In the presentation, Musk stated that the drivetrain is guaranteed for 1 million miles. I have no data on what sort of guarantees Diesel Semi manufacturers offer. Would be good to work that out. There is battery life and degradation as well to take into account.
back
2 comments
Elon's word is worth very little these days, needs to be on paper under scrutiny of a lawyer or it's garbage.
Regardless of whether you believe Elon, this has been shown for the Model 3 drivetrain before
https://electrek.co/2018/10/15/tesla-drive-after-million-mil...
And it's not that hard to believe given that it is a system with very few moving parts and no constant explosions happening in it during operation.
> this has been shown for the Model 3 drivetrain
Is there anything more than a picture released by Tesla to that article? I would have expected test results or at least some data on how it holds up.
I can't tell if this is satire...
Anyone who's visited TSMC can tell you drive unit failures have been happening before 100k miles let alone a entire million.
People have had back to back drive unit failures on new cars.
I recall a MS owner getting the run around about an impending DU failure (which manifests as a whine under acceleration) as their warranty was about to expire, only to have it fail out of warranty.
Now people are trying to DIY DU whine on cars that haven't even made it to 100k.
Running a DU in a simulated 1 million mile test is nowhere near the same as actually lasting 1 million miles in the real world over as many years as that would take.
The only thing that matters is the percentage of those failures before the 1mil miles. And that'll be a while.
If Teslas had nearly any concerningly significant number of drivetrain failures, nobody would buy them and they've been around long enough for people to catch up. I did plenty of research before buying mine and I follow Tesla quite closely. Haven't heard any concerns in this regard.
I expect Tesla to only get better for the time being.
> The only thing that matters is the percentage of those failures before the 1mil miles. And that'll be a while.
Please tell that to someone dealing with back to back DU replacements within a couple of years owning their cars.
Or people being told to scrap their cars by Tesla service advisors because even if they fix their DU something else will just break: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/out-of-warranty-driv...
-
All cars have reliability issues.
We need to stop pretending like replacing one powerplant with another will change that. An entire generation of drive units are failing because of an issue the same boring issue that kills so many ICEs: Coolant getting where it's not supposed to because of a failed seal, causing lubricants to fail.
If you want a car that will go a million miles today, a "boring" base model Lexus is probably a safer bet than a Model 3.
> Elon's word is worth very little these days
His words are worth fine. Articles and second hand mangled version of what he actually says is worth nothing - I agree.
As far as this topic is concerned, demand for Tesla Semi is enough evidence.
> As far as this topic is concerned, demand for Tesla Semi is enough evidence.
The Tesla Semi is the Tinker Bell of automotive.
IMO, this is Elon not understanding the market he's talking to. This type of warranty sounds great to general consumers.
In commercial trucking, it's more about the downtime. Making it to 1 million miles doesn't really matter if the maintenance along the way isn't easier. These trucks will still require tire changes plus maintenance to shocks/struts/control arms/air pressure systems/etc. Stays might be shorter, but commercial trucks already have processes for maintenance.
How do you know they didn't take any of that into account?
In every single field lots of studies have been done on electric vehicles of all kinds, including cars, trucks, vans and planes. And every single time, electric vehicles show that they are cheaper to maintain.
> but commercial trucks already have processes for maintenance.
And I'm sure they would like to get ride of as many of those processes as possible.
The standard warranty on a semi-truck engine is 4 years and 400,000-600,000 miles. A million miles isn't impressive, it screams "we're so far behind, we need to distract them with flashier incentives."
Maybe they can build up their reputation in time to pay for all the warranties. I guess it worked for Kia? IIRC that's around the time that all those "cash back" incentives became popular with the other manufacturers, before they jumped on the 10k bandwagon too.
Yeah - if I were signing a contract for these semis, I would want the '1 million miles' warranty to mean 'if the truck stops working and can't be repaired by Tesla within a week, then Tesla will buy back the truck for the purchase price * miles driven/1 million.'
I'd define 'stops working' as 'stops being road legal or able to drive at the speed limit with the rated load for at least half the advertised range'.
So a broken cab heater or faulty app wouldn't be reason for a warranty return.
I would obviously expect to pay a higher ticket price to get this warranty.
> I would want the '1 million miles' warranty to mean 'if the truck stops working and can't be repaired by Tesla within a week
I want this for everything I buy that if out of order, would cost me time or money. My home coffee machine included.
A new semi truck starts at about $100k on the low end. You can get the same level of service by spending $5k on a coffee machine meant for coffee shops.
Intrigued so did a bunch of searches for commercial machines and can't find any mention of "fix it or take it back and pay me for my time" terms anywhere.
Care to share one?
In general, if you want this you'd lease the machine. Fairly common for independent cafes and restaurants (and those bean-to-cup machines in offices).
Though, also, the heavy-duty commercial machines are pretty reliable and service-able; you wouldn't generally expect to be out of order for a _week_ even if you owned it.
Oops I thought you were being realistic :)
Edit: SLAs?
If Tesla current maintenance track record translates to semis...
The promise of EVs is basically less downtime and lower cost. You'll still have to swap tires of course. Brakes will last a lot longer because they are not used a lot. There is no diesel engine to service. The drive train is the bit that is supposedly going to last a long time without efficiency decrease. All the rest is going to be similar. But it looks like some of the more expensive maintenance is going to be easier.
I'd say Elon Musk has a good product here that will likely sell very well.
>The promise of EVs is basically less downtime and lower cost
I’m guessing that you don’t own a Tesla.
I do. And I like mine, a lot. But it doesn’t deliver on either of those promises, and it’s hardly an outlier.
I also own a Tesla. Over the 6 years I have owned it my automotive costs have decreased by some 80% compared to the ICE vehicles I owned prior. Significantly, the “no oil changes/no weekly fill up” costs immediately saved me around $2800/year. Maintenance costs have dropped to next to nothing, primarily being around tires and windshield wiper fluid.
There’s also no risk of getting a catalytic converter stolen.
What are your expenses that are so dramatically above the norm?
>What are your expenses that are so dramatically above the norm?
My comment about cost was in relation to purchase price, not ongoing cost.
I recently bought a 2022 Model S Plaid, and while there are certainly cheaper Teslas out there (namely, all of them), Tesla doesn't come close to competing with ICE vehicles on cost of acquisition.
There are more expensive cars out there than even your top-of-the-line model. I’m not sure what point you are trying to make.
I don't know what your situation is, but here's mine:
Got a Model 3 back in 2020. The service I've had to get done to date has been what's in the user manual: tire rotation, cabin air filter replacement and brake fluid check. That's it! No down time other than the few hours per service visit (for which they paid me equivalent of $50 USD to travel from and to the service center on each visit).
And I've used 90% Superchargers to charge and despite that, saved a lot on gas.
I'm glad that you haven't had any issues. I bought a new Model S Plaid a few months ago. Since then, it has been in for service three times, nearly all of which was for work that can be accurately categorized as "Tesla didn't finish putting the car together."
Examples:
There was a very large, very obvious gap between the charge port cover and the adjacent brake lamp assembly. Easily over a half-inch. I was dreading the possibility of getting 'in spec'-ed by Tesla, but my concern was misplaced. Turns out, Tesla hadn't finished installing the brake lamp assembly. It wasn't fully seated.
Rattling from under the frunk? Multiple clips were missing from the plastic trim, and of the clips that were present, many weren't actually clipped in.
Thunking sound from the driver side front tire on bumpy roads? The hub bolts and upper shock bolts were all loose.
Rattling from the center console? Tesla hadn't torqued down the fasteners that attach it to the car.
The hood ornament on the front comes with protective plastic that is supposed to be removed at installation. It wasn't. And it's not the kind of plastic that you can just tear or peel off. Tesla had to do that.
Did I mention that I found out - at delivery - that the new car needed a new windshield?
I have another service appointment coming up soon. The trunk floor was slightly crushed in (about an inch) where the floor meets the rear passenger seat. They would have replaced the trunk floor a while ago, but they couldn't due to parts availability. Also, some of the weather stripping is separating from the car, and it can't just be pushed back in place.
Oh yeah, here's one: after my most recent service appointment - for the suspension issue - my driver profile no longer existed. Good times.
There's more.
Somehow, I still like the car — mostly because it's insanely fast. But this is totally bonkers for any new car, let alone one with a $145,000 price tag.
Sounds like your car might be eligible for the lemon law. The amount of issues you're having is insane.
My car with 200k+ miles doesn't even have this many issues.
It’s not eligible in my state, though I wouldn’t pursue a claim if it was.
I totally agree on the insane comment.
I also own a 2018 4Runner. It has around 180,000 miles, has been driven over some of the roughest backcountry routes in the United States, and has had no quality or performance issues. Ever. Just routine maintenance.
Jesus, I wouldn't feel safe driving that thing.
OMG! So sorry to hear that. That's awful! :( but thanks for sticking with it.
>thanks for sticking with it
I don’t understand. Why do you care whether or not I stick with my car?