At the time of writing, Rich Rebuilds’ video about how broken Tesla Service is already has close to half a million views. People were curious to see the multiple cases in which it failed. Although Rich Benoit is fed up with talking about Tesla, he knows it is important to do so every once in a while, so he made a new video about the repercussions of that one.
The biggest news is that Tesla got in touch with the Model S Plaid owner that barely used his car so far. It did so to tell him he is really not entitled to a refund for his FSD subscription because that’s Tesla’s policy. However, they will give him one free month of FSD if he thinks that is ok.
The proposition assumes two things. The first is that this customer will still have his car when Tesla finally gets it fixed. Benoit said it happened after two months. Considering the car sat in his driveway for about a month until it was taken to the Service Center at the end of November, he probably got it back by the end of December or the beginning of January. We are not sure he is going to keep it or not.
As we told you in our last article about this – which has a screenshot in this new video – the Model S Plaid has been broken 60% of the time he owned it. Considering it was bought in July 2021, that represents almost four months without the car.
Photo: YouTube
The second thing Tesla assumes is that the customer will think that the offer is acceptable. After all, he did not cancel the subscription, because Tesla kept telling him that the car would be fixed next week, just like Elon Musk keeps telling robotaxis will arrive next year in any given year. Canceling the subscription probably represents an issue with getting proper access again, with the need to get a new Safety Score that is valid.
Whatever this Tesla customer decides to do, the EV maker said that its interaction with him will be “used to help initiate potential policy changes in the future.” If Tesla recognizes that keeping someone’s money for a service it did not provide is not correct, why is it still wondering about changing the policy? It does not look so strange when you realize that people paid up to $12,000 for FSD just for the promise that the software will eventually make their cars autonomous.
Benoit clarifies that most of the guys who shared their stories in his previous video can have another car while their Teslas are waiting for repairs. The regular Joe doesn’t. Most people have just one car, and it has to be so reliable they will not lose time or money should anything go wrong with them.
Photo: Rich Rebuilds
This is what the profile of Tesla's buyers is shifting to. As Benoit states, “Tesla is a big-boy company” now. It delivered almost 1 million cars in 2021. Companies in such a league should be prepared to deal with these new customers. So far, Tesla has not given a single piece of evidence that this is the case.
The YouTuber ends the video with a nice chat with Louis Rossman about this situation. This right to repair advocate and Benoit discuss how a company that relies on positive experiences to sell more cars has to provide good service. If people get mad at Tesla for not having one, that can be really damaging for the company, and it seems not to have realized how serious this is.
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