Statistical poll of the drive unit issue

[vitaliy]

AC motors are quite simple, but sounds like much less reliable then average ICE?

 

[Ingineer]

Apparently, It's not the motor that's giving them fits, but mainly the gear reduction. (Secondarily the inverter) Both are expected to handle enormous peak power, so it's not a simple piece of engineering. Still, with the replacement and reputation costs involved, you think they'd pull out all the stops and get some more experienced engineers looking at it.

 

[cwerdna]

> I stopped tracking long ago, but TSLA, when I stopped counting has accumulated over $1 billion in net losses. [cwerdna]

How does a stock 'accumulate net losses'? Or do you mean Tesla, Inc? What exactly were you tracking?
--

During the time that Tesla (AFAIK) has reported their P&L (which covers some time before IPO), they've racked up over a $1 billion in net losses. I didn't realize this fact until someone else pointed this out for me long ago, and I did the math myself.

Look at net losses or net income for these periods:
Tesla Motors Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2010 Results (NASDAQ:TSLA) "Net loss for the year was $154.3 million as compared to $55.7 million in 2009"
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000119312512063402/d299083dex991.htm (see Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations )
TSLA Income Statement | Tesla Motors, Inc. Stock - Yahoo! Finance
TSLA Income Statement | Tesla Motors, Inc. Stock - Yahoo! Finance

Remember, values in ( ) are negative.

Just doing rough math w/truncation (these are supposed to be millions):
-55 - 154 - 254 - 396 - 74 - 294 - 154 = -1381

-1381 thousand = ~$1.381 billion

The above figures come from annual net income (loss) values except for the final -154, which was for the quarter ending 3/31/15.

Perhaps the reason there hasn't been more "word of mouth" is because:

1. Drive unit failures are largely relegated to specific batches (or perhaps the first xxxxx VINs out of Fremont).
2. Tesla replaces every failed/noisy drive unit under warranty for free.

I don't know whether assertion 1 is accurate, but neither do you. Only Tesla really knows and they're not speaking. So why spend so much of your time collecting forum posts and other anecdotes regarding a service problem for a car you don't even own?

Yes, I'm pointing out that your motives are suspect.

I don't spend a lot of time collecting them, but I do collect some when I stumble across them. Partly, it's so that I don't need to find them again.

And, partly, it's because when people talk to me about Teslas, I mention their apparent DU issues and some other misc. reliability issues and have ammo, including recent repeat replacement cases. It seems almost every person who I've talked to who seems to express an interest in the Model S must not dig too deep into the details or not really be an enthusiast as none of them (that I can remember) knew about this ahead of time or re: Edmunds' long-term review result.

I doubt the first xxxxx VINs out out Fremont is true as we're seeing DU noises and/or failures from cars of all different ages and on replacements.

As for #2, as they should, as does every automaker when a part is defective under warranty.

It seems Elon's real talented at making headlines/buzz over bleeding edge performance when, IMHO, they need to put more focus on making their cars more reliable, for their own sake.

These DUs ought to be able to last as long as an ICE and automatric transmission from a say a Honda or Toyota, esp. given that electric motors and drivetrains should be one of their core competencies (as opposed to say stamping or plastics). If they're pushing the bleeding edge too much w/massive amounts of torque, perhaps that's a sign. Even the Tesla-powered Rav4 EV w/MUCH lower rated output has been suffering from DU's being replaced due to noise.

Perhaps the target audience of the Model S doesn't actually care that much about reliability? After all, the BMW 7-series used to have a terrible reliability record. It actually has improved to just a tad below average in Consumer Reports. Mercedes S-Class has a horrible reliability record right now.