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Vendor Tesla Model S Battery Extended Service Plans from 057 Technology
- Thread starter wk057
- Start date
I sold 100% of 057 Tech early in 2023 to a partnership lead by a long time customer who supported the vision and, frankly, has deeper pockets than I for getting more things off the ground and out of development. I stayed on for engineering as an employee, and I unfortunately later completely left the company in the summer after some irreconcilable disagreements with the new owners. As a result, I netted effectively nothing from the entire transaction. I also have no significant information about any happenings at 057 after that point.
This TMC account was supposed to be split off to a company account, but that never happened, so I'm just making it my own again. (They apparently never actually contacted TMC to coordinate this.)
I'm still working with my attorney to figure out exactly how bound I still am by several contracts that tie my hands on going into detail on some things before I, well, go into any more detail beyond this.
I've been trying to get my personal twitter link removed from the site for quite some time.
I've always done what I've felt was best for the customers of 057 and the community as a whole, even when that wasn't in my own best interest or put me in the line of fire from different parts of the community and even Tesla themselves. You can probably find a ton of customers I've spoken to over the years who have been completely floored when I'd tell them things like, "You'd probably want to go to Tesla for that," or "ReCell is closer and can probably take care of you faster than us." I've always put myself in the shoes of the person on the other end of the line and deal with situations accordingly.
I've moved on from any regular business work involving Tesla stuff, but I'll continue to contribute where I can as an enthusiast and expert in the areas where I can be of help as possible... provided I'm not somehow branded a pariah in this and/or other relevant communities due to trolls trying to paint me as a scammer or something equally ridiculous. Suffice it to say had I known things were going to go as poorly as they did after signing over 057, I would not have done so and would have just continued doing the best to slowly grow instead of trying to accelerate projects like the custom battery pack and such. I've not come out of this in the black by any means. I probably could have done better on it if I'd just stayed and dealt with some nonsense I disagreed with, but I decided not to.
This TMC account was supposed to be split off to a company account, but that never happened, so I'm just making it my own again. (They apparently never actually contacted TMC to coordinate this.)
I'm still working with my attorney to figure out exactly how bound I still am by several contracts that tie my hands on going into detail on some things before I, well, go into any more detail beyond this.
I've been trying to get my personal twitter link removed from the site for quite some time.
I've always done what I've felt was best for the customers of 057 and the community as a whole, even when that wasn't in my own best interest or put me in the line of fire from different parts of the community and even Tesla themselves. You can probably find a ton of customers I've spoken to over the years who have been completely floored when I'd tell them things like, "You'd probably want to go to Tesla for that," or "ReCell is closer and can probably take care of you faster than us." I've always put myself in the shoes of the person on the other end of the line and deal with situations accordingly.
I've moved on from any regular business work involving Tesla stuff, but I'll continue to contribute where I can as an enthusiast and expert in the areas where I can be of help as possible... provided I'm not somehow branded a pariah in this and/or other relevant communities due to trolls trying to paint me as a scammer or something equally ridiculous. Suffice it to say had I known things were going to go as poorly as they did after signing over 057, I would not have done so and would have just continued doing the best to slowly grow instead of trying to accelerate projects like the custom battery pack and such. I've not come out of this in the black by any means. I probably could have done better on it if I'd just stayed and dealt with some nonsense I disagreed with, but I decided not to.
Awesome to see that you are still around, even if just as an enthusiast. The community, myself included have learned a lot from your work. As for the business…hope they will do the right things for the customers.
brainhouston
Active Member
U did it to yourself by being shady n beating around the bush...
This post is at least few months late...
I don't believe there's any legal contract that can force u not to say that u sold the company, it's public records anyways...
sooooo..... what happened to all the funds from the warranties?
Where in the explanation he gave, did you get lost?
1. Not a warranty, literally spelled out as such.
2. Company sold, (ex)business partners have control of all things 057.
Seems like you’re asking the wrong person a question you’re feeling entitled to?
I think you meant service contract and not warranties. Inferring from multiple threads here, if you have purchased the service contract, requested refund but not getting it then your chances of getting it is next to none. IMHO, even if you file at small claims court against the principal which you can easily win, but actually getting any money back is highly doubtful (they can choose not to pay and the state will do nothing), most likely it only hurts the credit scores of the principal.
"I sold 100% of 057 Tech early in 2023 to a partnership .... I'm still working with my attorney to figure out exactly how bound I still am by several contracts that tie my hands on going into detail on some things before I, well, go into any more detail beyond this."
It sounds like some sort of partnership fallouts and there are ongoing legal/financials dealings that disclosing details can put Jason in a bad position or worse open up more legal troubles.
At least this is the one sided narrative for now...
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In my opinion, you are doing yourself a disservice by stepping away from doing Tesla repairs. As a business owner myself I know how bad things can go but sometimes you will have to regroup and continue to go on with your vison. You started 057tech for a reason, remember that. You can start over with a different name and a better organization. There aren't many EV repair shops and the market is growing. I would suggest taking a long vacation to decompress, dont listen to the trolls and come back better than before.
zoomer0056
Active Member
The business was also sold for a reason. He admits trusting a partner and getting overzealous and should've grown slowly instead. Live, learn ... move on.
henderrj
Active Member
He didn't say he was paid nothing, he said he did not exit in the black. In other words, he lost money at this entire endeavor.
Have you never read a non-disclosure agreement? It does not necessarily have anything do with the transfer of money
Definitely not getting into the nitty gritty legal stuff here. Suffice it to say, just because one party breaches an aspect of a contract it doesn't automatically give the other party free reign to ignore it with impunity. If you don't know that I'd suggest researching some basic contract law.
My current off the cuff thoughts about running a Tesla service business moving forward:
First off, it's quite unlikely I do this. Starting effectively from scratch on the business side of things is not something I have the energy or capital to do even if I wanted to. If someone else wants to try, and wants to consult me on that, I'd consider helping. But I don't think I'm diving into doing anything myself.
I actually have a standing offer to work at Tesla, which I've consistently declined and will continue to do so. There is no universe where I could be convinced to move to California as things stand out there. Texas maybe a non-zero chance, but would still be a no from me.
Not that it's anyone's business, but I've moved on to working for a completely unrelated company/startup with some big backers and plenty of financial runway. The work is interesting and enjoyable, and 99% of it I can do from my desk in my own office at home. Outside of some technical crisis, unlike running 057 I'm not needing to regularly pull 12-18 hour work days 6-7 days a week sometimes to make sure the company gets done everything it needs to in order to continue functioning. Instead, I work on the projects I need to work on, make things happen, and continue on with my life. Much more balance, and I'm happier for it. In fact, it's a blessing that the offer for this came along when it did and I'm grateful for it.
I honestly don't see myself ever starting a new company at this point. Not without a reallllly good reason and the right partners.
Anyway.... next, given how Tesla has been changing their designs towards impossible to service and impossible to repair... any such new business would have a shelf life, in my opinion. As the number of older vehicles that can actually be serviced starts to diminish, the amount of specialty work that can actually be achieved and retain value drops significantly. Model S/X pre-plaid are pretty workable. Model 3 is somewhat workable. But everything else is going to be a bit of a nightmare to deal with as a third party. When it comes to working on batteries for things like the Plaid, Y, Cybertruck, etc... it's just a losing game. Tesla's done everything they can to make these components unserviceable.
As soon as I tore apart one of the structural pack Model Y's, I knew there was just no way to sustain a business model around such services indefinitely, and decided to not even bother focusing on any of the newer vehicles and focus on pre-plaid S/X, which I figured still had a good 5-10 years of business available.
Sadly, Tesla's effectively making throwaway cars at this point. If there's any major issue or damage to a core component, the car is totaled. Some enthusiasts might be able to make something of a one off or something with significant effort, but as a business there's no money in that. If we have to spend 200 hours to repair or refurbish a major component on a car you can buy brand new for $40k... that's just not going to work for anyone. No one's going to pay $25k to replace a part on a $35k car. Just go buy a new car.
Sure if you want a company that does tire rotations and peddles cosmetic upgrades or whatever, then maybe there's a longer term thing possible... but that's not particularly useful and I could never run such a business. Shops that can and do offer those things are a dime a dozen. It actually bothers me that such a model was taken by some into the EV space as if it were something special (ie, charge a premium), but it's not. My goal with 057 was to use my knowledge and experience to offer products and services that other companies couldn't offer.
I always tell everyone the same thing: I'm the worst sales person in the world. If it's not something I personally would spend my money on, then I have exactly a zero chance of convincing another human to spend money on it... nor would I even bother.
With everything I put out there at 057, I feel like everything offered had a real purpose and a true value. The only kind of exception being the used parts sales.... I almost consider the parts sales aspect to not fit that. As a result, we pretty much gave away used parts anyway. It was either keep them and sell them for a few bucks, or scrap them... and I don't like being wasteful in that regard, so we ended up with an inventory of 15,000+ Tesla parts.
Not a special thing, to me, since anyone can build up a parts inventory and throw things on eBay... but being able to help someone get a hard to find part, and selling it at a truly reasonable price, seemed at least a helpful prospect, so that's what I was going for.
In fact, I considered the parts side of things to be near zero value. So much so that many times we'd get vehicles in for things like battery or motor replacements, and a tech would notice something like a worn trim piece or something else minor damaged or whatever. My standing order was that they could replace any of that stuff for free for the customer if time allowed (while waiting on firmware or something similar). The number of driver side B-pillar trim pieces we replaced from wear was probably in the hundreds. lol. My thought was that no one's going to complain about you replacing a worn out part for free, and it let us at least actually do something good with all these parts.
My favorite "you did what?" from a customer was this one guy who had an older green Model S. The exterior of the car was immaculate. However, he would regularly transport his rather large dog around in it, and as a result everything in the rear of his car was pretty badly beat up. Well, we had to remove a bunch of that stuff to access components anyway.......... so we ended up just replacing his seats, a bunch of trim pieces, trunk carpet and trim, and basically everything else in the rear of the car. In fact, the tech who did this did it on his own time because he just wanted the inside of the car to match the care of the outside. The customer came to pick up the car and pretty quickly was doing double takes... to the point where he half-jokingly questioned if this was even his car or not.
The tech talked to him for a while, showed him what he did, and the guy was just completely stunned. He actually went on to explain that he was considering upgrading to a newer S in a year or so, but figured he'd have a hard time selling this one due to all the wear in the back. I think he hugged my tech at least 3 times.
I love stuff like that, and I love getting people above and beyond service. But running a company to do so is tough, and it's just not for me at this point, which is a core reason why I decided to sell the company in the first place. I love the tech, the development, and providing value to people. I dislike the day to day running of a company. The whole idea was that I'd remain to do the parts that I was good at, and leave the rest to the buyers. But alas, all good things...
Anyway, bottom line is I just don't see myself getting back into this space in any real way as far as a business venture goes. There's only one Tesla thing on my mind at the moment that I'm probably going to release eventually, and probably just release open source: Anti cabin camera device. The fact that you can't use autopilot/FSD without a camera in your face is absolutely absurd to me. So I'll probably finish my prototype of a device that intercepts that feed and by default just runs a loop video deep fake of Elon sitting in the driver seat staring at the road on a long loop, adjusted for time of day, and release that in some form. The whole "autopilot jail" thing should be illegal, IMO. My wife's 3 will sit there and blink at me to "hold the wheel" while I'm sitting there tugging on it continuously, then trying in the other direction, etc, with CAN data clearly showing the force on the wheel being registered by the EPAS, and yet the car will completely ignore it and disable autopilot for the rest of the drive citing failure to respond to prompts. The amount of instant anger and rage that causes me is certainly unhealthy. Like, I primally just want to smash the entire vehicle in response. It's insane to me that the car can punish me at all for anything, let alone when I'm clearly abiding by the stupid rules in the first place. It's one of those idiotic things that will drive me to another brand if I have no workaround for it.... and I currently don't, because it doesn't even fix it by 100% playing the game and holding the wheel all the time. Can't even fake the data because the car doesn't even seem to care if you're holding the wheel or not when it gets in its mood... which seems to be cabin camera related. If it thinks you're not looking at the road, tugging the wheel is ignored. So stupid.
Let's see.... long term disposable cars... not running a business ever again... doing well otherwise... fun customer story... Tesla being irritating with dumb features.... looks like I touched on all the basics.
My current off the cuff thoughts about running a Tesla service business moving forward:
First off, it's quite unlikely I do this. Starting effectively from scratch on the business side of things is not something I have the energy or capital to do even if I wanted to. If someone else wants to try, and wants to consult me on that, I'd consider helping. But I don't think I'm diving into doing anything myself.
I actually have a standing offer to work at Tesla, which I've consistently declined and will continue to do so. There is no universe where I could be convinced to move to California as things stand out there. Texas maybe a non-zero chance, but would still be a no from me.
Not that it's anyone's business, but I've moved on to working for a completely unrelated company/startup with some big backers and plenty of financial runway. The work is interesting and enjoyable, and 99% of it I can do from my desk in my own office at home. Outside of some technical crisis, unlike running 057 I'm not needing to regularly pull 12-18 hour work days 6-7 days a week sometimes to make sure the company gets done everything it needs to in order to continue functioning. Instead, I work on the projects I need to work on, make things happen, and continue on with my life. Much more balance, and I'm happier for it. In fact, it's a blessing that the offer for this came along when it did and I'm grateful for it.
I honestly don't see myself ever starting a new company at this point. Not without a reallllly good reason and the right partners.
Anyway.... next, given how Tesla has been changing their designs towards impossible to service and impossible to repair... any such new business would have a shelf life, in my opinion. As the number of older vehicles that can actually be serviced starts to diminish, the amount of specialty work that can actually be achieved and retain value drops significantly. Model S/X pre-plaid are pretty workable. Model 3 is somewhat workable. But everything else is going to be a bit of a nightmare to deal with as a third party. When it comes to working on batteries for things like the Plaid, Y, Cybertruck, etc... it's just a losing game. Tesla's done everything they can to make these components unserviceable.
As soon as I tore apart one of the structural pack Model Y's, I knew there was just no way to sustain a business model around such services indefinitely, and decided to not even bother focusing on any of the newer vehicles and focus on pre-plaid S/X, which I figured still had a good 5-10 years of business available.
Sadly, Tesla's effectively making throwaway cars at this point. If there's any major issue or damage to a core component, the car is totaled. Some enthusiasts might be able to make something of a one off or something with significant effort, but as a business there's no money in that. If we have to spend 200 hours to repair or refurbish a major component on a car you can buy brand new for $40k... that's just not going to work for anyone. No one's going to pay $25k to replace a part on a $35k car. Just go buy a new car.
Sure if you want a company that does tire rotations and peddles cosmetic upgrades or whatever, then maybe there's a longer term thing possible... but that's not particularly useful and I could never run such a business. Shops that can and do offer those things are a dime a dozen. It actually bothers me that such a model was taken by some into the EV space as if it were something special (ie, charge a premium), but it's not. My goal with 057 was to use my knowledge and experience to offer products and services that other companies couldn't offer.
I always tell everyone the same thing: I'm the worst sales person in the world. If it's not something I personally would spend my money on, then I have exactly a zero chance of convincing another human to spend money on it... nor would I even bother.
With everything I put out there at 057, I feel like everything offered had a real purpose and a true value. The only kind of exception being the used parts sales.... I almost consider the parts sales aspect to not fit that. As a result, we pretty much gave away used parts anyway. It was either keep them and sell them for a few bucks, or scrap them... and I don't like being wasteful in that regard, so we ended up with an inventory of 15,000+ Tesla parts.
Not a special thing, to me, since anyone can build up a parts inventory and throw things on eBay... but being able to help someone get a hard to find part, and selling it at a truly reasonable price, seemed at least a helpful prospect, so that's what I was going for.In fact, I considered the parts side of things to be near zero value. So much so that many times we'd get vehicles in for things like battery or motor replacements, and a tech would notice something like a worn trim piece or something else minor damaged or whatever. My standing order was that they could replace any of that stuff for free for the customer if time allowed (while waiting on firmware or something similar). The number of driver side B-pillar trim pieces we replaced from wear was probably in the hundreds. lol. My thought was that no one's going to complain about you replacing a worn out part for free, and it let us at least actually do something good with all these parts.
My favorite "you did what?" from a customer was this one guy who had an older green Model S. The exterior of the car was immaculate. However, he would regularly transport his rather large dog around in it, and as a result everything in the rear of his car was pretty badly beat up. Well, we had to remove a bunch of that stuff to access components anyway.......... so we ended up just replacing his seats, a bunch of trim pieces, trunk carpet and trim, and basically everything else in the rear of the car. In fact, the tech who did this did it on his own time because he just wanted the inside of the car to match the care of the outside. The customer came to pick up the car and pretty quickly was doing double takes... to the point where he half-jokingly questioned if this was even his car or not.
The tech talked to him for a while, showed him what he did, and the guy was just completely stunned. He actually went on to explain that he was considering upgrading to a newer S in a year or so, but figured he'd have a hard time selling this one due to all the wear in the back. I think he hugged my tech at least 3 times.I love stuff like that, and I love getting people above and beyond service. But running a company to do so is tough, and it's just not for me at this point, which is a core reason why I decided to sell the company in the first place. I love the tech, the development, and providing value to people. I dislike the day to day running of a company. The whole idea was that I'd remain to do the parts that I was good at, and leave the rest to the buyers. But alas, all good things...
Anyway, bottom line is I just don't see myself getting back into this space in any real way as far as a business venture goes. There's only one Tesla thing on my mind at the moment that I'm probably going to release eventually, and probably just release open source: Anti cabin camera device. The fact that you can't use autopilot/FSD without a camera in your face is absolutely absurd to me. So I'll probably finish my prototype of a device that intercepts that feed and by default just runs a loop video deep fake of Elon sitting in the driver seat staring at the road on a long loop, adjusted for time of day, and release that in some form. The whole "autopilot jail" thing should be illegal, IMO. My wife's 3 will sit there and blink at me to "hold the wheel" while I'm sitting there tugging on it continuously, then trying in the other direction, etc, with CAN data clearly showing the force on the wheel being registered by the EPAS, and yet the car will completely ignore it and disable autopilot for the rest of the drive citing failure to respond to prompts. The amount of instant anger and rage that causes me is certainly unhealthy. Like, I primally just want to smash the entire vehicle in response. It's insane to me that the car can punish me at all for anything, let alone when I'm clearly abiding by the stupid rules in the first place. It's one of those idiotic things that will drive me to another brand if I have no workaround for it.... and I currently don't, because it doesn't even fix it by 100% playing the game and holding the wheel all the time. Can't even fake the data because the car doesn't even seem to care if you're holding the wheel or not when it gets in its mood... which seems to be cabin camera related. If it thinks you're not looking at the road, tugging the wheel is ignored. So stupid.
Let's see.... long term disposable cars... not running a business ever again... doing well otherwise... fun customer story... Tesla being irritating with dumb features.... looks like I touched on all the basics.
I’m buying it. Put me down for 5 of them.
Look. I'm just saying that when you sell something to someone it's usually customary to get something in return, like money.
If you sell something and lose that something and also somehow give money to that person buying it while also signing away your rights to discuss it, well... I just don't think you're doing it quite right.
HankLloydRight
No Roads
Jason -- thanks for the detailed posts. Glad you're in a better place now.
It all makes a lot more sense now, and while I almost-but-never signed up for the battery service plan, I am concerned for those that did and what should they expect?
Finally, I am grateful that you were able to convert my P85D+ turned into a P100DL+. I love this car so freaking much! I can't imagine ever selling it. So now that you're out of the business for good, I feel like I captured a little 057 lightning in a bottle. Thank you.
It all makes a lot more sense now, and while I almost-but-never signed up for the battery service plan, I am concerned for those that did and what should they expect?
Finally, I am grateful that you were able to convert my P85D+ turned into a P100DL+. I love this car so freaking much! I can't imagine ever selling it. So now that you're out of the business for good, I feel like I captured a little 057 lightning in a bottle. Thank you.
Who said anything about him giving the buyer money? In a hypothetical situation say your business is $100k in debt and you sell it for $0 with the new owner assuming the debt and promising to keep the employees on including yourself. Did you get anything for the business? No money, but you got a job and no longer owe the $100k.
But in any case, it was a private business, so the details aren't public record.
They opened a new company. I honestly don't know the exact details, and am being cautious with disclosing the little info I do have. I've had virtually nothing to do with 057 since the summer. Last I knew people were still getting service (some support requests even being replied to by my own old account I've heard), but no new service plans were being sold. None of my previous employees (mostly family) are with them any longer, so I don't have any inside info at all.
The webhosting bill appears to be getting paid. I'd planned on physically retrieving that server at some point (has some personal sites on it as well) if it ever wasn't, since a long time friend works for the hosting company, but
brainhouston
Active Member
Clearly
Sounds like he couldn't keep it running or weren't interested anymore...Like i said before why not leak all ur research n knowledge on github or something?...
Would definitely help DYI community
Especially pack upgrades instructions n BMS reset scripts
Haha this made me laugh...... As a result, we pretty much gave away used parts anyway. It was either keep them and sell them for a few bucks, or scrap them... and I don't like being wasteful in that regard, so we ended up with an inventory of 15,000+ Tesla parts.
Couple of times i browsed ur used parts, most were wayyyy overpriced vs eBay... no wonder u ended up with 15k parts lol
Like $1300+shipping for 5.2kwh module from 85 pack vs $500 on ebay...
Or $700 for half shaft ?? lol...
But hey, i'm glad u installed some free parts to customers, lucky for them
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