Tag: tesla

South Park is known for being edgy and making fun of current pop culture.  The production timeline for the show is 1 week, which is mind blowing if you think about how long most TV production takes.  On the latest episode they rip ride sharing services such as Lyft and Uber (these allow you to catch rides in people's personal vehicles), crippled kids, and Matthew McConaughey and stupid Lincoln commercials, car salesman, taxis, and taxi drivers.  For fans of the electric car they also make fun of Tesla co-founder and CEO, Elon Musk.

The synopsis of the episode is that Timmy, a crippled kid that only says his name “Timmy”, is working to raise money for his special needs summer camp for next year.  Timmy has a ride sharing app called Handicar which enables people to catch rides around town using his wheelchair.  The local taxi drivers in the town of South Park get upset about the competition as well as Elon Musk, since it's taking away from people focusing on electric cars.  The culmination is a Wacky Races epic race against all the competing car technologies and services to see which is best and most convenient.

Like all South Park episodes this one is brilliantly done. Watch it here!

Editor's Note – this video is an unofficially posted and could be taken down at any moment.

South Park “Handicar” Episode – Ride Sharing

If you watch the show you will see that they also rip Lincoln's current marketing campaign with the actor Matthew .  The TV commercials are meant to show that he “Just Liked It” instead of Lincoln actually paying him to like Lincoln vehicles.  Since the public thinks this is BS, South Park decided to make fun of the commercials and call them out on it.  Watch the questionable Lincoln commercial by clicking here.

While it's cool that South Park is in-tune with current auto marketing, the real question is, does this mean that Tesla and Elon Musk have gone mainstream?  What about ride sharing?  If South Park makes fun of it that probably means it's pretty popular and worthy of the Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the South Park creators, attention.

Here is the part with Elon Musk if you don't want to invest 22 minute to watching the full episode.  This wasn't part of the main storyline in case you were wondering.

South Park – Elon Musk

Musk was good humored about the spoof since he Tweeted about it on when the show aired.

McConaughey did not mention his South Park appearance though.  Surprisingly there wasn't a mention of RelayRides in the episode but they did mention ZipCar.  Anyway, I encourage my readers to watch the Handicar episode and let me know what you think with a comment below. Did you think it was funny?

Elon Musk, the CEO and founder of Tesla Motors, posted a blog post today that has blown the minds of Tesla Model S owners and made them quite happy.  Tesla is now offering an Infinite Mile Warranty on the Model S for 8 years.  This warranty includes the battery and the drive unit, which means the electric motor.

The Tesla Model S drive unit warranty has been increased to match that of the battery pack. That means the 85 kWh Model S, our most popular model by far, now has an 8 year, infinite mile warranty on both the battery pack and drive unit. There is also no limit on the number of owners during the warranty period.

We are not sure if the Infinite Mile Warranty also covers the controller that modulates how much energy is sent to the electric motor.  We would imagine this is part of of the Tesla Warranty though but I'm not assuming anything as it is Tesla.

Keep in mind Tesla is applying this to all current owners of the Tesla Model S and Elon Musk is keen to point out that electric motors are much more reliable than gasoline counterparts.  Therefore an Infinite Mile Warranty would make sense.

Moreover, the warranty extension will apply retroactively to all Model S vehicles ever produced. In hindsight, this should have been our policy from the beginning of the Model S program. If we truly believe that electric motors are fundamentally more reliable than gasoline engines, with far fewer moving parts and no oily residue or combustion byproducts to gum up the works, then our warranty policy should reflect that.

Of course Musk does admit in the blog post that it is quite possible that this will negatively affect Tesla's bottom line and those that have invested in the company.

To investors in Tesla, I must acknowledge that this will have a moderately negative effect on Tesla earnings in the short term, as our warranty reserves will necessarily have to increase above current levels. This is amplified by the fact that we are doing so retroactively, not just for new customers. However, by doing the right thing for Tesla vehicle owners at this early stage of our company, I am confident that it will work out well in the long term.

– Elon

While this Tesla warranty news should reassure and reaffirm Tesla Model S and electric car owners, the public and media have forgotten a few important points.  The warranty, as far as I can tell, does not seem to cover electronic components which honestly… are much more prone to failure than an electric motor.  Since electric motors work using magnets with few moving parts they are much more reliable than gas engines and rarely break.  Elon Musk and Tesla are right about that.  Electric motors can fail in certain situations though but since they run off of magnetism they are pretty reliable motors.  It's quite likely a controller will break before a Tesla electric motor and it's not clear to me whether this is or is not covered under the Infinite Mile Warranty.

Also what do you do after 8 years with your Model S?  That's when you definitely will have electronic and electrical failure on an electric car.  Tesla bean counters have worked this out like all automakers.  They probably know a lot of Tesla components naturally wear out after a certain period of time and anticipate most drivers only do 10,000-15,000 miles a year.  Once the warranty is up it's on the customer to pay for repairs.  It's not surprising automakers do this and Tesla is no different in this case.

I guess Tesla figures any self-respecting Tesla Model S owner will have to run out and get the latest model when that comes out.  So they won't care about fixing the models or likely own them for 8 years.  Right? 🙂

What you think of Tesla's Infinite Mile Warranty?  Is this good not only for Tesla but the entire electric car industry as a whole?  Is this just another Tesla marketing gimmick masked with media love?  Leave a comment below to let me know.

[Source – Tesla Blog | Image Source – AarononAutos.com]