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Scottish couple facing $33k repair bill after driving Tesla in heavy rain
(www.carexpert.com.au)
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this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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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.
This wasn't everyday "Scotland levels of rainfalls" though, it was a specific storm that posed a risk to life in many areas.
That said I still would expect my car to endure anything short of being submerged underwater.
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.
It's
(so far) in this case, so pretty exceptional and more than a few inches.
Regardless, my point was that this isn't just "another rainy day in Scotland". The circumstances are exceptional even for stormy weather.
Wow!
Keep in mind we didn't see articles like this coming out of California during all the flooding. I'd be willing to bet money this guy drove through a flooded street and killed the car. If this was a design flaw, we'd be hearing a lot more about it I'm sure. Tesla is like the #1 news topic.
I second this. Drove my Zoe through rain, snow and ice, never had any problem or even thought about with water ingress.
Just in case anyone thinks this is a problem with Teslas, I have driven mine through several dozen heavy rainstorms and even a hurricane and my Tesla does just fine in that.
And as everyone knows, science is comprised of my personal experience.
I don't think anyone thinks this is a universal problem with Teslas. It's just a possible case of quality control failure. That said, quality control has been a problem lately.
I've been hearing of quality control problems when it comes to everything Tesla for years. This hardly seems like a recent thing.
Quality control is a problem with every product. Once you reach a certain point it just makes more financial sense to fix any issues when they're discovered and reported by the consumer rather than going over it with a microscope. Most consumers don't care about panel gaps.
Until someone completes and publishes a scientific study on the matter, and compares them to other OEMs, I'll continue to assume that these are just anecdotes from click-hungry publications that know anything to do with Tesla or Elon drives clicks, because everyone I know and every Tesla I've seen (with the exception of S/X) is totally fine.
The problem is, Tesla's "ignore it till people complain" baseline is lower than most other mfgs.
How many references would you like? https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/24/tesla-lags-auto-industry-in-quality-finds-new-jd-power-study.html https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1128625_tesla-ranks-last-in-initial-quality-build-issues https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/03/business/elon-musk-tesla-quality-problems/index.html
How do you like your bolt? I've been thinking about getting one or maybe an equinox when that comes out
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.
It's a great car.
Maintenance is something I've been thinking about a lot, thanks for mentioning it. I know it's supposed to be a lot cheaper than other cars but at the same time I'm curious what maintenance looks like 10+ years out, in other words older than probably most of the bolts out there. I appreciate the comment though!
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.
Yeah if any dealerships near me ever had any in stock I probably would have bought one by now on impulse, I wish you could purchase it without any kind of dealership intervention though
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.
Yeah I'm pretty split right now between getting a bolt while they're still available or waiting and hoping the equinox is as good as they are saying it will be. I definitely want an EV at some point though my current (ancient) car currently does the job for short trips