Featured Brand-new Tesla Model 3 strands doctor in freeway's left lane with 139 mi left on guess-o-meter

Wow! A car breaking down? Has anybody ever heard of that happening before? Not in all my 50 plus years of driving! This is really news! This is definitely as exciting as the OP must be thinking ......

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Absolutely not good enough.

If this display can't be trusted


That's like having a fuel gauge on a brand-new car indicating almost ½ full.

But it's TESLA's response which is worse than pathetic.

PS - I've had cars break down. And yes, some starved of fuel - but when the gauge showed less than EMPTY, I'm to blame (or my daughter who was the driver one time). But the youngest car I remember stopping <DEAD> was about 4 years old with an ignition module fail.

 

(I think she said $1000??). But 90k range from charge isn't what I was thinking an EV would achieve.

 

I am sympathetic but there isn’t enough to diagnose the problem(s):

• Factory software load - my Tesla had some random symptoms until I got the first over the air update. But I noticed it had an early version as in nearly a year old.
  
• There are multiple resets:
  • Double button for navigation or frozen screen. Can be done while driving.
  • Brake plus double button takes longer to reboot. I do this after every software update.
  • Maintenance power off and on which is quite involved so I have to look it up. It involves setting console settings, door opening, and there can be no one in the seats.
  • The console “power” button has no effect I’ve seen.

The Tesla support system tech should have remotely read the log and even run diagnostics. But this remains a weak area.

Under lessons learned, when you pickup a Tesla, insist the latest software be loaded and a maintenance power reset be done. She and many others didn’t know. That is why I like to share these tips here.

Bob Wilson

 

Evidently she's not making enough money as a foot doctor, (not an MD - more akin to a chiropractor as far as depth of education) as she has made a bunch of YouTube videos. Hopefully this will increase her (what do they call it?) followers.
Good thing she owns a tesla, otherwise, if she owned a Prius she would be slamming it for more followers.

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Who would ever want to work in this industry where everybody is attacking for any and all reasons
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Didn't she say she's driven PRIUS for a long time?

 

Yep - possibly - it seems my EGO (HeeHee) Mower comes with that as standard. My LI-ION battery died at 14 months. A mate who bought one before me - and recommended it to me - had his replaced under warranty at much the same age - and it's failed again out of warranty - costing a huge amount to replace.

 

We should ask Toyota on how to handle cars stalling on the highway from software issues.

Former coworker once got out of spec gas(sulfur too high?) that broke the tank's level sensor. She and hundreds, maybe more, ran out of gas with the gauge showing over a quarter left.

Power off is a common fix for many electronic gremlins. There should be an easy way for the customer to do this.

 

Based on all the other things the car was still doing and reporting over the next several days before the shop looked at it, I have a very hard time believing that the initial stall was an out-of-charge situation. That seems more like a clueless support line excuse.

Yes, the Tesla service was horrid.

Another thing that absolutely lept out at me was the very aggressive behavior of those many vehicles passing on the shoulder. Is that a combat driving zone? Here, I do see a rare racer or road rager passing on the shoulder at high speed, but never a whole line of ordinary traffic doing that. Sometimes cars will split and go around a stalled car in a center lane, before first responders arrive, but not near full speed, and not on the shoulder. The shoulder seems to be used only when multiple lanes are blocked, and only at low speed. That seems like a different planet.

Over nearly a half century of driving, I and other family members have experienced ICE sudden death from various causes, even on busy highways. And without cell phones. But none of them produced that sort of traffic experience.

She wants Tesla to take the car back, but she is still well short of Lemon Law requirements.

 

In my first Toyota I had a clutch repair done after, maybe 70K miles. The dealer told me that they usually replace the clutch cable when doing any clutch work so I should get it done too. I said yes. When I picked up the car they said they didn't replace the cable because they didn't have any. They inspected mine and said is was fine. The next day I was about 500' from getting on the freeway when the cable broke and I was completely broken down in the left lane of a road. Toyota didn't pay for anything.

Mike

 

What I did is put together a startup script that ran as a detached process. I made a snapshot of the dump and error log and then e-mailed it to me. Often I would get the problem summary, research fix, and call the system admin with a diagnosis and recommended fix. So I was able to manage dozens of VAX/VMS systems with a good working relationship with the various system admins.

Today, the same happens with MacOS and iPhone OS. It is how to get a clue there is a problem and get a head start on fixing it,

Bob Wilson

 

Not just Apple - it happens w/ android, linux, & good ol' blue-screen-of-death windoz.
For that matter nearly 10% of people will experience atril fibrillation - our bio-computer sends too many messages to the heart. Thank you Med industry - for the ability to even do a reboot on that scenario
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anyone buying electric vehicles these days should be doing due diligence. that some buy without educating themselves is just part of life.
if any ev i owned actually died because of a discharged battery while the meter was still showing a charge, i would be furious.
but i think the jury is still out here. and i don't take youtube influencers seriously

 

I think it safe to say your skill set here far surpasses most US drivers.
It shouldn't be hard for Tesla to had an easy to find button to the GUI that does all that(email to their service department) for when a driver experiences such issues.

 

Awful customer service, but its not as if someone at lexus put someone in a car with fantom braking and they died or anything.

The story sounds very fishy. If the car was malfunctioning, why didn't the doctor pull to the shoulder instead of hitting the brakes. It is doubtful that the story about the keys is true. The tesla model 3 comes with an app to work with your phone, and a back up card key. She could have left a card key in the car locked, and tesla or her could unlock it on Monday. You wouldn't leave a model 3 card key in a drop box, they all look the same, and acting like it was a physical key seems all wrong.

It sounds like the car had plenty of power to exit the highway. Not sure of electrical or software problems, but if these were common there would be more than one complaint.

Take the whole story with a grain of salt. Maybe part of it is true. idk. I needed to do a hard reset when my autopilot was acting up, but tesla suggested this, and it didn't stop the car from driving without autopilot engaged. Computer problems happen. I have no idea if she actually did a hard reset. Correction. according to reddit she did a soft reset. This makes tesla's customer service seem worse, as they probably could have talked her through a hard reset (foot on the brake) and my guess is the car would be back to drivable. I'm sure tesla has the logs.