Elon directly asking him about this specific line. Why? Because I'm on my 4th drive unit in 74k miles. I think all of them are defective, hence their push to make them more reliable. That's gotta be killing them on cost though. Many others here are also on their 3rd and 4th DU. Even one already on his 5th. Almost everyone I know has had at least one DU replacement already. Frankly I'm surprised this hasn't run them into the ground yet. I understand they refurb most of them but the 2 remanufactured units I have had also failed. This 4th one of mine is new and its version "N". Others are already on version "P". This tells you how many revisions they've had to make and they still can't get it right. Don't get me wrong I love tesla but they really really really need to solve this defective DU problem. They can't be doing this once they are making 500k Model 3's per year.
I was always under the impression the car was built to last very very long but honestly my track record as well as others on here is that they seem to fail around the 15-20k mark. This is BAD. What is going to happen post 8 year warranty? Spend 15k on a new drive unit every 20k miles? This better not. Imagine any other car maker making an engine that only lasted 15-20k and people would have to drop thousands of dollars every year on a new engine in their car. Honestly. That's the reality of the situation and its been 3 years now and tesla still hasn't solved it. IMO this is the single biggest threat to tesla as a company. If they can't make a reliable motor, they are done.
"Working on a goal of a million mile drive unit"=admission of major reliability problem.
So while it all sounds great, earlier today I tweeted Elon directly asking him about this specific line. Why? Because I'm on my 4th drive unit in 74k miles. I think all of them are defective, hence their push to make them more reliable. That's gotta be killing them on cost though. Many others here are also on their 3rd and 4th DU. Even one already on his 5th. Almost everyone I know has had at least one DU replacement already. Frankly I'm surprised this hasn't run them into the ground yet. I understand they refurb most of them but the 2 remanufactured units I have had also failed. This 4th one of mine is new and its version "N". Others are already on version "P". This tells you how many revisions they've had to make and they still can't get it right. Don't get me wrong I love tesla but they really really really need to solve this defective DU problem. They can't be doing this once they are making 500k Model 3's per year.
I was always under the impression the car was built to last very very long but honestly my track record as well as others on here is that they seem to fail around the 15-20k mark. This is BAD. What is going to happen post 8 year warranty? Spend 15k on a new drive unit every 20k miles? This better not. Imagine any other car maker making an engine that only lasted 15-20k and people would have to drop thousands of dollars every year on a new engine in their car. Honestly. That's the reality of the situation and its been 3 years now and tesla still hasn't solved it. IMO this is the single biggest threat to tesla as a company. If they can't make a reliable motor, they are done.
"Working on a goal of a million mile drive unit"=admission of major reliability problem.
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
Ok... this is a bit of half-truths; WHY was your drive unit replaced? Was it 'defective' because it was noisy or defective because your car was no longer able to move?
This poll indicated that ~50% of replacements were due to noise... not failure. I totally agree that an electric drive train should be silent... but mine started making noise ~15k miles; I could have pushed to have it replaced but I can only hear it under certain conditions. I've now clocked >70k miles and my P85 is still going strong.
There's obviously room for improvement but the drive units that are replaced are usually replaced with refurbished, not new units; A 125k mile drive train warranty already exceeds what most manufacturers offer... Tesla offers an unlimited mile warranty.... whatever reliability issues they're working through I wouldn't characterize them as 'major'.
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breser
AutoPilot Nostradamus
I'd agree with what you said if Telsa said they were working for a 100 or 200k mile drive unit. I'm not aware of any consumer vehicle that is engineered for a million mile lifetime.
I doubt even the Grumman LLV (common postal truck in the US) is engineered for a million miles and it was engineered for an expected lifetime of 20 years. Assuming the vehicle is operated 8 hours a day (I think this is excessive since I think a significant portion of the letter carriers daily work is in sorting before going out for delivery) and travels at 20 miles an hour for all 8 hours (again probably an overestimate since they are doing lots of stop and go to do deliveries) then they travel 200 miles a day. Take 200 miles per day multiplied by 52 weeks a year multiplied by 6 days of delivery per week multiplied by 20 years you get 1,248,000 miles. A more conservative estimate would probably be half that or 624,000 miles. The post office is considering replacing them since they spend considerable amounts of money repairing them. Apparently replacing motors and transmissions is common.
Engineering for a million mile drive unit sounds like they're engineering for something far beyond what we would ever expect out of our vehicles. So no I don't think that statement equates to major reliability problems with the drive units.
@yobigd20 wrote: "Almost everyone I know has had at least one DU replacement already. Frankly I'm surprised this hasn't run them into the ground yet."
I am not going to dispute your assertion that the vast majority of Model S owners you know have had their car's drive unit replaced. I can tell you that I know and have met quite a few Model S owners and none of them have had a drive unit replaced. If your S owner acquaintances represented a statistically valid sample of S owners than it seems quite likely that Tesla would have failed by now. Obviously that is not the case. So I conclude that you are exaggerating the extent of the problem.
In addition, there is good reason to believe, as @nwdiver points out, that a high percentage of the drive units that have been replaced by Tesla were not due to failure of the unit but because of excessive noise, which as Elon has stated in the past was due in some cases to small inexpensive items like shims that were not exactly the right size, or to cables that were not secured properly. Again, I think you exaggerate the extent and severity of drive unit issues.
I am not going to dispute your assertion that the vast majority of Model S owners you know have had their car's drive unit replaced. I can tell you that I know and have met quite a few Model S owners and none of them have had a drive unit replaced. If your S owner acquaintances represented a statistically valid sample of S owners than it seems quite likely that Tesla would have failed by now. Obviously that is not the case. So I conclude that you are exaggerating the extent of the problem.
In addition, there is good reason to believe, as @nwdiver points out, that a high percentage of the drive units that have been replaced by Tesla were not due to failure of the unit but because of excessive noise, which as Elon has stated in the past was due in some cases to small inexpensive items like shims that were not exactly the right size, or to cables that were not secured properly. Again, I think you exaggerate the extent and severity of drive unit issues.
2 out of the 3 Model S I've owned have had a drive unit replaced (both P85's). The P85D is over 13k miles now and the drive units are fine. The first P85 was replaced around ~8k and I drove another 17k miles on it before trading it and it was fine. My wife's P85 had hers replaced around 4k miles and at just under 13k it's fine. Both replacements were due to the differential slack noise during load shift (accel to regen or vice verse) at low speeds. I actually drove my P85 3000 miles with this noise. By the time it went in for replacement it was *very* noticeable.
I think they've probably gotten it down pretty well though in the recent versions, based solely on my own experience of course.
I think they've probably gotten it down pretty well though in the recent versions, based solely on my own experience of course.
brucet999
Active Member
Have all of the DU replacements been single motor versions? If so, I might go for a D instead of RWD.
There was a part of me that thought they'd quietly get rid of the RWD cars because of this, but:
A) the P85D has continued to use the big motor in the rear the whole time, and
B) the 70 now has a RWD version.
So, Tesla at least remains confident in the big motor, suggesting either they have fixed the problem, think they can fix the problem, or the problem is low enough volume that it is manageable.
That said, the anecdotal evidence sure suggests that it at least point *was* a big problem, given the number of people on this forum that have had a DU replaced (and given that it took them 5 months to get one when mine needed replacing).
It is important to note that the remanufactured drive units with the shims do not work and also fail with excessive noise so it is hard for me to believe that wasn't anything other than a BS PR response. It doesn't solve the problem.
fengshui
Member
We have no information as to what the replacement/repair cost of the problems that have resulted in a drive unit replacement so-far. Yes, a completely new drive unit is reported to cost $15k, but that's an insurance price, with no core credit. It's entirely possible that the cost of an out-of warranty drive unit repair would look like this:
- Refurbished Drive Unit: $13,000
- Drive Unit Core Credit: $12,500
- Labor to remove and re-install drive unit: 1 hour @ $150/hr: $150
- Total: $750
Lots of owners have had the milling sound replacement. That's not a biggie as it's just a nuisance, and it appears they have resolved it.
There are some who have had more serious failures. Hard to know what the statistics are on that, but it's not zero. Personally, I've had one replacement due to the "milling sound", and one replacement due to a "no longer able to move" failure. I don't know the details but I do know that one wheel wouldn't turn very easily, so it was mechanical. One of the Tesla staff told me it was very unusual to see that.
Still, ignoring milling sound replacements, I don't know many people who have reported drive replacements.
True. And I'd be willing to bet that, depending on the price, everyone is going to be a bit more tolerant of noise issues that don't impact performance.
That's exactly what I was thinking. It's always harder to deal with a problem when you can get it replaced for free. I agree once a car goes out of the warranty period people will be more tollerant of the noise. I can think of multiple examples of other items that have small "defects" that do not hurt the overall performance of the items and I just deal with them.
Lex
Member
Today at a stoplight with all windows opened I listened to the passing ICE vehicles and only rarely did I hear an engine. I heard the same whooshes and tire & road noise that the MS makes. So while not a silent car (I can even make out the whir of my fresh AC motor at low speeds) any new noise (not coming from the stereo) is bad, and wrong.
I get anxious when I hear it called "cosmetic"-- this is something I'd expect old car companies to do to avoid recalls, at least for a while. New noises are a real problem, especially on this class of car.
I get anxious when I hear it called "cosmetic"-- this is something I'd expect old car companies to do to avoid recalls, at least for a while. New noises are a real problem, especially on this class of car.
I just had my drive unit replaced today for the milling noise. I asked how much it would cost out of warranty - they had to check and came back and told me ~$5000 for a refurbished unit.
AustinPowers
Total Smeghead
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