The full story is told in the video: This is/was a very early, first-generation Tesla Model S. He imported it from the US to Finland before you could buy Teslas in Finland.
The battery began to wear out, so he replaced it with a non-Tesla, third party battery. This was later damaged, and Tesla refused to fix it, both because it had a non-Tesla battery inside it, but also because Finnish service centers are not equipped to repair US specification Teslas.
Why he decided to then blow it up... well that must be a Finnish thing. He did remove the batteries and motors first, though.
I worked to blow up a toilet for Dave Barry’s edification[0] a little while ago[1]. While it was fun, we were picking up porcelain for years after. Do not recommend.
Compare this to Honda. I bring my car to the dealership for a repair and they see non-OEM parts on there. Surprise! They still repair it! It's amazing!
I think you may be comparing Apples to Oranges here. Battery is to a Tesla what Engine is to a ICE Honda. Try asking Honda Dealership to fix a non Honda Engine that's started acting out.
- If you want to buy just the cylinder block (not even a short block actually!) for 10 year old top of the line Mercedes Benz direct from your dealer? $24,000 https://mbparts.mbusa.com/oem-parts/mercedes-benz-cylinder-b... And that still needs another 10-20k in parts to be a functional motor
- But buy a rebuilt long block from a junked car and you can probably get one for about 10k
- If you're willing to do some work you can probably pull one yourself in a junkyard for a couple thousand. (really a couple of hundred, but factor in getting it to your installer, tools to get it out, etc.)
-
I will say the challenge with EVs is the risks are higher for reconditioning.
If you buy a poorly rebuilt engine, yes in theory you car can go up in flames, but most likely if it doesn't seize up after install, you're in the clear.
If you buy a poorly reconditioned car battery, you have a permanently dangerous problem lurking, and it likely only gets worse...
Edit: Also the floor is definitely lower for ICEs. There are engines out there that are so ubiquitous you could replace them for a couple of beers and a friendly pick and pull place.
Battery packs on the other hand are way too complex to have that sort pipeline. Even if old packs become ubiquitous the risk of improperly handled battery packs means there'll have to be a "blessed path" batteries follow after removal. You can't exactly start tossing battery packs around with cranes the way we currently do with scrap ICEs
Add in the internals, gaskets, accessories, then top it off with labor and you might even be over (especially since Honda/Acura won't sell you an assembled long block)
-
In general manufacturers will not sell you a whole engine for a sensible amount of money, and if it's a luxury car that's doubly true.
Rebuilding is always going to be the economical option but that's not exclusive to ICEs. Tesla packs get reconditioned by 3rd parties despite their (relative) complexity, and other cars have cottage industries that have formed around their battery packs like the
Leaf and Prius.
The floor replacement on an ICE is lower as I mentioned, but the Model S and competitors are near the ceiling for this kind of thing
You're likely to be dealing with a Honda that isn't even worth $22,000. How does that make sense as a reference issue?
The Model S is a very expensive vehicle and the consumers buying one know what they're getting in to (otherwise they're spending six figures on a vehicle obliviously, so they're exceptionally negligent and it's still their fault). The Finnish guy in question plainly knew what he was getting in to, he spent a lot of money and went through the hassle to get the car over to Finland in the first place. You can bet he knew the batteries were very expensive before he got himself into that mess.
I would wager that all that the the majority of Tesla buyers know that they are getting into is "It's a Tesla." It is a social statement/signal/fashion accessory as much as it is a car.
Without taking sides, the reason people say that about the Model S is the price-to-performance ratio when taken holistically:
For example, the 0-60 times of the non-Plaid Model S trims are excellent... but the braking is poor across the board, the non-Plaid Model S run out of steam very quickly at higher speeds, etc.
So not a great performance value unless you're only looking at the Plaid and plan to drag race...
-
And the luxury is great compared to an econobox... but again, you get in a $65,000 ICE and the materials are much better, fit and finish are better, noise levels are better (drivetrains are usually not the main source of noise in cars, tires and wind are)
So not exactly a great luxury cad, and luxury cars aren't known for value to start.
-
And the eco aspect, yes you can argue you're doing something great for the environment... but spending $60k+ on a new car is not exactly the best way to save the environment...
You could pick up a reliable used luxury vehicle that gets around 35 mpg like a Lexus HS.
It'll take almost 3 years driving to even catch up to the CO2 cost of even the lowest capacity Model S (remember it's not just the battery, it's the entire car. manufacturing cars is intensive stuff regardless of drivetrain)
-
Now all this isn't to say a Model S is a terrible car, but it's something where, if one looks on paper, it's not as easy to justify buying as the sales figures imply.
So there has to be something missing... and that's usually the social/virtue/fashion/cool factor.
And there's honestly nothing wrong with that, people don't like to be told this but: we all care a little more about appearances than we let on.
Even if you're not consciously thinking "A tesla is a fashion accessory", you're more likely to think:
- Replacing the center console with a touchscreen is so cool and futuristic!
Than the truth:
- Replacing the center console with a touchscreen was a way to make things easier on Tesla: Touchscreens are cheaper once you remember how much tooling is involved in a traditional center console, and what it does it tact time
The choice of buying an electric over an ICE is absolutely better for the environment, regardless of carbon payback time — the reduction in fossil fuel consumption starts immediately and there is now an ICE entering the second hand market helping keep second hand car prices low so someone replacing a much older ICE has a 35mpg option over their previous vehicle.
I have never heard of a dealership repairing the part that is not oem. If you bring a tesla with non oem battery they may still repair your brakes. They will not repair the battery.
In the end, this is one of the fundamental issues with this new approach to the car market: manufacturers aren't satisfied with providing final goods anymore, and consumers are forced to buy cars as services.
Creating a car that inevitably becomes unusable, unless you essentially spend money enough to buy a mid sized sedan, that's genius from a market perspective, not so much for consumers.
Yeah it's why I probably won't ever be buying an EV. The technology and repairability needs another decade or more to mature. I have no interest in paying indefinite rent to use a car.
The technology and repairability needs another decade or more to mature.
The technology, repairability AND SUPPORTING INFRASTRUCTURE needs another THREE OR MORE decadeS to mature.
The biggest barrier to widespread use of EVs is the almost complete lack of supporting infrastructure. How many countries in the world have electrical grids robust enough to support daily charging of tens or hundreds of millions of EVs at the one time? How many countries of the world have sufficient, widespread charging stations that can handle hundreds of EVs per hour?
We have those facilities for ICEs today, all over the world, even in remote hard-to-reach off-grid locations. For EVS? Practically negligible.
That's the market and competition evolving. Nobody is willing to leave the money on the table now that they see consumers will accept it.
Steve Jobs popularized this model with the iPhone, and now it's permeating throughout all industries. Everything is becoming a service with the means to tax all economic activity involving the product.
Consumers rent forever. Third parties pay for access. Monthly recurring revenue.
I’m not sure how that fits with Apple pursuing services.
Without cellular the iPhone is just an iPod Touch and carrier exclusives are what the carriers often forced on manufacturers. See first Android phone with T-Mobile and Moto Droid with Verizon.
What's fundamental what again? There has never been an automobile without expendable, serviceable parts. Sometimes you need new bearings, u-joints, cv-joints, tires, piston rings, catalysts, whatever. Batteries are not different.
Batteries degrade over a fixed amount of time, no matter the measures taken. A traditional, well maintained engine would last far longer than a battery, and the repair costs are usually amounted in a gradual manner, i.e. traditional engines don't usually require large investments to keep running, but EVs do.
In other words, not many people can afford EVs in the long term right now. Hopefully this will change, but the current state of things is what it is.
Manufacturers are already going down that route, locking features behind paywalls. This is perhaps less evident: if only the original manufacturer and a handful of authorized shops are allowed to fix a car, users inevitably become income streams for the company, unless they get rid of the car, that is.
I agree that this is what manufacturers would want, but am hopeful that consumers will reject it, as they did years ago when manufacturers would deny warranty claims if they found a non-OE oil filter in use.
Many pro-green or geeks love Tesla yet don't realize it is overpriced and has huge delayed negative externalities like worn batteries and non-repairable. We already have better alternatives than Tesla for decades...called "Toyota". Cheaper to buy and maintain. Quality is superb. If I want to test drive Tesla, now we know where to rent it.
What is the deal with Toyota? They never really sold a lot of cars here in Europe, but used beaten up Toyota are worth their weight of gold. It seems like a cult.
Every manufacturer is capable of making quality cars, you just have to choose the correct model.
Toyotas, if maintained reasonably, run very well for a very long time. Their Lexus brand also routinely comes in near the top in reliability. They've earned the enormous credibility they have on reliability. That's the reason their used vehicles are so desirable, you know the vehicle is likely to have a lot of life left in it if you take care of it (ie you'll more than get your money out of it).
Thing is their diesel in Europe offerings were far from stellar reliability wise. I seriously looked into used gasoline Toyota but found out many engines had a gasket issue.
In the end I bought a Renault, knowing that it might have issues but so far nothing happened.
Toyota work behind the scenes to maintain the residuals of used vehicles. It's not all upfront factory quality. I had a Toyota engine rebuilt at 90k miles and 6 years by Toyota at their cost. They quietly extended (just) the warranty for the head gasket on my model because of premature failures which damaged the cylinder head.
TL;DR: Toyotas tend to be more reliable, easier to maintain (less yak shaving), and thus tend to last longer and be more valuable.
Toyotas have earned their cult-like status because of an extreme focus on quality at manufacture time (see Toyota Production System) which results in durability and reliability of the finished products (the vehicles themselves).
For a real world (rather ridiculous and unscientific as it may seem), see this video where a popular automotive show set out to 'kill' (render inoperable without inputting new parts) a Toyota over the course of around 3 videos[1].
Here in the US, I drive a 1998 Toyota 4Runner, a cousin to the vehicle in the video, and I know that every single repair dollar it is fed translates to more miles on the road.
Yes, if you feed new parts to old cars, they get slightly less old. But some brands (ancedotes are not data, yada yada, but:) primarily US domestic brands (though foreign BMW etc. can misbehave too) tend to make strange design decisions that result in an unreliable, poorly aging vehicle. A 199x Buick Rivera required my father to drop the front axle IIRC just to swap the oil pan, or something similar.
Yes but they did bet on Hydrogen and lost and were in denial for way too long. In my opinion, their best EV today is a rebadged Citroën van. Their Lexus ev is a shame.
Your complaint here isn't about repair, it's that battery chemistry isn't a user-servicable component[1]. You have to buy a battery from someone. It turns out that packs are complicated devices and hard to replicate. It's not that Tesla has some kind of insidious DRM on their packs, it's just that there aren't any third party sources. There probably will be eventually, but there aren't yet.
This is different from the world of piston engines, where a talented machine shop (drawing on a century of evolved conventions in engine and vehicle design) can make replacement parts for basically anything.
[1] Potentially you're also complaining about price, because replacement batteries for a 2013 Model S are competing in a market with new parts for a car that retails for $140k. Replacing an EV battery is expensive for the same reason that EVs are expensive: the market wants more than the manufacturers can provide.
I agree being anti-repair is bad, but what car manufacturer isn't at least somewhat anti-repair? Or do you never plan to buy a car at all? Also, isn't Tesla significantly better than most manufacturers in this regard, in that everything but the high-voltage system has parts available for anyone to repair?
While I agree with what you say, the reason I find the current situation completely wrong is that I remember it used to be very different. I remember the times when people were fixing their own cars. Granted, certain aspects became complex and should probably be fixed by authorized service for the sake of safety of passengers, but you have to admit things went way too far.
While it's possibly unfortunate that it's harder for me to work on my Honda, it's nice that it's so reliable I don't have to. From what I've heard Teslas are kind of the worst of both worlds.
Do you have statistics to the contrary? Even here on HN we have folks that defend Tesla in the face of serious problems like phantom braking while I've never heard of that happening with a Honda. Does it? (Someone here said it wasn't a problem because it "only" happened 7 or 8 times on a road trip, lol.)
Isn't that Consumer Reports study flawed because it counted every problem as equal, no matter what they were? For example, counting a Tesla with a misaligned body panel just as bad as a Honda that leaves you stranded on the side of the road?
And re phantom braking, I don't think it's fair to say only Tesla has this problem, when only Tesla has the feature that the problem occurs with. If you had a Tesla but only used the features that Hondas have, then you'd never experience phantom braking.
Atleast their FAQ says all problems are not equal.
"Engine major, engine cooling, transmission major, and drive system problems are more likely to take a car out of service and to be more expensive to repair than the other problem areas. Consequently, we weight these areas more heavily in our calculations of model year overall reliability verdict. Problems such as broken trim and in-car electronics have a much smaller weight."
I don't know, but I don't know how common it is for any modern car to leave you stranded. I figure every problem that requires a professional to fix should count equally, otherwise, including panel misalignment (which IMO raises concerns about their entire quality process given how easy it is to spot in the factory).
A lot of cars have automatic braking, BTW, including many Hondas. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of models have it by now.
Ah, I didn't know they were different braking systems. Weird. But I guess that does change things a bit, there are definitely fewer cars with some form of "autopilot".
I've owned two Hondas, and they both had major transmission failures (granted, they occurred at about a quarter-million miles). After that experience, I'd probably lean to Toyota more, although the Toyotas I've owned have been more rust-prone.
I had a similar issue with a Honda. Given the mileage that it happened at and that it was otherwise practically flawless I’d buy another no problem since the repair was expensive at ~$3k but the only major repair necessary.
Does GM fix Corvettes that have had LS swaps? Does Ford fix Mustangs with third-party crate engines?
This was a privately-imported US-spec Tesla with a non-OEM battery, being driven in a country in which almost all vehicles have special cold-weather packages. That is especially important on lithium batteries.
My daily driver is a 2000 Jeep Wrangler. The rear axle was damaged when I bought it, and I replaced it with a Ford 8.8” axle assembly and fabricated my own adapters for it. A few weeks ago the parking brake stopped working correctly and I didn’t have time to fix it myself, so I dropped it off at a local dealership. They had no trouble repairing it, despite the fact that my Jeep came ORM with rear drum brakes and now has disc brakes on the rear.
The Ford axle swap is great, but to am 8.8?!? I thought that the Ford 9" swap was popular enough to be a factory option already )).
I'm actually surprised that they did the work, that might have been technician-dependent. I'm assuming that you've got Ford calipers and rotors? Did you bring to them the parts yourself?
What "alternatives" would you to be given? It's not Tesla's job to fund outfits to make replacement batteries. If no one is making them then no one is making them.
You can get some things, but not everything, on Teslas serviced at third party locations. Are there any car companies that make every single part and diagnostic tool available to third parties? If so, which ones?
Are there any car companies that make every single part and diagnostic tool available to third parties? If so, which ones?
Ford, Toyota, GM, etc. Pretty much all non-luxury brands make all part listings and parts available (either directly, or through a designated parts supplier). External companies actually make a lot of the parts for these automakers and you can buy directly from those suppliers if you know the part number, and aftermarket alternatives are available for almost every OEM part. It is possible to rebuild most Ford, Toyota, and GM vehicles with parts acquired through purchase.
Some automakers make diagnostic tools available to anyone, but most limit the availability to certified mechanics. However, anyone can attempt to get certification.
Per the question at hand: can you order a main battery pack for a Mach-E or Bolt? Genuine question. I'm pretty sure the answer is "no", but would be interested to find out.
Yes, through a certified mechanic. Unlike Tesla, the other automakers make sure there is stock on hand for repairs before they release cars, which is part of why they appear to have reduced EV construction capabilities.
I'm not sure to be honest, it's a big issue these days that car companies lock third parties or of the computer systems and diagnostics. Right to repair seems fundamental to something as expensive and long lived as a car.
Most US dealerships will service any make or model of car. Most of them sell used cars of a variety of makes, and will gladly take the business to service them.
Anyone who has replaced their phone battery knows that Li-ion just fundamentally wears out each and every time you charge/discharge it.
The chemistry is only good for a number of charges. This is also affected by temperature, I'm sure that in a cold nation like Finland, the batteries wear out faster.
You can hide this by making redundant cells and with some intelligent software to wear-balance the cells. But eventually, the physical chemistry of the lithium ion just wears out. You can't stop physics.
Yes as do the walls of a cylinder is a gasoline engine, and every moving metal part. but of course by
now they tend to last for 20 years or more so nobody cares.
There are mitigations steps you can take with an EV: don’t keep it fully charged for long, don’t supercharge too often, store it in a garage and keep it plugged in so it can regulate the pack temps without cycling it. One problem is I don’t know how you can evaluate the health of a pack when buying used.
Yes you have indicators. On a Nissan Leaf you can simply count the number of battery bars in the dashboard when fully charged. On the BMW i3, you can find a number in the dashboard if you know how to find it (it's well hidden). On a Tesla, you can usually look at the range when fully charged.
The best is to connect something on the ODB port of the car and collect all the technical values.
You need to remember that the battery temperature can influence a lot.
> You need to remember that the battery temperature can influence a lot.
The temperature does influence a lot, but it only influences within a range that's allowed by the current health status of the battery.
In my mind, this status is what should be somehow visible / easy to check. As opposed to trying to estimate it given the current temperature and the reported range when X% full or whatever.
My iPhone says its battery is X% healthy. I've seen my battery drain quicker when I was using the phone intensively by 0 °C than when it sat on my desk doing nothing at room temperature. But the health indicator didn't go up while in the office.
> Isn't there some kind of indicator the software can produce, as do the laptops and iphones? Or are those indicators not very reliable in practice?
A full "coulomb count" of a battery can somewhat reliably estimate the amount that a Li-Ion battery has worn out. Its a pretty simple idea:
1. On one charge-cycle... count every electron that enters the battery.
2. As its discharging... count every electron that leaves the battery.
Typical phones and laptops will perform a coulomb count whenever you go through charge / discharge cycles (and a full coulomb count will only occur if you go from 0% charge to 100% charge... and a full count is the most accurate).
However, this is an external "blackbox" estimate to the life of the battery. You don't really know the battery's condition. There's no chemical test involved where you're sampling the contaminants inside of the Li-ion cells.
I understand it's an estimation. What I don't know is how useful / close enough it can be.
Is this "good enough" for when you're purchasing a used car / computer / iphone or when you're thinking of taking that long trip with your already well-worn Tesla?
Unless you plan to buy a chemical analysis system, open up the cells with a chainsaw and perform chemical samples over the electrolyte inside of the cells...
---------
I'm fairly certain that any accurate chemical test would destroy the cells, at least with our current level of technology.
As such, its not a question of "good enough". Its simply a question of "what is possible". Since nothing better is possible yet, Coulomb Counting is our best methodology.
> Yes as do the walls of a cylinder is a gasoline engine, and every moving metal part. but of course by now they tend to last for 20 years or more so nobody cares.
None of those parts cost $22,000+ to repair though, like a Li-ion battery that's fundamental to the electric car.
We all know how to repair cylinders, pistons, or even engine-lift, transmission repairs or whatever. All those costs are well calculated and well known.
Then again who needs 600 hp in a passenger vehicle? Other than heavy truck or machinery operators, racing cars and generators for hospitals or banks I see no use for such an engine.
The only things you really need are food, water, oxygen, and medical care. But life would really, really suck if you never had anything you didn't need.
After 932 miles? Something seems off as this seems like something that should be covered under warranty. Although granted the year of the model makes me think Gizmodo has a typo here and maybe it’s 93 000 miles? That would put it as just outside the warranty in terms of age.
It's a 2013 model, I assume he bought it used (with many miles on it) and then drove it 932 miles before running into problems.
Unless maybe he bought it new and stored it without driving it for eight years, until the warranty had expired, and then ran into problems when he started driving it?
No. It was a used car from 2013. The number of miles on the car (and therefore, the charge/discharge cycles) is not reported. I drive about 10,000 miles/year, others closer to 20,000. So the number of miles on that car is probably 80,000 to 150,000 or so.
> There is either more to this story or one of the worst customer service stories in history.
Lithium makes up a tiny portion of the battery cost - Nickle makes up a much larger fraction of most BEV batteries, and removing the Nickle cost is most of why LFP (lithium iron phosphate) batteries are more affordable and starting to be the dominant battery in EVs.
Your question assumes that that would be trivial, but I suspect it would be effectively impossible. Every single part of the car is designed to be an EV.
The battery began to wear out, so he replaced it with a non-Tesla, third party battery. This was later damaged, and Tesla refused to fix it, both because it had a non-Tesla battery inside it, but also because Finnish service centers are not equipped to repair US specification Teslas.
Why he decided to then blow it up... well that must be a Finnish thing. He did remove the batteries and motors first, though.