We had a Fremont manufactured 2021 Model 3. It failed the 3 year inspection (we live in Sweden) due to fog light being way off and hitch. Turns out the fog light mount had broke off. The whole front fascia was replaced.
Before the inspection I had the tail lights replaced twice, headlights replaced once and so many other things they'd find when I dropped it off for service. The boot hatch hydraulics was missing gaskets. TPMS was defective on delivery. Panel gaps of course. I had so much water in the first tail lights I could house a betta.
When Twitler started fighting the unions we sold that incident number on wheels and got a Volvo.
My boss' tesla model 3 died over 1 night of rather standard storm. Not first night out on the rain, quite rainy place, nothing unusual. Fully dead. At the service, they just gave him keys to new one, no detailed questions - most probably meaning its not that unusual for at least that batch.
When it runs well, colleagues with it are happy, just charging is PITA even for those with houses. When it doesn't, Tesla service is by far the worst in whole Switzerland - they don't give you spare car while they work on it unlike all other normal garages, you have to get on your own ie to work or wherever you need to go. Of course, service center here is in middle of nowhere industrial zone. Folks leaving car there aren't happy to be polite.
I don't know about the US, but in the EU almost all other brands have some kind of mandatory maintenance (and may void warranty if not performed on time) that may catch certain issues before the periodic inspection. Tesla is famous for not having a maintenance plan.
For EVs in particular, you almost never have to use the brakes, and if you don't burnish your brakes from time to time, the rotors may end up rusting or worse, especially in northern counties that use road salt in winter.
Some other well known issues with Model 3s and Ys are poor headlight height calibration and upper/lower lateral links that fail way too early.
The thing with all of these issues is that most Tesla owners are told that they don't need to perform any maintenance, and while that may be the case, you should at least inspect your car from time to time to detect these issues. You can even do most of this on your own (brake burnishing each year, headlight calibration, and more).
It's actually madness that they don't spec a maintenance plan. My 2019 Kona EV comes with a maintenance plan, but everything is "inspect" and then maybe a "replace" on some of the fluids every 100k km or so.
In essence there is zero maintenance, but Hyundai makes it clear that annual inspection of everything is still important, and they will absolutely void your warranty if you skip such a "service" (inspection).
This might have some political aspect, as the service and dealership networks have pushed back on the manufacturer on having 'zero-maintenance' vehicles.
Which begs the question of what are you actually saving on with an EV - the expensive part of servicing a car is what you pay for labor and facilities - I'd argue more often than not, the actual parts and consumables are less than half the price you end up paying.
I think that they main thing is supposed to be that even though you will still have to go in for regular inspections and maintenance for various things that ICE owners also have to (tire rotations, fluids, air filter, HVAC, windshield wipers, etc) which should cost about the same, the ICE will also need maintenance on the transmission, clutch, and the engine itself. Those will add costs to the routine maintenance and if they ever need repairs can be expensive.
The EV does have the battery, and if they only lasted the length of the warranty (typically somewhere in the 100-150k mile range or 8 years, whichever comes first) then the cost of a battery replacement would swamp the savings from not having maintenance for things like clutches, transmissions, and engines.
But the data seems to be showing the EV batteries should last much longer, possibly longer than the rest of the car.
Personally though I think the mail attraction of EVs is not the possible savings on maintenance. It is the savings in energy cost per mile.
An EV would cost me about $0.025/mile when charged at home. Gas here is around $3.75/gallon so if I were driving one of the most efficient gas powered cars on the market, a Prius non-PHEV model, it would cost $0.067/mile. If I were driving a Honda Civic on the highway it would $0.094/mile, and in the city $0.117/mile. The Civic in the city is about what a Honda CR-V would be on the highway, and a CR-V in the city would be around $0.134/mile. A Ford F-150 on the highway is about 16% more than a CR-V in the city, and an F-150 in the city would be around $0.221/mile.
Even just 2 oil changes a year which doesn’t apply to EV’s already gets you to the cost of a reasonable inspection.
These days ICE cars can last ~100k miles with only a few minor maintenance items, but then you start hitting bigger ticket items like belts which again EV’s don’t have.
I think my Polestar 2 does this too. If I haven't driven it recently, I can hear the brakes cleaning the rust off the disks the first time I brake. After that, I think it's using regen most of the time.
Wait there is no service schedule? Surely there's at least a recommended schedule, but not following it won't void the warranty?
I mean recurring things like changing (passenger) air filters or brake fluid work about the same for a Tesla as it does for any other car?
(I don't worry so much about the warranty as I do about the resale value when I follow the schedule to the day for my car - I wouldn't want to buy a new-ish car that didn't go to the brand shop on the mandated intervals. Third party service or missed service visit is a huge red flag).
Brake fluid health check every 4 years (replace if necessary)*.
Cabin air filter replacement every 2 years.
Clean and lubricate brake calipers every year or 12,500 miles (20,000 km) if in an area where roads are salted during winter.
Rotate tires every 6,250 miles (10,000 km) or if tread depth difference is 2/32 in (1.5 mm) or greater, whichever comes first.
It's not just the 3. I just sold my X after four years, during which it accumulated faults which required 13 service appointments to fix, 3 of which were "car is completely dead".
Every Tesla owner I know tells me stories of the faults their car has had.
Even without Elon becoming a literal fascist, there's no way I was going to keep my X out of warranty, and I will never buy another Tesla.
That is... substantial. 13 appts in 4 years is crazy.
My first car in 2007 was a 1975 peugeot, and although good looking, I basically had to pray "please don't break, please don't break" whenever I rode it somewhere. At some point I could not stand the mental anguish of it any more, and sold the thing and got a bicycle.
I cannot imagine what that feeling must be like when driving around in a $80k+ brand new car!
Amazing. My 2017 Ford Focus EV (a dreaded "compliance car") had literally zero problems other than replaceable items (wipers, 12v, tires, keyfob, etc). Plus since it was based on a high-volume platform, fixing it after a fender bender was very cheap.
Talking about their experience with faults is not unrelated to the article.
> As a Tesla owner, I don't like these kinds of associations
If you dislike it "as a Tesla owner" it sounds like you're validating the general idea of associating people with the brand, you just think the CEO in particular should be excluded?
Rather than "validating" it, I'm experiencing it. That's why I believe in a forum of generally highly educated people like Hacker News, we would be better off not mixing those topics and talking about politics.
It is not "politics". It is an ethical stance rooted in opposing actions that undermine human rights, democracy, and equality. When a government enacts policies that deny people's existence, strip protections, and erode freedoms, supporting entities aligned with that government enables those harms. Economic choices reflect values, and choosing not to support businesses tied to oppressive systems is a means of accountability, not mere political disagreement. It transcends "politics" by standing firmly for fundamental human decency and justice.
Much apologist to a man who non ambiguously did what he did and saying other people to refrain from talking about it? No, we should absolutely talk about this precedent in recent history regardless of a fact that we are on a technical forum.
But Tesla is involved in politics, in multiple fronts: as a lobbyist of government, as a company owned by someone getting deeply in cahoots with politicians, as a stock being used as collateral for political purchases of media (Twitter).
What you are asking is wishful thinking, Tesla has became political because of Elon, there is no way to dissociate this relationship.
You deciding to purchase a Tesla even with the moral hazards does have consequences, shame and laws are the only tools against moral transgressions, you are just experiencing the pressure of that tool which is exactly the point...
Either live with your decision and its consequences or do not buy a Tesla associated with Musk.
Musk is an attention seeking narcissist who has gone out of his way to make himself synonymous with the Tesla brand. When you buy Tesla you're now buying into Musk's far right politics.
As I was asking myself, what the comparative value is for other cars, from the article: For "Other electric cars inspected" the rate was 9%, for the Tesla Model 3 2020 model it was 23%. This indeed sound very significant.
"The popular model has defects in particular in the brakes, lights, wheels and steering, according to inspection data" also does not create trust.
The bad build quality of at least the US built models is a meme by now. The Chinese and German built models are supposedly way better though. Not that I'd buy a Tesla at this point.
He earned a lot, I mean a lot of respect for building his empires from 0, sometimes despite what others were saying to him. Huge, successful, novel businesses. Plus he understands underlying tech, which is rare for CEOs. We devs, 'hackers' like and admire that.
But he is a terrible person, unstable, has many mental issues, pretty terrible father (which goes directly to terrible husband). Petty, childish, vengeful, has no issue lying to whole world with straight face.
At the end it doesn't matter what pros one have even up to this level, such set of cons overwhelms overall rating of given person very firmly into POS territory for me. Happy to see it unfolding now, and not decades after his death once cult of his worshippers slowly dissipates.
But I think he can still redeem himself, he has tremendous potential for good, maybe more than any other human being right now. I don't mean some Mars pipe dream, that feels rather like a great endeavor for 22nd century, but plenty of crap here back on Earth that needs some stronger push into better direction.
> he literally had financial backing from his family
I think it's because the amount he got from his family was tiny in relation to his level of success, and the success being from providing real things people bought/used, and from the real things being things that had never been done before.
While it states "Other electric cars inspected", it does not appear to specify if that means simply all other electric cars, or other electric cars with the model year 2020. The latter is the only group that should be compared with the 23% figure.
From the wording, they are comparing against all electric vehicles, no specific model year, called to a routine inspection (~MOT).
There is a small note explaining that the Model 3 was introduced in Denmark in 2019 (MY 2020), and therefore 2024 is the first time the M3 has been called to the routine inspection (periodiske bilsyn), hence the specific focus on that model year for this article.
I couldn't be sure from my awkward autotranslation into English. But I would have thought that if the 9% includes cars from other years that makes it worse, not better for Tesla: The article is making the point that this is the first time Tesla has been included in the figures, so it would only be newer Teslas being compared to older, other electric cars.
Quite possible. However it's also unclear if this includes hybrids. I'm certainly not a Tesla apologist, but I think journalistic misuse of or ambiguity around statistics should always be called out.
I would hope that with the significantly decreased complexity of electric cars, comparing a tesla against hybrids would be rather favorable, no? It should be an easier win for the electric car than for the hybrid car.
A hybrid is an electric car with extra parts so I'm not sure why including them would be unfair to Tesla either?
(Weight is a factor but lots of electric cars are similar weight to lots of hybrid cars so it's something to keep in mind no matter what and not a particular reason to exclude hybrids.)
The only point I'm trying to make is you need to compare apples to apples, and if you don't that contributes to misinformation. People run with figures from articles and press releases as if they are gold standard info, but often they are not. It's irrelevant to my point whether that is more or less fair to Tesla.
I would not usually call it misuse when someone uses an overly generic statistic that somewhat weakens their point. It's closer to giving benefit of the doubt.
While you're right in principle, having Toyota's massive fleet of hybrids included in the dataset could indeed mask trouble with other electric cars - because Toyotas are extremely popular here, and they are pretty much bomb proof.
Which is not surprising, since Toyota now has almost three decades worth of experience with the Hybrid Synergy Drive system, and double that experience in building reliable cars in general.
It also doesn't mention if the cars have comparable horsepower.
Question is how relevant all that is if the reported issues are related to brakes, lights, wheels and steering...
All other cars would be model year 2020 or older (since inspection becomes mandatory at the four year mark). So best case, this is compared to cars of the same age, and if not, even older cars, which does not make the Model 3 look any better.
One should pay special attention when making comparisons like this, like adjusting for mileage and car segment. It known this segment of cars with more complex suspension systems is known to be hard on the bushings (but this is not unique to Tesla). Also the brake system.
Take away is: Take your car for inspection before the warranty expires (which for Tesla is 4 years or 80.000km in Europe)
How many mass produced electric cars were sold there in the same class in 2020? I see some potential bias in this statistic because Tesla is probably the only one who sold a significant number of cars back then, but I don't speak Danish.
I can't say about Denmark but my observation is that the electric car landscape in europe might be slightly more diversified than say in the USA.
Mostly because our number one car is not a truck and thus the competition had to react and build EVs to compete against Tesla.
Here are the numbers I found for 2020:
1 Renault Zoe: 99,261
2 Tesla Model 3: 85,713
3 Volkswagen ID 3: 56,118
4 Hyundai Kona: 47,796
5 Volkswagen eGolf: 33,650
6 Peugeot e208: 31,287
7 Kia eNiro: 31,019
8 Nissan Leaf: 30,916
9 Audi E-tron: 26,454
10 BMW i3: 23,113
So there are many more EV cars from other brands sold in 2020 than there were Tesla Model 3. The Tesla Model 3 represented at the very least less than 18.5% of cars as I only counted the top 10.
So the Danish electric car market was somewhat diversified, but the Tesla brand was very strong back then. Still, you're absolutely correct that there were enough other electric cars sold back than that the comparison with the Model 3 is fair.
> Mostly because our number one car is not a truck and thus the competition had to react and build EVs to compete against Tesla.
I mean, it wasn't even really reactive; the Leaf and Zoe came out at about the same time as the Tesla Model S, and weren't competing with it (they were well under half the price). They were quite old news by the time the Model 3 launched. The VW eGolf and BMW i3 also predate affordable (sub-100k) Tesla cars being available, at least in Europe.
I'd love to know the answer to this. It sounds like a very complicated question. Do electric cars go harder on their brakes because of regenerative braking perhaps?
Brakes are not used as much because of regenerative braking and that somehow seems to impair the braking system.
I was also interested in what is meant by "steering" - here it seems that the main culprit is the weight of the batteries that are putting a lot of stress on the suspension system.
Mix in wetter conditions, and salted roads in winter, and you have a recipe for disaster - the components experience all of the weather, but none of the "cleaning" force of actual braking. Anecdotal evidence, every single electric car owner I personally know has complained about brake rust here in Latvia. Even those with small 50km range plug-in hybrids, when used mainly for daily commuting within electrical range.
It doesn't but low numbers can skew some results for others (in case you want to compare). Then again, it doesn't look to be the case anyway due to the massive amount of BEVs driving around.
If the entire electric car category outside of Tesla was less than 50, that type of statistical anomsly might be possible for other electric cars. Otherwise it's not happening.
It seems they do pretty badly in Germany too. TÜV data showed 14.2% Model 3 cars had "significant defects" at inspections after 2-3 years. This was the highest defect rate of any car model.
Edit: Previously stated "at 12-13 years it was a little over 40%.", but this is incompatible with how long the Model 3 has been on the market, so assume this was a caption mistake by the site posting the stats.
apologies, this gave me pause for a split second but I didn't double check — see sibling comment, I think the captions weren't properly updated by the site reporting the stats.
This is definitely making me rethink my choices. I've been eyeing the Model 3, but a 23% failure rate during inspections is really alarming. It's not just a minor issue if the car has three times more problems than other electric vehicles.
The fact that the same problems are found in German inspections, it seems to confirm that it is not just a local issue. I will definitely start looking at other brands with similar models.
this would seem to be huge considering Teslas cant fail the emissions component and gas cars generally don't start failing their inspection in any meaningful way until they are 6 or 7 years old.
wonder how much weight plays a part, all the extra forces involved making the general structure deteriorate faster.
higher maintainance costs over gas vehicles has brutal implications for the fledgling electric aviation industry.
Inspections in Europe are not just emissions. It varies by country, but in general they are checking all the equipment on the vehicle. In my country you even need to make sure the fire extinguisher has not expired.
I'd guess most of the failures are due to things like headlights not being aligned properly.
the article says steering, suspension and headlights.
headlights are fairly normal, but suspension and steering are dangerous failures and expensive repairs - higher weight jumps out to me as a likely root cause. especially when many of the others are hybrids with much smaller batteries and motor power.
I can't imagine weight is a big factor when Tesla vehicles are not much heavier than ICE vehicles of similar size. For example the Mercedes AMG C43 is a similar weight to the Model 3 LR. Slightly lighter dry weight, but a C43 with a full tank would be about the same as a Model 3 with a full battery.
(Remember when making comparisons, curb weight excludes fuel, which is typically around ~40kg (~85lb) for a full tank.)
This seems to be mostly a Tesla thing, not an electric car thing; per the article the fail rate for Teslas was almost 3x that for other electric cars. And that's comparing 2020 Teslas (the first year to sell in significant numbers in Denmark) against _all_ other electric cars, which is going to include Nissan Leafs from 2011 and other weird old stuff.
The brakes are always noisy in winter now. I went for maintenance and it got better, but it got worse recently.
The automatic judgment of the wipers is very inaccurate. Sometimes they start like a ghost and scare me.
The reversing camera is always blurry in the snow in Norway.
Other than that, there are not many complaints. I feel that the basic battery life and control are really great.
It’s just that I think Tesla’s current model design seems difficult to achieve true fully automatic driving, especially in places like Norway where there is a lot of rain and snow. Because many cameras are blocked (even if you want to simulate human eyes, but the human eyes are in the car). I don’t even dare to cruise on autopilot, which can easily cause danger in rainy days.
Perhaps, but I find the insane service policy from Tesla (the one that's nonexistent) to be the most decisive factor in failing the inspections. Many of these issues would have been caught in routine inspections at service intervals.
I have 2 Teslas at home. Previously have been a user of premium brands like Mercedes and Audi. I have to say that the build quality of my Model 3 and Y is way better than what I got from those "premium" German auto brands. Suspension geometry and design is what you would expect from a car priced much higher.
The issue with these Teslas (and also other electrics) is that you almost never press the brake pedal. This becomes a problem in the inspection when the brakes are not performing as they should. One should keep special attention to these parts when driving an electric vehicle with one-pedal driving. You must use the brakes from time to time.
I've driven a couple Model 3s from carsharing and while they're not built badly I wouldn't say they are at the level of german brands if you start looking for issues. They kinda get away with it since the interior and exterior are extremely simple though and they do drive very well. I haven't driven other as powerful electrics but the way you can treat the throttle as an on/off switch in corners and jerk the wheel without losing control is kinda incredible. It lets you drive like a complete mong and still be fast. It's quite hilarious.
I don't think suspension geometry and design is what people mean when they say build quality. Stuff like panel gaps and alignment, roofs flying off on highways, inability to handle drive-through car washes, and so on is what the "build quality" complaints refer to.
I know most people don't look at those things when evaluating build quality (but some others do). From personal experience I cannot say I've experienced any of the things you mentioned, but it's true that first US made batches of Model 3 were notorious for panel gap alignment issues, and we know those were produced "in a rush" in order to create a viable product.
I believe those issues are not related to the article in question though. The article mentions defects in cars, that given the segment and usage pattern, are to be expected imho. People need to learn how to maintain properly those cars (particularly suspension bushings, wheels and brakes). If you're not familiar with cars, I would recommend taking your car periodically (once a year) for an inspection by a professional.
I haven't explicitly checked my current EV, but IIRC the BMW i3 I had previously would track regen usage and periodically forego regen in order to exercise the brakes. The point being to avoid old crusty brakes when you need them the most.
A lot of cars automatically turn on the AC unit when you turn on the defroster / defogger. This does of course help with fog, but it also ensures that the AC unit gets used all winter. I've been told a problem they used to have with AC in cars was that they'd stop working after 6 months of not being used in the winter; turning on the AC with the defroster effectively fixes that problem.
So it seems like the obvious thing to do would be to have the electronics system make sure to exercise the brakes for you -- e.g., once a week use the disc brakes even if regen braking is on; and possibly just put the brakes on when the car is stopped or stopping, even if it's not necessary.
Putting the brakes on if the car is stopped wouldn't help solve the whole issue (move the calipers - yes, but the wear surfaces remain essentially untouched).
There have been many reports of poor build quality over the years, yes [1] - leaking gull-wing doors, visibly inconsistent gaps in panel work, the latest and greatest models like cybertrucks having water ingress problems, and so on.
But at the same time many other vehicle manufacturers have been making some less-than-ideal decisions with their EV offerings.
For example, Teslas have water-cooled batteries, while the (considerably cheaper) Nissan Leaf doesn't. So if your measure of quality is "will it keep going beyond 150,000 miles?" you'll find the vehicles with battery cooling do a lot better on that metric.
Afaik in most of the world car companies are required to offer the tools to third party service stations at a reasonable price. Then again if you control the full supply line you can make repairs near impossible so there is that. And also reasonable does not mean economicaly viable unfortunately.
I'd love to see it made a requirement to be affordable to end users but that is a bridge too far I guess. Most mechanical tools are affordable enough but electrical is still insanely expensive up to the point you are nearly required to buy Chinese copy/bootleg variants.
When you do business with a contractor that brags publicly about how quickly and cheaply he can build houses, you’d expect the same result: cheap materials, shoddy houses, barely passing inspection. If at all.
Interesting to see that cars in Denmark undergo their first inspection after 5 years, here in Romania new cars get their mandatory inspection after 3 years and then every 2 years. I wonder if these high failure rates will lead to policy change in Denmark.
We're not just talking about panel gaps anymore, problems with braking and steering are a huge risk for everyone on the road, not just the owners of these vehicles.
In The Netherlands cars have to be inspected every year. That’s part of the reason why second hand cars are so expensive here, they are exported en masse because they’re well maintained and popular everywhere.
But the yearly inspection is not very strict. I see many 15-30 year old cars in Finnish traffic that don't seem to be able to pass the German inspection. Have never seen any good comparison of the inspection criteria
In my country you leave a certain amount for the inspector somewhere in the dash area or in your vehicle booklet. At least in the past I've known some people to do it for older cars, there were ways to bypass emissions tests and ignore some minor issues. Also, I once failed the brake fluid check and I had to repeat the inspection. Since I didn't have time to do a full drain, I just went to a nearby garage to suck it out from the overflow container with a syringe and top it off with fresh fluid. This was just to pass the test and I would fully replace it later.
Sigh, we have to do a yearly inspection in Croatia. And the first one is after only 2 years, and this even was introduced recently. Just a few years ago you would have to do an inspection immediately when first registering the vehicle - yes, a brand new car out of the dealership.
It's still not clear to me why my car dealer who does yearly service can't just notify the authorities that it passes all the checks.
This is a huge logic jump from my perspective, just because you have some manufacturer with lots of issues, the solution is to consider a <4 years old car in general as a possibly problematic one and inspect it earlier ? For me the outcome should be to put those manufacturers in a list and scrutinize them.
Most MOT points in most countries aree wear related or regulatory, not functionality of the car. A car which is not moving due to breaking easily is not an issue. Critical failures will always result in full immediate recalls.
A new car usually has a service/maintenance plan that might be 3 years or so, so it makes sense to only mandate inspections once that does not happen anymore.
Those service plans are not mandatory and they don't need to be very comprehensive, for ICEs it usually revolves around changing the oil and filters, it doesn't include comprehensive checks of the car's functionality.
Yes the service plan is not mandatory, but when your car comes with an 8 year warrantee, then it's best to actually go and have the services performed, as it might pay off in the long term. A car is basically an amalgamation of consumable items. _Everything_ eventually wears out. To not specify some form of maintenance plan or schedule is absolute madness.
On all the cars that I've owned, there was a comprehensive "inspect" section that details things like lights, suspension, brakes, seals, exhaust/muffler etc etc. Many of the "inspect"s will then be things like check the brake pad wear, check the fluid levels,
It's in the manufacturer's best interest to inspect every inch of a new car as part of that service plan, so that they can find and fix any small issues that might become big and expensive issues down the line. Faults on cars compound over time, and something as innocuous as a low coolant level today could result in a grenaded engine down the line if not caught and rectified early enough.
In Illinois, USA, there's outright no vehicle inspections AFAIK for electric vehicles whatsoever after the sale of the vehicle has completed. There's a yearly registration fee paid to the state, and the state has "emissions testing" for vehicles over 2y (model year) old, but EVs are explicitly exempt and so AFAIK the only inspections that would ever occur are in the event an owner has their vehicle serviced by a dealer.
In my US State they don't even do emissions testing except in areas with air quality issues. I've never had a mandatory car inspection in 50 years of driving.
I'm sure this adds to the terrible headlights, noise, and smoke I see coming from vehicles here.
In the UK first inspection is at 3 years and then every year after that. I wonder if the UK data looks any different due to the more onerous inspection schedule.
So weird to me. I have a 2019 Model 3, and aside from some warranty work and a blown tire, there have been zero issues. I'm wondering if the Danish inspection is more thorough and I need to have someone check mine out.
Don’t read Danish. But from German TÜV periodic reports most of Model 3 have rusty brakes from one pedal driving. Also low quality suspension was a thing earlier. But this is well known and an owner should do something about it. There are really good aftermarket suspension kits now.
In addition Tesla does not force mostly not needed so called regular maintenance in their repair shop to keep warranty. So that’s the result - cars without maintenance go for inspection. Who is to blame: manufacturer or the owner who does not care about the car for years.
Even mine rust a lot and I have a plugin. Do a normal brake every now and then. After market suspension kits is a surefire way to make your car value depreciate.
My car also always brakes normally below 10kph which usually keeps the brakes clean anyway. I do a normal brake every now and then for my own comfort.
> Also low quality suspension was a thing earlier. But this is well known and an owner should do something about it. There are really good aftermarket suspension kits now.
... Wait, are you expecting every owner of this mass-market car to _replace its suspension_, after _four years_? That's deranged, tbh; if it's that bad there should be a recall.
Still they are quite popular here in The Netherlands. Dec 2024 almost 10.000 5-year lease contracts expired. There are lots of 2nd hand M3 for sale now, for about EUR 20.000 which is quite a good deal.
Even in essence brand new EVs are getting very significant discounts over there if you are not choosy. I wonder how the financing companies will be able to handle these if their guaranteed buyback prices need to hold. And they are underwater...
5 year lease cars are usually thrashed. They are the cheapest expensive option. Considering (in the Netherlands) who get those I'd stay far away from those.
I've had an Ioniq 1st Gen for 3 years, and while there was some brake rusting, it wasn't enough to not pass inspection. You can fix that by doing some heavy braking with recuperation disabled.
With the mileage my Model 3 has comparable ICE car would require 3 to 4 service visits where all the defects (worn brakes, lights, geometry etc) would be fixed as part of the maintenance process. I had only one service appointment to fix noise on rear suspension (factory defect) where wheel were realigned.
It would be more correct to compare number of defects found during the test and during ongoing maintenance.
Wondering if the lack of regular maintenance on Tesla cars (D2C model vs. dealer + service model) results in more problems being caught at inspection time.
Since you mention none: the requirement to have working brakes, no imminent failure on brake lines, working lights, working windscreen wipers, a working muffler and no major control system faults are all just to screw with the public and not useful for society as a whole. Okay then...
This is bullshit, and it is telling that you just gesture to "regulations being bad" without mentioning any example.
In the case of vehicle inspections, they are obviously in place to protect consumers. It is small wonder that a company as allergic go regulations that protect consumers as Tesla would fail this. As I usually say, they could always stop doing business in EU if regulations are ao bad (we all know it is not going to happen, perhaps unfortunately).
I never said all regulation is bad. In principle, it makes sense, in practice in the west it's effect is to transfer wealth and power to despotic regimes. Russia's active policy was to increase the west's energy dependence on it so that it's less likely that the west would oppose Russian imperialism. It worked. It's still happening, and it will continue to happen.
>Regulations in Europe are written by people that you would not otherwise trust to write a shopping list.
That doesn't sound like you think any regulation written by them is good.
>Russia's active policy was to increase the west's energy dependence on it so that it's less likely that the west would oppose Russian imperialism.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Russia's goals are just the same as Big Oil's. For instamce the Green Party in Germany tried to reduce that dependency but was hit by a massive campaing by the BILD newspaper. Its main investor KKR invests extensively in fossil fuels.
> A German environmental foundation that has been given more than £17m by Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, has been accused of being a “puppet” funded by Moscow to circumvent American sanctions on the final stretch of a controversial pipeline carrying Russian natural gas to Germany.
German politics is known for doing what environmental groups want. The stupidity part isn’t Russia but the lobbyists of the fossile energy companies who try to keep their profits from using oil and gas. Germany‘s dependency on Russian gas wasn’t because of Russian influence but because of industry demands for cheap gas.
Nobody demands expensive gas. Not even in a socialist dictatorship. Germany is unique in that they shut down domestic energy production in favour of importing from Russia, and this is after multiple warnings from the west.
In EU in 2022 19% of electricity came from natural gas [1].
Gas, like money, is fungible — you can use gas you don't use for heating for electricity production, and electricity is also fungible and transmissible, so you can transmit that to Germany from outside Germany.
In this case the regulation is to make sure vehicles are road worthy and they make sense, all your signals need to be operational, braking forces on all wheels should be adequate, emissions testing, headlights in full working order, suspension is holding up, etc.
Could you please explain how the European regulations requiring periodic inspections to ensure vehicles are road-worthy and safe for their occupants and other road users 'move industry to places that have effectively no environmental and labour regulation'?
Without regulations the EU would be the place with no environmental and labour regulation. That only show the industry does care about others well being just about their profit and you want to give them card blanche?
We had a Fremont manufactured 2021 Model 3. It failed the 3 year inspection (we live in Sweden) due to fog light being way off and hitch. Turns out the fog light mount had broke off. The whole front fascia was replaced.
Before the inspection I had the tail lights replaced twice, headlights replaced once and so many other things they'd find when I dropped it off for service. The boot hatch hydraulics was missing gaskets. TPMS was defective on delivery. Panel gaps of course. I had so much water in the first tail lights I could house a betta.
When Twitler started fighting the unions we sold that incident number on wheels and got a Volvo.
My boss' tesla model 3 died over 1 night of rather standard storm. Not first night out on the rain, quite rainy place, nothing unusual. Fully dead. At the service, they just gave him keys to new one, no detailed questions - most probably meaning its not that unusual for at least that batch.
When it runs well, colleagues with it are happy, just charging is PITA even for those with houses. When it doesn't, Tesla service is by far the worst in whole Switzerland - they don't give you spare car while they work on it unlike all other normal garages, you have to get on your own ie to work or wherever you need to go. Of course, service center here is in middle of nowhere industrial zone. Folks leaving car there aren't happy to be polite.
> just charging is PITA even for those with houses
How so?
I don't know about the US, but in the EU almost all other brands have some kind of mandatory maintenance (and may void warranty if not performed on time) that may catch certain issues before the periodic inspection. Tesla is famous for not having a maintenance plan.
For EVs in particular, you almost never have to use the brakes, and if you don't burnish your brakes from time to time, the rotors may end up rusting or worse, especially in northern counties that use road salt in winter.
Some other well known issues with Model 3s and Ys are poor headlight height calibration and upper/lower lateral links that fail way too early.
The thing with all of these issues is that most Tesla owners are told that they don't need to perform any maintenance, and while that may be the case, you should at least inspect your car from time to time to detect these issues. You can even do most of this on your own (brake burnishing each year, headlight calibration, and more).
It's actually madness that they don't spec a maintenance plan. My 2019 Kona EV comes with a maintenance plan, but everything is "inspect" and then maybe a "replace" on some of the fluids every 100k km or so.
In essence there is zero maintenance, but Hyundai makes it clear that annual inspection of everything is still important, and they will absolutely void your warranty if you skip such a "service" (inspection).
This might have some political aspect, as the service and dealership networks have pushed back on the manufacturer on having 'zero-maintenance' vehicles.
Which begs the question of what are you actually saving on with an EV - the expensive part of servicing a car is what you pay for labor and facilities - I'd argue more often than not, the actual parts and consumables are less than half the price you end up paying.
I think that they main thing is supposed to be that even though you will still have to go in for regular inspections and maintenance for various things that ICE owners also have to (tire rotations, fluids, air filter, HVAC, windshield wipers, etc) which should cost about the same, the ICE will also need maintenance on the transmission, clutch, and the engine itself. Those will add costs to the routine maintenance and if they ever need repairs can be expensive.
The EV does have the battery, and if they only lasted the length of the warranty (typically somewhere in the 100-150k mile range or 8 years, whichever comes first) then the cost of a battery replacement would swamp the savings from not having maintenance for things like clutches, transmissions, and engines.
But the data seems to be showing the EV batteries should last much longer, possibly longer than the rest of the car.
Personally though I think the mail attraction of EVs is not the possible savings on maintenance. It is the savings in energy cost per mile.
An EV would cost me about $0.025/mile when charged at home. Gas here is around $3.75/gallon so if I were driving one of the most efficient gas powered cars on the market, a Prius non-PHEV model, it would cost $0.067/mile. If I were driving a Honda Civic on the highway it would $0.094/mile, and in the city $0.117/mile. The Civic in the city is about what a Honda CR-V would be on the highway, and a CR-V in the city would be around $0.134/mile. A Ford F-150 on the highway is about 16% more than a CR-V in the city, and an F-150 in the city would be around $0.221/mile.
Even just 2 oil changes a year which doesn’t apply to EV’s already gets you to the cost of a reasonable inspection.
These days ICE cars can last ~100k miles with only a few minor maintenance items, but then you start hitting bigger ticket items like belts which again EV’s don’t have.
Why doesn't it just automatically use the brakes every now and then if that is required to keep them working? Seems like a trivial software fix.
Some EVs do this. Audi E-tron uses brakes on the first application of the drive. Not sure about Teslas.
I think my Polestar 2 does this too. If I haven't driven it recently, I can hear the brakes cleaning the rust off the disks the first time I brake. After that, I think it's using regen most of the time.
Wait there is no service schedule? Surely there's at least a recommended schedule, but not following it won't void the warranty?
I mean recurring things like changing (passenger) air filters or brake fluid work about the same for a Tesla as it does for any other car?
(I don't worry so much about the warranty as I do about the resale value when I follow the schedule to the day for my car - I wouldn't want to buy a new-ish car that didn't go to the brand shop on the mandated intervals. Third party service or missed service visit is a huge red flag).
Yes, there is a service schedule:
It's not just the 3. I just sold my X after four years, during which it accumulated faults which required 13 service appointments to fix, 3 of which were "car is completely dead".
Every Tesla owner I know tells me stories of the faults their car has had.
Even without Elon becoming a literal fascist, there's no way I was going to keep my X out of warranty, and I will never buy another Tesla.
That is... substantial. 13 appts in 4 years is crazy.
My first car in 2007 was a 1975 peugeot, and although good looking, I basically had to pray "please don't break, please don't break" whenever I rode it somewhere. At some point I could not stand the mental anguish of it any more, and sold the thing and got a bicycle.
I cannot imagine what that feeling must be like when driving around in a $80k+ brand new car!
Amazing. My 2017 Ford Focus EV (a dreaded "compliance car") had literally zero problems other than replaceable items (wipers, 12v, tires, keyfob, etc). Plus since it was based on a high-volume platform, fixing it after a fender bender was very cheap.
Lemon law?
Lemon laws in California have very specific requirements which my car got close to, but did not meet.
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Talking about their experience with faults is not unrelated to the article.
> As a Tesla owner, I don't like these kinds of associations
If you dislike it "as a Tesla owner" it sounds like you're validating the general idea of associating people with the brand, you just think the CEO in particular should be excluded?
Rather than "validating" it, I'm experiencing it. That's why I believe in a forum of generally highly educated people like Hacker News, we would be better off not mixing those topics and talking about politics.
It is not "politics". It is an ethical stance rooted in opposing actions that undermine human rights, democracy, and equality. When a government enacts policies that deny people's existence, strip protections, and erode freedoms, supporting entities aligned with that government enables those harms. Economic choices reflect values, and choosing not to support businesses tied to oppressive systems is a means of accountability, not mere political disagreement. It transcends "politics" by standing firmly for fundamental human decency and justice.
Much apologist to a man who non ambiguously did what he did and saying other people to refrain from talking about it? No, we should absolutely talk about this precedent in recent history regardless of a fact that we are on a technical forum.
He didn't say anything about Tesla owners. You're implying many more meaningful associations between the company and people than he did.
But Tesla is involved in politics, in multiple fronts: as a lobbyist of government, as a company owned by someone getting deeply in cahoots with politicians, as a stock being used as collateral for political purchases of media (Twitter).
What you are asking is wishful thinking, Tesla has became political because of Elon, there is no way to dissociate this relationship.
You deciding to purchase a Tesla even with the moral hazards does have consequences, shame and laws are the only tools against moral transgressions, you are just experiencing the pressure of that tool which is exactly the point...
Either live with your decision and its consequences or do not buy a Tesla associated with Musk.
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> As a Tesla owner, I don't like these kinds of associations, which sadly are becoming mainstream
So, wait, you're worried about people associating _you_ with the brand, but think that they shouldn't associate _Musk_ with the brand?
Maybe you should care or investigate who are you giving money to. Maybe even not buying a car is a good idea.
> (otherwise, I would buy no car)
Why not just do that? It's the best option.
Musk's political views are pretty hard to miss nowadays
> mentioning his CEO and your perception about his ideology
It's not perception, it's reality: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/20/trump-elo...
These guys like it: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elon-mus...
Musk is making a point of supporting far right parties internationally: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/25/elon-musk...
And his far right views are not new: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/16/elon-musk...
Musk is an attention seeking narcissist who has gone out of his way to make himself synonymous with the Tesla brand. When you buy Tesla you're now buying into Musk's far right politics.
He's done a lot of damage to the Tesla brand: https://insideevs.com/news/748520/model-y-social-media-junip...
If you don't want to be associated with Musk the simple solution is don't buy Tesla.
> These guys like it
By such reasoning anything extremists like is extremist by association.
How does that make sense?
They correctly recognized it for what it was.
The brand damage is big this time. Teslas are now being called "swasticars".
As I was asking myself, what the comparative value is for other cars, from the article: For "Other electric cars inspected" the rate was 9%, for the Tesla Model 3 2020 model it was 23%. This indeed sound very significant.
"The popular model has defects in particular in the brakes, lights, wheels and steering, according to inspection data" also does not create trust.
The bad build quality of at least the US built models is a meme by now. The Chinese and German built models are supposedly way better though. Not that I'd buy a Tesla at this point.
When I pointed out that rushing teslas trough a tent was suboptimal I got down voted to hell, guess the reality of manufacturing caught up
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17437073
The Musk narrative on hn back then was that he’s a god like genius who cannot be criticised back then. Those who dared to question it got downvoted.
Probably due to a lot of the site holding Tesla stock.
He earned a lot, I mean a lot of respect for building his empires from 0, sometimes despite what others were saying to him. Huge, successful, novel businesses. Plus he understands underlying tech, which is rare for CEOs. We devs, 'hackers' like and admire that.
But he is a terrible person, unstable, has many mental issues, pretty terrible father (which goes directly to terrible husband). Petty, childish, vengeful, has no issue lying to whole world with straight face.
At the end it doesn't matter what pros one have even up to this level, such set of cons overwhelms overall rating of given person very firmly into POS territory for me. Happy to see it unfolding now, and not decades after his death once cult of his worshippers slowly dissipates.
But I think he can still redeem himself, he has tremendous potential for good, maybe more than any other human being right now. I don't mean some Mars pipe dream, that feels rather like a great endeavor for 22nd century, but plenty of crap here back on Earth that needs some stronger push into better direction.
> He earned a lot, I mean a lot of respect for building his empires from 0
Why do people fall for that? He didn't start from 0, he literally had financial backing from his family.
> he literally had financial backing from his family
I think it's because the amount he got from his family was tiny in relation to his level of success, and the success being from providing real things people bought/used, and from the real things being things that had never been done before.
He carpetbagged every company he is associated with.
Now is is carpetbagging the US government.
> But I think he can still redeem himself
We’re way past that.
I can think of one thing specifically he could do
While it states "Other electric cars inspected", it does not appear to specify if that means simply all other electric cars, or other electric cars with the model year 2020. The latter is the only group that should be compared with the 23% figure.
From the wording, they are comparing against all electric vehicles, no specific model year, called to a routine inspection (~MOT).
There is a small note explaining that the Model 3 was introduced in Denmark in 2019 (MY 2020), and therefore 2024 is the first time the M3 has been called to the routine inspection (periodiske bilsyn), hence the specific focus on that model year for this article.
I couldn't be sure from my awkward autotranslation into English. But I would have thought that if the 9% includes cars from other years that makes it worse, not better for Tesla: The article is making the point that this is the first time Tesla has been included in the figures, so it would only be newer Teslas being compared to older, other electric cars.
Quite possible. However it's also unclear if this includes hybrids. I'm certainly not a Tesla apologist, but I think journalistic misuse of or ambiguity around statistics should always be called out.
I would hope that with the significantly decreased complexity of electric cars, comparing a tesla against hybrids would be rather favorable, no? It should be an easier win for the electric car than for the hybrid car.
A hybrid is an electric car with extra parts so I'm not sure why including them would be unfair to Tesla either?
(Weight is a factor but lots of electric cars are similar weight to lots of hybrid cars so it's something to keep in mind no matter what and not a particular reason to exclude hybrids.)
The only point I'm trying to make is you need to compare apples to apples, and if you don't that contributes to misinformation. People run with figures from articles and press releases as if they are gold standard info, but often they are not. It's irrelevant to my point whether that is more or less fair to Tesla.
It's not misinformation if a criticism understates things a bit. The direction matters.
If misuse of statistics gets a pass due to the direction of travel that doesn't help anyone decipher future misuse of information.
I would not usually call it misuse when someone uses an overly generic statistic that somewhat weakens their point. It's closer to giving benefit of the doubt.
Hybrids are also a lot more complex so i would think much less reliable. Even Volvo Polestar hybrids are pretty cursed on second hand market.
While you're right in principle, having Toyota's massive fleet of hybrids included in the dataset could indeed mask trouble with other electric cars - because Toyotas are extremely popular here, and they are pretty much bomb proof.
Which is not surprising, since Toyota now has almost three decades worth of experience with the Hybrid Synergy Drive system, and double that experience in building reliable cars in general.
It also doesn't mention if the cars have comparable horsepower. Question is how relevant all that is if the reported issues are related to brakes, lights, wheels and steering...
Hybrids (including plug-in hybrids) aren't usually grouped under electric cars in Danish media.
All other cars would be model year 2020 or older (since inspection becomes mandatory at the four year mark). So best case, this is compared to cars of the same age, and if not, even older cars, which does not make the Model 3 look any better.
It would be 2020 and older; only cars which are subject to this check.
One should pay special attention when making comparisons like this, like adjusting for mileage and car segment. It known this segment of cars with more complex suspension systems is known to be hard on the bushings (but this is not unique to Tesla). Also the brake system.
Take away is: Take your car for inspection before the warranty expires (which for Tesla is 4 years or 80.000km in Europe)
How many mass produced electric cars were sold there in the same class in 2020? I see some potential bias in this statistic because Tesla is probably the only one who sold a significant number of cars back then, but I don't speak Danish.
I can't say about Denmark but my observation is that the electric car landscape in europe might be slightly more diversified than say in the USA.
Mostly because our number one car is not a truck and thus the competition had to react and build EVs to compete against Tesla.
Here are the numbers I found for 2020:
1 Renault Zoe: 99,261
2 Tesla Model 3: 85,713
3 Volkswagen ID 3: 56,118
4 Hyundai Kona: 47,796
5 Volkswagen eGolf: 33,650
6 Peugeot e208: 31,287
7 Kia eNiro: 31,019
8 Nissan Leaf: 30,916
9 Audi E-tron: 26,454
10 BMW i3: 23,113
So there are many more EV cars from other brands sold in 2020 than there were Tesla Model 3. The Tesla Model 3 represented at the very least less than 18.5% of cars as I only counted the top 10.
source: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/renault-zoe-ecli...
Tesla Model 3 was the most sold electric car sales in Denmark in 2020 at around 1/3 of electric cars sold:
1 Tesla Model 3: 4,277
2 Volkswagen ID.3: 1,722
3 Hyundai Kona: 1,160
4 Kia Niro: 834
5 Renault Zoe: 704
6 Volkswagen Golf: 625
7 Nissan Leaf: 566
8 Audi E-tron: 493
9 Volkswagen Up!: 369
10 Porsche Taycan: 327
Source: https://www.bn.dk/bilmagasin/her-er-aarets-mest-solgte-biler...
So the Danish electric car market was somewhat diversified, but the Tesla brand was very strong back then. Still, you're absolutely correct that there were enough other electric cars sold back than that the comparison with the Model 3 is fair.
> Mostly because our number one car is not a truck and thus the competition had to react and build EVs to compete against Tesla.
I mean, it wasn't even really reactive; the Leaf and Zoe came out at about the same time as the Tesla Model S, and weren't competing with it (they were well under half the price). They were quite old news by the time the Model 3 launched. The VW eGolf and BMW i3 also predate affordable (sub-100k) Tesla cars being available, at least in Europe.
True. I think even before that the Mitsubishi iMiev and its peugeot/citroën counterparts predated the Model S and outsold it in the early years.
That could be said if same defects and similar results hadn't been found by yet another test from TÜV (Germany).
https://www.adac.de/news/tuev-report-2025/
Does it matter if its electric when it has problems with "brakes, lights, wheels and steering"?
I'd love to know the answer to this. It sounds like a very complicated question. Do electric cars go harder on their brakes because of regenerative braking perhaps?
EVs use their brakes less which ironically leads to more problems because of rust
Brakes are not used as much because of regenerative braking and that somehow seems to impair the braking system.
I was also interested in what is meant by "steering" - here it seems that the main culprit is the weight of the batteries that are putting a lot of stress on the suspension system.
It's the opposite, EVs tend to rarely need disc or pad replacements because of the regen brakes.
If used in California.
Mix in wetter conditions, and salted roads in winter, and you have a recipe for disaster - the components experience all of the weather, but none of the "cleaning" force of actual braking. Anecdotal evidence, every single electric car owner I personally know has complained about brake rust here in Latvia. Even those with small 50km range plug-in hybrids, when used mainly for daily commuting within electrical range.
Only holds true in dry regions of the world.
> Tesla is probably the only one who sold a significant number of cars back then
About 40% of the electric cars sold in Denmark in (edit: september) 2020 were Teslas:
https://www.datawrapper.de/_/Q1H9W/ (the source for this is https://web.archive.org/web/20201119015250/https://www.bilim... only available on Archive.org anymore apparently)
Market share of battery electric vehicles in Denmark is currently 51.5%: https://alternative-fuels-observatory.ec.europa.eu/general-i...
How does sales volume bias long term per-car quality and reliability?
It doesn't but low numbers can skew some results for others (in case you want to compare). Then again, it doesn't look to be the case anyway due to the massive amount of BEVs driving around.
If the entire electric car category outside of Tesla was less than 50, that type of statistical anomsly might be possible for other electric cars. Otherwise it's not happening.
But the Tesla number would still be way too high.
May I introduce you to the concept of percentage ?
You might wanna start by learning about the law of large numbers.
It seems they do pretty badly in Germany too. TÜV data showed 14.2% Model 3 cars had "significant defects" at inspections after 2-3 years. This was the highest defect rate of any car model.
https://fussmattenprofi.com/en/these-cars-fail-the-tuev-repo...
Edit: Previously stated "at 12-13 years it was a little over 40%.", but this is incompatible with how long the Model 3 has been on the market, so assume this was a caption mistake by the site posting the stats.
How is it possible to measure for 12 years when the first Model 3 ever produced is just 7.5 years old?
Seems like fussmattenprofi just copied the values but did't change the car models. These are the correct numbers:
2 – 3 years
Tesla Model 3 14.2%
Ford Mondeo 13.2%
Skoda Scala 11.8%
4 – 5 years
Tesla Model 3 19.7%
VW Sharan 17.7%
BMW 5er/6er 17.7%
6 – 7 years
Dacia Dokker 26.5%
Dacia Duster 24.3%
BMW 5er/6er 23.6%
8 – 9 years
Dacia Dokker 30,9%
Dacia Duster 29.7%
Dacia Sandero 28.6%
10 – 11 years
Dacia Logan 39.6%
Dacia Duster 34.1%
Renault Twingo 33.0%
12 – 13 years
Renault Twingo 41.5%
Dacia Logan 41.0%
Renault Clio 39.8%
> Skoda Scala 11.8%
Clearly the German car testing people simply do not know how to use sbt :)
They didn’t so was propably misread. Reading the article it doesn’t mention Tesla in the 12 year graph. But it is mentioned in the 5 year category.
I checked the report and it indeed quotes a 12-13 year old class for the Model 3, despite the car not existing that long ago. I don't know how. It's this figure: https://cdn-kbpln.nitrocdn.com/vfTHZFrdylLFvVWvxVDzeEsXgobSW...
apologies, this gave me pause for a split second but I didn't double check — see sibling comment, I think the captions weren't properly updated by the site reporting the stats.
This is definitely making me rethink my choices. I've been eyeing the Model 3, but a 23% failure rate during inspections is really alarming. It's not just a minor issue if the car has three times more problems than other electric vehicles.
The fact that the same problems are found in German inspections, it seems to confirm that it is not just a local issue. I will definitely start looking at other brands with similar models.
In Finland, the rate was even higher: 31.6% of Tesla Model 3 vehicles failed inspection in 2023[0] (2024 stats have not yet been released)
0: https://trafi2.stat.fi/PXWeb/pxweb/en/TraFi/TraFi__Katsastuk...
I wonder if these is due to different inspection parameters or simply due to stuff like road salt, different topography, etc
this would seem to be huge considering Teslas cant fail the emissions component and gas cars generally don't start failing their inspection in any meaningful way until they are 6 or 7 years old.
wonder how much weight plays a part, all the extra forces involved making the general structure deteriorate faster.
higher maintainance costs over gas vehicles has brutal implications for the fledgling electric aviation industry.
Inspections in Europe are not just emissions. It varies by country, but in general they are checking all the equipment on the vehicle. In my country you even need to make sure the fire extinguisher has not expired.
I'd guess most of the failures are due to things like headlights not being aligned properly.
the article says steering, suspension and headlights.
headlights are fairly normal, but suspension and steering are dangerous failures and expensive repairs - higher weight jumps out to me as a likely root cause. especially when many of the others are hybrids with much smaller batteries and motor power.
I can't imagine weight is a big factor when Tesla vehicles are not much heavier than ICE vehicles of similar size. For example the Mercedes AMG C43 is a similar weight to the Model 3 LR. Slightly lighter dry weight, but a C43 with a full tank would be about the same as a Model 3 with a full battery.
(Remember when making comparisons, curb weight excludes fuel, which is typically around ~40kg (~85lb) for a full tank.)
5 year maintenance cost of a merc C43 is estimated at about $10k (from a reddit post), that sounds equally expensive.
This seems to be mostly a Tesla thing, not an electric car thing; per the article the fail rate for Teslas was almost 3x that for other electric cars. And that's comparing 2020 Teslas (the first year to sell in significant numbers in Denmark) against _all_ other electric cars, which is going to include Nissan Leafs from 2011 and other weird old stuff.
bought my model y in Dec 2023.
The brakes are always noisy in winter now. I went for maintenance and it got better, but it got worse recently. The automatic judgment of the wipers is very inaccurate. Sometimes they start like a ghost and scare me. The reversing camera is always blurry in the snow in Norway. Other than that, there are not many complaints. I feel that the basic battery life and control are really great. It’s just that I think Tesla’s current model design seems difficult to achieve true fully automatic driving, especially in places like Norway where there is a lot of rain and snow. Because many cameras are blocked (even if you want to simulate human eyes, but the human eyes are in the car). I don’t even dare to cruise on autopilot, which can easily cause danger in rainy days.
Translated version: https://fdm-dk.translate.goog/nyheder/bilist/2025-01-populae...
aren't tesla cars (in)famous for their very bad build quality?
Perhaps, but I find the insane service policy from Tesla (the one that's nonexistent) to be the most decisive factor in failing the inspections. Many of these issues would have been caught in routine inspections at service intervals.
I have 2 Teslas at home. Previously have been a user of premium brands like Mercedes and Audi. I have to say that the build quality of my Model 3 and Y is way better than what I got from those "premium" German auto brands. Suspension geometry and design is what you would expect from a car priced much higher.
The issue with these Teslas (and also other electrics) is that you almost never press the brake pedal. This becomes a problem in the inspection when the brakes are not performing as they should. One should keep special attention to these parts when driving an electric vehicle with one-pedal driving. You must use the brakes from time to time.
I've driven a couple Model 3s from carsharing and while they're not built badly I wouldn't say they are at the level of german brands if you start looking for issues. They kinda get away with it since the interior and exterior are extremely simple though and they do drive very well. I haven't driven other as powerful electrics but the way you can treat the throttle as an on/off switch in corners and jerk the wheel without losing control is kinda incredible. It lets you drive like a complete mong and still be fast. It's quite hilarious.
I don't think suspension geometry and design is what people mean when they say build quality. Stuff like panel gaps and alignment, roofs flying off on highways, inability to handle drive-through car washes, and so on is what the "build quality" complaints refer to.
I know most people don't look at those things when evaluating build quality (but some others do). From personal experience I cannot say I've experienced any of the things you mentioned, but it's true that first US made batches of Model 3 were notorious for panel gap alignment issues, and we know those were produced "in a rush" in order to create a viable product.
I believe those issues are not related to the article in question though. The article mentions defects in cars, that given the segment and usage pattern, are to be expected imho. People need to learn how to maintain properly those cars (particularly suspension bushings, wheels and brakes). If you're not familiar with cars, I would recommend taking your car periodically (once a year) for an inspection by a professional.
I haven't explicitly checked my current EV, but IIRC the BMW i3 I had previously would track regen usage and periodically forego regen in order to exercise the brakes. The point being to avoid old crusty brakes when you need them the most.
A lot of cars automatically turn on the AC unit when you turn on the defroster / defogger. This does of course help with fog, but it also ensures that the AC unit gets used all winter. I've been told a problem they used to have with AC in cars was that they'd stop working after 6 months of not being used in the winter; turning on the AC with the defroster effectively fixes that problem.
So it seems like the obvious thing to do would be to have the electronics system make sure to exercise the brakes for you -- e.g., once a week use the disc brakes even if regen braking is on; and possibly just put the brakes on when the car is stopped or stopping, even if it's not necessary.
Putting the brakes on if the car is stopped wouldn't help solve the whole issue (move the calipers - yes, but the wear surfaces remain essentially untouched).
My car always brakes the last 10kph down to zero normally, also solves the problem.
My Hyundai does the same.
There are many many many other EV and hybrids which weirdly don't exhibit this issue
Yes and no. They gained a lot of fame on how poorly outer parts fit together (but I think they overcame that)
But in terms of engine and safety they are considered absolutely top notch and it is surprising that they are not doing well after only 4 years.
They tend to resolve their problems over time but new releases do suffer.
Cybertruck for example has been a complete mess.
Yes
There have been many reports of poor build quality over the years, yes [1] - leaking gull-wing doors, visibly inconsistent gaps in panel work, the latest and greatest models like cybertrucks having water ingress problems, and so on.
But at the same time many other vehicle manufacturers have been making some less-than-ideal decisions with their EV offerings.
For example, Teslas have water-cooled batteries, while the (considerably cheaper) Nissan Leaf doesn't. So if your measure of quality is "will it keep going beyond 150,000 miles?" you'll find the vehicles with battery cooling do a lot better on that metric.
[1] https://youtu.be/jPBGVI2oFLI?t=139
The Leaf with the problematic battery was discontinued eight years ago, FWIW; AFAIK the 2017 model's batteries age fairly well.
That used to be the case, but nowadays on par with every other car manufacturer
No
It depends on how you view things. Shoddy body/panel work is infamous at this point (maybe fixed?).
And later on, servicing is notoriously shady and closed.
> servicing is notoriously shady and closed.
Afaik in most of the world car companies are required to offer the tools to third party service stations at a reasonable price. Then again if you control the full supply line you can make repairs near impossible so there is that. And also reasonable does not mean economicaly viable unfortunately.
I'd love to see it made a requirement to be affordable to end users but that is a bridge too far I guess. Most mechanical tools are affordable enough but electrical is still insanely expensive up to the point you are nearly required to buy Chinese copy/bootleg variants.
The same has been reported from Germany. Tesla has "surpassed" Romanian etc. built cars in inspection failures.
From 2023: Breakdown of faults by car brand: Tesla has replaced Dacia at the bottom – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38760933
When you do business with a contractor that brags publicly about how quickly and cheaply he can build houses, you’d expect the same result: cheap materials, shoddy houses, barely passing inspection. If at all.
Interesting to see that cars in Denmark undergo their first inspection after 5 years, here in Romania new cars get their mandatory inspection after 3 years and then every 2 years. I wonder if these high failure rates will lead to policy change in Denmark.
We're not just talking about panel gaps anymore, problems with braking and steering are a huge risk for everyone on the road, not just the owners of these vehicles.
In The Netherlands cars have to be inspected every year. That’s part of the reason why second hand cars are so expensive here, they are exported en masse because they’re well maintained and popular everywhere.
No they do not. The fist inspection is after four years and then every two years. Full inspection starts after year 7 (so from 8 onwards).
See https://www.rdw.nl/particulier/voertuigen/landbouwvoertuig/a...
For Finland it is 4 years, then 2 years until 10 years from registration and then yearly.
Lot of this probably comes from warranties and how usually cars have yearly maintenance where they should fix most issues.
But the yearly inspection is not very strict. I see many 15-30 year old cars in Finnish traffic that don't seem to be able to pass the German inspection. Have never seen any good comparison of the inspection criteria
In my country you leave a certain amount for the inspector somewhere in the dash area or in your vehicle booklet. At least in the past I've known some people to do it for older cars, there were ways to bypass emissions tests and ignore some minor issues. Also, I once failed the brake fluid check and I had to repeat the inspection. Since I didn't have time to do a full drain, I just went to a nearby garage to suck it out from the overflow container with a syringe and top it off with fresh fluid. This was just to pass the test and I would fully replace it later.
Sigh, we have to do a yearly inspection in Croatia. And the first one is after only 2 years, and this even was introduced recently. Just a few years ago you would have to do an inspection immediately when first registering the vehicle - yes, a brand new car out of the dealership. It's still not clear to me why my car dealer who does yearly service can't just notify the authorities that it passes all the checks.
This is a huge logic jump from my perspective, just because you have some manufacturer with lots of issues, the solution is to consider a <4 years old car in general as a possibly problematic one and inspect it earlier ? For me the outcome should be to put those manufacturers in a list and scrutinize them.
Most MOT points in most countries aree wear related or regulatory, not functionality of the car. A car which is not moving due to breaking easily is not an issue. Critical failures will always result in full immediate recalls.
A new car usually has a service/maintenance plan that might be 3 years or so, so it makes sense to only mandate inspections once that does not happen anymore.
Those service plans are not mandatory and they don't need to be very comprehensive, for ICEs it usually revolves around changing the oil and filters, it doesn't include comprehensive checks of the car's functionality.
Not so sure about that...
Yes the service plan is not mandatory, but when your car comes with an 8 year warrantee, then it's best to actually go and have the services performed, as it might pay off in the long term. A car is basically an amalgamation of consumable items. _Everything_ eventually wears out. To not specify some form of maintenance plan or schedule is absolute madness.
On all the cars that I've owned, there was a comprehensive "inspect" section that details things like lights, suspension, brakes, seals, exhaust/muffler etc etc. Many of the "inspect"s will then be things like check the brake pad wear, check the fluid levels,
It's in the manufacturer's best interest to inspect every inch of a new car as part of that service plan, so that they can find and fix any small issues that might become big and expensive issues down the line. Faults on cars compound over time, and something as innocuous as a low coolant level today could result in a grenaded engine down the line if not caught and rectified early enough.
> for ICEs it usually revolves around changing the oil and filters, it doesn't include comprehensive checks of the car's functionality.
It actually does. The list of the checks is different and expanded by each new year and one can find it in the vehicle booklet.
you-guys-are-getting-paid/inspections.png?
In Illinois, USA, there's outright no vehicle inspections AFAIK for electric vehicles whatsoever after the sale of the vehicle has completed. There's a yearly registration fee paid to the state, and the state has "emissions testing" for vehicles over 2y (model year) old, but EVs are explicitly exempt and so AFAIK the only inspections that would ever occur are in the event an owner has their vehicle serviced by a dealer.
In my US State they don't even do emissions testing except in areas with air quality issues. I've never had a mandatory car inspection in 50 years of driving.
I'm sure this adds to the terrible headlights, noise, and smoke I see coming from vehicles here.
In the UK first inspection is at 3 years and then every year after that. I wonder if the UK data looks any different due to the more onerous inspection schedule.
UK is first inspection (called an MOT) at 3 years, then every 1 year until the car is considered 'classic' - after 40 years with caveats
In Switzerland it's 5, then 3, then every 2 years.
> I wonder if these high failure rates will lead to policy change in Denmark.
I mean, it's one brand, so probably not.
Tesla is really becoming a nightmare brand, not necessarily due to the cars, but the whole company policy surrounding the cars.
So weird to me. I have a 2019 Model 3, and aside from some warranty work and a blown tire, there have been zero issues. I'm wondering if the Danish inspection is more thorough and I need to have someone check mine out.
Don’t read Danish. But from German TÜV periodic reports most of Model 3 have rusty brakes from one pedal driving. Also low quality suspension was a thing earlier. But this is well known and an owner should do something about it. There are really good aftermarket suspension kits now.
In addition Tesla does not force mostly not needed so called regular maintenance in their repair shop to keep warranty. So that’s the result - cars without maintenance go for inspection. Who is to blame: manufacturer or the owner who does not care about the car for years.
Even mine rust a lot and I have a plugin. Do a normal brake every now and then. After market suspension kits is a surefire way to make your car value depreciate.
My car also always brakes normally below 10kph which usually keeps the brakes clean anyway. I do a normal brake every now and then for my own comfort.
> Also low quality suspension was a thing earlier. But this is well known and an owner should do something about it. There are really good aftermarket suspension kits now.
... Wait, are you expecting every owner of this mass-market car to _replace its suspension_, after _four years_? That's deranged, tbh; if it's that bad there should be a recall.
Why replace? Inspect on time and use car’s warranty to get free replacement with newer (and probably a bit better) part. I mean it’s well known issue with early Teslas: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/us-age...
Still they are quite popular here in The Netherlands. Dec 2024 almost 10.000 5-year lease contracts expired. There are lots of 2nd hand M3 for sale now, for about EUR 20.000 which is quite a good deal.
This is the same in the UK. The market's absolutely flooding and they can be picked up for nothing.
Huge NHS and government leases of tens of thousands of vehicles.
Same goes for the Jaguar iPace. You can get 90,000GBP of car for like 35,000 with all the gadgets.
Even in essence brand new EVs are getting very significant discounts over there if you are not choosy. I wonder how the financing companies will be able to handle these if their guaranteed buyback prices need to hold. And they are underwater...
5 year lease cars are usually thrashed. They are the cheapest expensive option. Considering (in the Netherlands) who get those I'd stay far away from those.
They're getting more expensive to lease because their residual value is not nearly as high as leasing companies expected. They're about 20k because:
1. The local secondary market isn't really all the interested in ex-lease electric cars,
2. the usual sales channel of shipping ex-lease cars to Eastern Europe doesn't exist, there's barely a market for electric cars there.
So yeah, now's probably a good time to get a second hand electric car, but if you're leasing it's only going to get more expensive.
3. New EV models have come down in price significantly since 2018 and this drives down the price of a second hand one.
I'd guess the majority of those issues are rusted brake disks. You don't need the regular disc brake very often in an electric car.
For other electric cars the rate was 9% according to the study so your guess is likely wrong as the same would apply to all electric cars.
I've had an Ioniq 1st Gen for 3 years, and while there was some brake rusting, it wasn't enough to not pass inspection. You can fix that by doing some heavy braking with recuperation disabled.
According to the article it's also in the categories "lighting equipment", "axles, wheels and tires" and "steering equipment".
With the mileage my Model 3 has comparable ICE car would require 3 to 4 service visits where all the defects (worn brakes, lights, geometry etc) would be fixed as part of the maintenance process. I had only one service appointment to fix noise on rear suspension (factory defect) where wheel were realigned.
It would be more correct to compare number of defects found during the test and during ongoing maintenance.
Wondering if the lack of regular maintenance on Tesla cars (D2C model vs. dealer + service model) results in more problems being caught at inspection time.
That would be also on Tesla?
Drive fast in broken things
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Since you mention none: the requirement to have working brakes, no imminent failure on brake lines, working lights, working windscreen wipers, a working muffler and no major control system faults are all just to screw with the public and not useful for society as a whole. Okay then...
This is bullshit, and it is telling that you just gesture to "regulations being bad" without mentioning any example.
In the case of vehicle inspections, they are obviously in place to protect consumers. It is small wonder that a company as allergic go regulations that protect consumers as Tesla would fail this. As I usually say, they could always stop doing business in EU if regulations are ao bad (we all know it is not going to happen, perhaps unfortunately).
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/19/russia-s...
One example:
> Nato chief, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, says Moscow mounting disinformation campaign to maintain reliance on Russian gas
Bad example, it's not like Russia made up the side effects of fracking.
What about things like that? https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/fda-bans-red-dye-no-3-fr...
I never said all regulation is bad. In principle, it makes sense, in practice in the west it's effect is to transfer wealth and power to despotic regimes. Russia's active policy was to increase the west's energy dependence on it so that it's less likely that the west would oppose Russian imperialism. It worked. It's still happening, and it will continue to happen.
>Regulations in Europe are written by people that you would not otherwise trust to write a shopping list.
That doesn't sound like you think any regulation written by them is good.
>Russia's active policy was to increase the west's energy dependence on it so that it's less likely that the west would oppose Russian imperialism.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Russia's goals are just the same as Big Oil's. For instamce the Green Party in Germany tried to reduce that dependency but was hit by a massive campaing by the BILD newspaper. Its main investor KKR invests extensively in fossil fuels.
> That doesn't sound like you think any regulation written by them is good.
Yes, current regulators in EU are acting as controlled opposition, maybe out of malice, perhaps out of incompetence, but it is what it is.
> Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Russia is malicious, they may also be stupid, but they are malicious, and if they are stupid, they seem to still be outwitting Western Europe.
https://www.thetimes.com/article/german-green-group-branded-...
> A German environmental foundation that has been given more than £17m by Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, has been accused of being a “puppet” funded by Moscow to circumvent American sanctions on the final stretch of a controversial pipeline carrying Russian natural gas to Germany.
German politics is known for doing what environmental groups want. The stupidity part isn’t Russia but the lobbyists of the fossile energy companies who try to keep their profits from using oil and gas. Germany‘s dependency on Russian gas wasn’t because of Russian influence but because of industry demands for cheap gas.
Nobody demands expensive gas. Not even in a socialist dictatorship. Germany is unique in that they shut down domestic energy production in favour of importing from Russia, and this is after multiple warnings from the west.
Gas is mainly used for heating and the industry, the shutdown of nuclear power plants had no effect on that.
And it wasn’t about expensive gas but multiple suppliers. But Russia‘s offer was cheap enough to push the concerns aside.
Sadly we will go back to that if the CDU or worse the AfD come to power. Partially thanks to Musk.
In EU in 2022 19% of electricity came from natural gas [1].
Gas, like money, is fungible — you can use gas you don't use for heating for electricity production, and electricity is also fungible and transmissible, so you can transmit that to Germany from outside Germany.
[1]: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
In this case the regulation is to make sure vehicles are road worthy and they make sense, all your signals need to be operational, braking forces on all wheels should be adequate, emissions testing, headlights in full working order, suspension is holding up, etc.
Could you please explain how the European regulations requiring periodic inspections to ensure vehicles are road-worthy and safe for their occupants and other road users 'move industry to places that have effectively no environmental and labour regulation'?
Without regulations the EU would be the place with no environmental and labour regulation. That only show the industry does care about others well being just about their profit and you want to give them card blanche?
Never said that I think there should be no regulation.