Driven by better-than-expected reliability in the real world, a desire to respond to consumer concerns about operating costs, or just sheer monstrous ego, Elon Musk has decided to change the Tesla warranty. But wait, there’s more.
The man says,
The Tesla Model S drive unit warranty has been increased to match that of the battery pack. That means the 85 kWh Model S, our most popular model by far, now has an 8 year, infinite mile warranty on both the battery pack and drive unit. There is also no limit on the number of owners during the warranty period.
Moreover, the warranty extension will apply retroactively to all Model S vehicles ever produced. In hindsight, this should have been our policy from the beginning of the Model S program. If we truly believe that electric motors are fundamentally more reliable than gasoline engines, with far fewer moving parts and no oily residue or combustion byproducts to gum up the works, then our warranty policy should reflect that.
I mean, it’s like reading Atlas Shrugged with a serious chronic blaze on. What do you think the chances are of anyone from General Motors or Toyota ever saying, “In hindsight, this should have been our policy from the beginning”????? Not that I want to start attempting to service Mr. Musk over the impersonal and fractious medium of the DARPAnet — there’s a website where they do that already, and it’s called Jalopnik — but you have to admire the stones of the guy.
Eight years, infinite miles. If you’ve been trying to justify the purchase of a Model S over a Bimmer or Benz, you now have some additional food for thought.
I wonder if any brick owners saw the image accompanying this story and suffered a flash of false hope.
What does the Volvo 240 have to do with this?
From what I’ve read about this situation, the Tesla service people have been pretty proactive about fixing the cars in the field and providing loaner cars, so I wouldn’t refer to the affected Model Ss as “bricked”.
Bricking has a very specific meaning to us computer-folk, and having a crew of preppy-looking warranty-service people swarm in and thrice swap your transaxle ain’t it.
Tesla is doing exactly what I wish Volkswagen had done for the cursed 01M four speed auto that they put in their early 2000s Jettas. I should have listened to Oilhammer on TDIClub. I would have settled for being able to buy an improved gearbox from VW, but Tesla has done 100x better – as they well should, given the price of the Model S.
The image I see is of a Tesla Roadster, not a Model S. They brick.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-tesla-roadster-can-become-a-100000-brick-2012-2
The warranty extension only applies to the Model S, so the image does not match the story.
No doubt. That was what my first post was all about. The pairing of the image of the bricking car Tesla used to bugger early adopters with the story about retroactive warranty coverage could have given Tesla’s early victims false hope. Okay?
Like him or hate him, he is definitely promoting changes to some legacy practices of the auto industry, many of which have been criticized in the past. I especially like the direct sales approach and now this self-confession and warranty extension matter. Having said that, I don’t like the similarity to the software product industry, ie minor bugs that have to get updated patches constantly.
If Elon Musk really believed in the electric appliance products he’s peddling, he’d ensure the retroactive warranty wasn’t limited to 8 years.
Why limit the warranty to 8 years, Elon?
Hyundai & KIA offer a TEN year warranty.
I have heavily used electric drills that have lasted longer than 10 years with zero problems.
(I know that you do minute-by-minute web searches to locate mention of your name, Elon, so answer me.)
They limit the years to 8 because I bet internal testing shows that battery packs stop accepting charges at 8 years and 1 day.
The 8 year battery warranty is government-mandated. All EVs have it, and I’m amused that each mfr touts it as their own idea. I guess he sees no use in going past that.
I get the drill analogy, but I think it’s misplaced. By my calculation, a Model S motor will have turned approximately 720 million revolutions in 8 years. This translates into about 10k hours for a drill, or 1250 hours a year, or roughly 3.5 hours of continuous use a day.
On the other hand, maybe an elevator motor sees such use, and with similar power output.
But surely Elon Musk can ensure the motors in his vehicles are built to easily withstand 4.46 billion revolutions without statistically meaningful/significant chance of failure?
This IS Elon Musk that we’re speaking of; THE Elon Musk.
Hybrids come with the same 8 year battery warranty, too.
It’s simultaneously prevented some old the more interesting Prius variants from being sold here, and made sure that the variants we do get come with cockroach-like reliability.
I suspect 3.5 hours is a bit less than Irv Gordon drove daily in his P1800. He went 2 million miles between his first (probably unnecessary) and his second engine rebuild
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2014/02/the-man-for-whom-they-made-the-three-million-mile-badge/
At the risk of feeding the trolls here, the Tesla S is competing with Mercedes, BMW, and Audi. All three currently warranty cars for 4 years / 50k miles.
Depreciation of S550s, 535s, etc. is significant at that 4-year mark. Time will tell if Teslas will prove to be more durable or reliable than the German marques as they age, but Tesla’s longer warranty will be a significant boost to resale prices in the meantime. You don’t have to love Musk to acknowledge that 8 > 4.
Apart from the drive unit and the battery, though, the rest of Tesla’s warranty matches the 4/50 offered by the German competitors.
What percentage of BMW warranty claims are engine-related? I have no data, but I would guess well below 50%.
And we don’t know what the actual depreciation of the Model S will be at the 4 year mark. We don’t know if the real depreciation will cause a serious hit to the Tesla balance sheet. No residual value insurer will touch those cars so Musk has “insured” the values himself. Where is any setup on their balance sheet to accommodate the fact that real values will likely be less than he has guaranteed them to be?
Tesla’s business model is to grow or die. If it grows, it can easily pay for promises. How? More deals like the convertible preferred issue.
If it doesn’t, it is dead.
No new auto manufactures have made it in decades. I’m not betting on Tesla. But I like its style.
Last I checked, Hyundai/Kia’s 10-year powertrain warranty was not transferable. It only applied to the original owner.
I’m currently helping my girlfriend shop for an Elantra. This last weekend we learned that the 10 year powertrain warranty does transfer on certified pre-owned cars only.
Some carmakers used to offer lifetime warranties, even a few domestic ones.
If you drive like I do (30K) a year the Tesla Warranty is a much better deal. Love him or hate him Elon keeps raising the bar.
Only the Model S? What about the Roadster owners, I don’t know what their original warranty was, but if you’re not extending that one, is that a tacit admission that all first-model Teslas are garbage?
Well yes, when you sell a car a day say, this transmission you have now is just a prototype to get the car out the door. We’ll get you the better one were working on soon! They just made you the beta tester.
* and say
The Roadsters had gearbox problems too. IIRC, they were fixed early on.
They just offered to sell Roadster owners a 400 mile battery pack.
But, no, I wouldn’t own a roadster. It’d be a hoot 15, until I had to strap a kid into the nonexcistant back seat. They also hadn’t depreciated enough in the used market to be a toy within my means, last time I checked.
the langauge is certainly funny, like as if he funnelled it from his subconscious onto tbe press release
‘infinite miles’??? unlimited you mean
but still, he’s certainly the revolutionary the industry needs
now back to the industry’s usual recalls and random deaths
” now has an 8 year, infinite mile warranty on both the battery pack and drive unit. There is also no limit on the number of owners during the warranty period.”
That is a battery failure warranty. What is the battery degradation warranty?
The answer is – none.
Nissan has one: a minimum of 9 ‘bars’ capacity after 5 years.
Alternately, they expect degradation to about 80% of capacity after 5 years.
Nissan has already replaced packs which failed this test, and these have obviously 3 years old at most.
But for my Leaf – and especially given the brutality of winter – that 20% degradation is a lot, since the actual range is already short.
Tesla uses a different – and more aggressive – battery chemistry, so the Nissan guideline may not apply.
Also, how it’s charged makes a difference in that degradation rate. Never fill it above 80% and it will not wear out as quickly. That’s hard to do with a Leaf that already has limited range, but it’s standard practice for the Tesla.
Roger and CJ,
Could you guys explain your attacks? Brick? Battery Degradation?
If there is a trick to this, like the supposed sleep number warranty thing, let’s nail him for it. Be direct, specific, and 100% correct without passion or sarcasm or hyperbole. I’ve noticed that the modern man seems to believe that if there is one mistake in a critique, then it must all be wrong. A guy like Musk will take your criticism, point out where he specifically covers something you said he doesn’t, put it on a Twitter and ignore the meat of your argument.
There are too many people still today who weren’t taught to know that’s BS.
They just want EVs to fail, because they don’t like the way government subsidies are being used to help the EV industry build the economies of scale required to have an economically viable product.
It’s a political-ideological position, not a technical one. They don’t have a problem with other people buying the cars per se, just so long as the buyers pay to bootstrap the industry themselves without the kind of pesky government meddling that has helped to bootstrap so many other high tech industries (which look kind out like free markets today). They don’t think about the military protection or the tax breaks received by the oil industry as subsidies… But, if you challenge them on it directly, they’ll apply their ideology evenly and advocate for the removal of those subsidies, too.
Seriously, can we just put this in the FAQ?
First of all, I don’t see evidence of that in their posts.
Second, military protection of world oil supplies isn’t a subsidy. It’s sort of a necessity. It’s the kind of thing we form governments to do. What we don’t form governments to do, at least if we are sensible and ethical in any objective way, is subsidize industries of any sort. Research grants, which are not a subsidy either, are a lot closer to being an actual government function. I may lean libertarian, but I could compromise on research support for actual science.
Normally, I am not for government subsidizing education in the humanities because we never seem to be in short supply of of those skills. Still, if the government is wasting money, it could spend some on dictionaries with words like subsidy which are commonly misused.
FAQ subsidy if you like.
Just imagine what gas prices would look like if the military costs of protecting the oil supply were amorized by gallon.
Our income taxes would be way lower, and gas prices would be way higher – possibly over $10/gallon.
Are the people using more gasoline then necessary paying full freight? As an efficiency a minded driver, it sure looks like I’m subsidizing a whole lot of other people through my income taxes.
Luke,
Imagine if Godzilla actually was in New York!
Imagining is great to create emotion and excitement. The reality is that the oil supply is likely the most vital element in our modern economy. You are correct that oil wasters would have to pay more, but so would actual oil needers, like people who make and transport food and clothing and building supplies.
So, if you take a percentage of military spending actually used to protect oil supplies (realizing that there is also a desire to suppress terrorism and despotism), and put that all into the gas tax, it costs everyone more.
I am for raising fuel taxes, but that may be too much.
As for subsidizing others with your income taxes (more accurately taxes on income and labor), oh yes you are. Figuring out how to tax consumption rather than labor is going to become more and more necessary all the time, and the first modern country that makes the switch properly will start to outrun all the others.
LOL. You totally missed the point.
If you put the oil related costs on a gas tax, it would discourage the unnecessary use of oil, reducing its strategic necessity, thereby reducing the overall tax burden over the long term (once the dust settled from the restructuring). Yes, retail prices word likely go up, but income taxes would.go way down, likely leaving the aggregate purchasing power largely unchanged.
Also, this gives individuals more say in how much tax they pay, and what those taxes are used for.
Anyway, since you dismiss the concept as imaginary, I think I’ll imagine the next most likely scenario.
I’m imagining a world where the electric car industry recieves a modest subsidy, just enough to help bootstrap a proper full-scale industry and get the market started. This leads to oil demand being gradually reduced (reducing the strategic necessity of oil) without conservative individuals or any entrenched oil/auto business interests losing their existing subsidies, ornhaving to rethink how they do business, or otherwise having to get out if their comfort zone in any way….
For an encore, I’m going to imagine you subsidizing my purchase of a 2nd generation Nissan Leaf under this imaginary regime. ;-)
A few points, without oil we are returned to the mid 19th century. While the first point mankind could theoretically withstand, the next point is oil has driven all real growth since the late 19th century. Without oil, or more specifically cheap oil, you have little if not negative real growth. The lack of growth is being masked by QE infinty. Even if US foreign policy returns to isolationism, and military costs were reduced to true national defense as opposed to protecting the petrodollar empire, oil costs would still remain high (stifling growth) because new regional powers would take control of resources. The ideas of conservation and tax are laughable in the grand scheme of things, the real problem is global consumption of depleting resources, partially due to a larger global population demanding a Western standard of living which ultimately is not sustainable. Europe’s population growth was actually -0.1 in 2012 and 0.2 in 2013 according to World Bank. US growth was 0.7 for both years. India for example was 1.3 and 1.2, nearly double than that of the US and six times that of Europe in 2013. Those sort of population growth trends are not sustainable, a culling will eventually be in order I suspect (probably of all of us).
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.GROW/countries/EU?display=graph
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.GROW/countries/US?display=graph
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.GROW/countries/1W-IN?display=graph
Sorry I missed you point. I would love a tax regime like that assuming the costs were reasonably and fairly apportioned. That’s a big assumption, but I might be willing to swap what we have for that.
The second plan sounds great until you realize you first need to give the government power to do that sort of thing. That’s not a free market anymore. Private property isn’t really safe in that kind of world. Look back on history and you might find you don’t like the different rat holes that might have been tried.
The beauty of private property and free(er) markets is that people tend to make much better decisions with their own money. Not perfect, but better.
The axis of evil countries are all more than willing to sell oil into world markets. They are begging to do it. Saddam sold oil. Iran wants to. The US doesn’t care who sells it. Same with oil companies.
The stupid wars? Blame the neocons. And the military who promote them, despite their denials.
Superpowers keep sea lanes open. Because that’s what Superpowers do. War is a luxury that only the world’s richest country can afford.
Cap vandal,
You can blame whoever you want for whatever you want, but will you please forgive my reluctance to blame a non specific group (members of which and beliefs of which are usually defined by non members) for whatever it is you want us to blame them?
“…no oily residue or combustion byproducts to gum up the works…”
I need an auto engineer to translate this techno-speak.
Musk’s original vehicle concept ran on Vegemite, but he went the all electric route because of the detritus.
The Model S has only been out for a couple years. How do we know the battery life?
Eight years seems like plenty to me; most of the people that have these will probably keep them for only a few years, then give them up for whatever the new cool, environmentally friendly car is.
Battery life is easily extrapolated from the existing data. There are many factors, but it is essentially an exponential decrement that heavily depends on the number of charge cycles.
You are correct about the cars and owners parting ways long before 8 years are up, but Mr Musk is making his claim regardless of the number of owners.
They also have even more data with the Roadster, which is a different battery tech, IIRC, but they undoubtedly have benchmark performance comparisons.
Seems this sportscar will outlive most ICE sportscars judging by the experience Jack has with Porsche and their non-existing service.
The drill analogy is dumb. Do you run your home drill multiple hours a day in deep winter and hot sun and vibrate it over US streets at 80 mph?
Being that a battery just moves electrons back and forth your analogy doesn’t work either
That sounds a lot like what contractors do to rtheir tools, just not all at the same time
They use the very same battery pack for 10 years?
Contractors that use powertools for hours have multiple batterypacks they swap out and those last only a year or so. This isn’t comparable to you hanging a picture every 6 months.
so yes, a single battery on daily heavy duty lasting 8-12 years is impressive.
Indeed.
But I will point out that the NiMH battery in my 2004 Prius is still doing great after 10 years.
It’s done so well that it’s still working as designed, despite being largely obsolete.
That’s why Toyota stays with the “outdated” NiMH.
and the hybrid doesn’t’ discharge the battery, keeps it between 70%-80%. Obviously staying between 70% and 80% would kill the range in an EV.
I love my Li-ion battery in my phone… but a phone is disposable and after 2 years I notice quite some degredation.
I used to love him but now he’s getting jaw wattles.
*sigh*
I’m seeing a Tesla sedan plowing up and down US 491 originating somewhere north of Tohatchi, NM and obviously heading to Gallup on a daily basis. Given the abject poverty out here I’m wondering where it calls home and where the owner works.
Originating maybe in Durango? (Gotta think outside the box.)
That’d be one hell of a drive, although there is quite a few federal government offices in Gallup that might employ your services if you were a high powered member of the legal profession.
Sadly I’m always going the opposite direction so I haven’t gotten a fix on the licence plate.
I’m seeing quite as few Teslas here in HNL and we don’t even have a store. I guess if you really want one, despite being 2500 miles away, there are ways.
Walter White lives!
Gallup can’t be that bad, I know they put a Supercharger there, it was being built when I went through there. Maybe he is just cheap and like to fill up for free everyday.
Elon Musk is a marketing genius. This is all brand building. New model coming, expected to set the premium cuv world on fire and it’s announcements like this, the persona he projects, the tech genius mogul that comes with every product he sells that is fanning the flames. It’s why people pay buckets of cash for something. Image!!! He and his company have an aura that is shining brighter than anything in the auto industry.
Personally my first thought was that this is a direct response to the very real hits to Tesla’s reliability Edmunds and CR recently delivered. But Musk always seems to shake his critics with sideshow media stunts……like this.
While we’re on image, I’d say that the Tesla is one of the few really good looking cars of current manufacture. Among other things, the styling is the cleanest. It has the same general shape as a lot of cars, but even if you’d never seen one, it would be instantly recognizable.
That said, it will be niche unless and until the range goes way up and the recharging time gets under 10 minutes or so.
Commuting is a pretty big niche.
Remember that EVs charge at home, and start every day with a full battery. So they’re going to be great commuters, and not great for road trips.
There’s room in my driveway for an aging minivan for road trips, and a shiney new EV for everyday driving.
Ten minute recharges of a 140 kWh battery is a 1 megawatt charge rate.The electricity system where I live totals only 2500 MW for 900,000 people., and a half million cars.
In case this means nothing to you, that means only 2500 vehicles charging at a time would use up the entire generation available. Not possible or even feasible. In fact, it’s risible. Over 4000 amps at 240 volts. Busbars and cables the size of your thigh. And that’s outside the car.
Which is why this electric vehicle thing is pretty silly from beginning to end if convenience (fast charging) is to be the norm.
People really have no idea about the practicalities. At all.
I have no strong feeling about Musk or Tesla, but I’m frankly confused at the vehemence of the attacks on him in this thread.
What he’s done seems both unambiguous and admirable to me. His company had no obligaton to cover cars already sold, yet it is. And he has no obligation to offer one of the strongest warranties in the history of the automobile industry — 8 years, unlimited miles on essentially the entire powertrain — yet he is.
Is this move selfish for publicity purposes? Of course it is. Just like Lee Iacocca’s 5/50 at Chrysler or the 10/100k at Hyundai, both done to counter negative press about quality and create a perception of value. What’s wrong with that? He’s offering value with the intention of receiving money for it. Isn’t that how the marketplace is supposed to work? Somebody ‘splain this to me.
Big deal – he extended the warranty on the least likely part of the car to fail. Even on internal combustion engines, how often does the actual *engine* fail? It is all the other stuff that will drive you batty. A/C. Electric windows. seat relays, etc., etc. I’d love to read the specific language of what it covers – what do they define as the “drive unit”?
Ah, but what about the rest of the reported issues with the Model S? If the doorhandles don’t extend when they’re supposed to, that can make the car just as unusable (until fixed) as a bad battery/motor.
The S already had a home in my fantasy garage. With this PR stunt it’s moved a step closer to the fire suppressed breezeway from the house. I’ve yet to see one in a color it doesn’t own. It can’t be my back road long distance cruiser, but I only need that 2 or 3 times a year. The damn things look perfect for a run to dinner or coffee. As long as I’m just driving to work, I’ll keep doing it in something that costs a heck of a lot less. Spending that much to drive to work kind of defeats the whole point of making money.
I’m not a great proponent of Elon, he’s probably the world’s richest welfare recipient.
Everything he does is subsidised by government or better still taxpayer dollars.
His space adventures, Tesla, etc wouldn’t be viable without massive taxpayer contributions.
If this warranty proves incorrect the taxpayer will bail him out.
I wonder how I can get as much welfare as him. Sort of like ‘working for the dole’ as we call it here in Australia.
>> Tesla, etc wouldn’t be viable without massive taxpayer contributions.
I suppose that’s unfair in the auto industry where his competitors like GM have never taken a single penny of taxpayer money and certainly don’t owe their existence to public assistance.
I take that as sarcasm…
@voyager
You’re correct.
Much sarcasm with truth.
What would the Musk’s companies be worth without all of the EV rebates, subsidisations, handouts, etc.
I would think he’d be pushing $hit uphill.
You do know that the program that Tesla got loans from (and repaid, early, with interest) lent out at least 10x as much to Ford, who has not yet paid them back, yes? Nissan got ~4x as much, dunno if they’ve paid their loan back yet either.
http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2013/05/23/tesla-pays-off-government-loan-nine-years-early/
You do know that Tesla bonds yield less than comparable US Treasuries, yes?
Keep hatin’, it’s entertaining to watch…
Overpaying for bonds is nothing to brag about.
(Psst! They’re junk: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/05/28/tesla-bonds-junk-standard-and-poors/9659105 )
Again, Pch, if Tesla’s bonds are “junk” and yet their yield is lower than comparable USTs, what does that make USTs?
Besides, Tesla’s “junk” rating is brought to you by the clowns who rated subprime paper grade-A back in the mid 2000s. Your logical fallacy of using them as an Appeal to Authority looks kinda silly given their crappy track record.
Overpaying for bonds still isn’t anything to brag about.
One reason that we end up with bubble stocks and bubble economies is because we have incessant cheerleaders like you who refuse to see it and who miss the obvious. Not only do you not want to see it, but you get huffy and puffy toward anyone who doesn’t share your enthusiasm, which is just the textbook definition of a fool.
LOL :-)
Forget what S&P, Moody, etc. say about Tesla bonds. Apply some common sense. YES, Tesla paid back its “Green Loans” earlier than the others who took similar loans. Kudos for acknowledging that Ford ALSO took government loans as well as lobbied on behalf of their competitors because they knew what would have happened had the supplier base collapsed.
And YES, the rating agencies screwed up big time on mortgage CDOs.
BUT Tesla is in the red from the beginning, not unexpected for a start up, but NOT deserving of a AAA bond rating. A track record of consistent profits should be required for that. Tesla is an “if come” investment. There is a lot more “Hope and Change” going on than real fundamentals. Those who have invested are mostly unaware of the future pitfalls Tesla will face. Its optimism over pragmatics. The reality of the situation doesn’t mean I’m not rooting for them, within certain bounds. I REALLY want to see how far they get owning their own outlets. I also want to see what happens when demand slides behind production, if only briefly. That’s when we’ll know if there is real discipline at Tesla when stockholders are screaming for action when the plant shuts down for inventory readjustment OR continues to produce and rent storage lots. Stuff like that usually gets out to the press, as does any production slowdown. It will happen. Its just a matter of when.
Tesla’s government loans are paid off.
The consumer subsidies for Teslas don’t make much difference in their sales, in my opinion. Such subsidies DO make a big difference in the sale of Leafs, which are priced lower.
SpaceX – many of their contracts are with the government, just like any other space rocket company. That’s not welfare.
The loans are a subsidy, and should never have happened. Not because it’s a luxury car, that’s a terrible argument, but because those loans are just a moral pit.
I agree with you on the purchase subsidy, but that doesn’t contradict Al’s statement. They are still there. I could possibly support a subsidy like that, but these were only justified as vote buying and pseudo science religion support.
On space x Al is technically correct. Tax payer contributions pay for services rendered, fairly or not. He is misleading by stating it without pointing out it doesn’t relate to his first claim about welfare though.
I still can’t decide on Musk. We’ll see eventually.
If one goes for the argument that Tesla is subsidized, OK. But lets be honest.
Oil consumption may be the most subsidized activity in the USA. I say this not critically (I drive an oil burning machine), just honestly. How much of the US defense budget, if we’re being honest, is all about protecting oil interests?
Tesla (or any electric car company) subsidies are penny ante by comparison.
Let’s not only be honest, let’s be correct. A subsidy, by definition, involves a transfer of money, or liquid assets, to the receiver. The oil companies do get subsidies, lots of them, but almost all are for green energy projects and research.
Now, let’s say you want to talk about support rather than subsidy? That may be a reasonable question, but to date, I have not seen a reasonable study. You can’t find one because any search is overwhelmed by leftist propaganda likely paid for in great part by green energy interests who get actual subsidies.
Did we go to war in Iraq to protect the supply of oil to us? No. To the rest of the world? In great part. Did that help keep the price low, sure. Did it help US oil companies profits? I would argue the opposite. Who was the real intended benefactor? The world economy and especially dependent people who, as soon as they got finished experiencing schadenfreude over the billions lost by the rich would find all their benefits reduced to basic sustenance in global calamity that will surely follow a loss of supply from the Middle East.
It’s a non issue now. The cuts have left us with barely enough military to get involved seriously anywhere for long. You can’t really pin any of the new military budget as a subsidy to anything unless you do the hard work of investigating really bad deals being cut to the big contractors who have gone from being good at providing what the government wanted to having a core competency of winning contracts and ensuring payment from Uncle Sugar.
Every time you hear about oil subsidies get really skeptical. Check closely and you will find a lot of wiggle words and sketchy sources who can only point to some pretty small actual support for oil prices and some really, really big and bogus theoretical items.
There is something to this argument, Al. I think you need to strengthen it somehow. Didn’t he make his start with paypal?
IMO, three major concerns should keep Musk on his toes.
1. Dependence of Tesla’s sales on all sorts of fiscal incentives. Particularly in some European countries.
2. Disruptive technology. What if someone comes up with a conventional engine that is substantially more efficient than today’s engines with their 20-30% efficiency?
3. Economy of scale of its basic ingredient: batteries. The EV needs to become way more popular in order to justify the billion dollar investments in mega factories to help reduce the price of batteries.
If Musk were worried about #2, he’d be working on THAT technology too.
As for #1, he can influence that by cutting costs internally, which it looks like what they’re doing with the gigafactory (in a “go big or go home” kind of way). Also, the Model S lack as some features that the similarly priced cars have, which actually made the father of someone I know pass on it (because he really likes adaptive cruise control). So, Tesla is likely managing their engineering and prosduction costs by just focusing on getting the basics realy-right, and keeping the cars a little spare.
I bet it’s #3 that’s the hard problem. Hence the gigafactory and the patent moves. Even if Tesla can’t make it selling cars, they might be able to make it selling batteries to other EV makers. I bet they’re trying like hell to do both, but diversifying let’s them manage the risk. Musk seems to love risk, but he’ll stack the deck every which way he can, on account of being a gazillionairre and not a fool. This is what all of these seemingly crazymkves seem to have in common.
#2: ICEs are only incrementally improving. Nobody is near getting a 4500 lb car to achieve 85 mpg.
#3: the opposite is true. EVs (specifically the Model 3) will become more popular if batteries are cheaper. Only the Gigafactory can achieve this for Tesla.
@Luke42: no other EV maker uses the 18650 cell, so I don’t see Tesla selling these cells to their competition. More likely, they’d sell them to laptop mfrs.
“#2: ICEs are only incrementally improving. Nobody is near getting a 4500 lb car to achieve 85 mpg.”
Not just that, but I would posit that getting a heat engine to max theoretical efficiency would require it to operate at a very limited range. I suspect reciprocating engines will never be as efficient as turbines or even free-piston engines. So, the most efficient “ICE” vehicle will always be an EREV with a purpose-built range extender operating in a serial mode, with enough battery to provide peak performance and enough range extender to provide mean power + a factor for extended climbs.
@SCE to AUX:
I don’t see any evidence to suggest that they’re using the 18650 as we know it in their next generation battery pack.
Think about the 400 mile pack for the roadster. It must fit within the same packaging requirements as the existing pack, but it contains roughly twice as many KWH.
How could they pull this off? The most obvious way is by getting rid of all of the space between those cylindrical 18650s, and using a flat-pack form factor (like everyone else). Another possibikity is that they’ve changed the battery chemistry enough that they can put twice as many KWH into an 18650 package for the same price (which would help to explain the gigafactory).
I don’t know which it is, or if the truth is another another possibility I haven’t thought of yet – but they’re working on some sort of fundamental change to their battery pack, and they haven’t told us what it is yet.
FWIW, I’ve had my motor replaced. And I know I’m not the only one. When you get a new motor you won’t be surprised to learn you’re not getting a new motor. You’re getting someone else’s motor that’s been fixed.
I believe a big part of the reason the warranty was extended was that the failure modes of electric motors do not resemble those of gasoline engines. Tesla is not going to fix the motor on your car at one of their service centers. They are not set up to do this and they have no intention of being set up to do it. Cars and their serviceability are designed as one thing. Tesla’s always going to replace the motor. When your motor fails, you won’t have an option to replace the bearing or gear or whatever is actually wrong. The whole “drive unit” is a sealed component that is essentially treated as a single part.
So imagine in a year or so a bunch of motors start failing out of warranty and customers get what is essentially a ransom note to keep their extremely expensive investment on the road. That would not look good.
This was not Elon being a nice guy. Tesla had no choice.
Don’t get hung up on motor replacement.
E-motors are terribly reliable. They can run decades under full load with minimal repair if any. A car motor only runs a few thousand hours under partial load.
I bet you’ll find 30 year old EVs on theit 5th battery pack totally corroded with the original motor still on superb condition.
If you think the E-motor is the critical part, you don’t understand cars. The E-drivetrain is what makes the car super rreliable if it wasn’t gor the battery degredation.
If only my AC blower motor were so reliable.
“Driven by better-than-expected reliability in the real world, a desire to respond to consumer concerns about operating costs, or just sheer monstrous ego, Elon Musk has decided to change the Tesla warranty.”
BETTER-than-expected reliability? Are you serious? He has extended the warranty because drive unit reliability has been worse than expected, with many being replaced under warranty in under 10,000 miles, notably the Edmunds long-term car, which had its FOURTH drive unit installed at just over 30,000 miles on the clock.
Concerns over out-of-warranty drive unit replacement costs, reported to be (retail) at around $15,000, which have been reaching critical mass among owners, prospective owners and in the media, are what drove this change.
Do some research before making your laughable claims as to what drove the warranty change.
Hold your water.
Who knows what Tesla expected?
Hint: not you.
And not you – but that didn’t stop you from making the claim YOU made, did it?
Pretty sure he didn’t expect to be replacing lots of drive units with 10k miles on them.
Take a look at Tesla’s warranty costs.
I think it’s fairly obvious to anyone who’s been following the issue that they didn’t make this warranty change as a result of better-than-expected reliability and the desire to leverage that into a marketing advantage.
Lighten up, Francis.
I expect we’ll know the impact of extending the warranty in an 8-K or 10-Q soon enough.
As much as I like electric cars and the merits that they provide, carmakers should be more focused on extending their range, charge stations, and making them more practical. Teslas more focused on wowing people with image and pop-out door handles, yes that’ll work great in 5 years.
If theres one thing that GMs been going right at all its the Volts on-board generator system. Now if you it ran on diesel…
And the Supercharger network?
Which other manufacturer has something comparable?
Which other manufacturer has something comparable?
Nissan has been expanding their level 3 charger network at dealerships. The downside is that many of those seem to be restricted to dealer hours. However, some of them are located at hotels. I think Comfort Inn is adding some to their properties locally – the one nearest Boston Logan Airport has one. I just checked and we seem to have about 14 total level 3 in the Boston area. Not long ago I think there were zero.
For level 2 charging, some EV owners are buying portable level 2 chargers that can plug into 240 volt RV outlets at campgrounds. That will work well if you’re into camping.
got a level 3 charging station at the nearby Nissan Dealer. outside the lot, accessible 24hrs. sweet. gets you from 25miles to ~70(ish) in 30min. good enough for a hit when you need it. its taken less than a month to get so you know how long you can go. i end up doing the same calculus i’ve done for years when i hit and 1/8 of a tank… how far can i go before i HAVE to fill up. its just more frequent.
What passes for L3 that isn’t Tesla isn’t really qualitatively comparable IMO. 50kW charging isn’t good enough for normal people to travel intercity on a regular basis, especially with the tiny batteries in non-Tesla runabouts.
Enthusiasts may travel from, say, LA to Vancouver in a runabout, and make an event out of having to stop all the time and take forever to charge at 50kW (if they’re lucky) or more like 20-25kW (if they’re not). Normal people would want at a minimum 100kW charging, with 250kW charging much preferred. 500kW charging would put the nail in the ICE’s coffin, assuming vehicles had batteries of 50kWh usable that could accept such charges safely, reliably and regularly.
ps: TTAC, your angle-bracket parsing junk ate my comment, please make your regexes less eat-y..
I see something like this and think okay, the warranty thing is not bad, getting better, now Tesla just needs to get some proper range like 400 miles out of the battery and get the charging times faster, maybe a little better interior and features and maybe I would consider it, but then I price it out to the specs that I would like and realize this car is still crackpipe. I suspect the Model X will be the same, so we will have to wait until the Model E err 3 to see what Tesla can really do. I would not have an issue picking up a 3 or 4 year old Tesla Model S for $40K or so with that kind of warranty though as a runaround.
For me, range isn’t an issue since I have mostly a 12 to 20 mile round trip commute and have some ICE cars in the garage as well. Then again, in test driving EVs, I’m discovering that the idea of getting back into one of the ICEs for a longer trip isn’t quite as appealing. I still love the sound of a high performance ICE (and a few low performance as well), but silence can be pretty damn nice too.
remember the model s is still a 2nd car. how many people w/ 7-series really drive them cross country. sorry, they fly to their house in aspen. so, for most of $80k car is laughable, but for the upper echelon its a great way, at least in CA, get access to carpool lanes, say you’re doing something about the environment, be an early adopter.
What is with people and this insane idea of how people that drive S-Classes/7Series/A8s and how they live? I drive an S-Class and drive it regularly between my two homes which are 1,200 miles apart several times a year. You do realize that the average owner of an S-Class is a physician, attorney, someone in finance or moderately successful business owner, not everyone is some billionaire with a $15 million home in Aspen and a private jet. BTSR on here had an S-Class also and he is not flying around the country on private jets or summering in The Hamptons either. There are a ton of guys on here that own 911s including Jack and pretty sure few, probably none, live the way you seem to think people with these types of cars live.
For some reason cars like mine seem to hold some mystique of insane wealth and unattainability but the guy with the Ford King Ranch and the 32ft boat spent just as much as I did, probably even more and that flies under the radar.
I won’t get into the debate of whether this car really helps the environment, there are many studies that say otherwise and that it might be worse than an ICE car. I am not educated enough on the matter to speak on it.
The entire purpose of buying a car like an S-Class is so that I have a comfortable, bank vault type of vehicle, that is safe, especially for long drives. If you have a 5 minute commute to your office, then just buy a Prius, you won’t be in it long enough for it to matter. Hell a 1998 Pontiac Grand Prix will do the job just fine.
@VenomV12
Exactly this. To me the definition of a daily driver is a car that I can take anywhere, anytime. Anything else is a toy. My Spitfire is a toy – I would not drive it to NJ and back. But I fully expect my BMW to do that at the drop of a hat. Or anywhere else for however far I need to go. The LAST thing I am ever going to do is drop $60-100K on a nice car, then have to RENT something to take it on a trip! That is what I spent (well, only $40K, but still) big money on a car for. If I was just knocking around town, I would just have old beaters in the garage.
You hit the nail on the head – if your commute is so short that a full electric car makes sense, why bother? If you just want it for the geek factor (my buddy with Leaf for example), then GREAT! But don’t think you are somehow saving the planet. If you are looking to save money, buy a USED Prius.
Elephant in the room: resale. Musk has essentially secured resale for the next several years ensuring none of his cars will ever end up in the hands of ne’er-do-well or on BHPH lots (at least till the new warranty period ends)
Here’s what MY13 Model S was doing *before* the announcement.
07/03/14 RIVRSIDE Regular $69,000 7,894 Avg BLACK EL Yes
07/03/14 RIVRSIDE Regular $68,000 12,968 Avg BLACK EL Yes
07/17/14 RIVRSIDE Regular $69,500 8,153 Above BLACK EL A Yes
07/29/14 FT LAUD Regular $70,500 12,940 Above White EL A Yes
07/30/14 OHIO Regular $70,000 10,372 Above Black NON A Yes
08/13/14 PALM BCH Regular $65,600 9,405 Avg BLACK EL A Yes
I expect the models to hold in the 50K range in avg condition for some time due to this announcement.
No one I know in the business expects these cars to hold 50K for any length of time, INCLUDING ALG and the folks who guarantee residuals. Let’s see what happens when demand slows a little compared to production. Or do you think that will never happen? If so, you can put your money where your mouth is and guarantee some residuals for a premium. Maybe you can sell some swaps on them. After all, no one seems to worry when there are no reserves to pay potential claims.
Elon Musk seems to be the only guy in the car business that when he does something good for his customers is attacked and criticized for it.
Perhaps that is because we don’t like facing the fact that cars driven by internal combustion engines will one day go the way of horse buggies. That Tesla’s cars are a better representation of what cars in the near and distant future will look like and that scares the hell out of some of us.
Elon Musk is doing a better job of pushing us into the future than any other car maker out there. We should all be cheering him on even if we don’t buy his cars.
Who is criticizing him for extending the warranty? Perhaps some stockholders?
Of course the internal Combustion engine will go the way of “horse and buggies.” Some day we’ll just call Scottie to “beam us.” We won’t need electric cars then either.
Yes, Musk is pushing us into the future. He’s doing a hell of a job and we’ll see where it all goes. He seems to be more focused on remaking the world than making profits for his stockholders, many of whom don’t seem to care. Its fascinating to watch. But there’s substantial sizzle with the steak. Good for him, I say. But I’ll keep me money in a safer environment while I watch.