White Lies Matter?

[xborg]

Please see this post for up-to-date info: Pack Performance and Launch Mode Limits

To answer your questions, I always kept quiet about problems of my car. But I can't hold it anymore. When someone asks, I just share the truth.

 

[Ucfjoe]

So people can't voice complaints on a community forum? That makes sense.

 

[JLan]

This makes no sense to me at all. Has this 100% been verified?

 

[Spidy]

This makes no sense to me at all. Has this 100% been verified?

 

[theslimshadyist]

You apparently are also not faulting Tesla for lying to its customers by not disclosing this limitation prior to purchase. You gloss over that in your post by saying they have now corrected that situation. Great, so what about all the people who bought prior to this disclaimer and who feel that Tesla is now limiting the performance they paid for? I hope those owners sue Tesla and blow this up in the media. Goose-stepping owners such as yourself should stop excusing everything Tesla does and enabling their bad behavior.

And let's not kid ourselves, this has everything to do with mitigating Tesla's warranty costs.

I purchased my car before they added that language so I'm going to contact my attorney tomorrow.

 

[SDRick]

Does "limiting controls to optimize the overall driving and ownership experience" constitute another "White lie"?

 

[oktane]

I am not happy about launch mode limits. This seems very underhanded and outside of the norm. Cars that do have launch mode limits make it abundantly clear before you purchase the car and include these limits in writing.

I will be even more displeased if there is a WOT counter which limits performance of a car that I over paid for, even without the limits.

How can Tesla justify charging $10,000 for a Ludacris mode software upgrade and not allow the card to be used? Isn't the $10,000 of pure profit not enough? $8000 of autopilot upgrades that does zilch?

The sad part is I have to learn about this through the forum and this is not disclosed ahead of time, absolute grounds to be angry.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

Does "limiting controls to optimize the overall driving and ownership experience" constitute another "White lie"?

That really depends on who you ask, and how they interpret things.

My honest interpretation is it doesn't go far enough in what methods are employed, and what that really means. For example we know, and accept that the car will slow down when the motors get hot (or the inverter). That is just a temporary thing.

If there is a launch limitation then tell us explicitly what it is. There supposedly isn't with the P100D, but I'd like to see that in writing.

I shouldn't feel lucky I didn't get the P version, but if I'm going to be really honest I do feel lucky. When I purchased my 70D (on the other end of the spectrum) no one even knew about any of these limits.

 

[justg0]

I purchased my car before they added that language so I'm going to contact my attorney tomorrow.

I am a strong defender of Tesla and how they do things. But this I can't stand behind this at all. I would be mad as hell if I paid 160K (or even 80K) for a car and later found out limitations that were not disclosed before. I hope Tesla fixes this either by removing the limits or refunding money to these people.

 

[Reeler]

More examples of Tesla silicon snake oil. This can be added to the list of unfulfilled promises: blind spot detection, freeway exit negotiation, red light detection, WiFi hotspot, rear seat HVAC control with app, etc.

No amount of koolaide can keep me in the Tesla reality distortion field. I may join Woz and make my Bolt the daily driver.

 

[Dstrohl]

From Tesla: "Performance versions of the Model S and Model X are high-performance vehicles. As with other vehicles, continuous high-performance driving will stress the vehicle's components and may result in premature wear or failure. To help protect the performance and longevity of the powertrain, Performance versions of the Model S and Model X continually monitor the condition of various components and may employ limiting controls to optimize the overall driving and ownership experience."

That seems like a very reasonable position for Tesla to take. I do agree that Tesla should have made that clear when they introduced Ludicrous mode, but they didn't. Now they have corrected their error. I am not going to fault Tesla for addressing the issue.
I interpret your statement as saying that you would rather have the ability to do a full power Ludicrous mode launch an unlimited number of times and damage your car (while being "ignorant" that the damage is occurring) rather than have the understanding that, just like in any car, applying maximum power without limits will over time cause damage to your vehicle's drivetrain.

"Ignorance is bliss"? That is your preference? I prefer "Knowledge is power": I want to know that doing Ludicrous launches over and over again is going to accelerate the wear of some very expensive components of my car, components that I will have to pay for if they fail outside of the warranty period.

While I agree that Tesla should definitely be informing customers that continue high performance use of their cars will stress components, And I agree that they should not be on the hook for replacing components because drivers used them outside of their design specs... I don't agree that their forcefully reducing that performance is a fair approach to the problem.

If they wanted to say that high performance use will reduce warranty coverage, (as you suggested) that's fair. so, for example, how about saying that for every launch event that is outside of normal street driving, your warranty period is reduced by 5%? then it's up to the owners if they want to do that, and if they do, and the drive-train decides to die out in a year after, you are on your own for replacing it. Or just say that after whatever cutoff number, those components are no longer covered under the warranty?, or whatever.

The problem is that they are not reducing warranty coverage, they are turning off a feature that people paid for, expecting to get a lifetime of use out of, and now only get an unspecified number of uses.

I also have a problem with their wording, to me, reading that, it sounds like they are saying that if I take the car to the track and am racing it around for multiple laps ("continuous high-performance driving"), I might eventually be limited in some way. If I am using launch mode and showing off the acceleration to my friends every week, that isn't "continuous high-performance driving" (again, to me).

 

[Swift]

How can Tesla justify charging $10,000 for a Ludacris mode software upgrade and not allow the card to be used? Isn't the $10,000 of pure profit not enough?

I would think that $10,000 would go towards an additional warranty pool fund that Tesla should be maintaining for these cars. Similar to paying for an extended warranty...

 

[u00mem9]

I think the magazines may need to do a retest with a limited P model. I know the abuse the test cars endure in the hands of auto journalists and I can guarantee that Tesla did NOT have this limit in place for the cars being given to magazines

So what's the real 0-60 and 1/4 time of the car after the 20 launch coupons are used up?

 

[lolachampcar]

My personal pendulum has currently swung too far for me to pass along my opinion to potential buyers. Up until now, my biggest warning was about Elon Time. I just tell people it will probably happen but make absolutely sure you take "soon" with a grain of salt or you will be disappointed.

I'm holding off on additional promotion until I get over my current level of irritation. I'm still a strong fan of what the company is doing. I also realize we are all human and there will be things I do not agree with. I just need some time to have counter gate settle into the proper perspective.

The above said, it is incredibly cathartic to have a place to vent. Thanks all

 

[Reeler]

I think the magazines may need to do a retest with a limited P model. I know the abuse the test cars endure in the hands of auto journalists and I can guarantee that Tesla did NOT have this limit in place for the cars being given to magazines

So what's the real 0-60 and 1/4 time of the car after the 20 launch coupons are used up?

Kinda similar to VW's dieselgate. VW had software to recognize emission testing and went into a special low emissions mode to fool the test.

Tesla gives you 20 launches, which would probably cover all launches done by the folks reviewing a new model. Then they reduce performance while Tesla enjoys the improved sales the positive review generated.

 

[u00mem9]

My personal pendulum has currently swung too far for me to pass along my opinion to potential buyers. Up until now, my biggest warning was about Elon Time. I just tell people it will probably happen but make absolutely sure you take "soon" with a grain of salt or you will be disappointed.

I'm holding off on additional promotion until I get over my current level of irritation. I'm still a strong fan of what the company is doing. I also realize we are all human and there will be things I do not agree with. I just need some time to have counter gate settle into the proper perspective.

The above said, it is incredibly cathartic to have a place to vent. Thanks all

This summarizes my situation also. I went from recommending and really advocating for the product to friends to suddenly worrying that someone who took my recommendation would come back to me with a gimped autopilot car and complain.

 

[EarlyAdopter]

OMG, the lack of facts and real information on this thread is painful. This is how fake news is started and rumors spread.

Some facts:

1. Tesla isn't limiting launches, only power.
2. This only applies to v2 P90DL.
3. The power limit after the counter is used up is from 1600A down to 1500A.
4. This isn't turning the v2 P90DL's into limp-mode. 1500A is still crazy fast.
   
5. v1 P90DLs and P85DLs can only do 1500A to begin with and don't have any counter.
6. P100DLs don't have this counter and can do 1600A day-after-day.
7. Tesla is about to uncork even more performance on the P100DLs with a software update. That additional performance, like this on v2 P90DLs, could have a counter. Or it may not. We'll see.

Sheesh.

 

[brianman]

- This only applies to v2 P90DL.
- P100DLs don't have this counter and can do 1600A day-after-day.

Tesla's current order page disagrees with you on this.

 

[SDRick]

OMG, the lack of facts and real information on this thread is painful. This is how fake news is started and rumors spread.

Sheesh.

...and who's fault is that? Tesla has had plenty of time to provide real facts and real news and be transparent on this issue. So far their silence has been deafening.

 

[Spidy]

v1 P90DLs and P85DLs can only do 1500A to begin with and don't have any counter.

Wasn't there the issue with those cars though of not reaching the acceleration numbers first, especially the 1/4miles one?