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The Rogue Tesla Mechanic Resurrecting Salvaged Cars (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: In a scrapyard in Massachusetts, the YouTuber known as Rich Rebuilds runs a pair of jumper cables from a broken down Tesla Model S to a deep cycle battery. "We may hear some clicks," he says, as he prepares to connect the second lead. "We may hear some buzzing. The car may explode. I don't know what's gonna happen." As a self-described "Doctor Frankenstein of Teslas," this is Rich Benoit's modus operandi. On YouTube, he's chronicled his journey to learn how the cars' internal systems work -- and how to repair them after floods, fires and wrecks. In a new Motherboard documentary, Benoit shows us the scrapyards where he scavenges Tesla parts, the basement where he categorizes them, and an auto body shop that lets him use its equipment. He shows us deep under the hood, where he wrestles with the motors, high-powered batteries and tangles of electronics and cables that make Teslas tick. Since his first Tesla restoration -- he's now working on a second -- Rich has become a point-person in the Tesla repair community. He runs a Facebook group for people who want to sell and trade parts and has helped other enthusiasts across the country and as far away as Norway, Germany and South Africa. Tesla told Motherboard that it will inspect salvaged vehicles to assess which repairs are needed, but there would be a fee. The company says customers are free to do whatever they want with their cars, including repair them. However, Massachusetts, because of their "Right to Repair" initiative, is the only state where Tesla owners can register to access repair manuals, service documents, wiring diagrams, and part information. According to Electrek, President Jon McNeil says the automaker is working on opening the program.
for Mass. residents. Re-sell access to the manuals to people all over the world. Fuck Tesla's evil attitude towards DIY owners.
When your computer crashes, it doesn't involve a school bus full of children.
Have gnu, will travel.
I've been watching RichRebuilds for a while.
It's amazing that Tesla can remotely "brick" one of their cars against the owner's wishes and render it inoperable until they give the owner a code to get it running (if they choose to do so).
It's also criminal that they will not allow owners to buy repair parts for their cars.
Last, if Tesla goes bankrupt (which, at their current cash burn rate and unprofitably is a good possibility) owners will be left holding the bag with cars that cannot be maintained or repaired.
Tesla reminds me of a pyramid scheme.
That's not what the word "bricks" means. And no, there is no "factory code". The whole concept of "codes" has no meaning in the context of Teslas. What it requires is recertification if you want to use supercharging. To make sure that your someone-else-pieced-it-together-car doesn't fry their superchargers and potentially start a fire. For really bloody obvious reasons.
You can still charge just fine on non-Tesla chargers, because hey, no risk to their hardware.
"Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
Impressive mislabeling job. That article wasn't about a customer satisfaction survey. Pied Piper's surveys are how skilled a company's salesmen are at selling cars. Tesla has (for many years running) the least "salesy" salemen in the industry. By design. Tesla publicly celebrates every year scoring last in the Pied Piper studies.
The Consumer Report study I linked is an actual customer satisfaction survey.
"Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"