Electric cars, hybrids, and related vehicles

Hardware and technical stuff
2352

Tesla is lowering prices to keep their plants running at capacity now that their backlog has melted away and will gain plenty of market share in the process. All the Chinese and German built Teslas I’ve driven were very well built (the panel gap thing is just a meme nowadays), interior materials were good (much nicer than the frankly insulting interior of the Audi Q4) and the chassis was rock solid. I’m sure they’ll get a lot of long term customers out of this move. Nevertheless, having researched and tested EVs for the better part of two years I see room for many different brands with their own strategies and strengths and weaknesses in the EV space.

The comparatively low wait time was the main reason I ordered a Tesla in the first place, with Skoda having the longest wait time of 20+ months for the Enyaq. But Tesla’s allocation process is really inscrutable, I had been waiting for 7 months for my base version, German built Model Y LR when I canceled my order while others, who ordered the same car significantly later, got theirs within weeks.

2353

I’ve had my 2019 Tesla 3 serviced twice, both were done by mobile service. I had a tire go bad & start slowly leaking. I’m used to fixing small stuff myself, so I spent a while looking & feeling for a puncture, found nothing. Gave it the soapy water test, rolled it 90 degrees, soaped it again, still couldn’t find the leak. The leak was worsening every day, but the nearest Tesla Service Center is about 30 miles away & I didn’t want to pay for a tow that far. There’s one certified shop in our city so I called them, but they didn’t have any openings for two weeks (for a tire change? WTF?). So I put in a service request, and the next day a Tesla mobile service flatbed came by & swapped out the tire & wheel for a loaner tire/wheel. They did it in my garage, so I didn’t have to move the car. Tesla emailed me about a week later & said they couldn’t figure out why the tire was leaking either, gave me a price quote on a replacement/balancing, or offered to just bring it back & swap out the loaner.

I figured Tesla would overcharge me for the tire, so I checked pricing at a few tire shops in the area, and they were no more than $15 cheaper, plus I’d have to somehow get the car or wheel to the shop. So I took the Tesla replacement offer, and the next morning another mobile service guy showed up & installed my wheel with the new tire. He checked tread wear & inflation on the other three tires while he was there, and I was back in business (I drive it pretty hard when I can, I was surprised he didn’t recommend a tire rotation, but he checked the “Not recommended at this time” box). Remarkably painless, and the price included the labor & time to send mobile service to my garage twice.

The second time was a couple months ago, when the 12v battery died. There is a 12v tucked away between the frunk and the passenger compartment, and it runs all of the basic functions like the touchscreen, interior lights, etc. It is one of the standard sizes, no weird Tesla-only spec, but when it dies the car is just dead. Seems weird to have a standard 12v in there, but the current from the propulsion battery pack is way too powerful to use that instead of a 12v. There is a DC converter instead of an alternator to keep the 12v charged up, but any car battery has a limited lifespan. Tesla was still using lead-acid 12v batteries until June 2021, when they switched to lithium-ion 12v batteries, which have a longer lifespan. The 12v lead-acid batteries Tesla installed are expected to last about three years. I considered buying a lithium-ion replacement and doing the replacement myself, but in researching that I discovered that for some reason (probably emissions rules) the 12v battery is a warranty repair! So I put in a service request through the app, and the next morning another mobile service guy showed up (no flatbed this time, he had an older Model S), swapped in a new battery, and I was good to go. I’d looked at several YouTube videos on how to replace the 12v, and I probably could have done it myself in 45 minutes to an hour (the videos all said 30 minutes, but doing it the first time while consulting the video, I know I’d take longer). The service guy obviously did this a lot, because it took him literally five minutes. I was expecting 20-30 minutes, but I’d barely made it back to my home office when he texted that he was done. Cost me nothing, I didn’t have to take the old battery back to the store & collect my lead core deposit. Three more years of battery life puts me outside the warranty, so we’ll see what it costs me next time.

I hear a lot of horror stories about Tesla service, but for the simple repairs I’ve needed they get top marks.

2354

Yes, it applies to any manufacturer of course. Different markets, too, have different situations. I doubt the situation for anyone will be the same.

I am curious about how folks where I live get theirs serviced, as we are far from any large metro areas and there are a lot of Teslas up here. Must be working though because I have not heard any complaints.

2355

You’re probably right. Every manufacturer is hurting for parts and people, and given the manufacturers’ attempts to monopolize repairs, I’m sure the dealership shops are first in line for available parts.

CCC is the biggest player in the collision repair estimating software industry, and they release a lot of data on time, cost, and types of collision repairs. They are only analyzing insured collision repairs, but the problems exists in maintenance repairs too, I just don’t have a source for numbers on that.

Back in November, CCC put up this post showing how collision repair time has doubled versus pre-pandemic repair times, and summarizing the reasons why: A Look Ahead: 2023 Collision Repair Industry Trends | CCC Intelligent Solutions

So even as the supply chain problems get solved, things won’t improve much because there simply are not enough people working in the repair industry, from the insurance companies being short on adjusters to the shops being short on mechanics. Again, don’t have any numbers, but I’m sure parallel issues are slowing maintenance repairs.

Every year CCC also releases a huge amount of detailed information in their “Crash Course” report. You can download the 2022 version here (covering the 2021 numbers) if you really want to go down the rabbit hole (previous reports are there too, if you think the rabbit hole isn’t deep & crazy enough). Crash Course 2023 | CCC Intelligent Solutions (Feel free to lie about the information they want, they aren’t checking up on it.)

In summary, the consumer is screwed for the foreseeable future.

2356

Yeah, I’ve had nothing but good experiences with them. Tesla Mobile Service came to my house to rotate tires last week. The tech determined my tread was too low to pass state inspection (due in a month) so he told me I’d need (at least) to replace the rear tires. He then helped diagnose a camera problem that pops up sometimes in super cold weather. He put the display into service mode, was texting with somebody at a remote support center who had access to historical logs from the car, did a few tests, looked into another error that had popped up in the logs. He was there for about 30 min. They didn’t charge me anything at all for the visit. It’s the 2nd time they’ve come to do work (first was to rotate tires 18 months ago) and they didn’t charge for that, either.

Some clown hit the car in a parking lot. I took it to the local authorized body repair shop and once the insurance was sorted, the repair was done in a day. You would never be able to tell it was hit.

Anyhow - I’ve had nothing but good experience with the service center and mobile service.

2357

There are Hyundai dealerships in Florida. I live in the Tampa region, and there are 3 not too far from me.

2358

Yes, of course, but Hyundai doesn’t sell any of its plug-in hybrids in Florida. Presumably because those dealerships aren’t yet equipped to deal with servicing them. Or maybe there is another reason. From Hyundai’s web site:

Currently, 2022 Tucson Plug-in Hybrid is only sold in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

2359

Not the cars, but the 2 times I’ve had issues with my solar system, the Tesla support team has been great.

2360

What is interesting is the full electric IONIQ 5 is available in many more states.

Currently, 2023 IONIQ 5 is only sold at select Hyundai dealers in AZ, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, IL, LA, MA, MD, ME, MO, NC, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, TX, UT, VA, WA, and WI.

I had noticed this when we bought our Tucson HEV - would have preferred a PHEV but not sold here, yet we could have gotten an IONIQ.

2361

Aptera just announced that they hope to begin production in 9 months. They were supposed to begin at the end of 2022, so at least a year late. They also need another $50M in funding. They said they’ve received $85M so far.

2362

Imho Kia makes some of the best looking vehicles on the road today.

2363

The EV6 looks so good too.

2364

I would expand that to the whole family, including Hyundai and Genesis.

2365

Service and dealer experience in general seems to be an issue though, across the Kia/Hyundai network. Car & Drive just had an update on one of their long-term test cars that named a dealer and really slammed them for poor service, and that’s not the first time I’ve seen reports like that. Of course, it varies by location and I’m sure varies quite a lot across the nation. Remember, though, that even Hyundai corporate thinks their dealer network sucks; they didn’t want to let most dealers sell the Genesis line and were sued and thus had to spin it off as a separate brand.

2366

So my wife and I bought a Nissan Leaf two weeks ago. Love the car so far – it does exactly what we want (easy short distance commute and errand around town car).

I have been astounded that we have not been able to get any of their app-based services working, however. Nissan apparently is having problems with their back end due to a migration of some sort, and thus (according to the rep I spoke with) no new users have been able to accept the terms and conditions (and thus link accounts) for weeks. I had opened a case with Nissan about this a week ago, and finally heard today that the problem was resolved – only to discover that no, it wasn’t resolved, and no, they didn’t have any sort of timeline on when it would be resolved, but they would happily re-open my case which had been closed for reasons they couldn’t explain but definitely didn’t have anything to do with metrics around how long customer service cases are kept open.

TLDR: car seems great, but their app integration stuff is problematic to bad at best.

2367

Car companies are good at making cars. Making software? Not so much, once you get beyond the embedded firmware of ECUs and whatnot (and even that can be iffy). Electrics are far more software dependent and also offer far more opportunities for different types of software than companies are used to or prepared to handle.

Really, they ought to outsource the non-mechanical stuff to the software industry one might think.

2368

A lot of them do. But maybe not all of them.

I know my old company had a division working with several of the major car makers doing software and sensor packages. But not Nissan to my knowledge. Ford, GM, Mitsubishi and some others though.

2369

A bit of a tangent but a highly entertaining podcast episode about a podcast show that crashes the entertainment system in Mazda cars:

I immediately thought of what might be the cause but the show hosts took forever in diagnosing the cause.

2370

They’re starting to. Volvo/Polestar use Google’s Android Automotive OS. A few others are coming on board too. There have been growing pains and has been a hit on Volvo’s initial quality ratings. Personally I really like it and think it will be even better once it matures.

Android Automotive - Wikipedia

2371

It makes a lot of sense to tap into the existing expertise in specific areas rather than trying to create your own experts out of whole cloth. There might be a use-case for internal, vertically integrated approaches in some applications but broadly speaking, I would think the trend to use outside specialists will continue.