Tesla Model S Suspension Failures Under Scrutiny by Safety Agency
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
In the case of the Model S’s suspension, Tesla took care of repairs for some customers who complained to the company, on the condition that they agreed in writing not to talk about the issue or how Tesla dealt with it. The agreements, however, stirred up discussion on online bulletin boards.
Dailykanban.com, an auto industry blog, posted excerpts from what it said was an agreement. It said, in part: “You agree to keep confidential our provision of the Goodwill, the terms of this agreement and the incidents or claims leading or related to our provision of the Goodwill.” “Goodwill” is the term Tesla used to refer to any repairs or compensation it made because of a suspension failure.
The agreement posted on the blog released Tesla from any liability and barred the car owners from filing legal proceedings against the company.
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More and more I get the sense that Musk is in firm control of everything I read about his companies.
Everything? Isn't the text you quoted proof that you've read something that isn't controlled by Musk?
I do admit that I usually think hyperbole is far too much overused here and on the Internet in general. My apologies to HN for this grievous oversight.
Worked for Apple because iPhone can't kill anyone. Not gonna fly, er drive, for Tesla. Tightly regulated market, good luck with maintaining that secrecy-based business plan.
The media loves to portray new things as dangerous. Perhaps it actually was too thin because these completely reasonable failures were able to happen, causing bad press that they ought to have guarded against with total overkill undercarriage shielding.
[1] http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-re...
Batteries can explode when internally shorted, I had quite a few of 18650's explode on me over the years (usually through a fault of my own) the explosion isn't like a party popper it can be quite big and violent, and while explosions are some what not uncommon the battery flaming out completely when internally or externally shorted is. The Tesla has a few 1000's of 18650's cells even if a small number of those short during an accident it can cause allot of damage.
Another important difference between batteries and gas is that emergency workers (and anyone who's involved in the accident) can identify when the gas is leaking out, it's also much easier to stop the gas from catching on fire as wetting the vehicle or using other fire retardants will usually prevent the gas from catching fire. On the other hand you can have an internally shorted battery pack which can catch fire or explode at any moment and you would have no clue that it can happen.
Now don't take me wrong this isn't some anti-Tesla or anti-EV scare BS, this isn't some conspiracy either but saying that there are no valid concerns about the safety of the battery pack is ludicrous. We know how petrol cars work, we've been using them for 100+ years, we know when to look for a gas leak, we know how to deal with an oil/engine fire, EV's are a whole new ball game, eventually there will be a case where a Tesla or any other EV gets into a car accident and there will be a hot terminal somewhere in that car due to a short and someone will going to get zapped, at some point one of those batteries will explode and cause casualties, and many other things will happen that will be unique to EV's.
Using water on a gasoline or oil fire is a bad idea (the fire spreads since gas and oil are lighter than water), so fighting vehicle fires for ICE vehicles where the fuel tank has ruptured is a non-trivial problem for firefighters. The "easy" vehicle fires are ones where just the engine compartment and maybe the interior are on fire, but the fuel lines and tank are still in tact. In some ways a battery fire is easier to put out since it won't spread the same way and responds well to water.
Exploding 18650s tends to only happen with cheap, poorly manufactured variants. Most of the time if they short they will overheat, bulge, and sometimes catch on fire. Having enough of them actually explode to cause injury to vehicle occupants is probably about as likely as a fuel tank exploding in an ICE vehicle accident. Granted, there might be a higher fire risk for electric vehicles in severe collisions that damage the undercarriage area where the batteries are stored.
1: http://www.cnbc.com/2014/03/28/nhtsa-closes-investigation-in...
2: http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/owners/SearchResults?searchType...
Toyota does not see the future in electric vehicles. Their hybrids are a good stopgap but they aren't into EVs at the moment. If you look at their history they went from full electric (ie. Rav4 EV) to hybrids to fuel cells.
Aren't the fuel cells just an alternative to batteries for storing electricity in an electric car?
We'll also need major improvements in electricity generation and distribution. To charge a battery of ~300 kWh in roughly an hour, even over an industrial supply like three-phase 480V AC, would require in excess of 600 amps!
That's more than three times the maximum current a large, modern house can draw at 240V, and requires conductors over 1000 kcmil, or more than 1" diameter copper.
On an ordinary 15A, 120 VAC circuit, it would take an entire week to charge the car.
That might make fuel cells attractive. Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes, and never underestimate the energy transmission potential of a supertanker or freight train full of oil or hydrogen.
And importing electricity would be geopolitically very risky (it would have to be from China or Russia), but liquid hydrogen they can ship in from close allies such as Australia.
String wires over the Korea Strait? Undersea cables? The shortest distance from Korea to the Japanese island at the mid-point is 50km and from there to the mainland is even more (by eyeball).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NorNed
Edit: the engineering would be relatively easy, but the politics are the problem.
It's unconscionable to require a NDA as a condition to performing warranty work. Between crap like this and their aggressive, litigious pushback about accident fault analysis, I'd say it's foolish to buy these cars.
I've owned Dodge, Pontiac, Cadillac, BMW, and Honda cars. Each of those companies and their dealers have plenty of noxious behaviors, but nothing as extreme as this.
Suppressing reports to federal regulators was almost certainly not the intent, since the vast majority of cars will be under warranty (meaning they can't use NDAs).
This article seems incredibly biased, selling NDAs on people who are out of warranty as NDAs on people who have some specific problem. Adding in a shield to make their already really low occurrences of fires even lower, while implying (falsely as far as I know) that this was required. Etc.
It isn't warranty work. It's out of warranty work. Any other company would tell you to get lost and wouldn't repair squat.
> I don't understand why you would want to be an apologist for Tesla.
Because of mis-information found in posts like yours. Tesla does plenty of shitty things, but the amount of lies out there about Tesla is incredible.
If you happen to convince the manufacturer to give you a free fix out-of-warranty and then you tell all the other owners, you could be asking for big headaches, and probably even more lawsuits, when the rest ask for the same treatment and are denied...
And unlike a small software company, they can't just fix the problem (at least, not a hardware problem) with an update.
Then again, they may have more room for error than someone making spaceships.
That is a misleading and incomplete characterization. The repairs in this case were for suspension failure, yes, but it was termed "Goodwill" because the work was performed outside the warranty period (it we are to believe Elon^D^D^D^DThe Tesla Team).
That practice should certainly be illegal, in the interest of public safety.
For a luxury car like a Model S, you'd be well within that period still, especially given that they're being described as 'premature failures'.
> The safety regulator is examining the Model S suspension — the springs, joints and other components that connect a car to its wheels — for possible defects that could be causing premature failures.
Also, the last thing Tesla need at the moment is cars failing just outside the warranty period and then not repairing them - as noted, it just highlights their lack of support network and lack of general repairability at the moment.
What would be an example of such a country... and what does it cost to buy an average car there?
Over at Reddit a mechanic who complained of how a cracked transmission was repaired was fired.
It was a warranty repair and it seems Land Rover was aware of the damage by a co-worker of the mechanic who complained but Land Rover said the repair was acceptable. It was a huge crack in an aluminum transmission case welded back together.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/comments/4iuw...
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2016/05/cracked-welded-land...
...reveals that it wasn't a problem after all. Search on the Internet and you'll find plenty of others welding various automotive parts, including transmission cases, with no problems. It's a common practice in the industry. A proper weld is as strong as the base metal.
That's true, but proper welding of a gearbox casing is super difficult. You'd have to make sure there was no thermal hardening around the weld and that's really difficult without taking it out of the car, stripping it down and annealing it after the welding and then re-assembling the whole thing again.
So even if in theory a good weld is as strong as the base material achieving this 'in situ' is next to impossible, and probably if you did it the right way then it would be un-economical.
Australian Consumer Law covers "reasonable expectations" of fitness for purpose and is generally understood to comfortably exceed the typical three year warranty period.
https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights-guarantees...
http://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/ftw/consumers/motor_vehicl...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-06-07/broken-but-out-of-warr...
http://www.caradvice.com.au/345004/what-is-the-australian-co...
The dealer warranty for cars is a separate and mandatory guarantee, don't conflate the two.
My favourite summary of the situation is actually Apple's. Read http://www.apple.com/au/legal/statutory-warranty/ and pay attention to the language used for claim periods.
NB: the Australian regulator has teeth and is not afraid to use them, but their enforcement is selective. They tend to go after big fish like supermarkets, major retailers, energy companies.
It's understandable that a car model may have problems but Tesla must do a recall as it's a larger issue. Getting customers to sign NDA's sounds like a cover-up to me.
And hopefully this should temper some of the enthusiasts claims that because they are electric, the cars are "maintenance free."
We'll likely all be driving electric cars at some point. But Tesla and the other automakers will have to go through a lot of growing pains before we get there.
Tesla wouldn't need the nondisclosure agreements if the suspension failures were not story worthy.
If you look at common things which need to be fixed/replaced on a five-ten year old car, most of the things are also found on EVs:
* Brake pads, lines, discs etc.
* Suspension
* Steering
* Driveline, bushings, bearings
* Sensors (a big issue, esp. ABS/ESP sensors)
* Electrical wiring
* ECU/firmware/software errors
* Tires
And just a few ICE specifics, which are all on the cheap end compared to the list above:
* Exhaust system
* Timing belt
* Battery
* Spark plugs
And then there's the EV boogeyman: when will your battery need maintenance, and ultimately replacement?
Also, your comment on "the best EV vs the best ICE" is completely besides the point. We could make an ICE vehicle last millions of kilometers without maintenance outside of oil changes etc., but it would be expensive, heavy and bad for the automaker's business. Same arguments apply to EVs. Tesla doesn't profit from having cars that last twenty years with almost no maintenance required.
you see, you dont really know anything about EVs. but this very simple principle should be enough to settle things: ICEs use many moving parts and use explosions. electric motors have one moving part. so as you can see, the best ICE is worse than the best EV even when you include cost efficiency in the definition of best. EVs are already way better than ICEs. And even if you spent a million dollars making a very reliable ICE it would still be less reliable than a run of the mill EV...
Also, you mention no brake lines because of electromechanical brakes: this is not an EV feature. It's a luxury car feature. I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts the Model 3 has a braking system essentially identical to the one on a compact hybrid car.
"ICEs use many moving parts and explosions" - this is a stupid argument. Modern ICEs are incredibly reliable. You change the oil and oil filter every year, make sure the coolant level is fine, and you change spark plugs and timing belts twice per decade. None of that is expensive nor difficult, and that engine will keep on ticking for fifty years/hundreds of thousands of miles easily.
and brake lines still require less maintenance for the same reason that pads and disks do. balls in your court.
This is basically Amdahls law. Improving the part that causes 5% of the problems will at most solve 5% of your problems.
Edit: and you're wrong about the brake lines. Those need servicing because of surface rust, which happens regardless of how often you use them.
And funnily enough, brake discs can have shorter maintenance intervals the less you use them: again, surface rust. If you're driving in wet weather in a normal car, heat from braking dries your discs up. That doesn't if they're not used that much.
1: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/1573665/
2: http://www.dailynews.com/general-news/20150623/man-who-died-...
3: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/3318773-181/marin-county-d...
I agree though, it looks like the boot that would hold grease on the ball joint failed, and then all the grease just bled away.
Edit: I did not realize, but it appears from the thread that the upper arm is made from aluminum on the tesla? Can anyone confirm? It would very inappropriate to spec steel hardware in an aluminum socket like that for reasons of galvanic corrosion.
Honestly, if the boot failed and the guy drove through saltwater, the steel of that part still shouldn't have rusted that badly. My armchair guess is that Tesla or their supplier didn't spec it wrong, but got a bad batch of metal in there that was improperly treated or alloyed.
Looks like the same troll coming back several times under several different accounts to push the narrative of deadly failings of the Model S.
The sad part is that, while the anecdata are scientifically useless, the effect of reading all that non-sense has succeeded in planting questions in my mind about these components.
Not sure the detour into 2 tow trucks and a dirt road was needed, but whatever floats their boat I guess.
Then again, there might also be selection bias on my part when selecting stories about cars in general, entirely possible. And maybe they're so disruptive that they actually do attract more attention, both positive and negative.
1.https://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/Model_S...
Also, they spy on you, so there's that, too.
"Agreed"? Was Tesla reluctant to reinforce their batteries until this regulator pressured them to do it, or was this wording chosen to make Tesla sound bad?
You can clearly see rust in the pictures on this thread (posted elsewhere in the HN discussion): https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/suspension-problem-o...
If the Model 3 isn't an aluminum body and frame I no longer want one. I live where it snows and they salt a lot. I want some level of confidence the car won't be completely trashed in a few short years.
That forum thread is certainly interesting....
(I'm ignoring fancy expensive things such as high quality stainless and titanium alloys because you can't build a million car bodies out of those)
Properly coated steel will last longer than poorly coated aluminum. Just look at galvanized or properly painted steel vs an aluminum outboard that lost it's anode (saltwater applications of course).
Aluminum "doesn't corrode" because the initial corrosion forms a coating that prevents further corrosion. If you wire wheel AL bar stock it will shine. If you put that bar stock outside somewhere other than the desert it will tarnish in a few days. If you put that bar stock underneath a vehicle it will slowly turn to dust as the dust/dirt/etc slowly blast away any surface coating that forms exposing new material which corrodes and the cycle is repeated until your aluminum part has turned to dust.
In reality something as thick as a control arm will fatigue and crack long before that. If you're trying to reduce weight by using aluminum there's a near 0% chance that you're designing the part to last more than a few hundred percent of the warranty period for the most demanding typical use case (in the case of suspension parts that would be something like doing 10k mi/yr on graded dirt and potholed pavement)
Among the google results for "why aluminum doesn't rust": http://news.stanford.edu/pr/00/aluminum511.html
Cool experiment to prove it: put copper sulfate (bright blue root killer crystals, available in the plumbing section of a hardware store) in water until you get a blue solution. Add aluminum foil. Observe that there is no reaction. Add chloride (table salt or hydrochloric acid) and watch the reaction start. (you get copper powder)
Rust is specifically a term for iron oxidization. Aluminum corrosion forms a barrier that restricts additional corrosion.
On a side note, aluminum and mercury/gallium are a 'fun' combination.