People have asked me for an updated take on the Tesla SUA situation in light of the announced NHTSA investigation and company blog post. Not much has changed about my take though... maybe NHTSA finds something maybe they don't. 🤷♂️
Tesla's blog post is typically defensive and requires careful parsing, but the important part is that it confirms my view that Tesla will do what Toyota refused to do: blame customers. Because of this, the odds of anything significant coming out of this investigation are lower.
Toyota's decision to take SUA charges on the chin rather than blaming customers was extremely expensive in the short term, but reflects its long-term enlightened self-interest. Tesla's passionate fan base will likely suffer at the margins over this decision, as it has before.
Tesla's hard-core fanbase will be unswayed by this (or literally anything) but the divisions between the investor perspective and the owner perspective will continue to widen. People who like the cars but feel the company should serve customers will continue to be disillusioned.
Not because Tesla is definitely wrong in this instance, but because this reinforces a long and growing record of throwing customers under the bus. The current service experience confirms that Tesla is a Tesla-centered company, not a customer-centered company. This is corrosive.
In any case, the investigation is nothing more than that: an investigation. Just as consumer complaints are just that: consumer complaints that have not been validated in any way. Let's let the investigation play out rather than prejudging it either way.
