So apparently Tesla cars are falling apart. Tesla refuses to recall them and fix critical safety problems. Tesla has been lying to safety agencies. And now two Senators are joining in and demanding the company recall their dangerous product.
@mastodonmigration I'm someone who repaired crashed Tesla years ago and one of those is my daily driver. I've had plenty of fights with Tesla, they are horrible to deal with and their management seems toxic.
But you go too far. 'Never buy from a new car manufacturer, never buy a later model car'. Really? So we should all drive Model Ts?
Tesla has massively accelerated the move to EV. Don't lose sight of that because the boss is 'special'.
@Niall Sounds like you value the roll of being an early adopter. That's fine. The advice should have been caveated "...unless you want to be a test pilot."
Also, would like to push back on "Tesla has massively accelerated the move to EV..." EVs are an evolution. We can not know what would have happened if Tesla had not opportunistically grabbed that market space and hastily rolled out their substandard engineering. But it can be argued it has actually been a drag on the overall move to EVs.
Why is this predictable? Yes, Tesla may be an awful company, and the engineering may have been shoddy, but there is something else going on here. Engineering cars, or any complex system, involves iteration and incremental improvement. Product quality is an integration function. You simply can't create a high quality complex system from scratch. So, when the inevitable issues surface you need to be committed to incurring the cost of remediating the problems.
And these issues do not necessarily show up immediately. Some may take years to surface. Here is an example. Once owned a very good car from a well known high quality manufacturer. Apparently in this model year they had made a small change to the rubber "boot" that encased the front wheel bearings, which after a few years leaked and let gook inside which then attacked the bearings, and eventually caused a failure.
Now with a newly designed car, from a new car company, multiply the potential for these kinds of things by a thousand. Every little piece of the car has been untested over time. Unless the car company has planned for this and is aggressively and proactively working to remedy issues as they surface they are courting disaster, and even then it may be hopeless.
Moral of the story. Never, ever buy a newer model year car and never from a new car company. Let someone else be the test pilot.
@mastodonmigration agreed. Had the chance to buy the brand new #Mazda CX-90 PHEV but with it being their first real first into EVs (the MX doesn't count) in North America, I was wary of being a guinea pig.
Already have read reports of the car just dying with no reason. Can't have that when I'm ferrying 3 kids around!
Decided to stick with my tried and tested CX-5 instead. Been driving it hard and no major mechanical issues yet. 🤞
@DavidElfstrom It sure does. There is a reason that SLS development is so slow deliberate. Going fast and breaking things is not a good idea for rockets, or as it turns out automobiles.
Edit: And SLS is based on three decades of STS booster experience.
@sumek Right. Although many new cars from established high quality car manufacturers employ proven designs for various components and subsystems, so the risk is less than from a new car company. But generally is you want to minimize risk, select a model that has been around from a good company. Check the internet for "good model years" of that vehicle, and ask your mechanic (if you have one) for their experience and recommendations.
No, but once owner an early (but not that early) model year Civic hybrid. After 3 years the battery went bad, just after the warranty expired. But Honda replaced it for free anyway, a several thousand dollar repair.
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