Originally published at: Scottish couple learns the hard way that Tesla warranties do not cover climate change | Boing Boing
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wonder if they notably submerged the battery crossing a flooded portion of the road…? the batteries are about as near to the ground as possible:
not that one shouldn’t hope they’re in a water-tight containment
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I’m sure it functioned, very briefly, as a boat. Without power. In a shallow sea.
We shall walk away from this shit remembering that really electric cars were all about saving the car industry and not the world.
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So, is “yellow weather” a euphemism for pissing down rain?
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Since there’s been a lot of flooding in Scotland lately, I assumed the area had flooded while they were at dinner, but nope. Just… rain. Regular (for Scotland) wet weather. People have talked about how self-driving cars designed and tested in California were being set up to not function in anything but dry, moderate weather, but this is really next level for it to be true of the whole car.
They claim not: “I honestly can’t remember any huge puddles or anything like that,” and I believe them. I was reading about Elno’s input at Tesla, and one notable contribution was that he insisted on redesigning (for aesthetic reasons) a visible component (I forget what it was - a sensor of some sort, I think), and his changes made it so that if it was sufficiently cold, ice would build up on it and it would stop working entirely (which wasn’t a failing of the original design). So it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the batteries accumulated water from just heavy rainfall.
Oh yeah, I really believe them:
[Musk:] “I personally redesigned the whole battery pack production line and ran it for three weeks.”
https://www.axios.com/2018/11/26/elon-musk-tesla-death-bleeding-cash
The only people I know with a Tesla blindly bought it some years back on the enthusiastic urging of a techie nephew, and they have… regrets. (Although these days I’m not sure it’s even accurate to say they drive a Tesla - it spends so much time in the shop with issues, they’re mostly driving a rental.)
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If heavy rains are enough to ruin the batteries, then that sounds like a design flaw.
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Do phones in Scotland also void their warranty, by being immersed in Scottish weather?
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Sounds like a 1970ies Jaguar.
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Yeah, though unlike with a sports car, it’s not that it necessarily has a lot of issues, but when it does, it takes forever before they get the car back… and every time there’s an issue, just having it dealt with is layered with extra hassles. You can’t just call a tow truck for a Tesla, for example…
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We’ve had a Model 3 for about five years. Its fine. Nothing amazing but it hasn’t had any major issues.
I still don’t know how to turn on the defoggers mind you.
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Heavy rain in Scotland is not a climate change thing. It’s a being hilly and prevailing winds coming straight off the Atlantic Ocean thing.
If the battery compartment isn’t watertight then that’s a major design flaw.
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I am not sure what the Aussie blogger brought to the story, he seemed more interested in defending Tesla than discussing the story. All the shots of cutting off part of a Tesla and tapping the hole, is he suggesting that the owners had voided their warranty? And the flooded bridge is a ford (maybe ford is a non-word for his videos/s).
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Again…
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Yep I dont think he gets the run down ness of the uk atm, and how ever ones preprepared to pay even when its not their fault, due to enshitfication of Tory uk 
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ironically, once you set them on fire even water won’t put them out.
make up your mind, batteries!!!
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Oh, that image is going to stay in my head. Currently we are enjoying Storm Babet. We are under both a yellow Rain Warning and an Amber Rain warning!
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Purple rain would be okay though
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I have a Renault Zoe EV. The user manual warns me not to drive into through deeper than 4 inches. There’s nothing about driving in rain. I mean, rain is an actual thing in Europe. We have to be able to drive in it.
But there’s something odd about the story. Surely the battery would have gone up in smoke and flames if water got into it or into the major cabling.
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