Again, I feel it's important to distinguish between that which
meets or
exceeds the status quo, versus that which is
misleading or
disingenuous.
Imploring Tesla to provide additional warranty coverage is something many feel would help defuse the issue in the minds of new buyers, and give them peace of mind. Several posters have pointed out that some other manufacturers provide such (i.e. 70% after XXX time/miles), thus Tesla doing likewise would meet the bar in their minds. Others have pointed out Tesla strives to "be better than" the existing industry, and by providing more disclosure and customer education they could raise the bar even higher.
Given that Tesla has set no expectation previously regarding a degradation warranty, should they decide to also offer such a warranty in the future, they would again be providing additional owner protection. I certainly would applaud that.
However... to state that they have misled potential buyers thus far is to ignore several things: There is no battery degradation coverage promised, and in fact is explicitly excluded. Battery degradation among electric "devices" is rather common knowledge, Tesla, nor other manufacturers attempt to hide this. Tesla has even blogged about battery life. All vehicles have "wear items" (brakes, clutches, etc...), as well as "degradation" issues (battery life, MPG, emissions output, etc..) that aren't warrantied.
The claim that because Tesla is touting what they
DO warranty, but failing to prominently disclose degradation issues on "marketing" pages, is misleading people is at odds with many other similar efforts.
I just went to Toyota and there's no warranty info or disclosure I could see prominently on their page for a Prius. I had to click through the "build" process to get to warranty info, and here it is:
Hybrid-Related Component Coverage
Hybrid-related components for hybrid vehicles are covered for 8 years/100,000 miles. The HV battery may have longer coverage under emissions warranty. Refer to applicable Warranty and Maintenance Guide for details.
For complete details about Toyota's warranties, please refer to the applicable Owner's Warranty Information booklet or see your Toyota dealer.
Nothing about degradation, and those two additional referenced documents are not links... I'd have to go dig for them.
Looking at Chevy's Volt web site pages, again there's nothing prominent about degradation as part of the "marketing" of the vehicle. If I scroll to the footer text, there's a link to the warranty page, where I again have to click again to get to the Volt/Hybrid specifics, however it's certainly more useful than Toyota's:
Like all batteries, the amount of energy that the high-voltage “propulsion” battery can store will decrease with time and miles driven. Depending on use, the battery may degrade as little as 10 percent to as much as 30 percent of capacity over the warranty period. A dealer service technician will determine if the battery energy capacity (kWh storage) is within the proper limit, given the age and mileage of the vehicle. Your Volt battery warranty replacement may not return your vehicle to “as-new” condition, but it will make your Volt fully operational appropriate to its age and mileage.
Neither of those two significant manufacturers of EV/Hybird vehicles are undertaking a customer education campaign on their "marketing" pages regarding battery degradation. Finding their coverage information is roughly on-par with finding Tesla's. Therefore I have to wonder why Tesla is being categorized as "misleading"?
If you want Tesla to more prominently disclose the issues surrounding battery degradation then fine.. let's recognize that doing so sets the bar even higher, and you are asking for even more of them. But to condemn them as being misleading today for not including in their marketing collateral the information that every potential buyer should o as part of their due diligence in purchasing ANY big ticket item or new technology seems a bit much.