Service and communication (out of main)

[JRP3]

More info on the heat pump issue, NHTSA and TC investigating

NHTSA evaluating safety concerns of Tesla heat pump issues

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is now evaluating potential safety concerns with some Tesla heat pumps.

driveteslacanada.ca

Transport Canada investigating Tesla heat pump issues

After receiving several complaints from owners across the country over the last few weeks, Transport Canada has launched an investigation into the recent heat pump issues in Tesla vehicles.

driveteslacanada.ca

Description of the issue with Elon comment:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1481162567280173058

 

[Bet TSLA]

Well, Tesla communication with customers continues to generally be rotten. And as Tesla gets more and more customers, it will just get easier to find individuals for whom things went inexcusably sideways. However, my guess is that it's a smaller and smaller percentage, which is overall a good thing.

Knowing Elon's propensity for first principles, it's pretty obvious that "no problem is the best problem" is the driving force. Elon will never be behind Tesla getting really good at customer service, because it really shouldn't be necessary. Same thing with the latest UI -- driver input is all error. So any time there's a choice between making driver input easier or eliminating the need for it the latter approach will be taken. And similarly, any time there is a choice between making dealing with customer problems nicer to deal with vs. eliminating that particular problem, the latter will take precedence.

I don't think Elon will change. And it seems unlikely he'll be willing to hire and trust an executive to make the exceptional annoyances go away. I don't think it would be all that expensive to see a great improvement, but Elon seems to hate bandages regardless of whether they are what's needed.

 

[JRP3]

However, my guess is that it's a smaller and smaller percentage, which is overall a good thing.

Except when it's a widespread issue on their high volume vehicles. Even if it's a smaller percentage if the numbers are high enough then a larger portion of the general population will hear about it. If Tesla gets a widespread reputation for poor quality and service it will eventually begin to hurt the company. It doesn't matter at the moment since demand is so high but there are already too many people who have sworn off the brand, and too many of them were former Tesla owners.

 

[StealthP3D]

Except when it's a widespread issue on their high volume vehicles. Even if it's a smaller percentage if the numbers are high enough then a larger portion of the general population will hear about it. If Tesla gets a widespread reputation for poor quality and service it will eventually begin to hurt the company. It doesn't matter at the moment since demand is so high but there are already too many people who have sworn off the brand, and too many of them were former Tesla owners.

Very few people have sworn off Tesla as a brand. We know this because the vast majority of existing motorists have never even had a ride in a Tesla, let alone driven or owned one.

People who actually have become disillusioned with the brand are a very small percentage of owners. We know this because Tesla regularly gets #1 in terms of customer satisfaction. That means other brands have a higher percentage of dissatisfied customers compared to Tesla and many more in actual numbers.

From a future sales standpoint this creates no concerns, quite the opposite actually, because all those customers dissatisfied with other brands outnumber those who have sworn off Tesla about 120 to 1. From a statistical standpoint, Tesla is the best at satisfying their customers. So I think your concerns are blown out of proportion. My personal experiences with Tesla service have been rather minimal because the car is so reliable. We've had two for almost four years and they have been nearly perfect. When we have had occasion to use Tesla Service they have been responsive and effective.

These two cars are the highest quality cars we've ever owned, and that encompasses a lot of cars!

 

[JRP3]

We know this because the vast majority of existing motorists have never even had a ride in a Tesla, let alone driven or owned one.

That's right, and more existing motorists are hearing about poor quality control and bad service. The population of motorists are fixed, the population of people hearing bad things about Tesla are increasing. QC and service are problems that are not being addressed quickly enough. Short term it won't matter, long term it will. I expect to be getting my first Tesla in a few weeks but if it was my only vehicle I wouldn't be getting it because of those issues.

 

[Skipdd]

I ride the fence on this one as is obvious from previous posts. My roots are in businesses where customer service was pivotal to growth. I have accepted that for Tesla right now that’s not true. And I’ve seen plenty of examples of other manufacturers’ bad service. I think the bigger issue is the challenge of communicating with them when you do have an issue. IIRC, a comment was made in the main thread, that Tesla can fix this when it wants too. When I read some of the perspectives, I wonder if/when that will be. I submit that first principles should also include best customer service even when there is an issue. As an investor I watch this as it could become a tipping point. As an owner, I watch it and consider where I might want to put additional measures in place, e.g., having a 3rd party road service option available for long trips. Not unique to Tesla, I just didn’t expect I’d need it. And not a deal breaker.

There was a great article about Lego a month or two back. An iconic brand with very loyal customers, and many competitors that make cheaper knock-offs. They go to extreme lengths to address customer issues. Obviously very different businesses, so not a direct comparison. Just food for thought.

LEGO Customers Lose Millions of Pieces a Year. The Company’s 4-Word Response Is the Best I’ve Ever Seen

Have fun and deliver on your promises.

www.inc.com

 

[JRP3]

That guy , who I usually agree with, is sounding like a quality top shelf asshole on tesla

Yes, he's been anti Tesla because of the right to repair issues, which is the same problem he has with Apple and why he became famous.

 

[JRP3]

More details of the heat pump saga of that vehicle going back to a year ago.

Tesla Owners Complain About Life-Threatening Heating Issues With Their EVs

In moderate climates, heating is just a matter of comfort. In all other places where temperatures go well below 0ºC (32ºF), that feature means life or death. Many Tesla owners are complaining about the lack of heating with Model Y and Model 3 units. We spoke to two of them. The first was Mark...

www.autoevolution.com

 

[JRP3]

Pay attention Tesla

 

[AZRI11]

Pay attention Tesla

Totally agree. My nephew has worked for Ford, Toyota and Hyundai dealers in their service dept as a mechanic and a supervisor. Many openings not enough mechanics, and covid hasn't helped. I've begged my nephew to work at Tesla, he's a gearhead and won't listen.

You would all be surprised at the turnover rate of employees at all these legacy service depts, and how many mistakes they make. All automakers in North America are having a tough time right now.

Still not an exuse, Tesla needs to be much better than legacy.

 

[TSLA Pilot]

More details of the heat pump saga of that vehicle going back to a year ago.

Tesla Owners Complain About Life-Threatening Heating Issues With Their EVs

In moderate climates, heating is just a matter of comfort. In all other places where temperatures go well below 0ºC (32ºF), that feature means life or death. Many Tesla owners are complaining about the lack of heating with Model Y and Model 3 units. We spoke to two of them. The first was Mark...

www.autoevolution.com

Those are chilling stories . . . .

Seriously, I think that people that live in warmer climes fail to grasp that temperatures in some places can and have KILLED. (Fortunately, not in any Teslas that we know of.)

Elon has lived in Canada so I hope he, at least, gets it?

That said, they can't just keep selling these in cold places without proper testing, and that includes testing the software changes. I'm a very strong fan of Tesla, but, wow, these are terrible stories.

I wish Tesla would just buy back the problem Canada cars (despite no Lemon Law there?!?) and use them to test A/B solutions: in other words, take the problem cars and instrument them to death, along with another identical, but working fine, Tesla. Expose them to the same failure modes and measure, measure, measure to see what EXACTLY is the root cause of the failures in the problem vehicles.

Once fixed, sell them as used, turn them into Service Loaners, whatever, but do NOT leave customers with problem cars!

Elon: Why is this so hard to do?

 

[JRP3]

You can also watch Warren Redlich to see why KnowYouKnow doesn't seem to know what they are talking about:

Warren spent a lot of time saying "I don't know", and he's getting wrecked in the comment sections, rightly so. Warren had some points about the math they used but he's ignoring the real problems which continue to exist, even though Tesla has "addressed" this.

 

[MP3Mike]

Warren spent a lot of time saying "I don't know"

Well it is the truth. We don't have that information. We have anecdotes from various people. Some bad, some good. But people report bad experiences way more often, and vocally, than they do good experiences.

but he's ignoring the real problems which continue to exist, even though Tesla has "addressed" this.

He wasn't ignoring them, and nobody has said that the problems have been addressed, Tesla is in the process of addressing them. Which they likely will be for years.

 

[JRP3]

He was ranting about how Zach and Jessie were accusing Kirkhorn of "lying" because Kirkhorn said the issues were known and being addressed, as if the discussion is over and shouldn't even be brought up. It's possible, and I hope the case, that Tesla isn't really aware how bad things are getting and because of this aren't yet doing enough to fix things. If they really are aware and aren't working harder than they are to fix it that's not a good sign. Overall I didn't find either of Warren's videos to be the proof of how NYK was wrong as you claimed. It was mostly uninformative tantruming as his videos often are.

 

[JRP3]

Rich and Louis discuss the recent service issues

 

[TSLA Pilot]

Rich and Louis discuss the recent service issues

Ouch.

Tesla really should address their service nightmare issues. Granted, let us hope these are the outliers, but still, painful experiences abound.

Elon: This is NOT rocket science; please fix it.

Thx.

 

[JRP3]

Can Managers at Tesla physical store locations be given more authority? There seems to be a nameless/faceless entity in the background called Tesla Corporate making decisions that affect me without talking to me, and they're leaving the front line staff to clean up the mess.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1491544890165051394

 

[MC3OZ]

This morning Mobile Service completed a few jobs less than 24 hours after making a booking via the app.

I was originally scheduled for March 4th, but they had a cancellation and promoted me.

So far communication via the app, and the entire process worked perfectly...

A slot at a service centre was available but it is 90 mins drive away.

I was always banking on mobile service to get most stuff done...

So I know one good experience doesn't cancel out the bad service others might be getting... but start with the app, that seems like the best way to drive the process.

Service was touchless I didn't even see the technician, it was at home, I backed out of the garage, and he drove back in at the end of the job.

 

[JRP3]

I assume most service experiences are good, that doesn't excuse the disastrous ones which never should have happened.

 

[MC3OZ]

I assume most service experiences are good, that doesn't excuse the disastrous ones which never should have happened.

While I agree, no system is perfect.

There was a chronic lack of service in some areas, and the seemed like the major problem.
Not enough technicians/ slots to get the job done.

The point is, when adequately resourced, service mostly works well, I don't think Tesla is intentionally under-resourcing service.

But there is probably a constant battle to keep up with the expansion of the fleet.

On a related issue, the used to be a bad shortage of Superchargers in California in the past, I have noticed a lot of new Superchargers being built in California recently, it would be interesting to know if the situation has improved.

Expanding Supercharging, is far easier than expanding service.

Mobile service is a great solution, it can be scaled more rapidly, is more convenient for the customer, and can take a load of routine jobs off the service centre. They still need well trained capable technicians for mobile service.