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Tesla blamed drivers for failures of parts it long knew were defective (www.reuters.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/technology

35 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Wheels falling off cars at speed. Suspensions collapsing on brand-new vehicles. Axles breaking under acceleration. Tens of thousands of customers told Tesla about a host of part failures on low-mileage cars. The automaker sought to blame drivers for vehicle ‘abuse,’ but Tesla documents show it had tracked the chronic ‘flaws’ and ‘failures’ for years.

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[–] [email protected] 77 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unlike traditional automakers, which use independent dealers to sell and repair vehicles, Tesla sells directly to customers and owns and operates a large portion of its service centers. That gives the automaker extraordinarily detailed real-time visibility into parts failures, repairs and warranty claims, which Tesla engineers meticulously tracked and analyzed for years, the company records show.

See, this is where having monopoly control over the sales and repair of Tesla's own cars could help them improve their product and supplh chain, be truthful and give refunds to people with defective parts, and build good rapport as a brand. Instead they collect all that data just to deny any problems and hide them from customers and regulators.

[–] Num10ck 32 points 1 year ago (2 children)

leadership considers such wise long term investments to be costs on their quarterly forecasts, the benefits of which they wouldnt be personally rewarded for anyway. its a fundamental flaw of modern capitalism.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

Tesla is a stock manipulation company first and a car company second.

[–] abhibeckert 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

its a fundamental flaw of modern capitalism

I disagree. It's a fundamental flaw of the people running Tesla. They're not going to get away with this - there will be lawsuits and serious consequences which could easily have been avoided while still making both short term and long term profits.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I wouldn't hold my breath that they are going to be held accountable. That doesn't usually happen for large companies.