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by throwing838383 2446 days ago
Yup. I absolutely agree. this is exactly why tesla is not on the top of my to buy list.

it's about total cost of ownership. All it takes is a couple of bad door handles (1500$ each) and a broken drive unit (10K$) and now your total cost 16K, just in repairs! if depreciation is roughly 15K over 10 years, then the cost of ownership doubles!

2 comments

Your numbers are way off. Where did you get these figures? Citation needed...

Model S (most expensive) door handles are $750 and the new revisions fixed this issue (2016+ model years). Or if you're adventurous you can DIY it and buy a replacement part/rebuild kit for $175:

https://evtuning.com/products/model-s-door-handle-rebuild-ki...

Drive units are about ~$3-5K based on anecdotes from invoices by actual owners. This was in 2018, they are much cheaper now.

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/charged-for-new-driv...

i've seen the 1500/1300$ figure thrown around a couple of times by tesla owners: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/door-handle-replacem...

As, for the drive unit, I thought it used to be 10K maybe it's a bit lower now

Why are the door handles that expensive? What can even break about them?
They automagically extend out only when you're nearby, otherwise they're fully recessed into the car.
Man I’d love to just throw a tesla engine into like a Corolla. I’m sure there’s good reasons it’s not like that but this is some stupid bullshit to have to wade through.