Why can't you drive into Mexico without voiding the warranty?

I'm not sure about the warranty issue but just purely from a safety standpoint, it's probably not a good idea to drive across the border right now anyway.

If this is the case in Europe as well I can't see them selling much vehicles here. This is probably just for North American cars, but just imagine to buy a car in let's say Lichtenstein or Monaco and realize that you will never be able to drive longer than about 10 miles...

Some posts moved to Nationalistic Snippiness. I'd like to see if we can try to keep politics (except as related to EVs) and stereotyping off this forum.

mitch672 said:

Um yeah Bonnie, those are legitmate issues I brought up and should remain in this thread. The facts are Mexico is at war, and it ain't pretty.
they probably exclude acts of war and terorism from the warranty as well, so thats probably a good reason why Mexico is excluded, it's an active war zone.

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We will have to disagree.

bonnie1194 said:

We will have to disagree.

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Really? the actual facts back me up:

Google, these are not news stories from 10 years ago, the first link is 3 days old:
mexican drug war - Google Search

Mexican Drug War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The vast majority of the Mexican grid is not interconnected with the US nor is it part of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). Very bad power quality (harmonics) can cause messes with the car and the car has a significantly higher probability of being stranded in a high heat situation in Mexico. This policy does make sense from those standpoints. They are also in the midst of a drug war (how bad is debatable), but I would say that isn't the reason at all.

Agree. If it were because of the drug war, there would be many areas in the US excluded also. The grid issue makes complete sense.

It is worse than most americans are aware. I was in Los Mochis several months ago. Three federales got into a gun battle with a drug gang. They called for help from the local police. Nobody responded and the federales were killed. The army came in with the president of Mexico the next day and put the entire police force under arrest. The airport was closing because more violence was anticipated and we were told to leave immediately. Not in the papers here that I could find on my return. I or my employees are there every month, and it is bad. I would not suggest travel to Mexico if you can help it, even to the resort areas. I have many more stories like this, just from this year!

I don't disagree, Lloyd. I am just trying to STOP this thread from devolving and going off-topic (as you could see by Johan's response to Mitch). Hopefully no one is taking it personally.

bonnie1194 said:

I don't disagree, Lloyd. I am just trying to STOP this thread from devolving and going off-topic (as you could see by Johan's response to Mitch). Hopefully no one is taking it personally.

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I have said all I need to, and I have nothing against Mexicans, very nice people actually.
Lets just say because of current conditions and a poor power grid, Tesla does not want the Model S to be in Mexico at this time.

you can delete that other thread, no need for it Bonnie.

RDoc said:

If the issue is power, particularly harmonics, then I'd think attempting to use a generator would be a much bigger issue. It's my understanding that Roadsters are pretty picky about their power sources, but I don't think it will fry them. Even very cheap DC power supplies generally will just switch off if the harmonics are too bad or the voltage goes out of limit.
In any case, the warranty doesn't talk about charging in Mexico, it prohibits entering Mexico.
Also, the climate in Mexico isn't any different from the South East US and they let you drive across Death Valley.

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But poor power quality can also cause nasty voltage spikes that could fry the charger. If something like that happens here, the utility is responsible, but without NERC in Mexico, there isn't guarantee about the power quality. You can't charge if you don't go there so a far easier thing to do is to say you can't go there at all rather than having some fool go there, plug-in, fry their charger, and then write a nasty blog post about how Tesla didn't make it clear that they couldn't charge in Mexico.

It's a sure thing that Tesla wouldn't be sending any Rangers into Mexico! FWIW, the warranty is also void if you ship the vehicle to Japan or to Europe (or even our own little bit of Europe-in-North-America, St Pierre et Michelon), so this warranty provision is not easily explained by reference to either electric or political stability.

Robert.Boston said:

It's a sure thing that Tesla wouldn't be sending any Rangers into Mexico! FWIW, the warranty is also void if you ship the vehicle to Japan or to Europe (or even our own little bit of Europe-in-North-America, St Pierre et Michelon), so this warranty provision is not easily explained by reference to either electric or political stability.

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probably correct, no Ranger or Tesla service availble, plus there is the fact that different countries have different standards for tail lights (colors/brightness), headlights, etc. might not be legal without modifications to meet the legal requirements of those particular countries.

Robert.Boston said:

(or even our own little bit of Europe-in-North-America, St Pierre et Michelon)

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Bucket List

mitch672 said:

probably correct, no Ranger or Tesla service availble, plus there is the fact that different countries have different standards for tail lights (colors/brightness), headlights, etc. might not be legal without modifications to meet the legal requirements of those particular countries.

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This would be my guess even over power. I worked on a Production in Mexico City for many months and my computers were fine when there were no brown or blackouts. By the end I was on a dedicated genny all day but only because blackouts cost us a day of work. not a problem with an charging EV.

Reading the Tesla paperwork it seems like dinner across the boarder would be OK. Unless you broke down. Then you would be on your own getting the car back. Do we think they would they track your location and even care if nothing went wrong?

Hmm... Arguments for or against aside, this is somewhat unfortunate for us and I'm glad this thread is here to make me aware of this restriction.

My family works with a charity that builds houses for working families in a particular neighborhood outside of Tijuana, just 10 minutes from the border crossing. (So charging isn't an issue. We could even tow back across the border if needed.) We've built a number of homes and a community center. The community has become largely self sufficient, operating a screening business out of the community center for example. They all help with the new homes now--its really pretty cool. My kids come with us and help. Two 6th grade classes from my daughter's school recently raised funds to build two homes and many of the kids and their families came down for the build.

One of my wife's closest friends runs the charity and makes trips down at least once a week. Neither she or any of us have ever felt anything but entirely safe. It's a known route, we travel as a group, and the community rallys around us.

For now I don't plan to take the S anyway. We'll go in the Highlander Hybrid. But the plan is to replace the Highlander with the X. So if this policy still exists, we'll have to decide what to do. We'd probably just rent a car or ride with others when we go down, but it is a bummer since we all have Sentri passes and the car Sentri pass is on my wife's car (Sentri let's us skip the border line). I guess we could just park the X on the US side of the border, walk across, and join others in the group there so we can get quickly across using Sentri when we get back.

But I will be letting Tesla know that this is a legitimate issue for some of us. One thought would be to follow a policy like many US insurance companies and rental car companies which is that you are okay if you stay within 25 miles of the border.