Tesla blamed drivers for failures of parts it long knew were defective

I have no strong feeling on Musk, but Tesla is far from being a good product.<p>The vision based system is a disaster, I have been driving a new Model Y MY 2024 for several days and got the following issues:<p>1. the cruise speed control stops working for 2 times due to &quot;low visibility&quot; on a foggy day. No sound alert but the car just slows down on motorway, which is super dangerous. As a comparison, my previous Hyundai Ioniq 5 can do cruise on foggy day perfectly.<p>2. There is another time on a single lane, the vision system got confused with oncoming traffic on the opposite lane and made a sudden break. Such behaviour is extremely dangerous on icy road now. Hyundai never had this issue on single lane pilot.<p>3. When I was on auto steering, the car somehow got confused with a motorway exit and made sudden break on motorway again. As a comparison, Hyundai will tell u: &quot;ok, now I am not sure what to do, you have to control your steer&quot;. Tesla tried to be the hero but did a terrible mistake on motorway and I am sure if bad things happen it will just blame users.<p>4. The vision based system is terrible for reversing. It makes around 20 false alarms every time I reverse into my garage. And the sound engineering is so amateur that it pops&#x2F;clicks because Tesla team is too unprofessional to know they need a crossfade or envelope. High school student mistake.<p>5. I have no time to test the emergent brake but Tesla reported a &quot;failure on emergent brake&quot; and I am waiting for service for this. As a comparison, my previous ioniq 5 saved me several times with the brake on parking lot.<p>6. During my car delivery, I found two scratches on the b-pillar. After they replaced it, the key card is not working... waiting for service again. Some irresponsible people put the types on the back seat and damaged the driver seat leather... unbelievable...<p>I am considering returning it, but on the other hand, I can hardly find a good alternative in Europe for Model Y, which is sad. I have checked ID4, Ioniq 5, EV6, Polestar and many Chinese models. They do have some other issues.<p>Don&#x27;t trust those reviews online. Their trial time is too short to tell u these issues.<p>Model Y is also poor on suspension, window noise. And the door is harder to close compared with ioniq 5 that I had quite some time with (around 2 months).

Tesla vehicles are the equivalent of social media advertised items - overhyped junk.<p>Almost fell victim as well but reports of awful build quality and quality assurance (ie, vehicles shipped without brakes [1], hood may open while driving [2]) pushed me to cancel my preorder.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20220123010452&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.motorbiscuit.com&#x2F;tesla-model-3-delivered-without-brake-pads-normal&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20220123010452&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.motor...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20220115192423&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.motorsafety.org&#x2F;tesla-recalls-model-s-vehicles-with-in-your-face-hoods&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20220115192423&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.motor...</a>

I just read a news item that Musk uninstalled the Disney+ app from the entire Tesla fleet as retaliation for Disney pulling advertising from X. I bet Tesla owners&#x2F;shareholders are <i>thrilled</i> that they are being used as collateral in a fight that has nothing to do with them.

&gt; The documents, dated between 2016 and 2022, include repair reports from Tesla service centers globally; analyses and data reviews by engineers on parts with high failure rates; and memos sent to technicians globally, instructing them to tell consumers that broken parts on their cars were not faulty.<p>This kind of behaviour should be <i>severely</i> penalized by regulatory agencies. Lying to customers is just as bad as lying to investors, and only the latter is punished at the moment - and customers were out massive amounts of their own money to get their cars fixed (or in insurance premium hikes) in addition to the money they all spent, which is an even worse state than an investor is.<p>It&#x27;s bad enough that companies are allowed to grow so large and dysfunctional that they can legitimately claim &quot;there was no central awareness about &lt;issue&gt;&quot;, but what Tesla did here is IMHO intentional fraud. They knew about the issues, knew that they should be liable, but shifted the blame and bills to customers to avoid having issues on their financial statements. And FFS Tesla should be fined for that deceiving tactics by the SEC as well, because the trick of not admitting the risk on their books worked out in the end.

The steering knuckle failure shown in the article is insane. I&#x27;ve never heard of such a thing happening and have never heard of anybody who has heard of such a thing happening on a vehicle from what I will risk calling a &quot;real manufacturer&quot;. I am always flabbergasted that there&#x27;s people willing to just be in a Tesla while they&#x27;re moving, let alone buy one, but then again, the general public has no real idea of how automotive safety really works. Crazy stuff.

In 2021 i tried a Tesla. One of the back doors didn&#x27;t align properly with the car body.<p>If they can&#x27;t get that right, how can they get moving parts right?

While this article has some very _funny_ bits:<p>&gt; “All I can tell you,” the Tesla manager said, “is we’re not a 100-year-old company like GM and Ford. We haven’t worked all the bugs out yet.”<p>Yes, it takes 100 years to figure out that water is corrosive; you only get told this when you’re invited into whatever the car equivalent of the Freemasons is.<p>There’s nothing particularly _surprising_ here, except for Reuters actually quoting the word ‘fuck’. Reuters! Most US news sources of Reuters-level prestige&#x2F;stuffiness primly mentions Elmo using ‘an obscenity’, rather than actually quoting him.

Tom and Ray, the Car Talk guys:<p>&quot;There are three kinds of problems with cars. First, things that don&#x27;t really matter, like the radio. Second, things that will leave you stranded, like the engine. And third, things that will leave you dead, like the brakes and suspension.&quot;

&quot;Tesla owners who have experienced premature failures of suspension&quot; I believe some have called this &#x27;whompy wheel&#x27;. An aftermarket company (Meyle) has even made replacement front control arms for some models: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;24S3LJazOEM" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;24S3LJazOEM</a>

ironically, the seminal paper in economy about information asymmetry bringing overall quality downfall to the entire market was on lemon cars

The FORD way.<p>Ford did this a couple of times, that I know of, I experienced it with the Powershift gearbox. The dealerships told you that they&#x27;ll cover the electronic but you had to buy the clutches or viceversa. But you had to wait to get Ford&#x27;s approval, if you wanted the fix fast you had to pay.

I know someone who used to work for Tesla.<p>They said after working there and seeing how poor the quality was, they would never buy one.

Even if I liked the cars, and they aren&#x27;t for me, I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;d get a Tesla just because the company seems so terrible.

Sounds like british car sellers. Nearly all diesel cars i’ve seen here have DPF issues and nearly all get blamed on customers. Happened to mine but was clever enough to get expert investigation prior to making my dealer do their own. They tried to blame it on me but changed tune once the word “lawyer” was mentioned.

So they start the article with describing one case of technical failure. Then they state: &quot;Jain is one of tens of thousands of Tesla owners who have experienced premature failures of suspension or steering parts.&quot; In what time frame? &quot;The chronic failures ... date back at least seven years.&quot; Okay, now I&#x27;d be interested: How does this number compare to other automotive companies relative to the time frame observed?

So is Elon enough of a majority shareholder that he’s untouchable? Or is the company set up like FB where no matter what he controls a majority of voting shares?<p>Of is it just that no investors were willing to touch it because it just kept making more money do oh well?<p>So much stuff keeps coming out I’m left wondering why there isn’t a bigger push for a management change.

If this is true, <i>shame on the company</i>.

Unrelated question to the article: “They were absolutely petrified,” Jain said of his wife and daughter. “If we were on a 70-mile-per-hour highway, and this would have happened, that would have been catastrophic.”<p>Is it normal for people in the UK (Jain is from Cambridge, England) to use miles-per-hour? I thought it was kilometers-per-hour, generally.

&quot;Move fast and lie&quot; company ran by asshat CEO engages in deceptive business practices.<p>I guess if you can get away with promising &quot;full self driving next year&quot; since 2014, what is described in TFA is just small beer.

How often do other manufacturers do this? I recall from memory: VW had a loss of power problem they blamed on drivers. Toyota had throttle by wire problem they blamed on drivers.<p>Not defending Tesla here, this is all shit. But to me this is more about some kind of safety and repairs regulation, than the usual: Elon is bad.

They&#x27;re holding it wrong [1]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2010&#x2F;jun&#x2F;25&#x2F;iphone-reception-problems-solved" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2010&#x2F;jun&#x2F;25&#x2F;ipho...</a>

I continue to have zero interest in any kind of &quot;smart car&quot; and consider all of this downstream to Tesla&#x27;s leaning heavily into that business model. If they already have invested in building you a product that assumes the company is making the decisions on the road, defies user expectation constantly, and by and large extorts you for features already present in the vehicle at every turn, why wouldn&#x27;t they also be running a monopolized in-house repair scam like apple? If they already have a legal team set up to blame end-users for failures of its hideously user-hostile autopilot features, why wouldn&#x27;t they use the same tactics to also blame end-users for any and all mechanical failures? I will continue to avoid paying egregious sums of money to be a guinea pig for the attempted enshittification of moving through the physical world, thanks

I can&#x27;t believe how much hyped Tesla keeps being, especially in the stock markets.<p>I&#x27;ve seen enough EVs to conclude that Tesla does not make better cars than other automakers, at all. Nobody needs an EV that accelerates more than a Porsche 911, those are vanity pointless metrics.<p>It&#x27;s conduct is also terrible and customer service plain infuriating.

People don’t buy a Tesla because they’re interested in reliability and quality and whatever over long-term. Tesla hasn’t been around long enough to actually prove it, so literally everyone driving on around is driving around a beta test car because it’s fast and is popular.<p>Conversely, buying a Toyota tundra has effectively zero risk. This is a version 10 car that’s not going to have any of these problems has a well understood maintenance and reliability supply chain and has a history of dealers to work with accessory parts and coherent recall procedure, etc..<p>Which one am I going to trust for my children? The one with a 30+ year safety record.<p>This is playing out exactly as expected if a total psychopath was running the company

&gt; “We make the best cars,” he [Musk] said of Tesla at a New York Times event last month. “Whether you hate me, like me or are indifferent, do you want the best car, or do you not want the best car?”<p>Ah, lol. You could’ve argued that Tesla was the best EV some years ago (not any car, mind you, just EV). But now? Since automakers who actually know how to make reliable cars have caught up on the EV part, that’s a pretty ridiculous claim.

There was a time when a Tesla was something I aspired to own one day, but now I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;d get one even if I had a free pick of any car in that price range.<p>From what I understand they still lead the EV space in several metrics, but other manufacturers have done a lot of catching up in the last few years. Add that to greater reliability and build quality, and inclusion of physical controls (anyone who thinks replacing the indicator&#x2F;turn signal stalk with capacitive buttons is sensible has clearly never driven in the UK—my 15 minute drive into the office crosses 11 roundabouts).<p>Plus I&#x27;ve developed such a strong personal distaste for Musk over the last few years that it&#x27;s hard to want to give him money, however indirectly.

I am not a mechanic - only an enthusiast, but I know that a steering knuckle should never break the way it did in the photo unless there was some flaw in production.

No way this article is in good faith.

Would be good to have more data. Tesla reporting can be pretty skewed due to huge short positions on the stock and Musk being a total a@@ who decided to bet on fringe right.

The article makes a bunch of grandiose claim, but it never pins down an actual failure rate. It never compares it to other manufacturer. Some cars will have defects if you make millions of them.<p>The main claim seems to be that Tesla has higher defect rate, but it fails to make the case. Instead it veers into unrelated attacks on Musk.

The numbers included seem to contradict the story. They are alleging that the suspension is defective, but the numbers included don&#x27;t seem to back it up. They show that the cost of repairs under warranty for suspension components is $3.9 million per year. This actually seems quite low for a company with millions of cars on the road. There is also this:<p>&gt; In other cases, the automaker charged customers with out-of-warranty cars to replace parts that Tesla engineers internally called flawed or that they knew had high failure rates. Engineers ordered repeated redesigns for several parts and discussed seeking money back from suppliers because of the defects.<p>Do car companies ever not charge customers for repairs that are out-of-warranty? And I don&#x27;t find the fact that the engineers called these parts flawed very significant. Everybody knows that certain makes and models tend to have trouble with their &lt;car part&gt;. I am not surprised that the engineers who made the car can figure these things out too.<p>The anecdotal evidence of the single case of the wheel falling off I don&#x27;t find particularly damning. First of all the analysis by the engineer does not rule out collision, like the article implies. The direct quote from the engineer is &quot;No convincing evidence to prove a direct impact is the cause of the fracture.&quot; This is an indeterminate result. Assuming that this was in fact a defect, when you have a N of millions of cars, you are going to be able to find some catastrophic defects. It&#x27;s inevitable, and it&#x27;s the reason why anecdotal evidence is weak.<p>I have a very high bar for accusations, and an even higher bar for accusations against Tesla given the high volume of them, and the low percentage of them actually going anywhere. And I remain unconvinced by this article.

One way to make an electric car go efficiently fast and far is to make it light. Extreme effort is taken on Teslas to reduce weight, and part of that will involve making suspension and steering components only as strong as they need to be, but no stronger.<p>That strength is enough for most people - but there will always be some who hit a pothole at speed, slam into a kerb, jack the car up on the wrong point, or otherwise exert forces beyond the design limits.<p>Other cars would survive that because they are overengineered. Tesla&#x27;s may not.<p>It&#x27;s a tradeoff you make when you buy the vehicle - you get a faster and more efficient car, but have to be aware that it is more fragile. If you wanted something robust, you could have bought a tank.