But think about it from another perspective: someone purchases Tesla car, decided to service it himself without sufficient knowledge, then later he resells his car to another individual, the person who buys his car enables the autopilot mode on a car and because of the poor service quality/mistake the original owner did to a car the autopilot goes crazy and steers your car into a brick wall, everyone will blame Tesla for that, but it's the original owner in fault, because he performed a service for himself and did it badly.
But you can say that about any kind of car, not just Teslas. You could have a guy fiddle with critical system X of a car (maybe suspension or steering) that if done incorrectly could endanger the lives of several people. How do you ensure that a used car is safe to drive? This is a solved problem: you bring the car to a professional mechanic and have him inspect the car, or inspect it yourself if you have the right knowledge. For a Tesla it would be no different; for the case of autopilot a mechanic might inspect all of the sensors (I'm sure Tesla has a utility program for doing this) and then flash the stock firmware onto the car.
> you bring the car to a professional mechanic and have him inspect the car, or inspect it yourself if you have the right knowledge
Or, a second hand Tesla might have a much higher market value if it has a recent inspection certificate from Tesla. Tesla don't have to enforce this on this basis because the market will.
I don't think other people would blame Tesla. People don't blame the manufacturer when someone services a car and doesn't put on the breaks correctly and causes an accident.
Remember how someone claimed their Toyota's brakes refused cooperating, and even though Toyota managed to prove it was the user-installed floor mat issue their sales fell through the floor and Toyota had to rekindle them with discounts, 0% financing and service guarantees?
People don't do deep research and follow-ups on automotive incidents. Best-case scenario is they have someone do it for them, like Consumer Reports. Typical-case is they see a car with a logo on TV or on top of a salvage truck and they make a mental note to avoid that manufacturer.
If it was done by an unofficial maintenance person, then no, not unless it's proven that it was Tesla's fault instead of the maintenance person.
Not sure how it works with official maintenance garages though. I'm sure there's a liability waiver signed somewhere, else there'd be a lot of big lawsuits about improper repairs by official maintainers. Unless there is no such thing as improper repairs. IDK
I don't think Tesla will be treated any differently than any of the other automobile companies when it concerns liability.
I imagine Tesla's ahead of the liability game right now. Meaning, I imagine they know exactly where, and when someone accesses their vechicles computers? I'm already calling them their computers? We are buying the cars? We own the vechicle? Right? I'll accept full liability after the warranty expires? Like always?
I don't like this trend towards, "Only the factory can work on the device." It's not fair. It's seems like it violates antitrust laws.
It's not just Tesla who doesn't want you to touch their products. It's a lot of companies. It's that Rolex, Patek, Audermars Piguet, any fancy watch you happen to have on your wrist.
I included luxury watches because people don't realize when the warranty runs out on that Rolex; good luck finding an independent Watch Repairer to fix it with Rolex parts.
See Rolex will only sell to authorized dealers. Guys like me, who refuse to pay some sham organization thousands of dollars to be become wotep certified, can't buy watch parts. Rolex wants you to send the watch to the factory, at factory prices. That boutique you bought it from, just sends the watch back, and adds charges to the final factory repair price. Which equals a lot of money for a simple service.
So, in all reality, if you can't bring/authorize repair of an item to whomever you want, including the owner; you are leasing said item? What am I missing?
I forget the name of the Act, but in the U.S. you are allowed to make minor modifications to automobiles, without affecting warranty. For example, you can change the exhaust, and car companies can't disavow you. I sound like The Donald?
I don't think Tesla is even under this Act, which makes there secrecy of product more troublesome.
If companies require us to bring product only back to the factory for repair, guys like me will never buy their product.
>I don't like this trend towards, "Only the factory can work on the device." It's not fair. It's seems like it violates antitrust laws.
No, it doesn't. That's ridiculous. Antitrust laws are about monopolies, and Tesla does not have anything resembling a monopoly. They're a tiny, tiny fraction of the overall auto fleet (even for new cars), they're a very small manufacturer compared to the giants like GM, Ford, and Toyota, and even if you restrict yourself to electric cars they're not the only choice (Leaf, BMW i3, etc.).
What it does seem to violate, however, is the spirit Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975. In fact, the Massachusetts law which the article mentions was made precisely because of automakers making it nearly impossible for independent mechanics to service cars; this wasn't an issue in 1975 since cars didn't have computers back then, but now they all do.
>I forget the name of the Act, but in the U.S. you are allowed to make minor modifications to automobiles, without affecting warranty. For example, you can change the exhaust, and car companies can't disavow you.
Yep, that's the Magnusson-Moss act. They can only refuse to honor the warranty for cases where they can show the problem was directly caused by the aftermarket part or service. But the end-run around it is not providing service information and not allowing access to computerized tools needed to work on the vehicle. So if, for instance, as discussed in the article, GM makes it so that replacing the master cylinder requires the $10k service tool, they can claim they're not in violation of the act because you can buy the master cylinder (or even an aftermarket one), and the fact that you can't get the $10k computer isn't their problem because that's how the car is designed.
>If companies require us to bring product only back to the factory for repair, guys like me will never buy their product.
The problem here is: what do you do when ALL automakers do this? That's why we need laws preventing this behavior.
This is why you do a pre-purchase inspection and demand a record of services performed on any car you're interested in buying. Most private party used car sales are AS IS. The minute the new owner drives away it's his problem. You should know the condition of your car, and if you're driving one that's unsafe, that's on you.
