I think it's important to mention that this isn't an issue EVs have but an issue Teslas in particular have. They seem to have a really bad build quality from what I hear.
Just in case anyone thinks this is a problem with all electric cars...
I own a Chevy Bolt. It lives in the driveway, as my house doesn't have a garage. And I live in a city that gets Scotland levels of rainfall. It's not uncommon for a heavy downpour to leave some low-lying streets with an inch or more of water on them in some places, and that's perfectly normal here.
My Bolt does just fine in that. I never even considered the idea that I might need to take extra precautions with it because fucking rain might kill its battery.
Southern California may be mostly dry, but has had several storms this year with inches of rain each. So even the"home" of Tesla needs to take that sort of weather into account.
Best car I've owned, without a doubt. I charge it overnight, and never have to even think about range (it'll do 300 miles in good conditions if driven carefully). Keeping it charged costs a few dollars a month most of the time, unless I'm on a road trip and need to pay for charging on the way - which is still far, far cheaper than paying for gas.
The only downside is that road trips require more planning, because you need to know where you're going to stop for a charge beforehand, and you need to plan out the time it'll take to get a decent charge. But that just means making sure you're going to have lunch or take a break to stretch your legs and walk around where you'll be charging. Long-distance trips are definitely doable, you just plan them around charging locations.
And it's impossible to beat the maintenance costs: Nearly $0. Very few moving parts and an electric motor means no oil changes, engine maintenance, and general wear-and-tear are much lower.
I love my bolt euv, but they are hard to get, high demand and discontinued. For me the autopilot is a huge feature, makes moderately long trips way less fatiguing. It has great set of camera for maneuvering and isn't too big (still I would prefer smaller). Range is fine for everything I do, 400km in summer, 275 in winter. That's what the gauges say, but with good driving habits and practise you can get that significantly better. A full charges costs me about 5 bucks and its very nice to not have to think about it unless roadtripping. It charges slowly compared with some evs but I don't find a 1hr to full charge on a fast charger particularly problematic. My wife did toronto to ottawa (about 500km) twice now and the stop for charging was shorter than the time it took her to grab lunch. Cooled front seats are very nice and the price was much more affordable than cars with similar ranges. Almost No maintaince is great, although chevvy will message you for an oil.change (lol!).
On the downsides, the bose sound system is crap and there's no front trunk like many evs.
Unfortunately, you'll probably have a hard time finding a new Bolt at this point. They've just stopped making them and dealerships haven't really been able to keep any in stock for months in my neck of the woods. Apparently they will eventually come back but the timeline hasn't been announced so probably several years.
This isn't surprising at all. Have you ever looked at a Tesla up close? The fit and finish is bad. Like really bad. I have never understood how anyone could walk up to one, look at it and think "I'll buy this". Tesla has absolutely miserable quality control.
I rode in one for the first time a few months ago and it immediately broke any preconceived notions I had of it being a luxury product. The weather stripping on the doors was installed crooked and the material on the seats wasn't lined up properly either. That's just what I noticed in the first minute or two. It wasn't even old, it was brand new since the owners first Tesla was totaled in an accident (in which all the recorded camera footage was lost on impact, you know the most important time you would want recordings to work).
Apparently I'm going to Tesla dealer ship near my and from what I heard the cars aren't actually there you just get to look at them on a screen . And there would be nowhere to get it serviced if something happened to it .
"They said it’s not necessarily my fault but it’s not Tesla’s to pay under warranty."
If it's not a warranty case and not a misuse case that means it's designed and it's supposed to function like that.
Imagine an "automotive" grade battery pack with a lower IP rating that the car itself :))))
Yes, but he , as capitalists do, exploited EV for money. First step is to reduce, not make more. Chevy is working on an electric motor that will go in the differential. Reduce the existing cars by reusing the old. New cars can be made, we just need to make sure the old ones are gone. Me, I like the idea of retrofitting old cars. Yes, it can be expensive, but once again, if capitalists wouldn't be constantly capitalizing, we all could have nice things.
I don't get why the service centre isn't covering it in warranty, given the car should be able to handle rain (or even driving through floodwater) just fine and many Teslas do just that, including the many currently in Scotland. Clearly there was a fault that allowed water ingress to the battery.. eventually it would have failed anyway, just in normal weather.
I have no sympathy at this point for anyone buying one of these pieces of garbage from a company led by a person who quite obviously a flaming piece of garbage, producing products that are quite obviously flaming pieces of garbage.
I mean, there are so many alternatives now, you really have to ignore how horrible Musk is to buy one of these, and you have to have your head stuck in the ground for a couple of years now to not know that Tesla quality control is diaper poo.
There aren’t alternatives is my part of the USA due to lack of charging options.
That is changing now that Tesla’s network is opening up but that hasn’t happened yet.
So buy a hybrid, charge at home, and done. Is the environmental impact different enough from a fully electric vehicle vs hybrid, when you take into account the pollution from lithium mining and refinement? Not dramatically better, no. It's idiotic to buy a Tesla that is a flaming piece of garbage, just because it's the only option in a particular area or country. The simple solution is to wait until viable, good quality products are available. It won't be long.
This article had more info than the last one I saw floating through the feed (The article I saw had been "enhanced" by AI writing and you could tell).
In this article "A couple from Edinburgh was shocked after receiving a £17,374 (A$33,370) bill"
The last article floating through the feed didn't really cover any real ponts about what happened and seemed to be targeting Elon in a negative scope.
This article had information about the issue they faced when attempting to leave and waiting 5~ hours for Tesla RSA. Then calling Tesla and talking to a manager that that was covering Tesla's ass with warranty talk.
I mean, who would ever expect RAIN in SCOTLAND?? There's no way that Tesla could have predicted that the car might be subjected to such a freak occurrence! 🤦😂
Didn't they have already issues with water on the Model 3 bumper? Still remembering seeing my first Tesla Model S... Worst bodypanel gaps I've ever seen on a new car
Most, if not all, "hybrid" vehicles will have a high voltage bank of lithium batteries for propulsion in addition to a 12v lead acid battery to run the chassis electronics.
I am aware of three basic patterns of hybrid cars, which I will call:
-Electric Vehicle That Lugs A Generator Around With It. Example: Chevrolet Volt. The car is propelled with electric motors only, and it is intended to operate primarily from battery power recharged from the power grid. For range extension, it has a small ICE engine that turns a generator, which will only start and generate power when the batteries are low. There is no mechanical transmission; the engine cannot directly drive the wheels.
-Why Not Both? Example: Toyota Prius (Early models at least; I think they make a full EV badged as the Prius now). The car has an internal combustion engine, a mechanical transmission, batteries and motors. They're exact modes of operation vary from model to model, but generally these will stop the engine and operate on batteries when stopped, coasting, braking, operating at low speed, or sometimes cruising. They will start the engine and run on engine power while accelerating to highway speed, possibly cruising at highway speed, to run accessories like air conditioning, or when the batteries are low. These may or may not plug into the power grid to recharge their batteries, or they may ultimately derive all energy from gasoline. Again the exact implementation varies from model to model.
-Two Ton Golf Cart. Example: Chevrolet Silverado. You'll see these marketed as "soft hybrids," "mild hybrids" or "stop-start". Sometimes these just have extra big normal batteries, sometimes these have relatively small lithium batteries. These are more or less normal cars that are anal retentive about how they burn gasoline, shutting down the engine when coasting, braking, idling or sometimes moving at very low speed. Depending on the implementation, the car might just have an extra big starter motor that starts the engine in gear when you push the gas pedal, so the first 3 feet or so are done under battery power and then you're under gas power. Some can decouple the motor and engine and kinda have "electric first gear." Maybe you can make it through the McDonald's drive-thru purely on battery, but it'll start the engine if you hit 10MPH or so. You often see this in larger, heavier vehicles like pickup trucks where the additional electric powertrain would be very heavy and very expensive, but just shutting down the engine sometimes can gain some MPG.
It wouldn't be able to function as an electric car at all without a battery. Think of the battery as the EV version of the gas tank. It has to have somewhere to store its energy.
The events of this story are bad yes, but I think it's important to point out that the '$33k' figure is using AUD, otherwise known as the weakest dollar. That's a bit under US$21k. Still bad, but obviously not nearly as much.