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donald said:
GeekEV said:
FYI, I saw this very well written (and IMHO accurate) post from Pollux on the subject of drive unit and battery replacements. I strongly suspect his/her experience reflects the majority of reported cases. Well worth reading for any doubters.

http://www.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/edmunds-experience-scares-me#comment-430647" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

eh!!?!?

I have become a doubter of the Model S's reliability. This article confirms my doubt. In what way is it worth reading?

Customer mentions "a little more noise than when the car was new", service center replaces the drive unit. The customer didn't ask for a drive unit, just wanted to know if it was normal. Service test drove and found the noise was "out of specs" and replaced it.

Tesla does their best to make service invisible, and will go to great lengths to make sure the car is as perfect as possible. I have had far more serious issues with other cars with far less response from service.
 
Zythryn said:
donald said:
GeekEV said:
FYI, I saw this very well written (and IMHO accurate) post from Pollux on the subject of drive unit and battery replacements. I strongly suspect his/her experience reflects the majority of reported cases. Well worth reading for any doubters.

http://www.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/edmunds-experience-scares-me#comment-430647" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

eh!!?!?

I have become a doubter of the Model S's reliability. This article confirms my doubt. In what way is it worth reading?

Customer mentions "a little more noise than when the car was new", service center replaces the drive unit. The customer didn't ask for a drive unit, just wanted to know if it was normal. Service test drove and found the noise was "out of specs" and replaced it.

Tesla does their best to make service invisible, and will go to great lengths to make sure the car is as perfect as possible. I have had far more serious issues with other cars with far less response from service.
Further news revealed in the quarterly earnings conference call specifically address this issue. They replaced the drive trains because they simply had not yet figured out the root cause and didn't know what else to do. Turns out the "humming" issue was due to a wiring harness that had worked loose and was vibrating against the motor. Solution? Zip tie. Nothing to do with the drive unit itself. The "clunking" issues were caused by too much slop in a mount. Solution? A $0.50 shim*. So, were these really $15k repairs like everybody is saying? No.



* P.S. He indicated many cars will need the shim. Expect a service campaign in the near future.
 
"Tesla Motors Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk promised shareholders a dramatic boost in the production of his company's electric cars, telling investors that Tesla will produce 35,000 cars this year and up to 100,000 in 2015.

Tesla, which reported earnings Thursday, also confirmed that the company has begun construction in Reno, Nev., on the first of possibly several battery factories. That news came hours after Tesla announced that it had entered into a long-term partnership with Panasonic Corp. to produce the vehicles' lithium-ion batteries."

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-earnings-20140801-story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
Zythryn said:
Customer mentions "a little more noise than when the car was new", service center replaces the drive unit. The customer didn't ask for a drive unit, just wanted to know if it was normal. Service test drove and found the noise was "out of specs" and replaced it.

Tesla does their best to make service invisible, and will go to great lengths to make sure the car is as perfect as possible. I have had far more serious issues with other cars with far less response from service.

Imagine going into a GM dealer (warranty advocate right?) and asking about a similar noise.... you think there is any chance at a new transmission installed without hassle?
 
TomT said:
"Tesla Motors Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk promised shareholders a dramatic boost in the production of his company's electric cars, telling investors that Tesla will produce 35,000 cars this year and up to 100,000 in 2015.
...

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-earnings-20140801-story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I can't stand sloppy reporting.
They did NOT tell investors they would produce up to 100,000 cars in 2015. What they said was they expect to be up to an annual rate of 100,000 cars by the end of 2015. They will not start 2015 at that rate so they will not produce that many in 2015. Perhaps 2016 though?
 
Zythryn said:
[
I can't stand sloppy reporting.
They did NOT tell investors they would produce up to 100,000 cars in 2015. What they said was they expect to be up to an annual rate of 100,000 cars by the end of 2015. They will not start 2015 at that rate so they will not produce that many in 2015. Perhaps 2016 though?
The demand for Model X and the Model S is very high. The real question is how many cells can panasonic deliver in 2015 ?
 
Zythryn said:
I can't stand sloppy reporting.
They did NOT tell investors they would produce up to 100,000 cars in 2015. What they said was they expect to be up to an annual rate of 100,000 cars by the end of 2015. They will not start 2015 at that rate so they will not produce that many in 2015. Perhaps 2016 though?
Good point. Still impressive.
 
Thinking back to summer / fall 2012, I clearly remember thinking that the bubble for Tesla was going to burst at about 5000 cars. I just never imagined BMW and Mercedes customers as the future market.

It truly has gone so far past my wildest dreams. Very exciting times, indeed.
 
Zythryn said:
They did NOT tell investors they would produce up to 100,000 cars in 2015. What they said was they expect to be up to an annual rate of 100,000 cars by the end of 2015. They will not start 2015 at that rate so they will not produce that many in 2015. Perhaps 2016 though?
Still - Tesla might start approaching Leaf production numbers globally in 2015. Impressive for cars that costs 3x what Leaf costs.

PS : Leaf is tracking to be >50k this year.
 
smkettner said:
Imagine going into a GM dealer (warranty advocate right?) and asking about a similar noise.... you think there is any chance at a new transmission installed without hassle?
So if these drive train replacements were unnecessary, is it really good practice? Did that shotgunning contribute significantly to the $62M loss?
I think GM would replace anything that needed replacing but try not to incur huge expenses replacing things that don't.
Swelled lug nuts? How do you mess that up?
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
smkettner said:
Imagine going into a GM dealer (warranty advocate right?) and asking about a similar noise.... you think there is any chance at a new transmission installed without hassle?
So if these drive train replacements were unnecessary, is it really good practice? Did that shotgunning contribute significantly to the $62M loss?
...

As a customer, I rather like them treating customers well.
They also addressed the cost question in the 2nd Quarter Q&A. Warrantee costs are virtually unchanged. They fix the $3 part, and then have a refurbished motor.

This is the type of disruption we could use more of if you ask me.
 
TomT said:
"Tesla Motors Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk promised shareholders a dramatic boost in the production of his company's electric cars, telling investors that Tesla will produce 35,000 cars this year and up to 100,000 in 2015.

Tesla, which reported earnings Thursday, also confirmed that the company has begun construction in Reno, Nev., on the first of possibly several battery factories. That news came hours after Tesla announced that it had entered into a long-term partnership with Panasonic Corp. to produce the vehicles' lithium-ion batteries."

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-earnings-20140801-story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Maybe just "ground breaking"? Leave it to the LA Times to get it wrong?
 
evnow said:
Zythryn said:
They did NOT tell investors they would produce up to 100,000 cars in 2015. What they said was they expect to be up to an annual rate of 100,000 cars by the end of 2015. They will not start 2015 at that rate so they will not produce that many in 2015. Perhaps 2016 though?
Still - Tesla might start approaching Leaf production numbers globally in 2015. Impressive for cars that costs 3x what Leaf costs.

PS : Leaf is tracking to be >50k this year.

What's with a Q2 production of 8500+, but yet just 7559 sold? Yes, some are in transit to China & Europe.
But if U.S. demand is really still strong, why not fill more U.S. orders and reduce the GAAP loss?
 
lorenfb said:
evnow said:
Zythryn said:
They did NOT tell investors they would produce up to 100,000 cars in 2015. What they said was they expect to be up to an annual rate of 100,000 cars by the end of 2015. They will not start 2015 at that rate so they will not produce that many in 2015. Perhaps 2016 though?
Still - Tesla might start approaching Leaf production numbers globally in 2015. Impressive for cars that costs 3x what Leaf costs.

PS : Leaf is tracking to be >50k this year.

What's with a Q2 production of 8500+, but yet just 7559 sold? Yes, some are in transit to China & Europe.
But if U.S. demand is really still strong, why not fill more U.S. orders and reduce the GAAP loss?

Unless they are going to simply stop delivering overseas, they just have to deal with the fact that they will have 2-4 weeks worth of production in transit. The faster they produce them, the more will be in transit.
 
Zythryn said:
donald said:
GeekEV said:
FYI, I saw this very well written (and IMHO accurate) post from Pollux on the subject of drive unit and battery replacements. I strongly suspect his/her experience reflects the majority of reported cases. Well worth reading for any doubters.

http://www.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/edmunds-experience-scares-me#comment-430647" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

eh!!?!?

I have become a doubter of the Model S's reliability. This article confirms my doubt. In what way is it worth reading?

Customer mentions "a little more noise than when the car was new", service center replaces the drive unit. The customer didn't ask for a drive unit, just wanted to know if it was normal. Service test drove and found the noise was "out of specs" and replaced it.

Tesla does their best to make service invisible, and will go to great lengths to make sure the car is as perfect as possible. I have had far more serious issues with other cars with far less response from service.

So what?

No-one has doubted Tesla customer service, AFAIK.

truedelta reports 103 returns for each 100 cars. Car companies go bust trying to deliver to that level of customer response.

However, what we don't really know is how much the development of this car cost. Overall, it looks to me that they've had the customers doing development work that 'regular' VMs would spend billions on to make sure the car is right in the first place. By skimping on vehicle development, this is probably how they are able to balance the books, relative to any normal car development.

... good customer service, financial viability and a few anecdotes about what did or did not really need fixing STILL doesn't make the car more reliable!
 
donald said:
Overall, it looks to me that they've had the customers doing development work that 'regular' VMs would spend billions on to make sure the car is right in the first place. By skimping on vehicle development, this is probably how they are able to balance the books, relative to any normal car development.
I'm not convinced the Model S's reliability record is due to "skimping". Rather, I would suggest that it is due to the fact that virtually everything in the vehicle is new. There are likely very few parts in the car which have been borrowed from other vehicles and have a known reliability history. On top of that, many of the components are being repeatedly stressed at levels which simply do not exist in the vast majority of cars out there.

There is another side to warranty replacements besides cost that I think bears mentioning: If you fix *everything* that your customers do not like, then you get a very accurate picture of both your customer's desires AND the failure rates for all of the components. In other words, Tesla is learning precisely where to focus their efforts to improve customer satisfaction.

I would contrast this with GM's Cadillac division and BMW, who both have the reputation for putting a bunch of fancy, but unreliable, new technologies in their luxury sedans and testing them on their customers. Honda and Toyota gobbled up a large portion of BMW's and GM's Cadillac customer base by offering luxury vehicles that didn't spend a lot of their time in the shop.

So I guess the question is whether Tesla will remain in the low-reliabilty luxury arena or quickly move to the high-reliability luxury arena. Based on what I see, Elon Musk is focusing the company on the customer, so I'm betting it is the latter.
 
GeekEV said:
Further news revealed in the quarterly earnings conference call specifically address this issue. They replaced the drive trains because they simply had not yet figured out the root cause and didn't know what else to do. Turns out the "humming" issue was due to a wiring harness that had worked loose and was vibrating against the motor. Solution? Zip tie. Nothing to do with the drive unit itself. The "clunking" issues were caused by too much slop in a mount. Solution? A $0.50 shim*. So, were these really $15k repairs like everybody is saying? No.



* P.S. He indicated many cars will need the shim. Expect a service campaign in the near future.
I guess I'm late to the party, given the discussion upthread, but I found this news very interesting. Thanks for posting it.
 
donald said:
... good customer service, financial viability and a few anecdotes about what did or did not really need fixing STILL doesn't make the car more reliable!
But how do you define reliability? By number of times in the shop? By total time spent in the shop? By the level of inconvenience? Or by number of times you've been stranded? The former two may be high (which is debatable to some), but Tesla goes to great lengths for the third. And the fourth is (indeed) a rare occurrence.

So what if the car is in the shop a fair number of times for things that don't prevent me from driving it? Particularly when they'll pick the car up, fix it and return it to me later - all while I'm sitting at work not using the car anyway. The car works when I need it to and the service hasn't inconvenienced me one bit. So you tell me, is it reliable or not?
 
GeekEV said:
But how do you define reliability?
That could be a subjective thing.

Technically, it is the capability of a thing to perform its designed functions under specified conditions without failure. However, as you say, someone else may not look at the 'car' but at the 'service', and so long as they get a replacement car and/or can carry on driving around to their usual tasks, then they consider the 'service' to be reliable.

I'd have no problem picturing Tesla delivering a reliable 'service', but the cars sure don't look very reliable.
 
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