If someone robs the guy next door for years and gets away with it are you saying they should get away with robbing you too since they have been doing it to your neighbors without consequence?
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Sold my Model S after 5.5 years...moving on
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This response folks, gets the prize. Somehow degradation has been allowed to creep into the conversation when that is not the issue at all. I understand degradation will happen, and wear will happen, the performance of things will degrade over time. That has never been an issue. What is an issue is that my car was kneecapped by an update that capped my cell voltage and throttled my charging speed therefore not giving me the experience that I paid for and was advertised and I took delivery of. Finally somebody understands what the issue is Thank you @firstEV
It is too late for that. This whole situation has already turned most of us to practice troll/short kind of behavior. I personally will do whatever it takes to take back what Tesla has stolen from me, sell the car first chance I get after that and make sure no one I know ever buys another Tesla till the end of days. No trust. Zero. Gone. Same level of trustworthiness as VW after this. I really don't care if they go bankrupt tomorrow. They did their part and I thank them for that, but that's about it now
Agree charge rate and volt caps are not in themselves degredation, but could be necessitated by degredation, no?
Software imposed, so IRREVERSIBLE. Surely 'reversible'?.... and therfore not degredation.
This is a key point. The capping is not solicited or optional - at least not without a lot of ducking, diving and dodging. Just a simple 'no thanks, I good as I am' is all that should be needed.
I feel this is where Tesla still behaves like a bunch of excited young engineers, somewhat blinkered and seeing only their own view of things. As an engineer I know stuff is hard to get right. Even harder when let loose on real users. Harder still when your primary source of performance evidence has to come from your own product's success and failure.
OTA gives those engineers the idea that they can have multiple attempts at getting it right, and they are going to think that their new improved version is bound to be more acceptable than the previous effort. Technically they might be correct, but that ignores the fact that they are changing goods that no longer belong to them.
The release notes should come first, ahead of an update. They should include details of all but the most trivial cosmetic changes, and there should always be an option where you can decline the update with no penalty.
If there is a safety related recall - mechanical, software, electronic..... then it should be detailed and managed as a safety critical issue and implemented in a manner that does not significantly downgrade the car's performance or features. It should be at the owner's discretion if they chose to accept an OTA remedy or have a service center visit.
The lack of open, pre-emptive communication just comes across as complete arrogance imo.
Finally, back to the OP. Accepting that as EV's mature, they will have owners who believe the purchase is better for the planet, some who think EV cost of ownership is attractive, those who just like the car because it's a good car and some who see multiple benefits. All of these are valid reasons to chose one car over another, but whatever the technology and financial aspects, poor support can screw up the whole offering, so it's really important that manufacturers, especially if they have no dealership network, understand how to deal with their clients.
Many posts here seem rather judgemental and likely don't know all the factors behind each opinion. I will trust individuals to want to do what's right and best overall, and regognise I don't have a monopoly on being right. Where that becomes a challenge is when I can't find out 'facts' from my own experience. As soon as I rely on third party 'facts' at the very least I must be mindful of possible 'fact distortion' by the delivery method.
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Perfectly said. This is how the law is structured - Tesla can't ever hide safety repairs behind "other bug fixes" or whatever on an OTA post-install screen. They have always been required under penalty of law to notify both us and the NHTSA, and offer us (who will also notify us) if it is not a recall (so we can tell them to politely use a screwdriver on themselves) and if it is determined (by the NHTSA, not tesla they can't make that choice) to be a recall they can't use OTA downgrades, they must replace the defective hardware.
Arrogance is why they chose to break laws. Open communication has never been Tesla's strength - but hopefully the legal fallout from the punishments they must now face will force them to change.
What were they suppose to say? Every car we sold from 2012 to (say) 2016 was vaporware? If they would just admit the problem from day one, that would surely be the end of Tesla effective immediately. Whether we like it or not (we don't) what Tesla is doing makes perfect sense. They take their time to do buybacks, possibly fail some affected batteries in between and effectively spread warranty costs across quarters, measure complaints and check the percentage of fans who will not do anything about it and eventually have to deal with the issue in the future in much smaller numbers than 2019/05. No doubt they would be very glad if it also wasn't for lawsuits and investigations, but unfortunately for them that didn't/will not happen. I find their damage control very effective.
Our responsibility now is to protect every poor fellow who drools over Tesla and warn them what they are into if they buy one of their cars. I have no interest if Tesla changes from the moment it benefits like this on our shoulders instead of doing what they should do. I am quite sure many other automakers will gladly fill the void. Funny how things turn when Tesla's CEO was mocking GM over EV1 and VW over Dieselgate. They will soon get a taste of it too. I am originally from a country that Tesla is yet to enter and am flooding relative forums with my/our issue as an owner of a Tesla for 4.5 years. It works. Many people are scared now and do not trust Tesla. The more bad publicity I can manage the better. Tesla surely deserves it.
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Teslas are not vaporware, I have one. If they broke the law, they will be forced to say "we are sorry for what we did" and the punishments for intentionally choosing to break the law means the punishments will be what you've claimed PLUS fines on top of fines and possible jail time for employees involved in the decision making.
No it doesn't, unless we look at Tesla as a dangerous sociopath willing to lie cheat and kill anyone else to avoid any sort of personal inconvenience. Tesla used to have a reputation for safety, if they intentionally change that to a reputation of intentionally trying to harm people to save $1, they are risking the future just to avoid open communications with customers.
Since it sounds like you are fully convinced Teslas are dangerous, it might interest you to learn that when Takata faced the same dilemma you believe is going to topple Tesla (and I hope you're wrong) they worked out a solution with the NHTSA. You see, the NHTSA is capable of responsible safe decision making, unlike Tesla. In Takata's case, they allowed old, known-failure-prone airbags that would eventually explode and kill someone - but not soon - to be used as recall replacements while newer ones were in short supply. Some cars were assigned multiple recalls over many years, because this is how safety is accomplished openly and legally. The dangerous parts were uninstalled, newer safe for now parts installed, and then again until a redesigned safe-forever part was installed.
It's interesting you bring up Dieselgate considerng how many parallels there are between it and batterygate. Hopefully, like VW's punishments Tesla is allowed to avoid billions in fines by opening up a charging network to all cars. They may lose ownership of it, but that will forward Tesla's mission statement and is what allowed VW to remain in business. You also bring up Tesla's CEO - which again harkens to dieselgate punishments when VW's executives and engineers were convicted of similar crimes and sent to prison. I don't think that will happen to Tesla, but Tesla chose to break a number of the same laws, and even more that VW didn't break so there is a possibility Tesla could be treated the same.
In the end though the one thing that we learned from dieselgate that Tesla is probably very aware of right now: Dieselgate software fixes forced software caps that downgraded cars intentionally. This is illegal, so VW was forced to "buy back" those cars if customers didn't choose to accept the downgrades. I have a feeling that is why Tesla delayed - they need to come up with a battery that costs less than the buyback price of a Model S or the cash to buy them all.
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I've done this and then some, and Tesla knows they turned their referral program against themselves now. They used to value referrals a lot - I have some wheels, a miniature car, and a powerwall that all say it was worth thousands to them for me to share my experiences of owning my tesla with others. I'm still sharing my experiences at car shows and with colleagues, but now the response is les s"WOW!" and more often "HOW IS THAT LEGAL?" But until news get s out that Tesla is doing it to new cars too (Bjorn had it on his model 3 too) it's going to fall on a lot of deaf ears.
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Nope. Takata as a corporation was charged criminally, pleaded guilty, paid a billion dollar fine, went bankrupt and no longer exists. Takata executives were also indicted but I don’t know the resolution of those criminal cases.
They are. I obviously also have one. If you sell 100% and after a while your realize that you can only cover 80-90% and have to downgrade to that, that is called vaporware. If I wanted an EV that charges max 60KW I would buy a Leaf or something like that.
The only thing I take for granted is Tesla's official statement that they have downgraded our cars, as they continue their investigation of the root cause of the Shanghai fire. And if I am not mistaken (could be the HK fire), they have come to a conclusion that that fire was because of a single battery module failure. So when Tesla leaves the 'protection' even though that incident was just a bad day at the factory, then yes, I am very worried about the safety of the car I am driving. I would be very relieved if Tesla would give us an answer why we are driving capped cars. Have they gone mad and just want to keep collecting lawsuits? We will see soon enough I guess.
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Personally, I don't agree with that course of action, although I totally agree that Tesla is in the wrong re: capping & dodging it's responsibilities.
The reason I disagree is that I have seen so many auto makers (and other manufacturers) engage in pretty shady practices, sometimes to make (more) money and sometimes fighting for their survival. I do not believe Tesla should be singled out and vilified as though they are the only company playing the game this way. They are in the auto manufacturing business, and this is how they all play the game.
I still have a 1994 Toyota Rav 4 ICE, owned from new. It must be the most eco friendly car based on what it costs to run. 5 years ago I bought the latest model Rav 4 diesel. After I bought it (carried out reasonable research but undoubtedly based on previous experience), I suddenly found out that the world and his wife had been having problems with the engine in this model. Took the car to Toyota who said 'we aren't aware of issues' but checked my car history and said 'either way, you are lucky, your car had a new full engine 5k miles ago.' I thought 'great, I'm all set then' but after a year and just out of wty, the cooling system started pressurising - sure sign of head gasket problems on the way.
Toyota said 'still not aware of issues, any way, out of wty. 1500 to look at the head, 4000 if it's the block. Trade value for car in mint condition, now 4500.
No way am I going to give Toyota a cent into such corruption. Turned out Renault (I think) used same / similar block and had been swapping engines like mad in wty along with Toyota and may be others to protect their reputations and scrape past wty obligations.
In good conscience I could not sell the car privately because I suspected this head gasket problem. In the end, I traded it in to a main dealer on the basis that this was the only way I could get the obligation for any issues that might crop up at least close to the the motor trade.
I had similar experience with Lotus where their V8 motor had vibration issues and porous block castings. Basically nothing you could do. Even if your car was not directly effected by a problem, its value was certainly hit.
My dad has a Renault Zoe which has never met the claimed range. But it got him out of a gas guzzling Audi and he now loves driving an EV. After 3 years ownership he gets 50 to 70 miles range. The regen and (heat pump) heating both exceed my experience with the Model S (Raven) and over all the car has met his needs and saved him a ton compared with what he was paying. The car purchased outright cost him 10k with owned (not rented) battery, so if it lasts him a couple more years he will actually be cash positive compared with his old car....
(Edit: so the point about the Zoe is that there is good and bad in most cars, and it's largely down to each owner if the car represents good value for them. )
I really get (from my Toyota experience) what it feels like to be shafted and kicked in the gut, but I don't believe I can be objective or well enough informed to justify becoming judge, jury and executioner.
Maybe where Tesla is different is that they claim the moral high ground.
(Edit: indeed their supposed morality is an intrinsic part of their sales pitch)
The cost of S and X (especially pre price drop) was much higher than 3 / Y. You should be able to expect better. Tesla need to not screw up like this. But this is the world we all have to try and work in.
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Do you know why I am so angry with them? Because it is the only company that should not be doing this! We (including me) would gladly support them if they just told us what is happening. And if they couldn't tell us because of commercial reasons, I would also be fine if at the service center they would just signal me with something like: 'we are aware that there is an issue with your car, please give us some time, we are working on a solution to fix...your car'
Instead, it is very clear now, that they have chosen to just try to sacrifice us and avoid their legal obligations.
This is NOT the company I trusted with 110k to try to help them pursue a vision we all believe in. As you said, they are just like eveyone else. And they will now get what everyone else would get in a situation like this. Trust is something you have, until you lose it
It's called bait and switch. "Vaporware" is software that was never delivered. Tesla delivered, but bait and switched after money changed hands.
You're already covered by class action for this crime. Among the many crimes cited which tesla broke in order to achieve their bait and switch downgrades were breach of good faith and numerous forms of fraud. If they had simply not delivered and remained vaporware, it probably would have gone better for Tesla. Taking money and delivering fraudulent product is actually worse for them now.
Absolutely agree. It makes me really angry too, but Tesla needs to be allowed to learn from its mistakes (not sure that it is doing) and become the business we wanted to support by buying their products.
It's unfortunate too that Tesla used early buyers to promote their products, so it's not just Tesla's reputation that's on the line. This could well come back and bite Tesla hard.
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They have undoubtedly dug their hole a whole lot deeper and its now self evident (as if it wasn't before) that it's too much to expect (allow) auto manufacturers to self-police. (Thinks Boeing.......)
Correct. And the NHTSA also worked to make sure cars were safe - not downgraded illegally, but safe both in the short term with replacements and in the long term with redesigns - and also first and above all else that owners were notified of the dangers. The NHTSA is reasonable, they only punish crimes and work with companies that don't act like crooks.... but those that do avoid nothing, they still have to replace the unsafe parts along with criminal charges on decision makers.
Choosing crime is always the wrong decision, and it's a shame Tesla has chosen to be an criminal enterprise, but now that the NHTSA is involved they will impose safety on Tesla, and likely all the rest of the criminal repercussions that Tesla's executives brought on themselves.
I hope Tesla executives think about our earlier pleading for reasoned discourse and open communication long and hard while they sit in a cell and ponder what they've done in the name on nontransparent hostile crime. What I really hope they didn't do was choose to destroy Tesla - prior to them making these horrible profit-over-everything decisions it was an exceptional company, so permanently losing those decision makers can improve the company as long as they didn't do irrecoverable damage. They were dead weight at best, no matter who they are.
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Uncle Paul
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Tell me about it. I get a lot of 'wasn't you who was telling us that Teslas are great? What happened and you changed your mind?'
I get the poker/cheated husband face everytime. Nothing to answer really...
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Uncle Paul
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I expect NHTSA will assert audits over all OTA changes. Tesla screwed that pooch too much to allow it to continue as is - they turned Tesla's greatest advantage into what will probably be seen as the auto industry's biggest safety coverup in history, and the NHTSA exists for the purpose of never allowing that to happen again so saiyonara OTA rapid releases..
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