Tesla Motors recalls electric Roadster
Tesla Motors has launched a safety recall covering all 345 Tesla Roadsters manufactured before April 22.
Tesla says it will make house calls to inspect the rear, inner hub flange bolts on several Roadsters after one owner reported uncharacteristic handling. After a root-cause analysis, Tesla determined that the rear, inner hub flange bolts on a small percentage of Roadster vehicles were improperly torqued during assembly by Lotus, the contract manufacturer of the Roadster chassis. Lotus is conducting a similar recall on some Lotus Elise and Exige vehicles.
No accidents have been reported as a result of this manufacturing issue, which is unrelated to the Roadster's all-electric powertrain.
Customers will not be charged for the inspection and software upgrade.
I agree with the first poster. The title of this post is intentionally misleading to attract viewers. Are you now the National Enquirer of blogs?
The headline should not have mentioned 'electric' because that is irrelevant to the item and the headline should have made it clear that a Lotus fault triggered a Tesla recall.
Your audience appreciates the straight story.
It would be one thing if this was a recall related to the electic system that makes this car a novelty. But it's not. It's just a "check up" on a freaking grouping of bolts! Seriously, it's not newsworthy, and cnet is "tricking" people into clicking out of interest in the car only to be hoodwinked.
It's not cool, and it alienates readers.
While we're on the subject. Why is it that the US government is bailing out Chrysler and GM on the condition that they explore and produce electric vehicles when Tesla is producing viable cars NOW!? Tesla had to look for funding on its own. What was it, a measly $100 million investment? That's a bargain when compared to the untold BILLIONS shelled out to Chrysler and GM. And GM and Chrysler are still losing money. There's no guarantee they'll ever be profitable again. And they did it to themselves. GM had a viable electric vehicle ten years ago, but instead of continuing its development, they trashed it. They preferred to build gas guzzling SUVs and trucks. They deserve to burn. Give that money to startups like Aptera and Tesla that have viable cars. Lift restrictions on letting foreign manufacturers (many of which have plants in the US) import their vehicles here, as is. Give them cash to let them produce European spec cars here in the US. That'll put people to work in a hurry. Instead, lobbyists and politicians are going to run us even further into the ground. I'll never own an American branded car again, ever, with the possible exception of Tesla.
Regular auto recalls involving fatalities barely make the news...but a story about a potential loose bolt on a samll number of one brand of car gets 'ink'. I guess there are a lot of people scared to death what the success of the Tesla will really prove.
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by iloveads47
May 31, 2009 11:56 PM PDT
- But it IS good news because it means you can expect standards of support and reliability from Lotus that seem to exceed what other companies do!!!
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by iloveads47
May 31, 2009 11:57 PM PDT
- Duh. Reliability from TESLA motors, not Lotus, i meant to say.
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