Is Tesla trying to become the absolute worst service organization?

[wdolson]

This isn't Tesla or brand specific (Tesla's not even mentioned it), but I hadn't realized the turnover was so high with service advisors and that there is a shortage of auto technicians.

At 3:43, they claim the SA turnover rate was 43% (!) in 2021. For technicians and service managers, it was 29%.

Some of it might be due to the complexity of cars too. Before the 1980s, learning car repair was pretty easy. A lot of people learned how repairing the family car with their father's. My partner learned from her father.

Starting in the 70s and accelerating in the 80s, cars got a lot more complex and with electronic ignition you needed some specialized instruments to do tasks that used to be done by ear and some basic tools. To become a certified car mechanic today usually requires at least a 2 year college degree. To those who are not very academic, but are good at doing things with their hands, the field is shut off for them.

And for those who do have the basic skills, there are a lot more jobs with the same skills. Many are tidier sorts of technician jobs mostly sitting at a computer rather than getting all gunked up with automotive fluids.

There has been a lot of talk about the STEM shortage, the T stands for Technology, ie technicians of various types. There is a whole discussion on how to encourage people to go into those professions and get people to emigrate with those skills, but that would be a complete tangent.

 

[cwerdna]

The reason why I posted the video was that over and over, people talk about Tesla expanding and/or needing to expand service. That might be a challenge in the US due to the general problem the video points out.

 

[dipper]

The reason why I posted the video was that over and over, people talk about Tesla expanding and/or needing to expand service. That might be a challenge in the US due to the general problem the video points out.

If Tesla fixed the production quality problem, maybe the service constraints will be better?

 

[howardc64]

13 MS owner here. Likely will never buy a Tesla again or give SC any $ for repairs (will seek other options whenever possible) I'll skip the stories on aggravating experiences.

Tesla's no dealership model is the main problem. Of course it removes a layer of profit to deliver cheaper product and profit. But this layer at the end point customer interface. SCs are basically powerless and must follow HQ's guidelines for nearly all issues. Basically disabling SC's ability to respond to field issues quickly and have sufficient funds to do so. Everything revolves around HQ's schedule rather than customer's schedule and HQ mostly wants to make+sell new cars.

 

[whitex]

Everything revolves around HQ's schedule rather than customer's schedule and HQ mostly wants to make+sell new cars.

Of course. Elon's wet dream, which he was at one point selling hard, is that every Tesla becomes a million mile car with only consumables like tires which will need service. I haven't heard much about Elon's claims of a million mile car anymore, but I suspect Elon was counting on it when planning out service infrastructure, just like they appear to be counting on FSD driving the car all by itself when designing the infotainment software.

 

[howardc64]

Of course. Elon's wet dream, which he was at one point selling hard, is that every Tesla becomes a million mile car with only consumables like tires which will need service. I haven't heard much about Elon's claims of a million mile car anymore, but I suspect Elon was counting on it when planning out service infrastructure, just like they appear to be counting on FSD driving the car all by itself when designing the infotainment software.

Elon does pitch 90% (pick your own %) more than he can deliver but gets credit since his 10% is still quite a bit compared to most others haha.

But yeah, their back of the envelop calculations probably missed the boat by an order of magnitude on battery and unknown orders of magnitude on FSD as the AI tech's convergence rate to an acceptable functionality on a mission critical application is really unknown.

BTW, > 100k Euro premium cars survives on the road > from DIYers. So far, Tesla has made it pretty difficult for the DIY community. Early MSs are rolling past 100k and most M3s will be in another 3-4 years.

 

[wdolson]

I think it might be possible to get a million miles out of some Tesla's on the road today, but there are Toyotas that have made it that far and quite a few that made it at least 1/3 that far. But they all required maintenance to get there. It's true EVs don't need the kind of maintenance ICE need: no oil changes, belts, fewer hoses, etc. Things still wear out and break on a car. Solenoid door latches are a moving part, so are power windows. There are many small motors in even the Model 3 and Y that can burn out over time and use. Things that aren't powered can break too. How long do flat panels blasted with sunlight almost daily last? Things also get broken from humans doing things from cars running into one another to junior dropping his ice cream into the wrong place, to other things breaking from misuse.

Tesla is improving, but they also have had a lot of problems with build quality and they are still behind the curve compared to most of the competition. Those cars that had problems off the production line need to get the problems fixed. Some manufacturing problems take a while to manifest. For example Model S have had several generations of door handle hardware before they got something reliable. The milling sound in early Model Ss was another thing that started after some time on the road.

They are building new service centers now. From the time I bought my 2016 until very recently the only SC between Sacramento and Seattle was the single SC in Portland. It's a 40 min drive for me and more than an hour for some in Oregon. They opened on in Bend, OR last year, and a second Portland (Tigard) SC just this week. A third Portland area SC is under construction in Vancouver, WA.

I also saw they have joined forces with Lincoln Educational Services to train technicians. I saw where the original Portland SC was having an event to recruit technicians.
Lincoln Tech Signs Agreement with Tesla to Train Future EV Technicians

Maybe they will start having enough room and technicians to repair the cars soon. However, there is still the centralized corporate structure to deal with. There are enough Teslas on the road now that local techs need to get trained up and start taking on repairing the fleet of cars out of warranty.

 

[howardc64]

I think it might be possible to get a million miles out of some Tesla's on the road today, but there are Toyotas that have made it that far and quite a few that made it at least 1/3 that far.

The biggest issue on EVs is the battery and there are fundamental problems hidden behind all the current consumerism hype+marketing that isn't discussed.

For small battery EVs (not viable here in US anymore but certainly in other parts of the world) parasitic chemical reaction loss is the root cause for range degradation. Chemistry teaches us its not possible to have 100% reaction efficiency. There is parasitic loss. I recall a high school chem lab exercise on this subject. Higher temperature just accelerate parasitic loss rate.

For big battery EVs like Tesla, the key problem is statistical cell failure. Anode and cathode layers are really close together bridges wants to form between them.

All EV manufacturers currently treats battery as non end point serviceable core and big batteries cost $15k-$25k which is about the residual value of premium car at 100k miles. So when we see MS owners with battery failure at 100k deciding between full residual value repair or disposable salvage. It is this issue rearing its head.

I use to think battery can be designed to be end point serviceable (although Tesla seems to be designing against this with structural battery). One can imagine sub cell modules easier to remove. moisture sealing more disassembly friendly, breaking down the high voltage by external removable bridges etc... But non of this solves the problem of statistical cell failure. Once 1 cell fails... others aren't far behind.

Anyway, we see EVs battery as a single battery pack. Rather, think of the pack as 7000 iphone batteries (Tesla batteries does get better thermal treatment and less deep discharge cycles) and the statistical failure probability of 1 in 10 year/100k miles. Bigger cells don't help since it just has more anode/cathode surfaces and therefore a higher statistical failure rate / cell.

Anyway, seldemly discussed fundamental issue tucked behind all the consumerism pitches.

I never see statistical failure discussed. But probably majority of the 100k mile battery pack failure are due to this. Reminder are stuff thats much easier to solve (module electronics, contactors etc)

 

[wdolson]

The biggest issue on EVs is the battery and there are fundamental problems hidden behind all the current consumerism hype+marketing that isn't discussed.

For small battery EVs (not viable here in US anymore but certainly in other parts of the world) parasitic chemical reaction loss is the root cause for range degradation. Chemistry teaches us its not possible to have 100% reaction efficiency. There is parasitic loss. I recall a high school chem lab exercise on this subject. Higher temperature just accelerate parasitic loss rate.

For big battery EVs like Tesla, the key problem is statistical cell failure. Anode and cathode layers are really close together bridges wants to form between them.

All EV manufacturers currently treats battery as non end point serviceable core and big batteries cost $15k-$25k which is about the residual value of premium car at 100k miles. So when we see MS owners with battery failure at 100k deciding between full residual value repair or disposable salvage. It is this issue rearing its head.

I use to think battery can be designed to be end point serviceable (although Tesla seems to be designing against this with structural battery). One can imagine sub cell modules easier to remove. moisture sealing more disassembly friendly, breaking down the high voltage by external removable bridges etc... But non of this solves the problem of statistical cell failure. Once 1 cell fails... others aren't far behind.

Anyway, we see EVs battery as a single battery pack. Rather, think of the pack as 7000 iphone batteries (Tesla batteries does get better thermal treatment and less deep discharge cycles) and the statistical failure probability of 1 in 10 year/100k miles. Bigger cells don't help since it just has more anode/cathode surfaces and therefore a higher statistical failure rate / cell.

Anyway, seldemly discussed fundamental issue tucked behind all the consumerism pitches.

I never see statistical failure discussed. But probably majority of the 100k mile battery pack failure are due to this. Reminder are stuff thats much easier to solve (module electronics, contactors etc)

The hard round cell Tesla uses does seem to be less prone to failure than the pouch designs, but the packs do fail. There is an enterprising market for battery packs with bad modules and everything is recyclable. But it doesn't help the guy stuck with a battery pack that has gone south.

My background is Electronic Engineering and I recall one class where we modeled the parasitic losses in various system like batteries. At the time Li-Ion didn't exist and the only commercially available rechargeable batteries were lead-acid and NiCads. In any case, the modeling is similar. A battery can be modeled as a battery cell with a series resistor as well as an inductor and capacitor. I think the inductor was also in series with the capacitor in parallel. I forget exactly, it was more than 30 years ago now.

The values are small, but the losses add up. Li-Ion have unusually low internal resistance for a battery which gives them a good shelf life once charged, but it's still there.

As people have tried to cram more energy into each cell, it has resulted in tighter tolerances and smaller gaps between anode and cathode, which can lead to problems as the cell ages.

I'm amazed at how good Tesla is at battery management. They have gotten a lot more life out of the cells than anybody expected 15-20 years ago. Their life is finite though.

There is a potential market out there for battery rebuild and/or battery upgrades. Tesla could set up a pretty good side business upgrading 85 and 90 packs to 100 KWh on older cars. An older car with a new, longer range battery would be worth more on the used market and Tesla would get some income out of the deal. A third party could also take old packs and rebuild them.

As older cars' batteries go out of warranty, this is an attractive option for people with older batteries that are dying.

 

[cpa]

As others have said, Tesla focuses on new car sales. The profit margin is greater, and they don't have to have a lot of inventory accumulate that remains unsold or unused for months, if not years. The whole cycle of converting raw materials to inventory to accounts receivable to cash rings strong with Tesla today. To Tesla, cash is king; nothing else comes close.

As long as new car sales are strong, Tesla won't have a secondary business of selling battery upgrades to the older cars. They will want you to buy a new car. Tesla may rethink this approach as the BEV new car environment changes. I don't think that Tesla is going to authorize "independent" repair shops in the near future, if ever. We probably won't be able to go to AutoZone and order a 100kWh battery for our 2014 S85 and have our choice of repair shops to remove the old and install the new.

From a consumer point of view, it makes sense to be able to pony up money to have a brand-new battery with perhaps 20% more range and faster Supercharging speeds. But from Tesla's point of view, they would be dedicating resources for low-volume and lower gross profit sales.