I'm still of the opinion that what Tesla's doing and what most folk are used to is very different. Tesla is doing what amounts to production machine maintenance, and most people are used to consumer maintenance. If you do production machine style maintenance[SUP]*[/SUP] on a normal ICE car it will cost far more than Tesla's price.
Now I'm not happy about it, and I think that the 12,500 mile interval is ridiculous for an electric car in the 21st century because, to refer to George B's example, the brake pad could be monitored rather than physically inspected, unless of course the owner detected a problem and then a physical examination would be required. (And if that's every car or even a large minority of the cars, then there is a serious problem.) Citroën had a light in the dash that indicated when the pads were low in 1965 on the DS-21 (maybe they did it even earlier, but I had a 1965 model) and that was almost fifty years ago. (I was still on the original pads at 120,000 miles, so I never actually saw the light.)
I also think it's rather silly that the car warranty and the battery warranty aren't identical (both eight years or 100,000 miles). If you then matched the maintenance, you could at least say that costs were fixed for eight years or 100,000 miles. That would be something that no other car company does (unless some the the exotics do). Of course, you could still whine about what happens after eight years.
[SUP]*[/SUP]production machine style maintenance means maintenance done so that you virtually never experience down time. Parts are replaced when they show the slightest wear, hoses are replaced on a schedule, and software and sometimes hardware upgrades are included. The Cisco example given earlier comes to mind although obviously A Cisco router has far fewer mechanical parts.
Now I'm not happy about it, and I think that the 12,500 mile interval is ridiculous for an electric car in the 21st century because, to refer to George B's example, the brake pad could be monitored rather than physically inspected, unless of course the owner detected a problem and then a physical examination would be required. (And if that's every car or even a large minority of the cars, then there is a serious problem.) Citroën had a light in the dash that indicated when the pads were low in 1965 on the DS-21 (maybe they did it even earlier, but I had a 1965 model) and that was almost fifty years ago. (I was still on the original pads at 120,000 miles, so I never actually saw the light.)
I also think it's rather silly that the car warranty and the battery warranty aren't identical (both eight years or 100,000 miles). If you then matched the maintenance, you could at least say that costs were fixed for eight years or 100,000 miles. That would be something that no other car company does (unless some the the exotics do). Of course, you could still whine about what happens after eight years.
[SUP]*[/SUP]production machine style maintenance means maintenance done so that you virtually never experience down time. Parts are replaced when they show the slightest wear, hoses are replaced on a schedule, and software and sometimes hardware upgrades are included. The Cisco example given earlier comes to mind although obviously A Cisco router has far fewer mechanical parts.