Tesla blamed drivers for failures of parts it long knew were defective

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proveitwithdata

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https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/20/tes...res-of-parts-it-long-knew-were-defective.html

Tesla engineers are often lauded for their rapid update process for all parts of a tesla, much faster then legacy oem which typically are flamed for waiting till mid model cycle changes or even next generation of a model. The idea often associated with how light and agile Tesla is as a tech startup first, carmaker second.

Well turns out this was actually due to how high their part failure rates were according to internal engineer parts failure analysis. It was so high the engineers were looking for compensation and revoking supplier contracts. In addition memos were sent from hq to service centers that to put the blame on the customer.

I would think this would be associated with gen 1 products, when Elon was discussing how they were in production hell etc, but turns out this was for model year 2023 vehicles. One owner had 115 miles on their 23, making a low speed turn, and the entire right side collapsed. Tesla bill was $14000 and none of it was warranty work as they blamed the customer.

QC seems to be interesting at Tesla.
 
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There's alot of model y and model 3 owners complaining of mileage not even being close to what Tesla stated. Now if it was a few people then maybe they received a bad vehicle or drive more aggressively. I wouldn't be surprised if a class action lawsuit doesn't happen. From whats coming out Tesla corporate told service center employees to blow it off and make it sound like its the customer who is wrong.
 
67e4f611dc9f061df6409765721d5a3fb3579197.jpeg

Cybertruck range
 
The article focused on a more serious problem: parts like A-arms and steering system failing causing total loss of vehicle control. Wheels falling off the car while driving is a common joke, but with Teslas it actually happened. Then Tesla blaming this on owners, while they also were going after their suppliers, suggesting that they knew these were faulty parts.
 
Yeah Tesla has long blamed these suspension failures on the crash that followed the failure. Even when confronted with dash cam footage from other driver that clearly showed the suspension coming apart first.

Internal documents showed the engineers knew they were using faulty suspension components and told the service centers to blame the customer

In that report linked above, turns out Tesla did recall cars in China to fix the faulty suspension parts, but did not recall in US or Europe, until much later.

Go Tesla!
 
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MRC01 said:
The article focused on a more serious problem: parts like A-arms and steering system failing causing total loss of vehicle control. Wheels falling off the car while driving is a common joke, but with Teslas it actually happened. Then Tesla blaming this on owners, while they also were going after their suppliers, suggesting that they knew these were faulty parts.
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Well its either an engineering problem or a quality control problem. Whose engineer signed off on the design? and if the design is fine, who is doing the QC on the parts? Could be Tesla or could be a supplier? Depends on who is doing what.
Tesla leaving the customer footing the bill is a problem though as its not their fault. Tires or shocks should blow, and rims should be dented before complete suspension failure IMO.
My old Neon took a bump so hard on the drivers side that the front strut tower was popped up a 1/4" and the seat rails bent on my seat. We inspected it and nothing else was bent or cracked, so I drove it another year, with a new seat. I'm thinking I like mild steel suspension components for its tendency to bend first before failure.
 
MRC01 said:
Agreed, and I wonder what is the point of aluminum suspension parts to save weight on a car that already weighs more than 2 tons?
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Aluminum parts are probably much cheaper to make than ductile cast iron and does have some advantages for reducing unsprung weight. There should be no problems with the right design and grade of aluminum, but obviously this isn't always the case. Stamped steel rusts of course, but I find they still outlast the ball joints.
 
IndyIan said:
Aluminum parts are probably much cheaper to make than ductile cast iron and does have some advantages for reducing unsprung weight. There should be no problems with the right design and grade of aluminum, but obviously this isn't always the case. Stamped steel rusts of course, but I find they still outlast the ball joints.
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Depends on country. German brands use alot of Alu since they have access to it cheaper then say TMC. TMC Products stuck with stamped steel suspension as it was cheaper until quite recently but even then select parts.

i dont know much about this but according to @edyvw tesla is using bmw suspension parts?
 
Ford had transmission issues with the previous model mustang V8 GT. The gt350 and gt350r didn't have the same problems. Apparently throw out bearings, shift forks, and a few other parts were the culprit. Tremec built a transmission plant in Guangzhou and sourced transmissions for the gt mustang from there. Come to find out once Ford corporate left China the employees went behind its back and sourced cheap no name parts from a different supplier hoping to make more profit off of each transmission made.
 
97prizm said:
Ford had transmission issues with the previous model mustang V8 GT. The gt350 and gt350r didn't have the same problems.
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That was one of the things that held me back from buying a Mustang GT. I seriously considered buying one but knew the manual transmissions were a problem. And I didn't want to spring the extra cash to buy a GT350.

I even considered buying a new Mustang GT and immediately replacing the transmission with a known more reliable one (and being able to sell the GT's transmission as brand new) but ultimately decided against it.
 
ecotourist said:
That was one of the things that held me back from buying a Mustang GT. I seriously considered buying one but knew the manual transmissions were a problem. And I didn't want to spring the extra cash to buy a GT350.

I even considered buying a new Mustang GT and immediately replacing the transmission with a known more reliable one (and being able to sell the GT's transmission as brand new) but ultimately decided against it.
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It was sorted out fairly quickly by Ford but by then a handful had already got out the door.
 
proveitwithdata said:
67e4f611dc9f061df6409765721d5a3fb3579197.jpeg

Cybertruck range
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I doubt it will hit those numbers for range. The battery pack range extender takes up a third of the bed and reduces payload even more. From my understanding payload was reduced to 2500 lbs vs the promised 3500 lbs. This is before you add the heavy battery range extender. So now it's looking like roughly a 1500 lb bed payload capacity.
 
proveitwithdata said:
Depends on country. German brands use alot of Alu since they have access to it cheaper then say TMC. TMC Products stuck with stamped steel suspension as it was cheaper until quite recently but even then select parts.

i dont know much about this but according to @edyvw tesla is using bmw suspension parts?
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Tesla doesn’t use BMW parts. It just copied its solutions (which a lot of companies did, especially E39 design).
Tesla suppliers is probably ZF.
 
MRC01 said:
The article focused on a more serious problem: parts like A-arms and steering system failing causing total loss of vehicle control. Wheels falling off the car while driving is a common joke, but with Teslas it actually happened. Then Tesla blaming this on owners, while they also were going after their suppliers, suggesting that they knew these were faulty parts.
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I would think supplier is ZF, but this doesn’t happen with their parts just like that.
 
I would have to think that a suspension failure in road use for a factory new car must be a failure in the design of the car's front end or the quality of the components used and clearly should be warrantied.
Really bad road irregularities may cause blown tires and maybe bent rims, but not suspension failure unless there is something wrong with the suspension from the start.
Shame on Tesla for denying responsibility. Could there be a class action lawsuit in the offing?
 
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