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posted by martyb on Friday October 30 2015, @03:25PM   Printer-friendly
from the taking-stock dept.

Bob Lutz, car-guy-to-the-max, former VP of GM and Chrysler, with time at BMW before that, wrote this recent article --
    http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a26859/bob-lutz-tesla/

The opening paragraph is gloomy:

Tesla's showing all the signs of a company in trouble: bleeding cash, securitized assets, and mounting inventory. It's the trifecta of doom for any automaker, and anyone paying attention probably saw this coming a mile away. Like most big puzzles, the company's woes don't have just one source.

and the prognosis goes downhill from there mentioning competition from Audi, the lack of enough dealers to attract more buyers and other problems.


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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 30 2015, @07:15PM

    by frojack (1554) on Friday October 30 2015, @07:15PM (#256616) Journal

    There is virtually no maintenance.

    Well, that's not entirely true. You still have to rotate tires every 5000-ish miles. And there are annual scheduled maintenance tasks.

    Edmonds.com [edmunds.com] has a write up of maintenance issues on a 2013 Tesla after a cross-country road trip.
    Some of these were teething issues for this particular car. (Drive unit replacement, etc).

    But others are routine maintenance, wiper blades, cabin air filters, cooling system, brake pad checks, software updates, etc.
    This Story [teslarati.com] explains some maintenance issues that another driver saw, as well as an actual Annual Maintenance bill [cloudfront.net]. Most of this bill seems like stuff you would have to bitch to the dealer to have it checked on any other car.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by mmcmonster on Friday October 30 2015, @08:39PM

    by mmcmonster (401) on Friday October 30 2015, @08:39PM (#256648)

    I've own a Tesla for about 19 months now (got it in 3/2014). Put 37k miles on it.

    I had my first service at a year (~24k miles). They replaced the tires and suggested that I rotate the tires in the fall so they would last longer. They also replaced the wipers and changed out some bolts and fasteners.

    My second service is in a couple weeks. They're going to rotate the tires. I also chipped the windshield so they're going to probably replace it (a truck kicked up a rock or something).

    Software updates happen over-the-air and I've received 3 or 4 per year since I got the car. None of them had to be done at the service center. Typically I get a software update notification when I turn the car on and schedule it for 2am the following night (time is adjustable). Kind of like an OS update on my desktop computer or phone.

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday October 30 2015, @09:08PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Friday October 30 2015, @09:08PM (#256670)

      I work with a guy who's had a Model S since they became available. He says he spends more, per mile, on the tires than on everything else combined.

      Looking at the picture in GP's post, someone likes their car enough to spend $600 on getting stuff lubed and fluids changed. I guess it comes with the "can afford a Tesla" territory, but it's hardly a do-it-or-walk expense for the owner.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @09:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @09:33PM (#256682)

    $600 for that! holy crap, cost of ownership is high