Is Tesla's parts and repair process better now than a couple of years ago? The Fast Lane Car youtube channel had a Tesla model 3 in 2019. They backed the Tesla into the wall of their garage and it took a Tesla certified body shop 3 months repair and cost insurance $10,000. The delay was mainly due ordering of parts. Tesla blames the body shop and the body shop blames Tesla. here's what the damage looked like . $10,000 worth of damage from backing up into a wall does seem steep though. It's probably better now 2 years later. Tesla had to grow up really fast to go from a technology company that builds cars to a car company with technology. But is parts and repairs still an issue?
Not trying to turn this into **** on Tesla thing I respect what they have done to take EV mainstream I look at them as the equivalent to Bernie Sanders and what he did to politics. But in reading stuff I see some of the flaws and why they are ripe to lose market share and have some questionable practices. https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a35030461/why-other-car-companies-dont-use-tesla-superchargers/ This seems to be the biggest issue, other car companies have much better mechanical and repair infrastructure. https://forums.tesla.com/discussion...for-new-and-prospective-owners-please-read/p2 https://www.thedrive.com/news/38579...oblems-are-downright-embarrassing-and-serious
Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. You are right, $55K is much closer to the build of the Model Y that I would order. I don't need the FSD at the moment, and $55K is a lot better value proposition than $65K. With the long rage Model Y, the battery range is 330 miles, which is enough for the 270 miles one way. I test drove the Model Y this past Sunday, and driving it was a totally different experience, mostly in a good way. At the moment, I am leaning towards pulling the trigger on it.
Such an odd test. "Yeah, we did some handling maneuvers with cones, tested 0-60 mph... and then we... backed slowly into a garage wall."
Haha. I loved that it happened though. A robust network of both independent and first party repair shops is something I took for granted with legacy car manufacturers. It'll be interesting to see as cars become more advanced and integrated like smartphones, would third party shops get pushed out like iphone repair shops? I would hate to be locked into only buying OEM parts at dealerships for any cars. It's already happened with smartphones and industrial farming equipment, and it might be inevitable that it'll happen to mass market cars too.
Model Y owner here and looking to get a 2nd EV or PHEV. I'd hold off on getting a model Y right now since the sensors are missing from the car. I think we need to see a longer road test on how a sensor less vehicle performs. There are already reports that Tesla Vision isn't as good on the older models with the sensors, especially in bad weather but hopefully with more testing it will improve. Also there are some other EVs coming up that are very interesting. Cybertruck at 49900 for the dual motor seems to be a better value than a Model Y LR. Hyundai and Kia with their EVs and the ability to power other devices, such as small home appliances and whatnot seems to have some good value there. The new EV bill might have some impact on your decisions to as it advances through it's stages. I'm trying to hold off until the bill either passes or dies but I can understand some folks want a car now. It seems Tesla's foothold is loosening but right now they still have a strong case because they have higher rated range and a better charging network than their competitors but youtube range tests and it seems Teslas fall short of estimate range while other models come closer to their estimate range.
Picked up Model y last day of the year 2020. Got rear ended Early Feb. The process for ordering parts and the car being in the shop for 3 weeks once parts arrived took until Mid April. Cost of everything was just under 10k. The parts took the longest part. Granted the body shop said parts took longer because there was an issue with the order but I feel it's fairly typical of how Tesla repairs go. My brother in law recently got a fender bender on his lexus. He got his car fixed in 1.5 weeks compared to my 2.5 months. My Tesla was busted up longer than it was brand new but everything is fine now. Hopefully no more issues from this point on out.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Did the insurance cover rental car the whole time? Seems like Tesla still has more growing up to do if it wants to be a mainstream car company. It's remarkable how much Tesla has progressed in such short amount of time, but the other makers had a 100 year head-start. I do wonder how long it will take companies like Ford, Toyota, and Volkswagen to catch up to Tesla in battery and self-driving tech. I feel like the technology lead Tesla had is shrinking bit by bit.
They are going from radar and cameras to only cameras, pure vision for their autopilot AI. I’m not worried about this, humans drive fine with just vision (eyes) and we don’t need a radar in our heads. In the short run some capabilities are being handicapped as the vision AI catches up, in the long run in order to solve self driving you have to solve vision, and if you solve vision then there is no need for radar. Same thing happened when Tesla switched from Mobileye running their autopilot to developing their own system, capabilities saw some regression for a few months as they figured it out, now it is far more advanced. The Cybertruck, for the money and the capabilities you are getting is unmatched on the market, but then you also have to live with driving that monstrosity around. Def a personal taste thing. It’s growing on me but I have not accepted it yet. The new ev tax credit is going to pass, there is no doubt, the only question is amount, $7500, $10k or $12k and if there are any requirements (made in USA). The latest proposal have the credit backdated to May 24 so you would still get it if you bought today and the bill passes later. Although this particular bill may not pass and a new one may be introduced that may or may not have that backdate. I would wait to see what happens if you don’t need the car in a hurry, but one form or another of a ev credit is going to pass. I’ve heard of many cases of service delays similar to yours, thankfully ours haven’t needed any fixing. Service is definitely a weak spot for Tesla right now as they try to keep up with the growing deliveries. Right now if you do not live near a service center I would hesitate to recommend Tesla to you for sure. They are trying to improve this by spending a lot of money expanding their infrastructure so hopefully in the future it isn’tas bad.
The passage of another tax credit would be a game changer for me if Tesla were to qualify again. I'm currently pre-ordered for both the Lightning and Cybertruck. I'm way down the list on Cybertruck because I never considered buying it because I hate the look, but I'm concerned about the Lightning's cost with the extended battery and BlueCruise (which Ford is absolutely butchering their marketing of, IMO) just to make it somewhat comparable specs-wise to the dual motor Cybertruck. If the tax credit passes, I'll likely pass on the Lightning for now, since I won't have to worry about it running out before I can buy one.
A new ev tax credit will 100%, unequivocally pass, I guarantee it. Just have to iron out the details. It has bipartisan support because as currently constructed the major beneficiaries are foreign players, vw, Hyundai etc. The two big US ev makers, Tesla and gm, have both run out, so even republicans are behind an update to the bill since they are pro American built. The current system basically rewards the laggards companies in the ev field and is punishing those who entered or tried to transition early, which is 180 degrees counter to the intention of the original bill.
I don't think Tesla needs a tax credit, it can barely manufacture enough cars as it is. If the goal is to incentive and accelerate development, then Tesla does not need any.
I look for the day when our Lord and Savior masters the digital parking lot. No more navigating around stupid people driving up and down the parking lot isle confused AF just to get their stupid chic-fil-a in a crowded business park. You just click on Home Depot and the digital parking lot will navigate your vehicle super efficiently into the closest parking spot available. If this chaos can be solved, the rest is peanuts.
Other car companies can get their parts out faster. In fact there are probably distribution centers locally that have the parts in stock for the big car makers where Tesla has to ship it out. One of the mechanics i spoke to said that Tesla recently changed their shipping partner and said they are horrible. Even still, things are going to get done faster if you can just go pick up a part from a center locally than waiting on a part to ship. The big carmakers don't want to take the plunge if they aren't going to be making money off of it. Tesla is taking all the risks, but now that other car makers see there is a market for high end EVs, they want a piece of it to. Remember Chevy and Nissan were trying to push 40K+ Leaf and Bolt on us when those cars can't compete with ICE engines. EVs from the big carmakers are still pretty pricey compared to Teslas but I'm hoping mass production will help reduce those costs.
I agree with all your points but I think the idea of pure vision is still somewhat debatable. I have faith in the technology for the most part but it just seems that vision cameras alone will miss some things that radar sensors can pick up. If anything there are probably failsafes installed where if the cameras can't pick up something, it just won't allow the system to engage. One of the things Musk said that having a hybrid setup would do is increase cost which is one of the reasons for having cameras only setup. If that's the case then why are the prices going up on the cars that don't come with the radar sensors. I'm sure there are other factors but I figure if anything the price would just stay status quo. There are already reports on reddit from folks who have non-radar cars that the cars have issues in bad weather. Things like the AP not engaging or it drives extremely slow or does more phantom braking than what is the norm. It's hard to say any of these occurrences are legit since there wasn't any science data to back it up but it's just hard for me to fathom that a camera only set up can beat a camera + radar setup. Time will tell. Hopefully I'm wrong.
They don’t need it but it isn’t just for them, it’s for the entire US market, which would be uncompetitive vs EU and China markets with both providing generous EV rebates and part of the reason why adoption in those places are outpacing the US. Also, the goal was to accelerate development, but in reality the original bill is punishing the companies who accelerated development (Tesla and gm) since now that they have run out of the rebate first they are in a $7500 hole vs lagging competition, most of which are foreign car makers, so right now it is US tax money subsidizing foreign companies with US leaders at a disadvantage. Obviously Congress will not allow that to continue.
Price increase is partially due to supply chain issues that the entire industry is dealing with, partially high demand, and probably some of it is them front running a likely $10k new US EV rebate. They can’t possibly supply enough cars if suddenly US prices were essentially $10k cheaper due to rebate, but hiking the msrp by $10k would also be a bad look, so gradually increasing prices by $500 every couple weeks which is what’s been happening is probably their compromise. Regarding camera + radar, the advantages of radar is that it is occlusion penetrating and can see through some rain and fog etc which provides a fail safe. The drawbacks is that with two separate systems, camera and radar, fusion needs to be perfect or else it could create false positives (may be the case for phantom braking issues), and perfect fusion may not be possible or a very difficult solution. Meanwhile we know that in order to solve self driving vision NEEDS to be solved, it’s proven that with only eyes driving can be accomplished, once that is solved it just makes the very hard problem of fusion redundant. Point is, radar provides some benefits (that may not be necessary in the long run) but also introduce very tough problems trying to fuse two systems that introduce false positive/negatives readings.
