Man buys used Tesla only to discover it's banned from Supercharger network(cbsnews.com)
49 points by toomanyrichies 14 hours ago | 34 comments
- larkinrichards 13 hours agoHow do you define "minor accident" -- perhaps it was a "minor" accident because no one was injured and no other party was involved?
Last time I bought a car, I found the one I wanted with the note that it had been in a minor accident. I paid for the carfax, and learned that it had some damage and repairs, and had somehow traveled across the country in the process. Limited details, except, the accident had occurred in Florida. $10 later I had the police report. It was a 4wd car and suffered 2 broken axles & broken drive train. not minor in any way.
- InTheArena 13 hours agoLet me guess, without reading. This is a salvage title, not a car in perfect order.
IIRC, Tesla is willing to reconnect, but only after a really expensive evaluation of the car. It's too risky putting a really big lithium batter up to a really big charger otherwise.
"Fred Lambert, the editor-in-chief of Electrek, a news magazine about electric vehicles, said he's heard of at least one other case where a car with a clean title was labeled "salvage" in Tesla's system and blocked from supercharging. "
ahh. Eletrek is trying to spin up this story again.
[-]- hhhhjjj 13 hours agoThat logic doesn't really hold? I use Tesla chargers all the time and I dont own a Tesla. Can other manufacturer cars be banned? Like, why would I want a tesla with this risk?[-]
- Onavo 12 hours agoIf your other manufacturer's car catches fire while supercharging, they bear the reputational risk. The main charging circuit in EVs is in the car itself, not the charger stand.[-]
- dcrazy 12 hours agoIsn’t it different for level 3 charging, which Tesla superchargers now support for certain non-Tesla vehicles?
- toomuchtodo 13 hours agoHigh voltage system inspection and certification was $2k the last time I had one done. Not cheap, but also a potential deficiency that should be able to be identified by a buyer before purchase via VIN.
Take the car to a Supercharger as part of the test drive? You will get an explicit message related to a VIN blacklist when attempting to charge, but if you’re not aware, you won’t know.
- jjmarr 13 hours agoAccording to the article, the car had a clean title besides a "minor accident".
- fastaguy88 13 hours agoSounds more like he was scammed by the dealer than a Tesla problem.[-]
- breve 13 hours agoBrand exclusive chargers, or chargers that you can be banned from, are a problem for everyone.
That's not smart infrastructure, that's dumb infrastructure.
- mh- 13 hours agoI agree with this, but given how much of the value of EVs is tied to the accessibility of a charger network, it seems like this really needs to be reported on the title somehow.
Even if Tesla is the only one doing this right now, I'm sure it'll be a thing in the future with other manufacturers and a proliferation of 3rd party repairs.
- CodingJeebus 13 hours agoTesla controls the supercharger network, vehicle registry and vehicle software, and nowhere in the process of acquiring the vehicle did the customer get notice that the car was banned from the network. Tesla has some culpability here since the title was clean.[-]
- InTheArena 13 hours agoWhat culpability? Tesla has a inspection process if a car has been damaged.[-]
- bcrl 10 hours agoPeople still think they own cars, and that they should be allowed to repair them without the blessing of the manufacturer. They don't expect to be banned from using their car because someone decided that using the DMCA to pervert the concept of ownership was a good thing.
- crtasm 13 hours agoAren't these cars hooked up to the internet? I would expect the dashboard to tell me such an important piece of information.
- breve 13 hours ago> Boycott said the network of 70,000 Tesla Superchargers across the country
No, that's wrong. Tesla has 2,817 supercharger sites for a total of 34,197 stalls in the US:
[-]- mh- 13 hours agoI'm assuming he misspoke* and cited the "Global Superchargers" number from the official page [0] ("70,000+").
(I had no sense of how many there were and googled after reading your comment.)
* Or was misquoted by the writer.
- jbritton 9 hours agoIf Tesla has a “no charge” list, they should at a minimum notify Carfax. However, everybody buying a used Tesla needs to be knowledgeable about this caveat. Tesla has a duty to inform the public. How they do this I have no idea. Perhaps the vehicle should never have been released back to the owner if it’s so unsafe. I don’t how that would work legally and financially.
- m-hodges 13 hours agoHoly moly has CBSNews dot com become unreadable on iOS mobile. Like 3x more ads than content.[-]
- ninkendo 13 hours agoThis feels like it’s basically the whole web nowadays. At least the subset of the web that is funded by advertising.
Reader Mode by default is how I’ve rolled since it was something you could do, and I swear by it. Any site that doesn’t show right in reader, I simply close the tab.
- ticulatedspline 11 hours agoThat they're able to track, identify, and blacklist an individual car is bit dystopian. Didn't really want an electric car before and I really don't want one now.
- DonHopkins 13 hours agoYou lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
- satisfice 10 hours agoMore stories of Tesla owners being screwed please.
- Bud 8 hours ago[dead]
- guywithahat 13 hours agoIt was a salvage title; basically he was scammed by a dealer. That said, I had no idea they could or did ban salvage Tesla's from the charging network, that's kind of wild. I suppose third party chargers are getting better but the tesla network is a big perk of Tesla's[-]
- aquaticsunset 13 hours agoNo, it was a clean title. Tesla decided it was "salvage" according to their own measures. I can imagine a scenario where a poorly done repair absolutely can make rapid charging a dangerous thing. But I would feel extremely swindled if this wasn't disclosed ahead of time.
And how does Tesla know repairs have been made after a minor accident? Or do they just yank your access to the network whenever they want and demand money to have it "recertified"?
[-]- avar 10 hours ago
Speculation: It was brought to Tesla after an accident, which inspected it, and quoted a repair price the owner didn't like, so his cousin Bob fixed it, but it's still marked as "HV needs inspection/repair" in Tesla's system?> how does Tesla know repairs > have been made after a minor > accident?
- galaxy_gas 13 hours agoArticle says state says it was clean and never salvage title, just privately considered one by Tesla[-]
- InTheArena 13 hours ago"The term "salvage" was a complete shock, but a deeper dive into the CARFAX vehicle history report, which he didn't pull until after the sale, uncovered a "minor accident."
Photos of the damage made it look more than minor, and a Tesla technician told him the repair work as shoddy.
"It was bad enough where they flagged it," he said. "
- larkinrichards 13 hours agoArticle says "photos of the damage made it look more than minor"
Sounds like buyer was scammed.
> The term "salvage" was a complete shock, but a deeper dive into the CARFAX vehicle history report, which he didn't pull until after the sale, uncovered a "minor accident."
> Photos of the damage made it look more than minor, and a Tesla technician told him the repair work as shoddy.
- edlebert 13 hours agoIt’s confusing, but the “salvage” label here has nothing to do with the title, which is clean in this case. It’s a label used is by Tesla - which means it’s not allowed to use super chargers due to safety concerns. They don’t want a janky Tesla causing serious injury. Honestly it’s a good policy by Tesla and will help incentivize owners to get quality repair work.[-]
- ninkendo 13 hours agoI’d agree with everything you’re saying if the cost of inspecting the car for rejoining the network wasn’t $2000. It should be a relatively simple inspection/test of the relevant systems and should cost 1/10th that.
Also, if the vehicle is flagged by Tesla as being salvaged, it should be made obvious somewhere in the vehicle, in the same vein as a check engine light, or more realistically an error message on the UI screen. It should not be a surprise to the driver that the car won’t charge (let alone an unsuspecting buyer.)
[-]- Bud 8 hours ago[dead]
- aquaticsunset 13 hours agoSounds pretty hostile to consumers. A repair made that compromises the ability to safely charge does represent a huge risk. But what's their process for this? Do they publish this criteria? They say there's recourse for this, but it costs a lot and it sounds like the engineer goes off of "vibes" and not a rubric.
- prasadjoglekar 13 hours agoDoes Exxon stop you from pumping gas because they dislike the repair shop you used? There's a reason salvage titles exist and are regulated by the DMV and police. Tesla has no business being a middleman here and quite frankly some form of public accomodation laws should apply.[-]
- lazide 12 hours agoGas stations have zoning rules and extensive safety regulations to stop a run away car fire from doing even more extensive damage. Some supercharger sites I’ve seen are places like inside semi-enclosed buildings and the like - a Tesla catching on fire in that situation would be far more catastrophic.
- pengaru 11 hours ago> janky Tesla