Tesla Model S: 0-60 in 2.5s, 762HP (Now w/ Fart Mode)

If they started in the Rockies they could have driven down hill for hundreds of miles. Oh, and leave the big guy out of the car too. :slight_smile:

Praise from Consumer Reports. I’d link to their website, but ConsumerReports.org is down at the moment.

Tesla’s New Car Is So Good, It Literally Broke the Consumer Reports Scale

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-27/tesla-with-insane-mode-busts-curve-on-consumer-reports-ratings-idu1hfk0

11% stock drop. Consumer Reports just screwed Tesla. Were they bought out by OPEC or something?

Yeah I think it’s crap that they published that BS.

They are assuming high maintenance costs in the future but there’s no supported evidence to suggest that.

It’s a smear campaign “We LOVE the car…BUT…you know…”

Here is a video from my friends brother out in Cali and testing his auto drive

https://youtu.be/Cv18gWcZk10

Neat stuff.

Did you bother reading the Consumer Reports article? They have reports of all kinds of problems from 1400 surveyed owners. They only thing they’re “predicting” is that when the warranty runs out these things are going to be expensive. One of the problems, the fancy hide away door handles that often fail to unhide themselves leaving you locked out even happened on their test car.

wow, a 6-figure luxury car with high maintenance costs? I’m so surprised.

Bob Lutz article on Tesla.

He makes good points but the premise of some of his criticism is flawed because he’s not considering how much less general maintenance and complexity exists with a Tesla vs. a BMW in the 70’s. Tesla doesn’t need massive service departments to change oil, diagnose vacuum leaks, change spark plugs, etc because the car doesn’t have them. You can pretty much swap a motor over lunch. The comparison to Apple is loose, but not entirely without merit.

You need a big building with service bays, chargers, and a trained sales force, plus all the necessary finance and accounting people. It ties up a staggering amount of capital, especially when you factor in inventory.

“You need… a staggering amount of capital”

One of the points of not having (needing) all these dealerships is so that they don’t need all that capital.

I don’t know if it will work in the long term but I’m interested to see how it plays out.

I think you’re drinking a little too much of the koolaid about how maintenance free these things are going to be. The rolling chassis still has all the ball joints, tie rods, shocks, struts, bushings, brakes and other wear items every other car has. I doubt their service department is seeing a huge difference in service hours per vehicle, especially based on the complaints in the Consumer Reports article.

I probably am. In my mind I’m comparing the complexity of a car like my Z and what it looks like under the hood to the simplicity of this:

http://media.caranddriver.com/images/media/51/under-the-teslas-skin-2013-tesla-model-s-january-2013-issue-large-photo-493014-s-original.jpg

I mean outside of an oil change how much pretty basic maintenance do modern cars really need under 100k?

Oil change
Coolant flush
Belt change

And lots of dealerships offer free oil changes for life now

105k on my civic and all i’ve done is oil change, trans oil change, tires and brakes. the car only cost 15k in 2008 and gets 35mpg. pretty low cost on all fronts.

I guess Honda doesn’t need service departments then. Funny though, when ever I drive past a Honda dealer there always seems to be cars in the service lot/building.

This is my point… No matter how much someone claims a car is reliable you need a big service department because they break. Doesn’t matter if it’s a Honda with a gas motor or a Tesla with an electric. There are still literally 1000’s of points of failure with moving parts that wear out and electrical parts to die. On the latter I’m sure there are more on the Tesla.

Build electric retro fits for other cars then your dealer network is already there for the parts that fail. :wink:

Without a doubt you need to have legit service capabilities, but scale plays a factor in all of this.

Let’s consider Raleigh/Durham, a small-medium metro. There are thousands and thousands of Hondas on the roads between these 2 cities easily. I could count 200 on my way to work alone. There are probably less than 20 Teslas though. So it’s MUCH easier to have a plan in place to service the Teslas. Three mobile technicians could probably handle the entire state’s worth of Teslas.

As the scale grows (as I’m sure Tesla hopes), then I’m sure they are going to start needing dedicated service stations with multiple bays/mechanics. Probably one in each major metro which (would make it two or three for the whole state). Compare it to luxury companies in a city like Raleigh. We have only 1 Lexus dealer in the area. My dad has an Infiniti and lives on the coast (where there is no major city really) and he basically has to drive 2 hours to Raleigh to get to an Infiniti dealership.

So it’s not like a precedent doesn’t already exist where dealer support is scarce, and workable solutions are always there at some level.

Now, I know that there is a huge difference between a luxury gasser (independent mechanics are capable enough to fix a lot of issues) and an electric vehicle, but there are plenty of parts on high end luxury cars that are only able to be dealer serviced.

Alex Roy’s impression after driving cross country on autopilot:

I’ve never been a Tesla fanboy… But the drive changed my perspective entirely…

… Think about how much time and money we spend on our daily drivers on preventative maintenance and unforeseen repairs. On tracking down parts. On waiting for said parts…

… Tesla support is superior in most ways to that of ICE cars today. How often does BMW send a technician to a 7 Series owner’s house? Or a loaner and a flatbed? I know Ferrari and Bentley owners who can’t get that kind of customer service. The ICE post-purchase dealership experience is almost universally wretched and overpriced. If it wasn’t, independent mechanics wouldn’t have flourished.

Another person takes a sip!

http://www.x-entertainment.com/pics/kool1.jpg

Don’t worry, Honda is only leasing their new fuel cell vehicle so owners won’t get to experience PEM fuel cells’ wonderful durability. The Power of Dreams! :expressionless:

https://youtu.be/9I5WylWtkaE