Do some drivetrains need replacement from time to time? Yes. This is nothing new. First drivetrain replacement mentioned on here was over a year ago. Does it seem like it's getting more attention and happening more often now? Yes. But of course it is. There are 40,000+ Model S on the road now vs. 4000 a year and a half ago.
The question is: is the rate of drivetrain failures constant, declining, or rising relative to the total number of cars on the road? We don't have the actual numbers and trends on drivetrains failures from Tesla, but we have all of the warranty expenses reported each quarter. Given the drivetrain and battery are far and away the most expensive items to replace, that reporting is essentially a direct report on failures of those two components. So what does the data tell us?
It's not a material issue. Warranty reserves keep going up and expenses down, quarter after quarter relative to the number of cars on the road. So this is a non-issue.
What we're seeing here is this quarter's active FUD campaign by short sellers to induce panic in weak shareholders and drive down the stock prior to earnings. They're desperate and grasping at straws yet again. We are all pawns.
