Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

USA Today article "Consumer Reports' $127K Tesla becomes 'undriveable'"

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
This is quite the headline on USA Today: "Consumer Reports' $127K Tesla becomes 'undriveable'" http://www.usatoday.com/story/money...-reports-tesla-model-s-door-handles/27492335/

The original Consumer Reports blog post is here: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/...s-p85d-breaks-before-testing-begins/index.htm

Basically their door handle failed, Tesla service responded promptly which they are happy with, and now they are proceeding with testing. USA Today took that as their Tesla is undriveable ...
 
I never understood why by being able to open the driver door made the car unable to move for more than 2 min. If you had the keyfob and sat in drivers seat would the car not drive? Sure the driver door not working is very inconvenient but the article doesn't seem accurate.
 
Last edited:
I never understood why by being able to open the driver door made the car usable to move for more than 2 min. If you had the keyfob and sat in drivers seat would the car not drive? Sure the driver door not working is very inconvenient but the article doesn't seem accurate.
The way they worded it was that they used the app to let the car move and supposedly there is a 2 minute limit. But from Teslarati, that 2 minute limit only refers to the amount of time you have to press the brake and drive before the car becomes inactive again. It does not mean you can only drive the car for 2 minutes after doing so, or else what is the point of "keyless driving"?
http://www.teslarati.com/how-does-tesla-keyless-driving-work/

So I'm not sure what they really did.
 
Yeah. I've used the app just to see if it works and that's exactly what it does. You have two minutes to start the car moving. Why reporters mess these details up is beyond me.
 
Last edited:
Yeah. I've used the app just to see if it works and that's exactly what it does. You have two minutes to start the car moving. Why reporters mess these details us is beyond me.

Messing up those details is annoying. But the "USA Today" article, which was based on the "Consumer Reports" blog post, couldn't even keep the facts straight, as they were written in the blog post:

"USA Today": "The good news? It was pleased with the service. Tesla picked the car up and took it to service center where the door-handle glitch was repaired efficiently."

"Consumer Reports": "The good news: Getting our Tesla fixed could hardly have been more convenient. We called our local Tesla service center to have the car picked up and hauled 60 miles away to the service center for repair. But instead, the company sent a local technician to our Auto Test Center the next morning. Tesla maintains a fleet of repair vans with technicians to provide on-site service for minor problems. Such house calls are part of the Tesla ownership experience, available to all customers.The technician diagnosed and repaired the problem quickly. Our car needed a new door-handle control module—the part inside the door itself that includes the electronic sensors and motors to operate the door handle and open the door. The whole repair took about two hours and was covered under the warranty."
 
I never understood why by being able to open the driver door made the car unable to move for more than 2 min. If you had the keyfob and sat in drivers seat would the car not drive? Sure the driver door not working is very inconvenient but the article doesn't seem accurate.

The way they worded it was that they used the app to let the car move and supposedly there is a 2 minute limit. But from Teslarati, that 2 minute limit only refers to the amount of time you have to press the brake and drive before the car becomes inactive again. It does not mean you can only drive the car for 2 minutes after doing so, or else what is the point of "keyless driving"?
How Does Tesla Keyless Driving Work? - TESLARATI.com


So I'm not sure what they really did.

Agreed, we're not sure what they really did. In the Teslarati example there was no fault. So it's possible that with a non-critical issue (such as a door fault), Tesla allows two minutes of driving to get the Model S out of harm's way. Does anyone here know for sure?
 
Agreed, we're not sure what they really did. In the Teslarati example there was no fault. So it's possible that with a non-critical issue (such as a door fault), Tesla allows two minutes of driving to get the Model S out of harm's way. Does anyone here know for sure?
I just used that feature two weeks ago when a tesla Service Centre which had my car lost the keys (another story). I, 4500 miles away, permitted keyless driving. the service tech then could run the car, having two minutes in order to do so. Later they made new keys. Without a doubt that is a good feature, albeit one that would rarely be needed, but important on those rare occasions.

As for USA Today: they obviously had a weak grasp of facts and an eager need to overstate the news. What is novel about that?
 
My last two vette's with the "electric door releases" also had an old school emergency procedure to allow you to get into the car should the electrical system fail.
They had a key lock located just above the rear license plate, you insert a key, turn and the rear hatch pops open, then there were two pull tabs (one for the drivers door and one for the fuel filler door) you can pull to manually release/open the door.
I assume Tesla has a similar feature should there be a major electrical failure and you need to get into the vehicle?
 
My last two vette's with the "electric door releases" also had an old school emergency procedure to allow you to get into the car should the electrical system fail.
They had a key lock located just above the rear license plate, you insert a key, turn and the rear hatch pops open, then there were two pull tabs (one for the drivers door and one for the fuel filler door) you can pull to manually release/open the door.
I assume Tesla has a similar feature should there be a major electrical failure and you need to get into the vehicle?

There's no keyless-less entry, but if there is a major electrical failure, you can open the nose-cone and hook the car up to a 12V battery in order to unlock the doors.
 
What a joke.

Tomorrow they should publish a story about an Impala whose volume knob falls off, rendering the stereo unmutable.

...you mean, rendering the car undriveable!!!

Makes an article travel around the web a lot further, as Consumer Reports has obviously found out.

I don't know about you, but I couldn't drive my car if I found I couldn't alter the volume of the stereo.
 
This story went viral across news sites today. I kept getting news tickers streaming across my terminal today about how the MS failed and was undriveable blah blah blah. Many sites picked it up and ran with it. It's like they don't care about what really happened and just want clickbait or still trying to damage Tesla's rep any way possible. Of course all of us here know how lame that story was. I don't even know if it was actually a failure but it sounded more like just a dead key fob battery lol but somehow journalists translate that to "OMG ITS A $127k PAPERWEIGHT"
 
This story went viral across news sites today. I kept getting news tickers streaming across my terminal today about how the MS failed and was undriveable blah blah blah. Many sites picked it up and ran with it. It's like they don't care about what really happened and just want clickbait or still trying to damage Tesla's rep any way possible. Of course all of us here know how lame that story was. I don't even know if it was actually a failure but it sounded more like just a dead key fob battery lol but somehow journalists translate that to "OMG ITS A $127k PAPERWEIGHT"

I agree with almost everything you wrote, but it wasn't just a dead keyfob battery. The "Consumer Reports" blog post talks about the ranger (though they don't call him that) coming and working on the car for a couple of hours to repair the problem, and that it needed a new door-handle control module.

Excerpt from the blog post:

"The good news: Getting our Tesla fixed could hardly have been more convenient. We called our local Tesla service center to have the car picked up and hauled 60 miles away to the service center for repair. But instead, the company sent a local technician to our Auto Test Center the next morning. Tesla maintains a fleet of repair vans with technicians to provide on-site service for minor problems. Such house calls are part of the Tesla ownership experience, available to all customers.

The technician diagnosed and repaired the problem quickly. Our car needed a new door-handle control module—the part inside the door itself that includes the electronic sensors and motors to operate the door handle and open the door. The whole repair took about two hours and was covered under the warranty."
 
Last edited: