So I did get it covered by warranty, and maybe by listing my steps will help out the next person.
When I initially posted the images on the repair app, and spoke with the Service Center, they said that they didn't see how this could be a warranty issue, despite my insistence that I did not beat up my own car. When the technician was out, as he had never seen it before, he felt that it was not a warranty issue. I expressed that a defect in material or workmanship that led to failure under normal use should be covered. He felt otherwise.
I reached out to the 1-877- 79 Tesla number, which directed me to self help videos, and the customer support website. The customer support website had a place for me to put in my e-mail and a complaint, but then directed me to self help videos, and I received no reply for 48 hours. I understand that 48 hours is not a long time to wait, but I expected at least some sort of email that said "we will get back to you as soon as we can." I posted on Twitter to Tesla as I've sometime gotten decent corporate response from other companies in the past with this method, Delta and Marriott have direct messaged me within minutes when I've used this method, but nothing for 48 hours with Tesla.
I looked up the warranty information from Tesla, and it said to write a letter and mail it to the Fremont address, and if that didn't resolve it to contact the National Center for Dispute Settlement, and I went as far as writing the letter.
My wife suggested calling the Service Center, which I thought was foolish, as I'd already been told in my initial phone call it was likely not covered, and that it was not covered by the technician, but called as I was at least hopeful that I could be referred upwards to someone at the warranty department. My wife did the talking, as I was already frustrated and did not want to flip my lid at some unsuspecting person who is just trying to do their job. The person at the service center (Renton, WA) said that they had worked elsewhere in Tesla and had indeed seen this before, and felt that it might be a warranty issue. They asked if they could do research and call back later today, to which we said sure. They called back about 15 minutes later, apologized for the inconvenience, refunded my $650 and said that they will get the repair manual updated so that this will be covered as a warranty issue for others.
I suspect that the issue occurred due to temperature variations. When I first noticed it while washing the car in the evening, while it was in the shade, we were having hot and sunny weather with days in the 90's with drops to the high 40's at night. I suspect that if there was, as postulated in this thread, unevenly distributed plastic in the housing, that my have med to failure.
The other notable aspect is that the only light that did not fail had been replaced for fogging in November of 2019, so possibly there is a defect in the plastic housing of the early release lights.
Thanks all for your help with this.
