Service and communication (out of main)

[cpa]

I think there are two roots to any perceived issues with service.

First, many new vehicles are delivered with minor cosmetic issues like panel gaps or or software hiccups. (Not a whole lot, but still...) A handful of cars do have serious issues like the traction battery crapping out after 150 miles or the drive unit dying. We've seen a few of these threads on this site. Clearly not everyone with a major issue posts their findings, but still. . .

Service has to deal with these new car issues, and outside of the major urban areas like the Bay Area or LA, getting these things repaired can become problematic. Many of these issues cannot be addressed via mobile service. Instead, Tesla needs to resolve those issues first to get the new owners back on the road.

Then, for owners who've had their car for awhile, the only -- only -- method of communication is via the phone app. This is rather impersonal, since we get notified either via the app or email whenever our situation is reviewed and a suggested course of action, estimate awaiting approval, and appointment are confirmed. Tesla relies solely upon software to determine what needs to be done and to communicate with us. (Yes, once the car is in for service, there are timely phone calls to keep us apprised of the progress. Tesla just needs to expand upon this method to make it easier to contact them.)

For routine repairs e.g., 12V battery replacement, charge port replacement, door handles/window motors, mobile service is splendid and works quite well using the app.

But for thornier repairs, perhaps software related, perhaps charging related, perhaps needing extensive diagnosis at the center, our only recourse is the back-and-forth with electronic communication before an appointment is scheduled. Then, the only way home is to have my wife follow me in our other car to take me home and again to drop me off to pick up the car when it is ready. I don't presuppose to receive a loaner for two or three days, but a shuttle service would be nice.

 

[JRP3]

An unfortunate post describing how Tesla is screwing over some people who buy replacement packs from them

Wiki - Sudden Loss Of Range With 2019.16.x Software

What is the price for a new 90kw battery pack installed? Not a refurbished one, a brand new battery pack https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/6521896/

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[JRP3]

Seems to me if they took the car back they thought the 7 day return policy was still in effect.

A man who returned his $116,000 Tesla Model X in 2020 is still paying for it 2 years later, report says

"Every time the money gets sucked out of my account, every month, I just cringe," the former Tesla owner told CNBC.

www.yahoo.com

 

[JRP3]

I'm seeing many reports of early control arm issues on Model 3, these part are wearing out much too soon, obviously a defective part from the factory. Tesla should extend the warranty on them, and of course improve their communication.

 

[JRP3]

Tesla does the right thing after public pressure. Maybe next time they should do the right thing first.

Tesla waives $4,500 fee to unlock Model S battery after Twitter outrage

Tesla doesn’t always please its customers, and the owner may need a bit of online backlash to make the EV company do what is right. This was the case with a Model S owner that […]

driveteslacanada.ca

 

[Bet TSLA]

Tesla does the right thing after public pressure. Maybe next time they should do the right thing first.

Tesla waives $4,500 fee to unlock Model S battery after Twitter outrage

Tesla doesn’t always please its customers, and the owner may need a bit of online backlash to make the EV company do what is right. This was the case with a Model S owner that […]

driveteslacanada.ca

So, just out of curiosity, has anybody seen any evidence that this was anything more than another example of Tesla's poor communications, both internal and external? Yes, yes I know that Tesla's actions came "after" there was noise on Twitter, but that doesn't mean that the noise had anything to do with their actions.

As I see it, the most likely sequence of events was:
1. The guy gets his new MCU2 upgrade. The tech goes through all the standard procedures for resetting stuff and in the process the erstwhile 60 goes back to being a 60.
2. The guy notices and complains.
3. The service tech shrugs and says I just followed the process. No idea why that happened. The price to upgrade to a 90 is $4500.
4. The guy complains to the service manager, who shrugs and says we've got no guidance on this situation. But I can't just give you a free upgrade without clearance from corporate. Among other reasons, you're a customer of this flaky hacker (pace @wk057) who has butted heads with corporate over batteries any number of times.
5. Manager tries to find who to talk to at corporate...
6. ...
7. ...
8. Guy gets annoyed and escalates to social media.
9. ...
10. ...
11. Manager finally gets a message from somebody useful at corporate and comps the "upgrade".
12. Corporate puts out a memo covering similar situations
13. Some other guy gets his similar "upgrade" comped.

So, just the usual slow and ineffective Tesla internal communications. Back in the old Jon McNeill days, service managers were empowered to solve customer problems and keep them happy. Nowadays I think their hands are tied. Coupled with the traditional awful communications, I think that explains everything.

Note that, of course, this isn't as simple as portrayed. People lie. Somehow the manager needs to determine that the customer's story is true, that Tesla indeed upgraded the battery to a 90 some time in the past and it wasn't properly recorded. So probably access to old service records from previous owners. You would think that must be available, but given how old the records are and Tesla's history of bad communications, there's no telling how hard it is.

So that's my story. I'll ask again. Does anybody have any evidence that the social media noise was even noticed by Tesla? Or affected their decision? This is a practical question: should I ever have problems with Tesla service I'm curious whether I should just wait, and wait, and wait, or if I should jump on to Twitter and make noise.

 

[wk057]

So, just out of curiosity, has anybody seen any evidence that this was anything more than another example of Tesla's poor communications, both internal and external? Yes, yes I know that Tesla's actions came "after" there was noise on Twitter, but that doesn't mean that the noise had anything to do with their actions.

I even noted in the thread that this was likely terrible internal communication and misapplied policies. That said, they do have other policies that have clear nefarious intentions (re: salvage vehicles).

Among other reasons, you're a customer of this flaky hacker (pace @wk057) who has butted heads with corporate over batteries any number of times.

I actually have a pretty good relationship with Tesla in general, plus they don't know who my customers are. Plus the ones in question only contacted me _after_ Tesla wouldn't help them.

I'll ask again. Does anybody have any evidence that the social media noise was even noticed by Tesla? Or affected their decision? This is a practical question: should I ever have problems with Tesla service I'm curious whether I should just wait, and wait, and wait, or if I should jump on to Twitter and make noise.

I was called by Tesla directly in response to my tweet thread from pretty much as high on the chain as one would expect. (One of my staff burst into my office, "Um, you have [...] on park 1 from Tesla... ").

I provided some details about both customers. Both customers pretty promptly got calls from their respective service managers.

 

[Bet TSLA]

I even noted in the thread that this was likely terrible internal communication and misapplied policies. That said, they do have other policies that have clear nefarious intentions (re: salvage vehicles).




I actually have a pretty good relationship with Tesla in general, plus they don't know who my customers are. Plus the ones in question only contacted me _after_ Tesla wouldn't help them.



I was called by Tesla directly in response to my tweet thread from pretty much as high on the chain as one would expect. (One of my staff burst into my office, "Um, you have [...] on park 1 from Tesla... ").

I provided some details about both customers. Both customers pretty promptly got calls from their respective service managers.

Okay, sounds like Tesla noticed you were complaining. So what do you think? Did the public complaint cause Tesla to act responsibly? Or just act responsibly sooner? And did you provide them with any material information that they couldn't or hadn't already figured out for themselves?

 

[wk057]

Okay, sounds like Tesla noticed you were complaining. So what do you think? Did the public complaint cause Tesla to act responsibly? Or just act responsibly sooner? And did you provide them with any material information that they couldn't or hadn't already figured out for themselves?

From what I can tell, Tesla never would have acted on these cases had it not been for the public outrage sparked by my Twitter thread. It's my understanding that no one with any ability to correct the issue had been advised of the problem prior. I later spoke to the one service manager, who was amazed they authorized the needed configuration changes.

Their official policy on the matter (software locking packs installed under warranty that are larger than the original packs) remains unchanged. They took care of these two people that I'm aware of as a "one time courtesy."

Hopefully they learn something from this and update their policies to not remotely downgrade folks, but I see no evidence of this.

 

[JRP3]

Policy seems to be nickle and dime customers until it gets enough negative press. Not a good look, they aren't a struggling startup scrounging for any possible profit.

 

[Bet TSLA]

Policy seems to be nickle and dime customers until it gets enough negative press. Not a good look, they aren't a struggling startup scrounging for any possible profit.

$4500 is not a "nickel and dime" charge. It's pretty outrageous. I doubt there's any policy to be obnoxious to customers, but I also doubt there's anybody who cares about keeping existing customers happy.

 

[Bet TSLA]

From what I can tell, Tesla never would have acted on these cases had it not been for the public outrage sparked by my Twitter thread. It's my understanding that one with any ability to correct the issue had been advised of the problem prior. I later spoke to the one service manager, who was amazed they authorized the needed configuration changes.

Their official policy on the matter (software locking packs installed under warranty that are larger than the original packs) remains unchanged. They took care of these two people that I'm aware of as a "one time courtesy."

Hopefully they learn something from this and update their policies to not remotely downgrade folks, but I see no evidence of this.

Sorry, what? "It's my understanding that one with any ability to correct the issue had been advised of the problem prior." Is that "someone" or "no one"? Reads like a typo as is.

So are we talking abysmal internal communications or nobody with any ability to fix the situation caring if a customer gets screwed?

 

[cpa]

I cannot speak for the zillions of other people on planet Earth, but only for myself.

People make mistakes. Companies are run by people; ergo, they make mistakes too. It is how they respond to their mistakes that impresses people or pisses them off.

We've all encountered consumer goods where the manufacturer or retailer screwed up. Maybe the package was short. Maybe the cashier overcharged us. Maybe the contents were broken or damaged. We contact the company. Almost without fail, the company tries to make amends. Maybe you get a couple of coupons for free stuff. Maybe the store owner refunds the purchase price in full rather than digging around to refund $1.36 plus tax. Or maybe, there is a sincere apology if the situation cannot be rectified easily. Sure, we cannot compare a $39.95 purchase with a Tesla car or battery. But we can compare the responses and see whether there is contrition or arrogance.

It is the attitude, not necessarily the remedy, where Tesla really sucks. One would think that this would be self-evident to the folks at Tesla. Or, maybe, it is just one person in particular.

 

[legendsk]

I suggest Tesla choose an employee and see if they can enroll them in Ritz Carlton's service recovery training. After they understand how service should work and what the goals are, then have that employee lead a team of 5 - 6 other Tesla employees to perform process improvement(s) on the service process until Elon is happy with it. Ideally those will include someone from service, finance, sales, engineering, production and if possible 1 customer who is not a Tesla employee.

 

[JRP3]

$4500 is not a "nickel and dime" charge. It's pretty outrageous.

I meant nickel and dime from Tesla's perspective, $4500 is peanuts compared to the negative publicity.

 

[wk057]

Sorry, what? "It's my understanding that one with any ability to correct the issue had been advised of the problem prior." Is that "someone" or "no one"? Reads like a typo as is.

So are we talking abysmal internal communications or nobody with any ability to fix the situation caring if a customer gets screwed?

Typo. Fixed.

Lower folks (people physically at the service centers, including service managers) seemed to care. The next folks in their chain of command didn't seem to care.

Policy today is to software lock batteries installed under warranty larger than the original trim, and charge some fee if the customer wants to unlock it. That policy didn't exist when either of my customers originally had their warranty swaps. It was only retroactively applied after they did the paid MCU2 upgrade, despite the policy not existing at the original time of service, and the customer being unaware that the policy existed at all let alone that Tesla would one day attempt to apply it.

From my perspective, the core of it seems to boil down to high turnover. There's literally a new crew at the service center every time I go to one, sans maybe one guy in Charlotte who's been there since it opened. No one would have been around to have a clue what policies applied to service done years ago, and which current policies don't really apply to some vehicles, etc. In both of the cases I'm aware of, the tech doing the remote downgrading was relatively new to Tesla service.

Bad internal communication? Bad external communication? Bad policy in general?

Yes.

I'd be very surprised if Tesla made any internal changes to address these types of issues or prevent them. Over the past half-decade or so, they seem to have been very focused on gaining new customers, and have done all sorts of things to try and make that happen... but once you are a customer... well, you're on your own.

 

[Bet TSLA]

Typo. Fixed.

Lower folks (people physically at the service centers, including service managers) seemed to care. The next folks in their chain of command didn't seem to care.

Policy today is to software lock batteries installed under warranty larger than the original trim, and charge some fee if the customer wants to unlock it. That policy didn't exist when either of my customers originally had their warranty swaps. It was only retroactively applied after they did the paid MCU2 upgrade, despite the policy not existing at the original time of service, and the customer being unaware that the policy existed at all let alone that Tesla would one day attempt to apply it.

From my perspective, the core of it seems to boil down to high turnover. There's literally a new crew at the service center every time I go to one, sans maybe one guy in Charlotte who's been there since it opened. No one would have been around to have a clue what policies applied to service done years ago, and which current policies don't really apply to some vehicles, etc. In both of the cases I'm aware of, the tech doing the remote downgrading was relatively new to Tesla service.

Bad internal communication? Bad external communication? Bad policy in general?

Yes.

I'd be very surprised if Tesla made any internal changes to address these types of issues or prevent them. Over the past half-decade or so, they seem to have been very focused on gaining new customers, and have done all sorts of things to try and make that happen... but once you are a customer... well, you're on your own.

Thanks! So to summarize it sounds like I was wrong, that the Twitter noise actually influenced Tesla to take action because the relevant people (meaning somebody who could act and might care) hadn't even learned that there was a problem yet. Tesla internal communications are actually that bad. Which means nothing is any better than it was, and it's possibly getting worse.

So, for what it's worth, here's my theory of why Tesla is this way.

Tesla is a company run by engineers. Elon is an engineer. When an engineer at Tesla is confronted by a problem, the company ethos is to fix the problem, preferably from first principles. So what does it mean to fix the problem? It means primarily that it should never happen again.

So the fundamental fix to the problem of "we reset a car in a way that breaks existing function" is a process change. There needs to be some recognition that there might be errors in the configuration attached to a VIN, and there needs to be a way to identify and correct the errors. Service people need to be told about this, and procedures adjusted. Since errors are certainly rare and unusual, there has to be an escalation process with somebody responsible at a corporate management level. Okay, problem solved!

If I were being really thorough in solving the problem I might create an intern project to use our AI to sift through all active vehicle service records and identify those vehicles that might be problematical.

Except while the problem has been solved from an engineering perspective, the original customer has been ignored. It's now possibly months later and their problem has possibly never been fixed and they're seriously peeved. This is because the original customer is not an engineering problem, they're a customer relations problem, for which there are no first principles. And nobody at the corporate management level since Jon McNeill has cared about customer relations. I'm convinced that it's just not something Elon is willing to spend money on. Nobody's bonus depends upon metrics that measure "how happy are our existing customers who've experienced a problem".

So while the engineering keeps getting better, future problems are eliminated, and everything keeps improving, the customers' existing problems aren't necessarily fixed and nobody at Tesla corporate loses any sleep over it. Of course the front facing staff cares, and they're friendly and pleasant and accommodating enough, but they have no real power to solve problems. And, of course, customer relations is about more than solving actual problems, it's about making customers feel good, that somebody cares.

But Tesla, at least at the corporate level, really doesn't care about its existing customers. What it cares about is producing great products with the goal of accelerating the transition to sustainable energy. Elon is exactly right that in pursuing that goal, making customers who have had a problem be happy is not the fastest path. The fastest path is not having problems in the first place.

So that's my theory on why Tesla customers who have problems will never matter much to Tesla. But as a percentage of customers, that number will keep getting smaller because not having problems in the future matters to Tesla quite a bit.

 

[cpa]

I worked for several years in two companies as the controller. We made it a point to have communication policies between operations, accounting, and other staff positions. It was clear to those in operations whom to contact if payments were late, payroll was garbled, billing was screwed up, etc. It was clear to us in accounting whom to contact for various approvals of extraordinary requests for operations purposes.

Certain transactions required higher-than-normal approval levels, while other, more routine requests had lower thresholds. These procedures were based upon the dollar amount of the situation as well as the ripple effect of the situation (like if payroll was going to be delayed for circumstances beyond our control,) and materiality of the request. We weren't going to write a manual payroll check for a half-hour of overtime that was missed on the pay sheet. We'd just add it to the next payroll.

Bottom line, we spoke to one another. (And this was before email, texting, and other instantaneous communications.) We were not the behemoth that Tesla is. But it just seems to me that there could be a chain of communications between engineering and other departments to reduce, if not eliminate, these odd occurrences that creep up from time-to-time.

If Musk wants to have his finger on everything that Tesla does, well, that is his decision. But he should ratify nonce decisions made by his senior staff while he is off doing other things until he has a chance to evaluate the effects these decisions have. Like JRP said, $4,500 is not even a rounding error for Tesla.

Finally, it is probably more certain than not that there is much more turnover at Tesla than at other companies. It is not surprising, then, that perhaps policies change with the change in management personnel. And, my guess, is that most of these policies are not codified anywhere, they are oral and quickly forgotten.

 

[JRP3]

Elon understands the importance of communication in the factory but for some reason he seems to ignore it regarding service.

 

[ggies07]

out of warranty service isn't providing transportation now

well that really does bode well for Elon's "working on service" attack....geez.