Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[StealthP3D]

Partly true. Elon tweeted "Firmware fix to recalibrate heat pump expansion valve is rolling out now". He does not say that it fixes "the heat pump" or any particular way in which it might help with people's problems. Nor even in what version of the firmware it's in, nor who it's being rolled out to. And, of course, since this situation has been going on for a while (at least three weeks?), it doesn't seem very quick to those who have been affected.

That's an odd definition of "this situation has been going on for a while". Three weeks, really?

Ford takes longer than that to admit they have a problem. Tesla's already making it a priority and rolling out fixes. Please!

 

[MP3Mike]

Ford takes longer than that to admit they have a problem. Tesla's already making it a priority and rolling out fixes. Please!

I don't know what's been put in the water lately, but it seems like it is turning normally reasonable people into defect/service/recall care bears.

One thing we know for sure is that Tesla takes situations like this seriously, moves fast, and implements corrections in production as fast as possible. So whatever the issue is, it will be resolved in record time for new production. Compare that to legacy OEMs, like say GM, where they knew about a major defect, say the spring in their ignition switches, and couldn't be bothered to correct the issue for many, many years. There is just no comparison. Shoot, look at how long it took GM to admit there was a manufacturing defect in the battery packs they were using; that required replacing all of them. (It took more than a year.)

 

[Bet TSLA]

That's an odd definition of "this situation has been going on for a while". Three weeks, really?

Ford takes longer than that to admit they have a problem. Tesla's already making it a priority and rolling out fixes. Please!

Well, Tesla has a much greater engineer to lawyer ratio than Ford, so of course they're faster and better. And yes, a few weeks is not quick. Tesla's firmware fix for the braking problem reported by CR a while back, that was quick (Tesla Model 3 Gets CR Recommendation After Braking Update). Clearly this problem is trickier.

And, in my opinion, anybody at Tesla who tried to justify any behavior with "well, it's better than Ford" would be immediately fired.

 

[deffu]

I didn’t say it wasn’t a problem, but to claim it’s somehow unique to Tesla vehicles and thusly a fail specific to them, and somehow a rush to social media to complain etc., etc., is ridiculous.

An ICE car will literally blow arctic air after an hour of driving if the temperature is cold enough. Been there, done that with multiple ICE vehicles. And my van, a high selling vehicle with decades of ICE industry perfecting, had the worst heating and venting system in it of all time and fogged without fail while simultaneously trying to iceberg me. But do you think it would cool properly in hot weather? Haha! Um, no.

I had to buy an ICE pickup for the mountain since my CT won’t get here in time. It takes 15 minutes for that thing to heat up the cabin (and I’m not exactly living in Banff) and then the cabin goes from frostbite to Sahara temperatures in under a mile. I have to constantly micro manage the heating and venting dials because it can’t keep the temperature steady. My Model 3 heats up in seconds and then maintains the temperature exactly. I never fiddle the temperature or venting controls in the Tesla. And yes, a couple years ago I had a sensor replaced because it wasn’t heating properly.

As a Canadian this shouldn’t be new to him and he and everyone else should have whatever they need in their vehicles for such occasions. I do, however, know that several areas of Canada are getting colder than normal temperatures. I have clients in Saskatchewan for instance that said it was -35C for two weeks. That’s cold even for them and certainly for that length of time. A day or two, perhaps, but not days on end. We’re in strange times.

As a heat problem Tesla will for sure fix it, your claiming customers having no rights complaining about it is bizarre.

 

[MABMAB]

Did the software fix the issue? If so, will the TSLAQ crowd here go back to hiding agin?

 

[T@oo]

People going full Neroden again. So predictable.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

This is the investment thread. Not a place to push a personal agenda or vent frustration (about anything else than the stock price). There’s a zillion other threads in this forum where people can dump complaints. Stop doing it here.

 

[Lessmog]

Meh. While I’d wish for every Tesla to be perfect in a way that every person requires and wants, it just doesn’t work that way for anything in life. And while I believe that some people have real problems and they are handling themselves with reasonability and sensibility and with plenty of grace, I also know that people are generally macaroons when things don’t go their way and tend to be more dramatic than the situation requires.

I also know that everyone is free to buy something other than a Tesla if they’re being treated that poorly by Tesla and their products, and I invite them to do so and vote for or against with their pocketbook rather than being melodramatic, which is boorish at best.

And no, I’m not concerned as an investor. Just the other day I received an item from Amazon. Inside the Amazon box was my item and its empty product box. That’s right, my item was not in its original packaging but the original packaging was included. Was I concerned my item might be broken or damaged? For a hot three seconds. And then last week Amazon sent a picture of proof they’d delivered an item and they did deliver something, but it wasn’t mine. So, I drove the package a mile down the road and delivered it to the proper person and then sent Amazon an email saying the package they delivered wasn’t mine, that it belonged to so and so and I delivered it. They sorted it out two days later. And the week before that they delivered another wrong package and as I dropped that off a few doors down the driver was on his way back to swap items. And 6 months ago they dropped my package across the breezeway at my neighbor’s door. But you see, none of those periodic mistakes bothers me because the other 8,431 items have all come to my door on time and undamaged. So, you see, as long as Tesla mostly gets it right, and I believe they do, mistakes now and again are just part of the adventures of life.

Picking this post among many at random for my reply. Nothing personal

I really don't think it is OK to pooh-pooh the importance of failing cabin heating in extreme winter climate. It is actually a life-threatening situation; first, visibility drops dramatically (from bad anyway) due to misting, so you risk running off the road or colliding;
second, extreme cold is lethal by itself in a somewhat longer perspective (an hour or so).

I very much welcome Tesla's efforts to resolve this. Too bad it did not work out of the box so to say, and glad not every owner is hit by this. But no question it has had an impact on Tesla's reputation, unfortunately amplified by the usual FUD actors.

So far, I have not experienced the problem myself and it is hopefully solved by the latest update.

 

[InDaClub]

Unfortunately, that’s somewhat true. I just had the dreaded errors “vehicle may not restart”, “acceleration limited”, etc. 2015S70D with 75kmi, no real issues up until now. Because the service centers are 150mi, 220mi or 230mi, respectively, I’m forced into a $700 tow, no loaner, and the fend for yourself response from Tesla. Requested replacement of the MCU and 12V battery, plus whatever else is wrong, still awaiting parts and no ETA. Depending on the response, I may not upgrade to the Plaid S like I was planning to do with all my TSLA gains.

I had the same “vehicle may not restart” message on my 3 year old Tesla. A Tesla service technician came to my home and replaced the 12V battery in less than 15 mins. I received excellent service and requesting service via the app makes it easy.. I've purchased 4 Tesla's now and service has always been excellent. I'm never going back to owning an ICE vehicle. My only regret is not purchasing a Tesla sooner. My Plaid S is next level.

 

[MC3OZ]

Partly true. Elon tweeted "Firmware fix to recalibrate heat pump expansion valve is rolling out now". He does not say that it fixes "the heat pump" or any particular way in which it might help with people's problems. Nor even in what version of the firmware it's in, nor who it's being rolled out to. And, of course, since this situation has been going on for a while (at least three weeks?), it doesn't seem very quick to those who have been affected.

My guess (and it's only a guess) is that it probably mitigates the problem for some of the people who have been affected. And, as usual, Tesla won't communicate with anybody to tell them anything useful about the obvious questions they will have:
1) is my vehicle among those affected?
2) under what conditions is it safe to drive?
3) is there any way to tell if any particular problem is about to happen?
4) is there any way to fix the problem if it does happen?
5) when will this be fixed for real?
6) will it require a hardware fix?

Tesla should be communicating with every affected owner with the answers to at least these questions, even if the current answer is "we don't know yet". And I think that "every affected owner" includes all Tesla owners. An app notification or an e-mail or text message or a phone call saying you may have heard about a problem but it doesn't affect your vehicle(s) would be just fine, and cheap and simple to generate.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1482513670777102340

I think that the issue was covered in depth, I think by Rob on Tesla daily.

A build up of snow / ice is freezing some vent open, in turn that fools the heat pump into thinking it isn't working properly and it shuts down.

The software fix is just to keep the heat pump working, it actually works well even with the vent frozen open.

After the software fix, Tesla will probably start working on the issue with the vent.
The customers may get more prevention strategies, there may be a redesign and a recall of cold weather cars.

As far as I know this isn't a matter of faulty parts, more about a situation being unexpected and not occuring in cold weather testing.

 

[mongo]

I think that the issue was covered in depth, I think by Rob on Tesla daily.

A build up of snow / ice is freezing some vent open, in turn that fools the heat pump into thinking it isn't working properly and it shuts down.

The software fix is just to keep the heat pump working, it actually works well even with the vent frozen open.

After the software fix, Tesla will probably start working on the issue with the vent.
The customers may get more prevention strategies, there may be a redesign and a recall of cold weather cars.

As far as I know this isn't a matter of faulty parts, more about a situation being unexpected and not occuring in cold weather testing.

It may be worse than that. Per green's thread on Twitter, tear downs of compressors in Russia show internal mechanical damage. Software could probably detect these damaged units, but they can't be repaired as an OTA update.
Happy to discuss further in the engineering thread.
Investor Engineering Discussions

 

[InDaClub]

This is the investment thread. Not a place to push a personal agenda or vent frustration (about anything else than the stock price). There’s a zillion other threads in this forum where people can dump complaints. Stop doing it here.

I see what you did there.

 

[Unpilot]

I also know that people are generally macaroons when things don’t go their way and tend to be more dramatic than the situation requires.

Just like a cat to disparage one of man's greatest achievements.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

So it's just today and tomorrow we have to listen to people freaking out, right? Then it's back to reality?

Panel.........gaaaaaaaaaaps!

 

[Radish11]

Hey does anyone know where an up to date tracker for how many cars each manufacturer has sold that counts towards the 200,000 EV tax credit phaseout? The most recent data I can find is through June 2020 which is not particularly helpful. My understanding is Toyota is going to hit the 200k mark this quarter, Ford next quarter, but not sure about anyone else

 

[JustMe]

I had a dream that Elon Musk unveiled a new version of the Cybertruck that was shaped like a PT Cruiser to appeal to the masses. That image cannot be unseen

 

[Buckminster]

Apparently Elon will be in Berlin this weekend, on Sunday. Let the speculation begin on if he’s going there for a permit approval celebration……..(or if he’s there to scream and shout until they approve it)

Elon has flown from Bay Area to LA to Austin during last 8 hours. Too late to make it to Berlin today unfortunately.

 

[ggr]

Mod: I'm not as nice as @Right_Said_Fred. I know many of you probably just had to reply, and only afterward did you see his prohibition on continuing discussions. You should have gone back and deleted your own posts. And some of you just had to reply to posts made after the prohibition, which means you already knew that you shouldn't have continued the discussion. In any case, I deleted them for you, s/ glad to be of service /s. --ggr

 

[2daMoon]

This isn't as exciting as talk of lawyers, heaters, and other such, but Lars' Sunday News has some good stuff.

Of particular note was report of a rumor that Slovakia (where Andrej K. is from) will be the location of the next European factory.

And, a wonderful recap of Linette Lopez' predictions for Tesla in China back in 2019 and how that aged not-so-well, along with a slew of well-deserved Teslaps.

Enjoy

 

[CorneliusXX]

This isn't as exciting as talk of lawyers, heaters, and other such, but Lars' Sunday News has some good stuff.

Of particular note was report of a rumor that Slovakia (where Andrej K. is from) will be the location of the next European factory.

And, a wonderful recap of Linette Lopez' predictions for Tesla in China back in 2019 and how that aged not-so-well, along with a slew of well-deserved Teslaps.

Enjoy

I think it's highly unlikely that the next factory is going to be in Slovakia given previous comments from Elon. The driving factor for the last couple of factories was "where are the worlds best engineers willing to live".

I've been to Slovakia twice on short trips and they were a lot of fun, but I have serious doubts that it could be used as a drawcard for engineers the same way Berlin or Austin are.