That’s how many they recalled, right? That doesn’t mean a bunch of them aren’t sitting on lots somewhere.
Meanwhile, a company in California is upfitting these beasts to police cruisers:
As we’ve seen, some towns will buy just about any sort of military gear, so whatever this costs will probably be desirable to them.
There are enough people keeping track of these things that I’d expect we’d know if there were thousands on a lot somewhere. Just for example, we know about this parking lot where they counted 58 Cybertrucks. I think we’d know if there were enough other lots that added up to a meaningful number.
We’ll have a better idea at the end of Q2 if it’s actually selling decently or not. The last numbers were in April when they’d just barely ramped up production to decent levels (they claimed 1000/wk by the end). They should sell at least 10k, and ideally >20k in Q2 if they’re really on track. But we won’t find out until the end of July.
EVs have a lot of advantages for police, who often sit for long periods in their car without moving much. Whether a Cybertruck specifically makes sense… eh, dunno. But at least we’re getting a taste of the cool cyber dystopia instead of the lame boring one.
I saw my first one driving down the highway yesterday. It didn’t get any better looking in real life.
Continuing my whataboutism on the Cybertruck, I saw one driving yesterday and immediately behind it was a Ram TRX. The Cybertruck, with its shiny, flat panels, looks very out of place on the street with all of the other cars, the TRX looks like if Rob Liefeld had designed a pickup truck.
The TRX has bulges, humps, vents, and grills all over the place. On this particular one all of the vents were neon green/yellow to make them stand out even more. It is also a $100k truck.
That sounds hideous.
I just Googled it. It’s a bad ass looking truck.
I just Googled it as well. It’s a bad, ass-looking truck.
I continue to be dumbstruck at how this could be a compliment.
Would you prefer bitchen?
Only if it’s a Camaro.
I liked the looks of it in pictures and the videos I’ve seen with it. In person, I did not like it. Perhaps it was just the color scheme.
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Looks like wiper motors are failing:
Could trigger a recall. And before anyone goes on and on about Tesla incompetence, Ford had a huge recall of wiper motors just last year:
https://www.ford.com/support/how-tos/recall/recalls-and-faqs/22s71-f-150-2021-2022-wiper-motor-recall/
And the ever-reliable Toyota built a wiper linkage that corroded when it got wet:
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15351401/wiped-out-toyota-recalls-423000-rav4-models-for-windshield-wipers/
Shit happens.
Respectfully, it’s not quite the same thing. I don’t know what the issue with the F150 wiper is, but I’m guessing it’s the same basic wiper motor that they’ve been purchasing from suppliers since forever. It passed their QC process but after reviewing the data they’ve notice a higher than acceptable failure rate. This is bad, obviously, but shit happens.
Toyota sold 400k cars with a defective cowl cover, something that wouldn’t have shown up in their normal QC process because it took so long to materialize. Shit happens.
Tesla designed a revolutionary part to, as Rich Rebuilds put it, solve a problem that they themselves created. That is, how do you clear water off this massive windshield without ruining the esthetic. Then they released it without proper testing, let the customers test it for them, and discovered after only a few months and a few thousand vehicle deliveries that their design was crap.
This situation is unique to Tesla because Tesla is unique in treating cars like software, releasing something early and iterating on its designs. It’s a feature, to some. If you respect Tesla for taking this disruptive approach to manufacturing, then this isn’t “shit happens,” it’s “this is the process working as intended, and it’s a good thing.” If you’re not into Tesla’s whole approach, then this is one more ridiculous part failure to throw on the pile.
Call it a rabbit and duck situation, but I wouldn’t compare it to those other examples.
Hoovie’s video showing water ingress in the frunk area after minimal use is even more shocking and egregious.
Stated without evidence. While the information here is limited, the link claims that it was a supplier quality issue.
And all the other stuff you said just puts Tesla in a better light. Was all this their own doing? Yes, because this is a brand-new product that pushes the state of the art forward. There are no other 48 volt wiper motors out there. Probably the fact that this is is a unique item has something to do with why there are some issues. Meanwhile, wiper motors that have been virtually identical for decades have no excuse for bursts of failures.
Tesla of course could have done something more conventional. But manufacturers being too cowardly to make unconventional products is the whole reason why EV adoption is far behind what it could have been.
So no, I’m not going to give conventional designs credit for not pushing the state of the art forward. The industry has been wanting 48v systems for decades now but Tesla is the first to actually bite the bullet. They’ll undoubtedly face some issues in this regard, but the whole industry will benefit in the end, just as they’ve benefitted from Tesla making a long-range pure EV, or building in over-the-air software updates, or a bunch of other things that everyone else wanted but weren’t willing to actually push forward.
And who’s responsible for validating supplier quality?
The evidence is that the wiper motor failed so quickly for so many users. I’m not an industry insider so take my claims for what they’re worth, but they did not seem to do much testing here, else they would have caught what their users caught in this short amount of time.
The link only says “several”. Of course, it’s impossible to know based on a few forum posts how many actual users are affected.
No manufacturer puts every component of the vehicle through some extended stress test. If supplier quality drops for some reason or there are bad batches among good ones, they probably won’t be caught until they reach the field. Especially if it’s only something that shows up after some period of time. Hence why all manufacturers face recalls from time to time.
I don’t feel like you actually disagree with anything I said. Tesla is different. Their problems are different. They shouldn’t be compared to Toyota and Ford. Rabbit and duck. What am I missing?
Yes, they are different. But it seemed clear to me that you felt that this puts Tesla in a worse light compared to Ford and Toyota (and many others–those were just the first two I found with recent wiper-related recalls).
If Ford were really on top of supplier quality, they wouldn’t have let half a million defective wiper motors slip through. It’s not exactly commendable, but it is understandable. And certainly not unusual. We can’t deduce from this whether Tesla’s supplier quality checks are better or worse.
But what we do know is that Tesla’s motor is probably unique to them, since it’s 48v and probably uses more power than other motors. The fact that it’s new means we should expect a higher probability of failure. Their QC and everything else could even be better than average but because it hasn’t gone through the iteration that conventional components have, it will still have a higher baseline likelihood of something being wrong. Whether in design or manufacture or QC or otherwise.
I have utter contempt for Rich’s point of view here, assuming it’s accurate: “as Rich Rebuilds put it, solve a problem that they themselves created.” Yes, doing anything new could be characterized as “a problem that they themselves created.” I guess that Tesla shouldn’t have tried building an EV because the various battery faults and motor defects and other things that were exclusive to an EV were just problems they created. And I guess here they shouldn’t have created a 48v architecture, since I’m sure the wiper motor thing isn’t the last problem they’ll face related to it. They should have just stuck with 12 volts like everyone else, and we can have 12 volts until the end of time because anyone that tries to improve this is a dumbass for solving problems that they themselves created. Ugh.
Yes. Rabbit and duck.