I think durable, large network, ready availability, and Model 3 still ends up being the best “bang for buck” at the moment are the main reasons. Most of the more attractive models haven’t been around as long, so haven’t dealt with issues cropping up as long, are more (and sometimes much more) expensive, and the 3 and Y continue to cost the least in maintenance and repair. But that will only last for a while longer.
Many companies are catching up, but their margins are still smaller and are, for the moment and for the most part, more expensive. There’s probably also some draw from the ecosystem that Tesla has: residential solar, residential batteries, residential charging. You can truly power your car and house with the sun and have everything work together pretty seamlessly… if you’ve got like an extra 100K lying around and can wait 1.5 years for the "smartc solar roof tiles and batteries to be installed and connected to everything.
But, I agree, their dominance is clearly waning and Musk is too busy with his ketamine induced fascist fever dream to notice. And, frankly, the brain drain due to his public emotional breakdown and hatred of all the cool kids not liking him, epitomized by when Grimes left his ass, means the likelihood of him having the absolute best of the best in engineering and product development ever again are slim to none.
Are you sure? Last I heard Tesla has been abandoned among some car rental services, because they are too expensive to maintain.
There are often stories about minor things that cost a shitload to repair, because Tesla doesn’t actually repair it, they switch whole modules out instead.
I didn’t say they are cheap to repair. I said maintenance and repairs costs are the lowest of all brands over ten years of ownership. Second place is Buick. I was a little surprised by the study results as well, but when you think about it, it begins to make more sense.
All auto repairs from accidents are expensive, and electric cars in general can be more expensive due to their novel and less-supported design. Nevertheless, accident repairs in Tesla happen less frequently, and the fact that there are almost no moving parts, no oil to change, no need to replace brake pads, no catalytic converter, no transmission fluid, no fuel pump, etc., etc., means that the average total amount of money you put into repairing and maintaining a Tesla ends up being less than any other brand.
As far as the reddit post, as the commenters noted, he’s either being fleeced by that quote, or there is extensive damage. Difficult to tell with a picture, but any vehicle with advanced technology, ICE or EV, can have high collision-damage repairs costs. This appears to have damage to: door, bumper, hood, sensor, wheel, sensor harness, camera, upper pillar, and who knows what else. On all modern cars with crumple zones, this is an example of car damage that appears “minor” but is actually fairly extensive.
I didn’t say they are cheap to repair. I said maintenance and repairs
So you did say repair! Normal maintenance is usually not a huge problem, except ICE cars where things like timing belt can be expensive.
But I’m not arguing Tesla against ICE, I’m arguing Tesla against increased competition in EV cars. To begin to claim Tesla is cheaper than ICE in maintenance is dishonest in the context of this debate.
But maybe I shouldn’t have posted the anecdote, because you avoided the far bigger scope of rentals and insurance complaining about high cost too.
From what I understand 2 aspects make Tesla more expensive to repair, 1 is that Tesla doesn’t repair repairable parts, but replace them. The other is that to make production cheaper, Tesla cars are often more expensive to repair, because they integrate parts more. So the parts are harder to repair, and the part that needs to be swapped is bigger and more expensive.
Your response is a classic example of deliberate misdirection. I stated “repair and maintenance costs” — a critical distinction that I even reiterated for you and that you chose to ignore (twice) by zooming in on just one word, repair, and then further subdividing it to mean specifically only 1) collision repairs that 2) result in totaled vehicles. This hyper-focus on a single, narrow scenario distorts the broader point I made from the outset: when considering all repair and maintenance costs—both routine upkeep and non-collision repairs—Tesla still ends up being cheaper than any other brand, as confirmed by Consumer Reports.
Your response, predictably, sidesteps this reality by focusing exclusively on collision repairs, which are expensive for all premium EVs, not just Tesla. And even here, the idea that Tesla’s collision repairs are somehow uniquely cost-prohibitive doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. The fact that some insurers choose to total vehicles instead of repairing them doesn’t mean Teslas are inherently more expensive to repair in all scenarios. It simply reflects insurers’ decisions based on cost thresholds, which, again, applies broadly to high-end vehicles with integrated components—not just Tesla.
The reality is, Tesla’s proactive measures, like design adjustments and integrated insurance, are aimed precisely at reducing these costs over time. But none of this even needed to be addressed because you shifted the argument to something entirely different. You started by trying to counter my point on total repair and maintenance costs, yet had to cherry-pick a very narrowly defined set of repairs – collision repairs – because the broader data doesn’t support your stance. And when I reiterated the broader context of my original post, you needed to italicize one of two words from my original statement and then even further narrow its meaning—an admission that you couldn’t counter the broader claim on total costs and had to resort to hair-splitting over a narrow subset of scenarios.
I get it, you don’t like Tesla. I’m not a huge fan either. The original point of my comments was simply to acknowledge the hard work and innovation of the engineers that created their core designs. The fact that you’re accusing me of missing the “bigger scope” of your intentionally and misleadingly narrow definition is ironic. Regardless, I don’t care enough about this to continue discussing it. I was simply sharing the results of a study about the cost of repairs and maintenance of Teslas vs other brands. Feel free to respond, but I’m unlikely to read it and won’t be replying to this particular thread any further.
I think durable, large network, ready availability, and Model 3 still ends up being the best “bang for buck” at the moment are the main reasons. Most of the more attractive models haven’t been around as long, so haven’t dealt with issues cropping up as long, are more (and sometimes much more) expensive, and the 3 and Y continue to cost the least in maintenance and repair. But that will only last for a while longer.
Many companies are catching up, but their margins are still smaller and are, for the moment and for the most part, more expensive. There’s probably also some draw from the ecosystem that Tesla has: residential solar, residential batteries, residential charging. You can truly power your car and house with the sun and have everything work together pretty seamlessly… if you’ve got like an extra 100K lying around and can wait 1.5 years for the "smartc solar roof tiles and batteries to be installed and connected to everything.
But, I agree, their dominance is clearly waning and Musk is too busy with his ketamine induced fascist fever dream to notice. And, frankly, the brain drain due to his public emotional breakdown and hatred of all the cool kids not liking him, epitomized by when Grimes left his ass, means the likelihood of him having the absolute best of the best in engineering and product development ever again are slim to none.
Are you sure? Last I heard Tesla has been abandoned among some car rental services, because they are too expensive to maintain.
There are often stories about minor things that cost a shitload to repair, because Tesla doesn’t actually repair it, they switch whole modules out instead.
Stories like this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaModelY/comments/15u4t0n/21k_repair_cost_for_damaged_right_front_fender/
Insurers apparently don’t agree they are cheap to repair:
Europe:
https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/01/28/autos-tesla-repairs
USA:
https://robbreport.com/motors/cars/teslas-too-expensive-to-fix-1234802618/
I didn’t say they are cheap to repair. I said maintenance and repairs costs are the lowest of all brands over ten years of ownership. Second place is Buick. I was a little surprised by the study results as well, but when you think about it, it begins to make more sense.
All auto repairs from accidents are expensive, and electric cars in general can be more expensive due to their novel and less-supported design. Nevertheless, accident repairs in Tesla happen less frequently, and the fact that there are almost no moving parts, no oil to change, no need to replace brake pads, no catalytic converter, no transmission fluid, no fuel pump, etc., etc., means that the average total amount of money you put into repairing and maintaining a Tesla ends up being less than any other brand.
As far as the reddit post, as the commenters noted, he’s either being fleeced by that quote, or there is extensive damage. Difficult to tell with a picture, but any vehicle with advanced technology, ICE or EV, can have high collision-damage repairs costs. This appears to have damage to: door, bumper, hood, sensor, wheel, sensor harness, camera, upper pillar, and who knows what else. On all modern cars with crumple zones, this is an example of car damage that appears “minor” but is actually fairly extensive.
So you did say repair! Normal maintenance is usually not a huge problem, except ICE cars where things like timing belt can be expensive. But I’m not arguing Tesla against ICE, I’m arguing Tesla against increased competition in EV cars. To begin to claim Tesla is cheaper than ICE in maintenance is dishonest in the context of this debate.
But maybe I shouldn’t have posted the anecdote, because you avoided the far bigger scope of rentals and insurance complaining about high cost too.
From what I understand 2 aspects make Tesla more expensive to repair, 1 is that Tesla doesn’t repair repairable parts, but replace them. The other is that to make production cheaper, Tesla cars are often more expensive to repair, because they integrate parts more. So the parts are harder to repair, and the part that needs to be swapped is bigger and more expensive.
Your response is a classic example of deliberate misdirection. I stated “repair and maintenance costs” — a critical distinction that I even reiterated for you and that you chose to ignore (twice) by zooming in on just one word, repair, and then further subdividing it to mean specifically only 1) collision repairs that 2) result in totaled vehicles. This hyper-focus on a single, narrow scenario distorts the broader point I made from the outset: when considering all repair and maintenance costs—both routine upkeep and non-collision repairs—Tesla still ends up being cheaper than any other brand, as confirmed by Consumer Reports.
Your response, predictably, sidesteps this reality by focusing exclusively on collision repairs, which are expensive for all premium EVs, not just Tesla. And even here, the idea that Tesla’s collision repairs are somehow uniquely cost-prohibitive doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. The fact that some insurers choose to total vehicles instead of repairing them doesn’t mean Teslas are inherently more expensive to repair in all scenarios. It simply reflects insurers’ decisions based on cost thresholds, which, again, applies broadly to high-end vehicles with integrated components—not just Tesla.
The reality is, Tesla’s proactive measures, like design adjustments and integrated insurance, are aimed precisely at reducing these costs over time. But none of this even needed to be addressed because you shifted the argument to something entirely different. You started by trying to counter my point on total repair and maintenance costs, yet had to cherry-pick a very narrowly defined set of repairs – collision repairs – because the broader data doesn’t support your stance. And when I reiterated the broader context of my original post, you needed to italicize one of two words from my original statement and then even further narrow its meaning—an admission that you couldn’t counter the broader claim on total costs and had to resort to hair-splitting over a narrow subset of scenarios.
I get it, you don’t like Tesla. I’m not a huge fan either. The original point of my comments was simply to acknowledge the hard work and innovation of the engineers that created their core designs. The fact that you’re accusing me of missing the “bigger scope” of your intentionally and misleadingly narrow definition is ironic. Regardless, I don’t care enough about this to continue discussing it. I was simply sharing the results of a study about the cost of repairs and maintenance of Teslas vs other brands. Feel free to respond, but I’m unlikely to read it and won’t be replying to this particular thread any further.