Calling P85D owners world-wide for survey and complaint letter

[bonnie]

Hypothetically, if a company was to destroy records in such a way that nobody would know they ever existed in the first place, how could they get into trouble?

Not saying Tesla would ever do this, of course. I'm just curious since I have no knowledge in this area.

If records during a specific time period are missing, it's pretty damning. Not to mention that there is always one person who will feel a need to tell the truth. I suppose that one person could hypothetically destroy things, acting alone, but others would be well aware records were missing. And it's about impossible to make a clean excision, without leaving obvious holes. How do you know where emails were forwarded, who made a printout of an attached document, etc? Can't do it in the days of electronic records - I suppose pre-electronic records it might be possible. But now? Pfffyt. One missed tiny email or doc and game over.

Companies just cannot run that way. As soon as you have one person deliberately breaking rules, it resets the company culture to something no one wants.

 

[Auzie]

Hypothetically, if a company was to destroy records in such a way that nobody would know they ever existed in the first place, how could they get into trouble?

Not saying Tesla would ever do this, of course. I'm just curious since I have no knowledge in this area.

A scenario like that - company destroying records intentionally and selectively - can only be carried out through cooperation, ie conscious conspiracy. That is just too far out of the norm for most people to agree to be party to and therefore highly unlikely. My experience is that some people might do something that crosses the lines to a various degree if they believe that no one will ever know about their transgression, however when there are witnesses, the likelihood of transgression usually drops to zero.

 

[bonnie]

If I were up to typing more tonight I'd tell you some stories of companies that tried & the lengths they went to (even hiring actors!) to cover up. Took a couple days for that one to fall apart ("why is everyone so good looking here?"). But it did. Always do.

 

[Auzie]

It is possible for a business to change their document retention policy from say 5 years to 5 months, and the retention policy can have differing periods for a different class of documents. Therefore, it might be theoretically possible to destroy the desired documentation but as Bonnie said, it better be done within the policy guidelines.

Having said that, I would not be surprised if Tesla does not have many policies in place as the business is not very mature. Maybe they do not have a document retention policy that relates to some issues so each employee can do as they see fit.

 

[bonnie]

Maybe they do not have a document retention policy that relates to some issues so each employee can do as they see fit.

Hah. My experience is that you have to pry documents out of employees' hands to enforce compliance with a policy. People just don't like to let go because 'maybe I'll need it someday!'.

No policy? Nothing destroyed. There is always one copy somewhere. Then there are the server backups ... better get the IT guys in on the conspiracy ...

 

[Auzie]

Hah. My experience is that you have to pry documents out of employees' hands to enforce compliance with a policy. People just don't like to let go because 'maybe I'll need it someday!'.

No policy? Nothing destroyed. There is always one copy somewhere. Then there are the server backups ... better get the IT guys in on the conspiracy ...

IT is getting smarter, getting on top of this by shifting the archiving work on employees. Now my emails are deleted out of my inbox every year unless I archive. Archiving is a bit tedious so that IT retention scheme works, emails get deleted. Quite effective.

 

[bonnie]

IT is getting smarter, getting on top of this by shifting the archiving work on employees. Now my emails are deleted out of my inbox every year unless I archive. Archiving is a bit tedious so that IT retention scheme works, emails get deleted. Quite effective.

No server backups?

I always had email age out or force me to archive - but there were still server backups archived in some dark cavern somewhere to protect the company's business if something catastrophic happened.

 

[Andyw2100]

Prudence (unfortunately) suggests that the Tesla lawyers, anticipating a potential legal challenge, have long since purged any such records within the company. This is a downside of all the warning they have gotten on this issue (or a motivation for their delaying tactics). They are well scrubbed and prepared for discovery. It will be documentation that originated at Tesla, but is now domiciled outside the company, (emails perhaps) that will prove damning in discovery.

No kidding. Someone is watching too many movies. Destroying records outside of an established document retention/destruction policy is begging for trouble. Hello deposition? Yeah. That would not be fun. I've not met a company or lawyer willing to do such. I'm comfortable in stating that is not how Tesla would operate.

I'm not in any way suggesting yak-55 is correct about anything he wrote, but I also think you (Bonnie) and others may actually be misinterpreting what he wrote.

Unless I am mistaken his use of words like "purged" and "scrubbed" led you to believe he was talking about data and evidence being destroyed. But if you continue to read, he writes about "the documentation that originated at Tesla, but is now domiciled outside the company." I think yak-55 was just saying that the lawyers would have moved the evidence someplace where Tesla employees wouldn't be prone to inadvertently dealing with it. I don't think he was suggesting they would have destroyed it.

Again, I am not agreeing with his assertion. I'm just trying to clear up what I believe is a misunderstanding of what he meant.

 

[bonnie]

I'm not in any way suggesting yak-55 is correct about anything he wrote, but I also think you (Bonnie) and others may actually be misinterpreting what he wrote.

Unless I am mistaken his use of words like "purged" and "scrubbed" led you to believe he was talking about data and evidence being destroyed. But if you continue to read, he writes about "the documentation that originated at Tesla, but is now domiciled outside the company." I think yak-55 was just saying that the lawyers would have moved the evidence someplace where Tesla employees wouldn't be prone to inadvertently dealing with it. I don't think he was suggesting they would have destroyed it.

Again, I am not agreeing with his assertion. I'm just trying to clear up what I believe is a misunderstanding of what he meant.

Fair enough. We were chasing a squirrel .

Update: No, in rereading, don't think we were chasing that squirrel. I believe the post is speculating that while Tesla may have scrubbed internal records (which is ridiculous), documents (like emails) that exist outside the company will be damning.

 

[Andyw2100]

Update: No, in rereading, don't think we were chasing that squirrel. I believe the post is speculating that while Tesla may have scrubbed internal records (which is ridiculous), documents (like emails) that exist outside the company will be damning.

Hmmm...you may be correct. Perhaps he will clarify.

For what it's worth, I agree that Tesla would not attempt to destroy records.

 

[vgrinshpun]

Fair enough. We were chasing a squirrel .

Update: No, in rereading, don't think we were chasing that squirrel. I believe the post is speculating that while Tesla may have scrubbed internal records (which is ridiculous), documents (like emails) that exist outside the company will be damning.

I am having hard time trying to follow this conversation. Why would Tesla want to scrub internal records? Before thinking that they might want to do something like that one needs to conclude that they actually have something to hide. It is really weird that we are discussing this possible scrubbing, when there is no evidence that they have anything to hide to begin with. I am seriously missing something here.

 

[Andyw2100]

I am having hard time trying to follow this conversation. Why would Tesla want to scrub internal records? Before thinking that they might want to do something like that one needs to conclude that they actually have something to hide. It is really weird that we are discussing this possible scrubbing, when there is no evidence that they have anything to hide to begin with. I am seriously missing something here.

Bonnie and I were discussing what we thought yak-55 meant with his original comment.

Neither Bonnie nor I believe any scrubbing of any kind, with the possible exception of the floors when sticky things things spill on them, is done at Tesla.

 

[Auzie]

I am having hard time trying to follow this conversation. Why would Tesla want to scrub internal records? Before thinking that they might want to do something like that one needs to conclude that they actually have something to hide. It is really weird that we are discussing this possible scrubbing, when there is no evidence that they have anything to hide to begin with. I am seriously missing something here.

The conversation got a bit out of hand, discussing far-fetched scenarios, no one is likely to chase Tesla's records over this, especially not a Norweigan court, there are no relevant records to chase.

The burden of proof is now on claimants, hence they must chase any records they deem relevant.

 

[vgrinshpun]

Bonnie and I were discussing what we thought yak-55 meant with his original comment.

Neither Bonnie nor I believe any scrubbing of any kind, with the possible exception of the floors when sticky things things spill on them, is done at Tesla.

Yea, I understood that much. What I do not understand is the amount of time and posts that went into discussing this. Once again, one needs to conclude that Tesla needs to hide something before discussing scrubbing. The whole issue in general (once you skip the technical details to which many are really averse, quite frankly) is quite simple. Tesla came up with a novel way to extract more performance from the Model S in spite of the limitation of the battery. They succeeded against the odds, and one can watch Elon's presentation at the unveiling event to understand how the team was proud of this accomplishment. The problem was that they got carried away in their euphoria over the significant technical accomplishment, and did not think through how to properly present specifications of the new variant. Given that over sizing of the motors as compared to the output of the battery was the way they achieved this feat to begin with and the fact that cars were rated according to the motor power rating according to ECE R85 they (perhaps in retrospect unwisely) adopted approach to list motor hp rating on their website.

As I explained many times, and as is clear from the discussions that ensued on several hp related threads, there really was no adequate way to represent the performance of the car short of presenting a LOT of technical information which would go way over head of the general public (just because one needs significant specialized background to understand this technical information). The thing that majority still do not fully appreciate is that with EV drivetrain without transmission there is inevitable trade-off between the initial acceleration and high speed performance. The steeper the power ramp up from the stand still, the lower is the accelerating torque at high speed. The thing about hp per lbs of car weight criteria of comparing car performance that Sorka convinced you to put in the letter just does not hold true for the Tesla drivetrain. Depending on how the motors are controlled one can have significantly different high speed performance with exactly the same hp/lb (at the expense of the acceleration rate from the stand still).

So Tesla has nothing to hide, really. There is no there there.

I know that for many unhappy owners this issue became huge, but in overall scheme of things it is much a do about nothing.

 

[vip gts]

Yea, I understood that much. What I do not understand is the amount of time and posts that went into discussing this. Once again, one needs to conclude that Tesla needs to hide something before discussing scrubbing. The whole issue in general (once you skip the technical details to which many are really averse, quite frankly) is quite simple. Tesla came up with a novel way to extract more performance from the Model S in spite of the limitation of the battery. They succeeded against the odds, and one can watch Elon's presentation at the unveiling event to understand how the team was proud of this accomplishment. The problem was that they got carried away in their euphoria over the significant technical accomplishment, and did not think through how to properly present specifications of the new variant. Given that over sizing of the motors as compared to the output of the battery was the way they achieved this feat to begin with and the fact that cars were rated according to the motor power rating according to ECE R85 they (perhaps in retrospect unwisely) adopted approach to list motor hp rating on their website.

As I explained many times, and as is clear from the discussions that ensued on several hp related threads, there really was no adequate way to represent the performance of the car short of presenting a LOT of technical information which would go way over head of the general public (just because one needs significant specialized background to understand this technical information). The thing that majority still do not fully appreciate is that with EV drivetrain without transmission there is inevitable trade-off between the initial acceleration and high speed performance. The steeper the power ramp up from the stand still, the lower is the accelerating torque at high speed. The thing about hp per lbs of car weight criteria of comparing car performance that Sorka convinced you to put in the letter just does not hold true for the Tesla drivetrain. Depending on how the motors are controlled one can have significantly different high speed performance with exactly the same hp/lb (at the expense of the acceleration rate from the stand still).

So Tesla has nothing to hide, really. There is no there there.

I know that for many unhappy owners this issue became huge, but in overall scheme of things it is much a do about nothing.

I do believe that the discussions Tesla had about the confusing horsepower numbers and their plan to clarify would be kind of embarrassing in this situation. Not saying they would scrub it but I bet they wish now that they had made the clarification last year rather than waiting until the recent blog.
It really comes down to a failure to communicate and I bet even Tesla would admit that but I am sure you won't.

 

[vgrinshpun]

I do believe that the discussions Tesla had about the confusing horsepower numbers and their plan to clarify would be kind of embarrassing in this situation. Not saying they would scrub it but I bet they wish now that they had made the clarification last year rather than waiting until the recent blog.
It really comes down to a failure to communicate and I bet even Tesla would admit that but I am sure you won't.

Don't be so sure, as I agree that it is failure to communicate, and mentioned it before. Unfortunately, imo, there were no really good way to communicate what they did without requiring everybody take 10-hour engineering course AND pass exam before proceeding with dump of relevant data.

 

[Canuck]

Hypothetically, if a company was to destroy records in such a way that nobody would know they ever existed in the first place, how could they get into trouble?

Not saying Tesla would ever do this, of course. I'm just curious since I have no knowledge in this area.

Destruction of evidence violates the law. And whistle blowers are encouraged and protected by law. In fact, it's better to be a whistle blower, than be drawn in as a conspirator, and companies like Tesla are well-aware of this, and this is probably posted somewhere in the Tesla offices:

https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/WhistleblowersNotice.pdf

 

[Auzie]

Don't be so sure, as I agree that it is failure to communicate, and mentioned it before. Unfortunately, imo, there were no really good way to communicate what they did without requiring everybody take 10-hour engineering course AND pass exam before proceeding with dump of relevant data.

That is not as far-fetched as it might appear on the first glance. Most businesses usually control a business risk of untrained customers misusing products and doing damage to themselves, by offering comprehensive customers training courses. Training customers is a good business. Apple is a shining example of customers education offerings. It offers customers education courses, bundled in product support.

Another example: Requirements to open certain brokerage accounts have a reasonably high bar that can not be passed without satisfying particular requirements and completing the tests, and there is no way to complete the tests without having the required knowledge - every option trader can attest to that. Brokerage is simply protecting itself from the risk of untrained clients doing damage to themselves and suing the brokerage when making poor trades.

Having said that, it is too much and unrealistic to expect from Tesla to be at the same stage as the examples above. Future might be different. Tesla has a product that is not fully understood by customers, I am confident that they will get a handle on communications if they bridge the gap between customers knowledge base and the product.

 

[Kalllagtunet]

Don't be so sure, as I agree that it is failure to communicate, and mentioned it before. Unfortunately, imo, there were no really good way to communicate what they did without requiring everybody take 10-hour engineering course AND pass exam before proceeding with dump of relevant data.

I would get a perfect undstanding of what to expect of the performance the car with 3 simple broadly used and understod facts: 0-100 time (no roll out noncence) , the availible HP in the weicle (yes the battery limited) and a max torc level (with a specfied rpm).

if i don't remember wrongly this was the way Tesla used to market their spec and I can not rememer much confusion or the need for 10 years of education then....

vgrinshpun brig out the kittens again Shewbacca is looking for them...

 

[jpet]

For what it's worth, I agree that Tesla would not attempt to destroy records.

Except, maybe, by accident, the letter you sent.
Should we give it another go since we never received a response? :tongue: