When Life Gives You Lemons(teslamotors.com) |
When Life Gives You Lemons(teslamotors.com) |
Tesla has experienced multiple smear campaigns from different angles and motivations over its short history: Top Gear presenting the Roadster in an unfavorable and inorrect light, the New York Times lying about the car's performance in winter conditions, multiple news outlets overstating the fire risk of their li-ion battery packs. The fear of the public getting an incorrect picture of its reliability and safety record is very much grounded in reality.
This is highly pertinent information for like-minded initiatives.
Edit: for clarity
Stonewalling, 'no comment'ing basically just gives the playing field to the other side. Also, at this point, countering bad publicity properly gives Tesla more media coverage. Not everyone knows Tesla outside of tech circles yet.
What's unusual is that you're reading from a news source (HN) that features every small step Tesla takes. That's not the mainstream experience. :)
Wait until the trial is over and then give your side of things to handle the "court of public opinion" but this has potential legal ramifications and I don't think this is the right way to handle it.
Maybe I am wrong but it doesn't look like the right way to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUaelOgVXLe-1a3PUpob3upQ&...
Should Tesla have to just sit back and wait, while their name is being (probably unfairly) dragged through the mud?
I understand they feel defensive and unfairly attacked but there are better ways to handle things.
Edit: I will add that when I worked for an insurance company, some of the letters I had to write had to be reviewed by the legal department. So I have firsthand experience with writing PC pieces that need to stand up in a court of law, notify the customer of important info, admit no wrong-doing, etc. This is not just someone talking out their butt.
Tesla winning in court, but losing the PR battle is a 100% loss to Tesla - a court verdict is worthless if a bunch of unanswered stories have been written in the meantime.
This is why these lawyers can bottom feed like this - they know that they have all the power, and typically, companies will just pay them to go away and bother somebody else.
I'm not sure I see why. I understand you're thinking about the legal ramifications, but reading between the lines of Tesla's blog post tells me two key things:
(1) They have logs of everything that has happened to the car. That means they have evidence to back up every factual statement in their blog post.
(2) They have records of all communications with the customer. That means they have evidence that shows that at least some of the factual claims made by the Lemon King lawyer (for example, the claim that three buyback requests were made prior to the lawsuit being filed) are false.
In other words, they believe that everything they said in the blog post will stand up in a court of law, should it ever come to that. They're just willing to make an effort to not have it come to that. (If the Lemon King lawyer had half a brain, he'd be tripping over himself to get his client to withdraw the suit after reading this post. Somehow I doubt that will happen.)
Ladies and Gentlemen, i give you the real reason for the lawsuit.
From the same article, this line really stands out at me. Especially after reading what Tesla posted on their site.
That is some of the worst logic I've ever seen.
But.
What happens in 5 years when Tesla is 10x bigger than it is now, and doesn't do things so perfectly or well at scale? I really wonder if this type of almost-militant napalm style PR will be handled so deftly. What happens when they get it wrong? I think there's sufficient evidence that they already kind of blew it with the journalist they went after previously, and it just seems like no good will come from this culture over time.
So I'm conflicted. I love their products. I'm rooting for the company, but I do hate these kinds of whiny posts. Tesla is better than this, I hope.
This is Tesla sending a message to all lemon law lawyers that they do not negotiate with terrorists. Seems fair to me.
This isn't a whiny post. This is exactly how companies should use social media to weed out these parasitic lawyers. Where the fuck is your concern for all these garbage costs that get put on the consumer because of these parasites? You should love this use of social media, because it actually makes our economy and legal system work better.
Once they win the later then they can take it to the former. Honestly what they are doing is in bad taste. You certainly don't go an attack like this.
I like Tesla's cars, I certainly don't like paying people to buy them and I really don't like tactics like this. Face it, if Ford or GM tried this stunt people here would be crawling up their ass.
I think it is fine the way it is now, and watch for when Tesla gets a lot bigger.
These are classic power moves, tried and tried again throughout history. It seems Tesla, SpaceX, and Elon himself have them nearly mastered. Very impressive, IMO, even though it feels odd.
In the end they're protecting their brand. For as long as they can they have to be the company that goes above and beyond when it comes to reliability, safety, customer satisfaction, etc. Otherwise they just end up becoming the next Fisker. It makes sense why they're so militant, especially given the media's often negative attention and how it can kill a small company (compared to the big car companies) like this.
The funny thing about this to me is that they report the trunk was opened immediately before the fuse blew each time. Ha! If you own a Tesla, you should know that they can monitor any action you take with that car.
But I don't blame them for this type of post. People attack them, and their defense is overwhelming.
For example, take Microsoft. They were aggressive and bullying early on, because they had to be. Later on, those tactics when they were the dominant OS led to a pretty brutal DOJ situation.
For now, though Elon is doing what needs to be done to change the world. I applaud him. He's up against some seriously powerful forces: the oil industry, the automotive industry. This is just like a scrappy app startup going against Microsoft--times 100.
While I understand where you're coming from, it does feel a little bit about being conflicted over the possibility of a company doing something bad in the future.
At no point do you actually mention anything that Tesla has done wrong in the slightest, yet you manage to imply that they're the bad guys in this scenario.
Thanks for your contribution to human culture.
nemesisj's comment - "Tesla is probably in the right here, but their response to threats tends be heavy handed and defensive."
your comment - "Tesla is in the right, you are trolling. Snark."
I guess maybe you missed the point that Tesla can be the good guy in a lawsuit and still act in a way that seems unprofessional and worrying to a potential future customer.
Wow.
> After investigating, they determined that the car's front trunk had been opened immediately before the fuse failure on each of the three occasions.
The Tesla sure logs a lot of things.
Even though I use web apps that can log everything including mouse movement, something about such logging in the physical world still puts me off big time...
It is for diagnostics and warranty reasons that these occur, as well as quality control.
Edit: sorry my question offended so many people. I was just curious and did not want to assume the meaning of the "wow" since others seem to be put off by how much logging the car does. I wasn't sure what the parent comment was about. sorry.
I especially dislike the youtube video created by the lawyer[1], reminds me of the american political smear campaigns that are run.
[1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/04/07/tesla-le...
Err... does this lawyer want people to take him seriously? And right after that zinger he drives past a cardboard cutout of George Clooney.
The presence of the videos perhaps gives you a hint about what the case is really about. And it's probably not about the car.
Instead, the objective is to appear to have a violation of the lemon law, and then file a lawsuit looking for compensatory/legal fee damages.
Normally a company like Tesla will just pay off the nuisance suit in order to avoid having their good name dragged through the press, but, apparently, Elon Musk doesn't play that game, and with his posting, he is making it clear to all the other bottom feeders that he is more than willing to go head-to-head with them.
Heh, "non-tamper" tape to the fuse switch indeed.
1) Why even blogging about this? Is Tesla that insecure about its PR that they think they need to take the wind out of any possible negative news story, even if it will be easily defused?
2) Why start with their high grades in consumer reports? This is not a statistical sample, it's an individual case. Reads very defensive even though it clearly wouldn't be needed.
After so many success stories I hope they become more confident in their public communications.
* "Aren't people starting to get tired of Tesla's constant defensiveness?"
* "something about the tactics they use seem... off."
* "It's almost like they're bullying people they don't like..."
* "But. What happens in 5 years when Tesla is 10x bigger than it is now..."
* "this blog entry leaves a sour taste with me."
* "Yeah, this does not feel good to me. I get the PR angle but this feels not right to me."
* "Thank you HN for hosting another Tesla public service announcement."
But if none of that is enough, there's these gems:
>Ultimately, Tesla service applied non-tamper tape to the fuse switch. From that point on, the fuse performed flawlessly.
>After investigating, they determined that the car's front trunk had been opened immediately before the fuse failure on each of the three occasions.
I'm all for stomping on double-speaking weasel-wording bullshit. It's not OK when the NSA does it, or the State Department does it, or anyone else does it. That goes for Tesla too. But for some reason it seems a good chunk of the readers here are stomping on what is absolutely the wrong target. Tesla is speaking truth to power and attempting to disrupt a dinosaur of a market that is pulling out all of the stops in a truly glorious effort to kill Tesla off. Could we all drop the pseudo-skepticism act and take note of the plain truth as it is?
It's not permissible to influence the deliberations of jurors, but that's a narrow scope--jurors aren't supposed to digest media related to the case while serving, so the parties can generally say or opine whatever they want during a case outside of the courtroom.
* A lot of people say that Tesla is having a hard time because they aren't doing the whole dealership/franchise thing & wanting to sell to people directly. I feel like this is the fallout of something like that, the ease of someone going after them directly.
* If you watch this 'lawyer' & his YouTube videos you can tell that he's going after these companies merely because of the "days" it's been in the shop/getting fixed & nitpicking about some issues that in all fairness, are probably fabricated.
* Watched the video about the door handles, I find it hard to believe those don't work as designed but it is a possibility.
(or something.)
A company like GM doesn't need to worry as much about a lemon-law claim - it's probably cheaper to just refund the money than pay lawyers.
1. It keeps me thinking about Tesla and gives them a chance to repeat the message of their reknowned customer service.
2. It's a warning shot to other lawyers or politicans drumming up anti-electric vehicle nonsense. Tesla won't play your game -- don't even try.
To me this is very confident. It's a big gamble coming out like this. Someone who wasn't confident would have just settled and kept it quiet.
Evidence is something you present in court, not on the web.
Tesla's side of the story is, of course, interesting and relevant, but it's not necessary for them to do a press release about it to fight the court case. The only people who need to see it for that are the judge and jury.
This is being done publicly, which means it's purely a PR move.
I don't think insecure is the right word. Protective is probably more appropriate.
The claim really looks like slimy lawyering based on pure fraud, so why run around doing press interviews (or whatever you think they're supposed to do) when they can lay out their facts on their own terms?
If they weren't responsive to negative press, people would be calling them shrinking violets instead.
Tesla won't do this, because that would only increase number of suits like this.
That said, this specific case does seem like bullshit. And if it is, I hope Tesla destroys them in court. But that doesn't mean I like this PR piece.
Tesla is hot right now and almost everything they do is press worthy. It reminds me of Google back in the day. They are taking advantage of this.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUaelOgVXLe-1a3PUpob3upQ&...
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the...
At no point did I say that Tesla was in the right. I explicitly said that he hadn't mentioned Tesla doing anything wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUaelOgVXLe-1a3PUpob3upQ&...
Looks like Tesla is justified in trying to neutralize that slimy attempt at publicity.
As someone on youtube noted, take a close look at around 0:50. You can see lights flash, which seems very likely to have been from someone unlocking the car. Right after, the door handles miraculously start working again. The whole thing reeks.
The comparison to Ford or GM doesn't really work as they wouldn't have such widely popular articles about being sued for lemon laws.
I don't always agree with it -- sometimes lawsuits are necessary -- but Tesla is trying to resolve speech with speech.
A $2 recall could have saved the lives of 13 with regard to the GM ignition switch problem, while the Nissan Airbag recall has only been attributed to 3 accidents (0 deaths, 0 injuries) while affecting a million vehicles.
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/01394d0c27844fa5be3fa6...
Companies (even standard ones, like Nissan) are willing to recall minor safety issues, while other companies are completely worthless at performing recalls (GM Ignition Switch).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Allegations_and_laws...
At worst, the current GM Ignition switch issue seems to demonstrate gross incompetence, or maybe groupthink. Engineers seemed to try and raise concerns, but there aren't any memos out there like the "Pinto Memo" that implicates upper-management.
------------
Another point, is that the Memo, as used by the prosecution of the case, was considered inadmissible evidence by the Judge. This leads me to believe that perhaps the memo was a grossly exaggerated story, or perhaps misrepresented in some way.
The bit about the front trunk log is basically saying to these kinds of lawyers that Tesla is not low-hanging fruit, and that they better either have a genuine grievance or really know their stuff before taking them on. Better to announce it early and scare off some of the bad guys, rather than rinse, repeat the exercise every time. If users know that there are logs like these, then they're less likely to pull simple cons like these, and Tesla doesn't waste their mechanics' time in doing all the preliminary diagnostic work.
As everyone reading this site knows, there's always a way around these measures. And someone somewhere is going to figure them out. And then sabotage the car, and it's going to hurt that Tesla has all this logging and it shows nothing fishy.
Not saying they shouldn't use the logging, but it's maybe not so smart to make it a point of contention and then incentivize the circumvention even more.
While I agree that publicizing frivolous arguments typically is uncalled for; Tesla has been the target of many attacks for which I initially thought were unsafe product design. If not for this blog I might think it's common for a Tesla to catch fire at random, or that they don't travel the advertised distances.
I think re-wording segments of these blogs to be more factual and less emotionally driven would be nice. The openess that they are trying to provide is at least noteworthy.
After the initial public letter, further details revealed that it was a battery issue that confused everyone involved. In fact, it was even a good design decision. If the car is parked in extreme cold, it will consume power in order to heat the battery so that it is not destroyed, thereby incurring a tens of thousands of dollars expense.
When the reviewer returned to the car parked in a freezing garage after his overnight stay at a hotel to find the projected battery range severely reduced, he telephoned support. It sounds like the support thought that the projected range was affected by the cold, and that warming it would by driving in a circle was likely to make the readings and projections sane again.
It didn't, and he decided to continue on with his trip. The recounting of the trip contained inaccurate details, that were not very material, about the climate control settings and speed. And, the review was generally inaccurate, because it reported that the ange was disappointing without noting the effect of the extreme cold. However, a mistake made in good faith is different than dishonest reporting.
In fact, the issue seems so nonobvious, that Musk himself failed to guess it. His public letter focused on whether the reporter drove over the speed limit, while making no mention of the car heating the battery overnight. Does the telemetry fail to log that power use, or was it so unusual that he didn't even think to look at that time frame?
It seems likely that all (three?) of them simply missed this autonomous heater as consuming a great amount of power. Even though it was a good design decision, since it prevents permanent damage to the battery, it is something relevant to a reviewer whose responsibility is reporting to his readership the real world experience of owning a car with technology they aren't used to.
Anyway, the strategy works, because people only remember that Musk went into detail and cited the car's telemetry. It ends up supporting the narrative that this reporter was one of the many people who unfairly attack the car. However, the real story is that unusual conditions like extremely cold weather can affect battery life, and they are unexpected enough that it isn't immediately obvious to an auto journalist, to the manufacturers' live telephone support, or Elon Musk himself.
That is a story, even if it wouldn't prevent anyone from buying the car. However, no one ever apologized for essentially calling the journalist's entire professional reputation into question. Furthermore, it is a reason for someone to worry that if there does ever turn out to be a serious design flaw, nitpicking over telemetry logs might be a bigger part of the experience than them quickly making good on the warranty.
Finally, I don't think the reporting on fires has been entirely unmerited as though it is so much more rare than it is in other new high end cars. Recall that once upon a time people referred to the Concorde as having a perfect safety record, until it didn't, and that that was due to there being so few rather than that it really was so much safer. I think it's great that Tesla has responded with very dramatic new safety measures, but the safety numbers weren't actually so far superior to anything else on the road.
> However, no one ever apologized for essentially calling the journalist's entire professional reputation into question.
And why should they? It's true that unusually cold weather causes unusually high battery drain, but the fundamental reason the reporter ran of out charge is simply that he tried to. At his last "supercharger" stop, he unplugged the car about 30 minutes before it would have finished charging. Had he waited even an additional 5 minutes, there would have been more than enough charge to return to New York at a comfortable speed, even allowing for the cold weather overnight.
The reporter has nobody but himself to blame for his soiled reputation. Frankly, I think there was an interesting angle about the limitations of electric vehicles, but he tried to push the envelope a little too far. The cold weather limitations of the battery would have made for good reading. The need to plug in overnight and the amount of time required to charge in cold weather could have also been interesting points. Lost in the noise is the fact that he wasn't able to gain charge on a 120V outlet in cold weather (the battery heater used more power than the outlet provided).
But, no, he tried to shoot for the moon with a story about how you just can't trust these newfangled contraptions, and he burned his fingers. Boo hoo.
As start-up advice, I would say you don't have a reality distortion field. If you try arguing with a customer in public, you are very likely to lose, even if you are right on all the facts.
How Musk pulls this off is something I still don't understand, but don't think you can replicate it.
Honesty, openness, lack of bullshit-bingo, the knowledge that he's in it for idealistic reasons first. It's not a reality distortion field if it's reality.
Of course I realize that to you, this sounds like I'm caught in his "reality distortion field".
If that were true, GM and all the other manufacturers would already be doing it. The tech Tesla is using for this is not new.
The main reason other car manufacturers don't do it is probably very simple: cost. You have to spend the money for the extra sensors in each vehicle, plus whatever hardware is storing the data and/or transmitting it to Tesla, plus you have to hire and train your own technicians to handle the data and interact with customers (other car manufacturers have their dealers do that, but dealers aren't interested in the kind of data Tesla is collecting).
Another possible reason is that other car manufacturers don't have enough of a problem with lemon law suits to make it worth using this kind of tech on their cars. I'd be interested to see data on that if anyone has any.
> What then? Do I not get to own a car?
If it ever gets to the point where every single car manufacturer is doing this, then yes, that would be your only option if you absolutely refuse to deal with it. (Unless you wanted to start your own car company.)
> As consumers, we still have rights after we buy anything.
But you don't have the right to force someone to sell you their product on your terms instead of theirs. Tesla is completely up front about what they are doing; buyers sign a long agreement that spells all this out, and if they don't like it, they are free not to buy.
You could try challenging the agreement in court, but I'm not sure on what grounds you would do that.
I think BHSPitMonkey meant that if they didn't log in general, maintenance costs would be higher and the costumers would pay for it in one way or another.
But that's hard to do in a consumer UI.
The key+key would be tamper resistant so that revoking credentials after getting your car serviced would be less necessary; just make sure they give you that key back.
Most people keep their phone in their nearly all day, even when they are supposed to be in the privacy of their bathroom.
I remember when people would be very angry about software that "phoned home".
In all honesty, I can't think of a single thing other than physical location that I would require privacy for when it comes to owning and operating the type of car Tesla produces.
Maybe not yours, personally, but in general.