A Tesla representative, in a statement to the Globe, said “there are significant safety concerns when salvaged Teslas are repaired improperly or when Tesla parts are used outside of their original design intent, as these vehicles could pose a danger to both the mechanic and other drivers on the road.”
It seems Tesla is deliberately ignoring or trying to squash the aftermarket/custom-car culture which has basically existed since cars existed... and in contrast, Chrysler/Ford/GM are happy to sell you parts like engines and transmissions without caring whether they'll even be used in a car, and have been doing so for literally decades, so obviously they're aware of and not worried about any legal liability issues.
"Chrysler/Ford/GM are happy to sell you parts like engines and transmissions without caring whether they'll even be used in a car"
Ancedata says some of the big 3 do care. A guy down the road from me ordered 500 engines from Ford. They followed up on the order and when he explained they were for airplanes, they cancelled it, saying they didn't want to be liable for an automotive engine in a plane.
His plan to turn his custom plane into a kit stopped at a beautiful one-off that sits in his museum when he isn't flying it.
If he was going to put the engines in a tractor, I bet they would have sold them, but they didn't want to be liable for something in a plane.
>It seems Tesla is deliberately ignoring or trying to squash the aftermarket/custom-car culture which has basically existed since cars existed...
Plenty of people are willing to aid them. Go on Reddit and you'll find that it's impossible to have an adult discussion of repairs or modifications more involved than parts swapping without being drowned out by people screaming "hurr durr, muh public safety" or just down-voted into oblivion. You'll find no shortage of people willing to tell you that industry standard modifications (like lengthening truck frames), repairs (like welding cracks in steel wheels) or anything that modifies how a vehicle handles compared to stock configuration (like a lift kit on a Jeep) are fundamentally a danger to the public.
Edit: I dunno why I was optimistic that HN would be any better.
Why do you believe that Tesla’s assessment (One guy in his garage without any specific training might not have proper quality controls) isn’t authentic?
> It seems Tesla is deliberately ignoring or trying to squash the aftermarket/custom-car culture
This culture ("F your emissions controls," "I the lay blue collar know better than the committes of degreed engineers who designed the thing") has never cared about safety, nor has the aftermarket ("fitness for purpose, engineering, warranty... to hell with all that, the only requirement for our product is that some idiot should buy it")
Improperly repaired and modified cars are a detriment to the safety of others on the road, but wishing the problem away like Tesla is doing is not going to help anything, they need to publish and make accessible the documentation like the real car makers do.
This is how every industry progresses as software replaces hardware. I don't think it's fair to blame Tesla for it. A modern car is much less accessible to the home tinkerer than a car from the 80s, because it's a chip controlling the fuel/air mixture and not a valve on a spring, and so on. As a side effect these machines are much cleaner and safer than before, so I'm willing to accept the tradeoff.
E-cars are nowhere near a car culture, because of the significant innovations in every ecar that have no history, nobody you can collaborate with to learn. It may someday be a culture, but not yet. Its something new under the sun. Maybe its sensible to go slowly.
I imagine batteries are much more dangerous to handle than mechanical car parts, and software is much more important in a Tesla on the road... This is just like the "NO WARRANTY IMPLIED OR EXPRESS" that comes with basically every piece of software (open source or commercial) these days.
This kind of bullshit is why I’m solidly in the “fuck Tesla” camp. The battles over auto repair and nonsense “safety” excuses were fought 100 years ago and shouldn’t need to be fought again, only in this dysfunctional era of American government is it possible for Tesla to even exist.
Like any big company, they demonstrate every day why it’s so important to have independent service. As a company, they are too incompetent to run retail outlets, unable to supply spare parts for cars that are mostly unchanged year to to year, and unable to actually repair cars in the handful of service centers that exist.
Hopefully the successor company that buys them out doesn’t go down this path.
I think it's more than repairs. The model to which this is converging is the abandonment of ownership. You do want to get YOUR car repaired but if it's not your car in the first place, you can't. I think the narrative is slowly building towards that. You're licensed to drive the car, you bought the license, not the car. It doesn't matter if you are in physical possession of the metal parts as long as the software running them is updated automatically and you're not allowed to repair them.
I'm inclined to agree with you. But I do think Teslas are different from cars of yesteryear in a few important ways:
1. They have massive 375 volt batteries that could absolutely kill you if you're a little bit careless.
2. They have that "autopilot" mode. And that feature receives OTA updates from Tesla. I could see improper service causing problems with autopilot that would put other people (drivers and pedestrians) at risk.
Maybe a solution is to separate some of the software features of a car (like autopilot) from the mechanical aspects. If you repair your car yourself, maybe losing out on autopilot and the like is a fair deal.
Worse yet, their latest announcement regarding shuttering retail stores also indicates that their solution to their service problem is to deploy a fleet of 'come to you' trucks. EG, they're going to want to dispatch and repair/replace components in your driveway or on the street, which is prohibited in many places.
I'd strongly recommend checking out Rich's youtube channel (0). It's a great mix of humor, geeky details and good tesla-rant every now and then.
Rich is currently running a crowdfunding campaign to start his own shop, which I am not to sure about. So far they have invested in wheel balancers and alignment equipment, which has nothing to do with EV's, that's just car maintenance.
Particularly the episode where 'Daisy' catches fire. This being some Disney themed car that is made of wood and came with lead acid batteries.
The dramatic fire happens after the Tesla batteries go in. Luckily some quick thinking saved the day and no buildings were burned to the ground.
Regarding his ambitions for a shop, I think that there is demand for the services of someone who knows the innards of the Tesla and happens to have a lot of spare parts. If a Tesla owner is going to have their car in repair for months and they have the choice of someone else having a look at it, to maybe fix it for less than what Tesla would charge then there is a niche there.
The crowdfunding is also about publicity. Sadly banks don't invest in businesses as a general rule, hence the crowdfunding option beckons for many people who should be able to go to the bank with a business plan, borrow the money at today's low interest rates and pay it off.
With crowdfunding you have to pay the funders something or be begging on a charitable basis. With the bank it should be a straightforward business proposition.
Anyway, I wish Rich the best of success and his willingness to show incidents such as the fire.
I work for a major parts supplier; probably the most well known in America; and I am still very curious how the company will adapt to an EV future. Simple look at the components listing of an EV reveals that outside of the parts most cars share; suspension components, brakes components, some fluids, filters, lights, compressors (think HVAC), and frills, there is little in common among the brands that third party service centers can work on.
I haven't seen really any commonality among packs or even motor designs. I am sure with sufficient volume the motors will eventually be a part that can be rebuilt, replaced, and such, but unless there is an industry move towards a standardized pack design its pretty much going to be full replacement and at the behest of the manufacturer.
Owning a TM3 my only real fear is an accident that requires replacement parts. My auto insurance is slightly higher than normal as my agent stated its flagged as difficult to repair and costly. The cost factor includes length of rental reimbursement.
People like to put EV adoption solely on range anxiety and some point to charging but long term it is also come down to ease of service and that must include choice of who does that.
>> People like to put EV adoption solely on range anxiety...
This is a term that irritates me every time I see it. EVs have a range problem. You can't drive them long distances without running into charging issues and doing careful planning around it. Telsa has longer range and their network of charging stations, but it still requires planning to deal with. This is an issue with the cars, and to call it "range anxiety" feels like making it some kind of perceptual issue with the driver. Like hey dude, get over it. In my mind this is a subtle way to blame shift from the technology to the would-be customers. Tesla being the one company taking it the most seriously and providing good range and a network of fairly quick chargers. But still, cars don't have anxiety - people do and the problem here is the cars don't meet peoples expectations.
I think the market will rise to meet the need for alternative to manufacturer parts. Look at the availability of iPhone spares, for example. Whole screen, touch digitiser, front camera : $20.
That said, I think the automotive parts industry is an incredible achievement and I’m constantly blown away by the availability of stuff.
Btw I run howacarworks.com and I’m working on a parts-based startup. I’d love to pick your brains. Drop me an email: [email protected].
Range and service are the two big reasons why I can only sit on the sidelines and watch what happens with EVs. There isn't a super charger within 3 hours of me and the nearest service center is over 500 miles away! (Ok, one might be a bit closer, but it is in another country and that has its own set of issues.)
Obviously, not everyone has that problem, but distance to a dealer is on my mind, even for my ICE vehicles and it is "only" an hour away. I wouldn't want to go any farther than that.
Anecdata: I had a friend have his Model 3 get sideswiped badly while parked outside his house 2 days after he took delivery back in early December and he just finally got it back this past weekend. Kinda puts a damper on that new car exuberance.
Personally, I think the economics will keep EVs in a growing niche category.
People in general are poorer than they were 20 years ago, and that trend isn’t going away. Outside of the cohorts if folks who buy cars every 3 years, I think the values of EVs will crater as the novelty fades and repairs are a big question mark.
This chap is very impressive, and pretty crazy - spending tens (hundreds?) of thousands of $ on apparently unserviceable cars, then opening up the high voltage systems on them with no help from the manufacturer.
>spending tens (hundreds?) of thousands of $ on apparently unserviceable cars, then opening up the high voltage systems on them with no help from the manufacturer.
Once you get to the level at which you're comfortable working on any one of the subsystems alone there's a snowball effect. Rebuilding a flooded car isn't fundamentally harder than any individual repair. It's just a bigger job. It's mostly a question of available resources (space and cash flow being the two most common bottlenecks) and motivation.
>pending tens (hundreds?) of thousands of $ on apparently unserviceable cars
If you read the article, his net cost for the one Tesla he drives was $6500. This is because he bought two junked cars for about $30k, assembled the one "Good" car out of the combined parts, then was able to resell the remaining duplicate good parts for the difference.
There's another guy that bought a chiped frame Audi TT and reworked it. It was a bit impressive, also his soldering + reinforcement didn't inspire confidence.
going to go out on a limb as I might not know what I'm talking about - a tesla is blurring the lines between mechanics and software to an even greater degree than most/all other conusmer-level cars on the road. IIUC, Chrysler/Ford/GM/Toyota etc. don't give consumers any ability to mess with the electronics or software in these cars. I can see how Tesla engineers would be uncomfortable with hobbyists putting the cars together themselves. The Teslas are really super different than any other car I've driven (I've driven a few).
That said I absolutely support what this guy is doing, I'm just saying allowing your highly computerized car to also be hackable without adding new safety risks adds a lot of engineering expense to it and I can see why Tesla doesn't want to allow that. I don't want people messing with the source code of my libraries that I release and then suing me when they unsuccessfully tried using it to calculate how much fuel their plane has left.
Honestly, I believe Tesla is not lying. They may profit from not having a backmarket.. but as of now, people doing part swap on cars is super terrible. It's also pretty easy to imagine that if anything happens on a Tesla, the company will be blamed no matter what. Some people might even sue.
So we're supposed to treat these Teslas that are 'good' for the environment like an old iPhone and toss them in the landfill when they stop working? Not try to repair them? What a joke.
Larry Ellison can shove it. People are going to figure out how to repair their own vehicle no matter what. You can't hide DIY information like that, someone will eventually figure it out and document it.
Fantastic story! That's what America is all about!
To lawmakers - the "Right to Repair" law clearly has a loophole. What is to stop other auto manufacturers from going to an online only sales model in order to bypass the law? Might wanna fix that.
If you have an inalienable right to repair/rebuild/modify your Tesla do you also have the right to do the same to your future level 5, fully-autonomous self driving car?
Rich is a true engineering rock star for pulling off what he did with the Tesla. And I fully support his right to do so and think Tesla should be more supportive to the backyard mechanics. But if he was trying to do the same thing by kludging together a couple of broken, fully-autonomous cars? I think that is where I would draw the line.
You know how its all over the news everytime a Tesla has a crash?
EVs are an unknown quantity for most people, if someone repaired their Tesla badly and something happened, all that would be reported is 'Tesla catches fire', but you wouldn't see 'petrol powered Ford catches fire'.
So I think its understandable that Tesla would want to be protective. That's not to say that I think they should be allowed to do it though. One would hope that there's an independent testing regime to check that the car is actually roadworthy.
I find it odd that people are fine with Musk drawing attention with his antics but then aren't happy with disproportionate media coverage. Tesla as a company feeds on that coverage and it is not surprising that there is some bad mixed in with the good.
Rich brought to light recently how much of a mess the used Tesla experience (no longer CPO) is as well. There are two more videos, the situation is resolved after many months and Tesla execs intervening.
[+] [-] userbinator|7 years ago|reply
It seems Tesla is deliberately ignoring or trying to squash the aftermarket/custom-car culture which has basically existed since cars existed... and in contrast, Chrysler/Ford/GM are happy to sell you parts like engines and transmissions without caring whether they'll even be used in a car, and have been doing so for literally decades, so obviously they're aware of and not worried about any legal liability issues.
[+] [-] xondono|7 years ago|reply
- The perception that people have of how dangerous gasoline is, is greatly over exaggerated.
- The perception that people have of how dangerous high voltage drives and lithium batteries are, is greatly under exaggerated.
With 15 minutes I can give you enoguh pointers to have you tinkering your gas engine safely.
No such confort exists if you are going to tinker with your EV
[+] [-] twothamendment|7 years ago|reply
Ancedata says some of the big 3 do care. A guy down the road from me ordered 500 engines from Ford. They followed up on the order and when he explained they were for airplanes, they cancelled it, saying they didn't want to be liable for an automotive engine in a plane.
His plan to turn his custom plane into a kit stopped at a beautiful one-off that sits in his museum when he isn't flying it.
If he was going to put the engines in a tractor, I bet they would have sold them, but they didn't want to be liable for something in a plane.
*Edit - it was 1000 engines, not 500. Also found a link some might find interesting: http://stonehengeairmuseum.org/1992-montaniar
[+] [-] dsfyu404ed|7 years ago|reply
Plenty of people are willing to aid them. Go on Reddit and you'll find that it's impossible to have an adult discussion of repairs or modifications more involved than parts swapping without being drowned out by people screaming "hurr durr, muh public safety" or just down-voted into oblivion. You'll find no shortage of people willing to tell you that industry standard modifications (like lengthening truck frames), repairs (like welding cracks in steel wheels) or anything that modifies how a vehicle handles compared to stock configuration (like a lift kit on a Jeep) are fundamentally a danger to the public.
Edit: I dunno why I was optimistic that HN would be any better.
[+] [-] bertil|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kw71|7 years ago|reply
This culture ("F your emissions controls," "I the lay blue collar know better than the committes of degreed engineers who designed the thing") has never cared about safety, nor has the aftermarket ("fitness for purpose, engineering, warranty... to hell with all that, the only requirement for our product is that some idiot should buy it")
Improperly repaired and modified cars are a detriment to the safety of others on the road, but wishing the problem away like Tesla is doing is not going to help anything, they need to publish and make accessible the documentation like the real car makers do.
[+] [-] sgustard|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomp|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|7 years ago|reply
Like any big company, they demonstrate every day why it’s so important to have independent service. As a company, they are too incompetent to run retail outlets, unable to supply spare parts for cars that are mostly unchanged year to to year, and unable to actually repair cars in the handful of service centers that exist.
Hopefully the successor company that buys them out doesn’t go down this path.
[+] [-] decebalus1|7 years ago|reply
https://www.teslarati.com/do-you-own-a-tesla-or-does-a-tesla...
John Deere managed to do this https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/ so it's all the history repeating. And I agree with you, the dysfunctional anticonsumer regulatory environment enabled this.
[+] [-] the_gastropod|7 years ago|reply
1. They have massive 375 volt batteries that could absolutely kill you if you're a little bit careless.
2. They have that "autopilot" mode. And that feature receives OTA updates from Tesla. I could see improper service causing problems with autopilot that would put other people (drivers and pedestrians) at risk.
Maybe a solution is to separate some of the software features of a car (like autopilot) from the mechanical aspects. If you repair your car yourself, maybe losing out on autopilot and the like is a fair deal.
[+] [-] linuxftw|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] LeonM|7 years ago|reply
Rich is currently running a crowdfunding campaign to start his own shop, which I am not to sure about. So far they have invested in wheel balancers and alignment equipment, which has nothing to do with EV's, that's just car maintenance.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfV0_wbjG8KJADuZT2ct4SA
[+] [-] Theodores|7 years ago|reply
The dramatic fire happens after the Tesla batteries go in. Luckily some quick thinking saved the day and no buildings were burned to the ground.
Regarding his ambitions for a shop, I think that there is demand for the services of someone who knows the innards of the Tesla and happens to have a lot of spare parts. If a Tesla owner is going to have their car in repair for months and they have the choice of someone else having a look at it, to maybe fix it for less than what Tesla would charge then there is a niche there.
The crowdfunding is also about publicity. Sadly banks don't invest in businesses as a general rule, hence the crowdfunding option beckons for many people who should be able to go to the bank with a business plan, borrow the money at today's low interest rates and pay it off.
With crowdfunding you have to pay the funders something or be begging on a charitable basis. With the bank it should be a straightforward business proposition.
Anyway, I wish Rich the best of success and his willingness to show incidents such as the fire.
[+] [-] touristtam|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shivetya|7 years ago|reply
I haven't seen really any commonality among packs or even motor designs. I am sure with sufficient volume the motors will eventually be a part that can be rebuilt, replaced, and such, but unless there is an industry move towards a standardized pack design its pretty much going to be full replacement and at the behest of the manufacturer.
Owning a TM3 my only real fear is an accident that requires replacement parts. My auto insurance is slightly higher than normal as my agent stated its flagged as difficult to repair and costly. The cost factor includes length of rental reimbursement.
People like to put EV adoption solely on range anxiety and some point to charging but long term it is also come down to ease of service and that must include choice of who does that.
[+] [-] phkahler|7 years ago|reply
This is a term that irritates me every time I see it. EVs have a range problem. You can't drive them long distances without running into charging issues and doing careful planning around it. Telsa has longer range and their network of charging stations, but it still requires planning to deal with. This is an issue with the cars, and to call it "range anxiety" feels like making it some kind of perceptual issue with the driver. Like hey dude, get over it. In my mind this is a subtle way to blame shift from the technology to the would-be customers. Tesla being the one company taking it the most seriously and providing good range and a network of fairly quick chargers. But still, cars don't have anxiety - people do and the problem here is the cars don't meet peoples expectations.
[+] [-] AlexMuir|7 years ago|reply
That said, I think the automotive parts industry is an incredible achievement and I’m constantly blown away by the availability of stuff.
Btw I run howacarworks.com and I’m working on a parts-based startup. I’d love to pick your brains. Drop me an email: [email protected].
[+] [-] twothamendment|7 years ago|reply
Obviously, not everyone has that problem, but distance to a dealer is on my mind, even for my ICE vehicles and it is "only" an hour away. I wouldn't want to go any farther than that.
[+] [-] RankingMember|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|7 years ago|reply
People in general are poorer than they were 20 years ago, and that trend isn’t going away. Outside of the cohorts if folks who buy cars every 3 years, I think the values of EVs will crater as the novelty fades and repairs are a big question mark.
[+] [-] benguild|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] runemadsen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasoncartwright|7 years ago|reply
His YouTube channel is here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfV0_wbjG8KJADuZT2ct4SA
[+] [-] dsfyu404ed|7 years ago|reply
Once you get to the level at which you're comfortable working on any one of the subsystems alone there's a snowball effect. Rebuilding a flooded car isn't fundamentally harder than any individual repair. It's just a bigger job. It's mostly a question of available resources (space and cash flow being the two most common bottlenecks) and motivation.
[+] [-] joncrane|7 years ago|reply
If you read the article, his net cost for the one Tesla he drives was $6500. This is because he bought two junked cars for about $30k, assembled the one "Good" car out of the combined parts, then was able to resell the remaining duplicate good parts for the difference.
[+] [-] agumonkey|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zzzeek|7 years ago|reply
That said I absolutely support what this guy is doing, I'm just saying allowing your highly computerized car to also be hackable without adding new safety risks adds a lot of engineering expense to it and I can see why Tesla doesn't want to allow that. I don't want people messing with the source code of my libraries that I release and then suing me when they unsuccessfully tried using it to calculate how much fuel their plane has left.
[+] [-] agumonkey|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] almost_usual|7 years ago|reply
Larry Ellison can shove it. People are going to figure out how to repair their own vehicle no matter what. You can't hide DIY information like that, someone will eventually figure it out and document it.
[+] [-] rootusrootus|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asavadatti|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AltmousGadfly|7 years ago|reply
To lawmakers - the "Right to Repair" law clearly has a loophole. What is to stop other auto manufacturers from going to an online only sales model in order to bypass the law? Might wanna fix that.
[+] [-] reddog|7 years ago|reply
Rich is a true engineering rock star for pulling off what he did with the Tesla. And I fully support his right to do so and think Tesla should be more supportive to the backyard mechanics. But if he was trying to do the same thing by kludging together a couple of broken, fully-autonomous cars? I think that is where I would draw the line.
[+] [-] rb808|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ForHackernews|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benj111|7 years ago|reply
EVs are an unknown quantity for most people, if someone repaired their Tesla badly and something happened, all that would be reported is 'Tesla catches fire', but you wouldn't see 'petrol powered Ford catches fire'.
So I think its understandable that Tesla would want to be protective. That's not to say that I think they should be allowed to do it though. One would hope that there's an independent testing regime to check that the car is actually roadworthy.
[+] [-] thisisit|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dwighttk|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benmorris|7 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgMTx_xFezM&t=4s
Wife and I were seriously considering a used Model S but there is no chance we'd go through what he did to buy a used car.
[+] [-] oblib|7 years ago|reply
So is the notion they can.
What's truly at stake here is the right to try.
[+] [-] atonse|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ykevinator|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TomK32|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chriscaruso|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willart4food|7 years ago|reply