Scottish couple facing $33k repair bill after driving Tesla in heavy rain
Just a moment...
Scottish couple facing $33k repair bill after driving Tesla in heavy rain::undefined
I think it's important to mention that this isn't an issue EVs have but an issue Teslas in particular have. They seem to have a really bad build quality from what I hear.
Just in case anyone thinks this is a problem with all electric cars...
I own a Chevy Bolt. It lives in the driveway, as my house doesn't have a garage. And I live in a city that gets Scotland levels of rainfall. It's not uncommon for a heavy downpour to leave some low-lying streets with an inch or more of water on them in some places, and that's perfectly normal here.
My Bolt does just fine in that. I never even considered the idea that I might need to take extra precautions with it because fucking rain might kill its battery.
This wasn't everyday "Scotland levels of rainfalls" though, it was a specific storm that posed a risk to life in many areas.
That said I still would expect my car to endure anything short of being submerged underwater.
I second this. Drove my Zoe through rain, snow and ice, never had any problem or even thought about with water ingress.
Just in case anyone thinks this is a problem with Teslas, I have driven mine through several dozen heavy rainstorms and even a hurricane and my Tesla does just fine in that.
And as everyone knows, science is comprised of my personal experience.
I don't think anyone thinks this is a universal problem with Teslas. It's just a possible case of quality control failure. That said, quality control has been a problem lately.
How do you like your bolt? I've been thinking about getting one or maybe an equinox when that comes out
Best car I've owned, without a doubt. I charge it overnight, and never have to even think about range (it'll do 300 miles in good conditions if driven carefully). Keeping it charged costs a few dollars a month most of the time, unless I'm on a road trip and need to pay for charging on the way - which is still far, far cheaper than paying for gas.
The only downside is that road trips require more planning, because you need to know where you're going to stop for a charge beforehand, and you need to plan out the time it'll take to get a decent charge. But that just means making sure you're going to have lunch or take a break to stretch your legs and walk around where you'll be charging. Long-distance trips are definitely doable, you just plan them around charging locations.
And it's impossible to beat the maintenance costs: Nearly $0. Very few moving parts and an electric motor means no oil changes, engine maintenance, and general wear-and-tear are much lower.
It's a great car.
I love my bolt euv, but they are hard to get, high demand and discontinued. For me the autopilot is a huge feature, makes moderately long trips way less fatiguing. It has great set of camera for maneuvering and isn't too big (still I would prefer smaller). Range is fine for everything I do, 400km in summer, 275 in winter. That's what the gauges say, but with good driving habits and practise you can get that significantly better. A full charges costs me about 5 bucks and its very nice to not have to think about it unless roadtripping. It charges slowly compared with some evs but I don't find a 1hr to full charge on a fast charger particularly problematic. My wife did toronto to ottawa (about 500km) twice now and the stop for charging was shorter than the time it took her to grab lunch. Cooled front seats are very nice and the price was much more affordable than cars with similar ranges. Almost No maintaince is great, although chevvy will message you for an oil.change (lol!).
On the downsides, the bose sound system is crap and there's no front trunk like many evs.
Unfortunately, you'll probably have a hard time finding a new Bolt at this point. They've just stopped making them and dealerships haven't really been able to keep any in stock for months in my neck of the woods. Apparently they will eventually come back but the timeline hasn't been announced so probably several years.
Muskrats: "Why would anyone think they can drive in the rain?"
I don't even believe the story happened.
Got any more sources target than carexpert.com.au lmao
This isn't surprising at all. Have you ever looked at a Tesla up close? The fit and finish is bad. Like really bad. I have never understood how anyone could walk up to one, look at it and think "I'll buy this". Tesla has absolutely miserable quality control.
I've been in a Model S, and don't get me wrong the acceleration was absolutely phenomenal
But my Skoda Fabia (which for the first owner probably cost £15k instead of £70k+) absolutely beat the shit out of it for how well-built it was. (For the yanks - Skoda is a sub brand of the VW group - think of them as a slightly cheaper Volkswagen)
Everything is rigid and you'd need a sledgehammer to shift it. In the Tesla you could just grab random parts of the interior and wobble it about. Everything shifts about, rattles, and shakes.
The paint on my Fabia is flawless - it's of equal thickness everywhere, whereas for the Model S some parts were clearly thinner than others.
The panel gaps are a meme for a reason. On the Fabia, sure the panel gaps are wider than they are on a Porsche or something, but they're exactly the same everywhere. On the Tesla you'd see it completely flush at the top of some panels, and a 6mm gap at the bottom! It was so inconsistent.
And the rear passenger-side door's rubber seal where the window comes up was peeling off. This car is only 3 years old ffs!
I wish Tesla would license their drivetrain designs out to people who can actually build cars.
Skoda was the brand we'd take the piss out of in the early 90s.
I wonder if 2030s kids will be laughing at their friends being driven to school in a clapped out Model S, with half the panels falling away, one door a slightly different colour to the rest, and a battery that goes maybe 40 miles, going "Ahhh, your mum drives a Tesla!"
That's funny because my Jetta felt like it was going to rattle itself apart.
I'm currently driving a Scoda Fabia myself. The globe box just broke, because something inside got stuck, and the 20 year old plastic handle just didn't want to budge, and broke instead. Meanwhile, I just drove 1500km in it over the span of 3 days. It just keeps chugging along.
I rode in one for the first time a few months ago and it immediately broke any preconceived notions I had of it being a luxury product. The weather stripping on the doors was installed crooked and the material on the seats wasn't lined up properly either. That's just what I noticed in the first minute or two. It wasn't even old, it was brand new since the owners first Tesla was totaled in an accident (in which all the recorded camera footage was lost on impact, you know the most important time you would want recordings to work).
I drive one and its the worst purchase I made to "save the environment".
Apparently I'm going to Tesla dealer ship near my and from what I heard the cars aren't actually there you just get to look at them on a screen . And there would be nowhere to get it serviced if something happened to it .
Weird, the Tesla showroom near me has plenty of vehicles to walk in for a test drive and a repair center outback.
"They said it’s not necessarily my fault but it’s not Tesla’s to pay under warranty."
If it's not a warranty case and not a misuse case that means it's designed and it's supposed to function like that. Imagine an "automotive" grade battery pack with a lower IP rating that the car itself :))))
How to avoid such issues ?
The problem is nowdays it's not only Tesla.
Yes, but he , as capitalists do, exploited EV for money. First step is to reduce, not make more. Chevy is working on an electric motor that will go in the differential. Reduce the existing cars by reusing the old. New cars can be made, we just need to make sure the old ones are gone. Me, I like the idea of retrofitting old cars. Yes, it can be expensive, but once again, if capitalists wouldn't be constantly capitalizing, we all could have nice things.
I don't get why the service centre isn't covering it in warranty, given the car should be able to handle rain (or even driving through floodwater) just fine and many Teslas do just that, including the many currently in Scotland. Clearly there was a fault that allowed water ingress to the battery.. eventually it would have failed anyway, just in normal weather.
Tesla customer service seems to be based on deflection, rather than responsibility.
Because that costs money, and they absolutely hate that. Those insane margins have to come from somewhere.
Maybe a force majeure clause stating they aren't responsible for "acts of god" like freak storms.
I have no sympathy at this point for anyone buying one of these pieces of garbage from a company led by a person who quite obviously a flaming piece of garbage, producing products that are quite obviously flaming pieces of garbage.
I mean, there are so many alternatives now, you really have to ignore how horrible Musk is to buy one of these, and you have to have your head stuck in the ground for a couple of years now to not know that Tesla quality control is diaper poo.
There aren’t alternatives is my part of the USA due to lack of charging options. That is changing now that Tesla’s network is opening up but that hasn’t happened yet.
So buy a hybrid, charge at home, and done. Is the environmental impact different enough from a fully electric vehicle vs hybrid, when you take into account the pollution from lithium mining and refinement? Not dramatically better, no. It's idiotic to buy a Tesla that is a flaming piece of garbage, just because it's the only option in a particular area or country. The simple solution is to wait until viable, good quality products are available. It won't be long.
I mean, who would ever expect RAIN in SCOTLAND?? There's no way that Tesla could have predicted that the car might be subjected to such a freak occurrence! 🤦😂
The number keeps going up every time I see someone post about it lol
This article had more info than the last one I saw floating through the feed (The article I saw had been "enhanced" by AI writing and you could tell).
In this article "A couple from Edinburgh was shocked after receiving a £17,374 (A$33,370) bill"
The last article floating through the feed didn't really cover any real ponts about what happened and seemed to be targeting Elon in a negative scope.
This article had information about the issue they faced when attempting to leave and waiting 5~ hours for Tesla RSA. Then calling Tesla and talking to a manager that that was covering Tesla's ass with warranty talk.
Didn't they have already issues with water on the Model 3 bumper? Still remembering seeing my first Tesla Model S... Worst bodypanel gaps I've ever seen on a new car
One of the most important things when buying a used EV is checking the base of the car for any punctures. One could happen due a plethora of reasons.
Combine a puncture with driving in heavy rain/puddles and water damage may occur.
I hate Musk and wouldn't buy Tesla ever, but this isn't necessarily just because of the shoddy quality control they have.
With that money I could just buy three more trucks like the one I already own and take a week long holiday to Europe.
Where on earth are finding decent vehicles for under 8k??
Unless your current truck is 10-15 years old and has over 250k km on it...
My current truck is 15 years old and has 250k km on it.
no excuse imo. its a car. Its even stupider that it failed from rain (even bad rain) in a car park. Cars can deal with 1m water easily (most batteries are that high, the air intake for the engine is easily that high (I will ignore Lambos and similar, built for different purposes).
In the worst case for a 'normal' car (what is the TLA for them now?) a replacement battery would cost you a couple hundred bucks at most.
Even if water got into the intake, the whole overhaul would not cost $20k or whatever it was.
I always hear bad things from Tesla owners after the honeymoon phase is over.
Am owner of 3-year-old model X. Can confirm. Build quality is shit, and service experience is worse. Will never buy another Tesla.
do hybrids have a battery? I'm obviously not talking about the standard lead acid 12volt DC battery
the reason I'm asking, hybrids have been selling really good or so I've been told
Most, if not all, "hybrid" vehicles will have a high voltage bank of lithium batteries for propulsion in addition to a 12v lead acid battery to run the chassis electronics.
I am aware of three basic patterns of hybrid cars, which I will call:
-Electric Vehicle That Lugs A Generator Around With It. Example: Chevrolet Volt. The car is propelled with electric motors only, and it is intended to operate primarily from battery power recharged from the power grid. For range extension, it has a small ICE engine that turns a generator, which will only start and generate power when the batteries are low. There is no mechanical transmission; the engine cannot directly drive the wheels.
-Why Not Both? Example: Toyota Prius (Early models at least; I think they make a full EV badged as the Prius now). The car has an internal combustion engine, a mechanical transmission, batteries and motors. They're exact modes of operation vary from model to model, but generally these will stop the engine and operate on batteries when stopped, coasting, braking, operating at low speed, or sometimes cruising. They will start the engine and run on engine power while accelerating to highway speed, possibly cruising at highway speed, to run accessories like air conditioning, or when the batteries are low. These may or may not plug into the power grid to recharge their batteries, or they may ultimately derive all energy from gasoline. Again the exact implementation varies from model to model.
-Two Ton Golf Cart. Example: Chevrolet Silverado. You'll see these marketed as "soft hybrids," "mild hybrids" or "stop-start". Sometimes these just have extra big normal batteries, sometimes these have relatively small lithium batteries. These are more or less normal cars that are anal retentive about how they burn gasoline, shutting down the engine when coasting, braking, idling or sometimes moving at very low speed. Depending on the implementation, the car might just have an extra big starter motor that starts the engine in gear when you push the gas pedal, so the first 3 feet or so are done under battery power and then you're under gas power. Some can decouple the motor and engine and kinda have "electric first gear." Maybe you can make it through the McDonald's drive-thru purely on battery, but it'll start the engine if you hit 10MPH or so. You often see this in larger, heavier vehicles like pickup trucks where the additional electric powertrain would be very heavy and very expensive, but just shutting down the engine sometimes can gain some MPG.
Yes, that's what hybrids are, a hybrid between an electric and combustion engine car, I.e. they have both.
It wouldn't be able to function as an electric car at all without a battery. Think of the battery as the EV version of the gas tank. It has to have somewhere to store its energy.
#BoycottMusk #BoycottTesla #BoycottTwitler
The events of this story are bad yes, but I think it's important to point out that the '$33k' figure is using AUD, otherwise known as the weakest dollar. That's a bit under US$21k. Still bad, but obviously not nearly as much.
This is why I will never buy a new car, or an electric car. My celica is the best car, and everyone should get one, like mines. Celicas are waaaaaay better than those pieces of shit electric cars. Oh what's that? Your electric car roof is leaking even though it's way newer than my car? Mines doesn't leak tho. AND! And my car is used so it is less harmful to the environment than a new crummy plastic electric car
This sounds like confirmation bias. I've never heard of electric car roof leaking I don't know what you're talking about. I've had a 2018 Honda clarity for 5 years now and have had to spend virtually no money in maintenance. Best car I've ever owned for long drives especially.
Car expert what kind of trash source is this
Water got into the battery. Well that sounds like it is squarely a fault of Tesla and its QC or R&D. Who tf builds a car, with a battery, doesn't make sure that the battery and all other major components are IP68 rated for "full immersion up to a meter or more for 30 minutes" ?
Its a CAR. We have Fords to cross. And some RAIN fscked it up??!!
That’s implying they have one at all!
The official QC policy from Musk himself is "don't"
The second car here is a Tesla, and it still runs at the other side of the ford (but we don't know for how long). But I agree, driving through rain should not damage a car.
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It didn't get fucked up by rain. They drove it on heavily flooded roads, according to Scots from the area.
Myself and about 3 million other Tesla owners can attest that they are not perturbed by rain.
Well, it is a SUV. Why not?