This mimics numbers from Denmark, where Model 3 had a failure rate of 20-25% after four years a couple of years ago, and last year the first Model Y's had to go through their first 4 year inspection and 45% failed. 34% of Model 3's failed last year.
For comparison: Last year VW ID4 had a failure rate of 2%, and the average for _all_ electric cars (no matter age, including Teslas) was 7% failure.
Causes: Breaks, wheels, steering, and a few more critical things along those lines.
Objectively speaking, Tesla cannot manufacture cars that live up to European standards.
Source: https://fdm.dk/nyheder/nyt-om-trafik-og-biler/tesla-skandale...
Quite surprised about ID4 numbers. Ours in the shop a few times per year, and we often crack jokes about it with other owners.
The report from the original article is not a general problem rate but more specific: TÜV does mandatory technical inspections every two years. In those inspections, only safety- and environment-critical problems are checked for, so e.g. brakes, rust on structural parts, high emissions, non-working lights. But there is a whole bunch of stuff that they don't check for, e.g. heating/cooling, GPS not working, doesn't charge/start sometimes, ...
So it's quite possible that both are true: Maybe ID4 has lots of non-safety and non-environment problems, so it is in the shop very often, but still rarely fails an official inspection.
A sample of one but ours did fail the inspection (suspension). It also experienced a complete shutdown of instrument panel on the motorway: not something you reproduce easily in a regular inspection but a pretty damn serious condition. Fail to unfold the mirrors/engage parking assistant or rearview camera happened dozens of times.
None of other owners I spoke to were particularly happy with theirs either.
Oh I'm sure there's many faults on the VW (as well as Skoda, Audi and Seat) electric cars, but not in the "failing inspection" category apparently.
(I drive a Skoda Enyaq, so no particular shade meant towards the VW-group)
Yeah well, our ID.4 did fail its 4-year inspection, but that's not even the worst among the things it did.
(It's charging on the parking lot right now, unlocked because central lock has failed)
How do you find the Enyaq?
Assuming you are not an outlier, could it be VW has a low TÜV failure rate because they are in the shop often?
I have no idea what German auto shops do, but whenever I take my car in to a shop in the US for service (routine or otherwise) they generally include various inspections and adjustments to various things, including things that Google is telling me are part of the TÜV inspection.
After an ongoing ugly experience with a GTI, we'll never buy another VW.
In The Netherlands, all ID3 and ID4 cars go through pre-inspection before they go for the annual technical inspection. Hence the low failure rates.
Going to the yearly inspection on worn tires and brakes is just owners failure.
Yes, but if a car is using regenerative braking 99% of the time, the car should track this and use brakes occasionally to "polish and maintain" them. It's not hard, and if the pads are running out, it should warn the user. Tesla does neither AFAIK.
You should check your tires, yes. At least while changing from winter to summer and vice versa, however if the cars torque profile is too aggressive and it's eating tires, you should note it at the user's manual that thread wear should be checked more frequently with respect to other cars.
> how is that to do with Tesla manufacturing standard?
My friend's Toyota Auris needs new discs every 100,000KM, new pads every 60,000KM. I change discs around 60,000KM (heavier car, mostly rush-hour traffic, hilly city, automatic transmission), and never failed an inspection w.r.t. braking power.
> how is that to do with Tesla manufacturing standard?
Unless further data/evidence is provided, it is reasonable to assume all car owners treat their cars equally shitty, and as such can be ignored in this equation since it applies equally to all manufacturers.
Exactly. I don't understand the focus on VW here. That wasn't the point of my original post at all.
Tesla didn't even recognize the inspection failures in Denmark as real at first, so it's probably fair to assume that they're only now trying to sort out the problems on new cars, and that we'll see many more failing Tesla inspections the coming years, even on cars sold up to this day.
Worn brake disks are a manufacturing problem. Nominally my VW needs new brake disks every 100Mm. Practically it needs new ones every 40Mm, because VW makes them from shitty steel that rusts and wears like hell, especially when there is salt on the roads in winter.
Some manufacturers use better steel and therefore have a longer disk lifetime.
It is not wear that causes break systems to fail but lack of use resulting in a fairly recently discovered threat to blank metal: Rust.
I do drive to work almost every day, and I don't drive an electric car. So there is sufficient use.
And quite a few decades ago, people noticed that when you mix chromium, nickel, vanadium or things like that into your steel, it doesn't rust. Car manufacturers are just very slow in noticing.
That's interesting with the pre-inspection. I haven't heard about a systematic pre-inspection here. I also don't think it really matters, the most important metric I'm quoting is 7% failure rate across _all_ electric cars, and no way that's caused by every non-Tesla owner going to a pre-inspection.
(inspection costs around 80 euros in Denmark, so there's no financial reason to go to a pre-inspection anyways, just do the inspection and have it redone if the car fails).
Tesla wouldn't even recognize the problem at first, and refused repair of customer cars. Of course there's issues with every brand of car. It's just that the numbers show that Teslas are much, much worse with regards to safety critical components.
You bring your car in for yearly maintenance. They do a 50 point inspection, fix what is worn and replace fluids where necessary. After that they bring it to a shop next door where they do the (government required) yearly technical inspection. Nearly all brands do this as it's easy money and because you can persuade the customer to buy a new model of car while they are already in the shop.
Tesla does not have this. People just bring it straight to the yearly technical inspection.
Teslas doesn't fail because of fluids or worn brakes. They failed due to causes that Tesla didn't even recognize, as I already told you, because they thought wobbly wheels were ok, and other structural issues.
Stop making up excuses for Tesla, it's tiresome.
When electric vehicles started to become mass produced one of the selling points was due to fewer mechanical parts, there’d be less wear and fewer parts to fail and replace on electrics; however it seems electrics have introduced other complexities that kind of wash the advantage of fewer parts…
You're ignoring the basic fact that Teslas doesn't fail because of the electric drive chain, but because of basic things like wheels, suspension and brakes. Sure, electric cars are heavier, but heavy cars (vans, trucks) have existed for ages.
The Irish NCT results for 2024 show high failure rates for Teslas in:
and to a lesser extent- Vehicle safety and Equipment - Steering and Suspension - Side Slip - Wheels and Tires
The (Tesla) overall failure rate is over 50% (697/1301), which is above the (population) overall failure rates of just under 50%.- Lights - Lighting and ElectricalNote that the oldest Tesla is 2015, and most are 2020+ which is significantly newer than a good chunk of the cars on the road here.
Also note that in my personal experience of ~10 NCTs, I've had 3 nominal failures which were stupid trivial things that aren't actually maintenance issues. (1, extra seat not in car. 2, tent peg fell in and folding seat didn't lock in place. 3, folding seat wasn't up when tested, as well as at least one where my mechanic swears that they screwed it up (steering rack boot not attached))
https://www.rsa.ie/road-safety/statistics/nct-statistics-and...
An 18% failure rate on a one year old model Y under "suspension and steering". This is absolutely shocking.
For comparison the ID4 had 0 failures at this age for this category, and for a much larger sample size.
I assume these are all taxis as they're being tested so early. This implies there a ton of unsafe privately owned Model Ys on the road.
Suspension and steering is probably loose bushings. Side Slip is alignment/tracking. Wheels and tires is almost always worn tires, especially passenger side front due to roundabouts.
I'm not sure what the vehicle safety and equipment failures would be, nor the distinction between lights and lighting and electrical. The fact that it's a noticable failure point is a little surprising to me because all the lights should be LED and pretty solid.
(Though, I'll say, even though we have mandatory inspections, 5-10% of cars in my area are driving with at least one light that's out.)
Lighting failures are usually headlight alignment problems, i.e. blinding oncoming traffic
They shouldn't fall out of alignment that quickly so I'd guess they're poorly aligned from the factory
That is probably because the ID4s had pre-inspection before their yearly technical inspection. That is what they do in The Netherlands, probably also other countries. That makes their cars stand out in these reports.
Don't all cars in the Netherlands have at least a small checkup before inspection?
I once had a Fiat Panda from 1984, 20 years old by then. It had a small checkup and maintenance, then went for the inspection. It passed, but was highlighted for inspection from the controlling organizing. The mechanic, owner of the shop, started getting really nervous about losing his license, asking, is the car allright, is it really allright? And it passed inspection again.
They had an overall failure rate of 20% so I don't think that's the case.
Anecdotally most people I know here don't bother with preinspection. It's usually cheaper even if it fails the first time. Although looking at the data most people driving EVs could probably save time/money by investing in a tire thread guage!
Also to add, the Irish system is totally different to a lot of Europe. The owner always brings the car for inspection, it's never part of an annual maintenance package.
Looks like the Tesla Model Y has roughly the same amount of faults after less than 3 years as the top cars in this comparison have after 11-13 years (https://www.tuvsud.com/de-de/publikationen/tuev-report/maeng...). That's not a good look.
I also don't buy the argument brought up several times in the comments here that this is caused by the lack of regular inspections. This is about very new cars, there shouldn't be that many issues to catch in inspections when the car is less than 3 years old.
The inspection is not strictly about car reliability or build quality, it is about general safety. Article title is misleading
- phone holder in wrong location or not securely fastened
- missing first aid kit
- split in windshield wiper
- low washer fluid
- headlight alignment
- tyre slits from curbing
- tyre wear levels
- surface dirt on brake lines
- rock chip in windshield
- rust on brake disc
- bodywork damage
Your list is misleading, the TÜV is about safety, but you're only listing the more trivial things, I wonder why. They also check major things like steering.
I think it is reasonably safe to assume that the issues that are not directly related to the specific model of the car are roughly evenly distributed among cars of the same age.
> the issues that are not directly related to the specific model of the car are roughly evenly distributed among cars
No, because most cars are tested after a yearly servicing which includes a pre-inspection and remediation of issues. Tesla is somewhat unique in not having dealers and a recommended yearly servicing schedule.
> you're only listing the more trivial things, I wonder why
There is an impression in the comments and the article headline that the test is about vehicle reliability. I'm pointing out a small list of the non-reliability parts of the test.
How come this doesn’t appear in ADAC’s breakdown stats then?
> "Axle suspensions suffer under the high weight of the drive battery, and the brakes are rarely used due to regenerative braking," Bühler told ADAC. "This can lead to defects in the brake discs, and there is a risk of reduced braking performance."
I had a 5th gen Camaro that had terrible brakes because I could never get the rotors/pads hot enough during normal operation to properly "clean" them. They were so big you just couldn't do it without visiting the freeway or a race track. I had to get the rotors machined or replaced about once a year because the car mostly went to the grocery store.
I think the best thing you can do is to occasionally stand on the brakes as hard as you can from >60mph. In a heavy EV you probably only need to do this once a week/month.
There is something about mechanical contrivances and rare use. Complex machines tend to get sloppy when they aren't exercised regularly. The best way to prove a machine will work correctly is to use it frequently.
Standing on the breaks frequently is how you end up with warped rotors, so there's some nuance here. Once in a while will stop rust and guck building up, frequently and you're replacing the discs early.
> There is something about mechanical contrivances and rare use. Complex machines tend to get sloppy when they aren't exercised regularly. The best way to prove a machine will work correctly is to use it frequently.
I see this a lot on other sites where people talk about buying an old Landrover or Range Rover as a "weekend car". That's never going to work.
My nearly-30-year-old Range Rover had the fewest problems when I was putting around 3000 miles a month on it, all year round. If it sat long enough for the engine to cool to ambient, sure as shit you'd find something wrong the next time you started it.
Tightening lug nuts in a circular pattern instead of switching opposite sides is also a great way to warp rotors and I wager is probably more common than most think
It's not the pattern that matters so much as the torque spec, but you should still optimally switch sides while using a torque wrench.
"Tesla Models 3 and Y: Ranking third-from-bottom and dead last respectively, these models are conspicuous for early issues with their brake discs and suspension." (1)
1) https://www.tuvsud.com/de-de/-/media/de/corporate/pdf/presse...
In what world is this "The 2026 TUV Report doesn't mention which defects were responsible for the Model Y's disappointing performance." acceptable?
Why are they not publishing which defects exist? Not only it make more credible, it would also warn people of what to look for.
TÜV is the mandatory inspection that every car in Germany has to go through. Failing that inspection means you _have_ to fix the issues or may no longer drive that car on public roads.
So while it would be nice to get more detailled stats, I think this is still really helpful. For me the TÜV report was a very important source for my decission on which models (and to a lesser degree manufacturers) I should avoid.
There are more accredited inspection providers besides TüV in germany like Dekra etc. This matters because TüV does NOT have data for all cars and there might be self selection effects because drivers can choose where to do the inspection (many get it done by whatever provider their car dealer has a deal with, which might differ greatly by car brand)
TÜV is the largest such organisation in Germany and almost has a monopoly. The inspections themselves are colloquially even called "TÜV", even if you do it at some other org.
However, as others have written, there is still some huge bias in those numbers. Especially German brand car shops provide an inspection service, where they pre-check and repair the car before the official inspection. Many of those German brands are also very big on company leasing, to the point where almost nobody buys a new BMW, Mercedes or Audi privately, they either get a new one as a company car via company leasing, or they get a used leasing return car. All those leasing cars always have the aforementioned inspection service as part of the leasing package. So those numbers are to be taken with a huge huge grain of salt.
First of all TÜV isn't a single org but a shared brand of multiple independent companies. And while "TÜV" is used colloquially for the mandatory car inspection in germany even all TÜV named companies together aren't anywhere near a monopoly: all of them combined(!) have 37,5% market share in the german vehicle inspection market. The largest single org in that market is actually DEKRA with 32,5%.
People say "Ich bring mein Auto zum TÜV", but they actually mean "I'm gonna drop it at my dealership and let him inspect it by whatever company he has a deal with"
src: https://www.kba.de/DE/Statistik/Fahrzeuge/Fahrzeuguntersuchu...
This is an article that summarizes a report. It is not the report. The actual report costs money (but isn't very expensive).
If you live in Europe your car has to be inspected every 2 years. For new cars this kicks in after 3 years, and then after that it is every 2 years.
The inspection is carried out by authorized mechanics and typically takes less than an hour. It is worth noting that authorities keep a close eye on authorized mechanics to ensure they do not cheat. If you cheat (eg let people pay you to pass their car), you lose authorization.
The reason the TÜV report carries weight is that Germany has Europe’s largest vehicle fleet and TÜV has a strong reputation. Inspection standards are largely harmonized across Europe, and approvals or methodologies used by TÜV are often accepted or mirrored elsewhere.
Defects are classified by severity. Serious defects can make the vehicle unroadworthy immediately; less serious ones require repair and re-inspection; very minor issues are simply noted.
Even non-EU countries like Norway and the UK follow essentially the same inspection framework.
Does this put Germany's car insurance in the lowest cost?
Car insurance in Germany exists in 3 categories.
The mandatory one, liability insurance, which pays out others' damages in case your car is in an accident and the driver of your car is found to be at fault. Base rates for those are by law based on the rate of payouts per car model and per owner's county at that insurance company. A multiplier makes the base rate more expensive or cheaper respectively for new drivers, accident-prone drivers or long-time accident-free drivers. No other external statistics are allowed to play a role.
The two non-mandatory ones are "Vollkasko" and "Teilkasko", which pay for damages your own car suffered from various factors like animals, weather, accidents, road conditions and stuff like that. Vollkasko even pays for accidents you caused yourself, Teilkasko only for some of the aforementioned things. In both, insurers are still required to do some classification by county, but they are allowed to factor in statistics about your car's repair cost.
But none of those will pay for your car just randomly breaking down and needing repairs, that is something you get a manufacturer's warranty for. And none of those is directly related to the mandatory inspections. I think I've read some statistics that driver behaviour and skill is also a large factor in why there are less accidents in Germany, at least compared to some regions of the world... But make of those what you will, that might as well be jingoism and often also comparing apples and oranges...
In Sweden some of faults can be covered if the mileage is low enough, usually the limit is between 120000 and 200000 km. Usually engine and tranmission is covered.
On average car insurance is cheaper in Germany, but I am unsure if this has anything to do with the required inspections. (Since it is mandatory anyway, it isn't a differentiator). I think it may be more about how insurance is structured and dealt with.
For instance US has a civil tort based system which tends to push prices up quite a bit because outcomes are entirely unpredictable. In Germany insurance is not litigation centric, so there are literally no punitive damages, pain-and-suffering awards are modest and predictable and compensation is based on standardized tables. So insurance cases very rarely make it anywhere near courts.
They are citing a blog post from the German magazine Auto Bild, which talks about the Auto Bild special "TÜV Report" edition. They are probably three or four layers of indirection removed from the original report produced by the TÜV itself.
I found a mention of the report on this page from the ADAC: https://www.adac.de/news/tuev-report-2026/
I think they mention suspension, brake and light related issues.
Typically Teslas have failed for suspension issues in Finnish inspections. Most common failure category for Model 3 was "rear axle" and "front axle" for Model S.
Do you really need any more reasons not to buy a Tesla?
“The Tesla 3 and Y are not so fortunate, landing in second to last and last place respectively due to faults in their brake disks and axle suspension.”
https://www.tuvsud.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025/novem...
Just… I don’t know, actually look at your wheels and brakes every few thousand miles instead of let them ride for tens of thousands without service? Shouldn’t people be rotating their tires every 3-5000 miles anyways?
Tires are not mentioned here. You could rotate them every 10 miles and still have faulty brake disks and axle suspensions.
- Brake disks are not a regular maintenance piece. Brake pads are the pieces that need replacement every 30.000 kilometers, depending on how hard you use them. But brake disks can outlast the car.
- Axle suspension is also not regular maintenance piece. Damper, bushings and springs need supervision and get changed every 80.000 kilometers or so. But to change an axle suspension without a serious hit to the car is very weird.
Unless you are using brake disks and an axle suspension designed for a 1,000 kg lighter car. In that case, you might end with twisted or broken pieces after a few thousand kilometers.
What if the fault results in a failure after 800 miles? How does checking every few thousand help there?
> I don’t know, actually look at your wheels and brakes every few thousand miles instead of let them ride for tens of thousands without service?
Let's read the text further and see the description for the winner, Mazda 2, emphasis mine
--- start quote ---
Mazda 2. Only 2.9 percent of these French-manufactured Japanese hybrid compacts turn up at their first periodic technical inspection with significant faults at an average mileage of 29,000 kilometers.
--- end quote ---
And then:
--- start quote ---
At the bottom of the table, the Tesla Model Y took over in last place from the Tesla Model 3 (17.3 percent). Second to bottom was the Ford Mondeo (14.3 percent), while the third from bottom was the Tesla Model 3 at 13.1 percent.
--- end quote ---
So, at regular inspection intervals (as proscribed by manufacturers and regulators) Teslas show significant faults.
But hey, these are electric cars which don't need regular service!...
...at least that is how they are sold. And people take it seriously.
They cost less to service on average, which is true (at least in my country, Americans are weird with their cars and dealerships).
I think this might be very misleading. I own (in Europe) my 3rd VW.
The reality is, that this check is done in the VW car service, and they do a pre-check. Then they call me on the phone and tell me what they need to fix and how much it will be. I always tell them OK, and they just fix everything before the real check is done. And this is exactly how it always works for all the people I know.
Also, as far as I know, Tesla owners just take the car to a "random" check point and are probably surprised why it didn't pass.
Props for including the "Ü" in the title - although they somehow dropped it in the article text...
I have one in my name, and living in Norway I would've thought we were better at handling "special" characters in names, given that people here are named Bjørn and Åse and Kjærsti. Like, old legacy systems often handle those names, and I would assume they then used Latin-1 (ISO 8859-1) which have æøå and also ü. But for some reason my name has been stuck in loads of systems growing up. Things like porting my phone number not working because the system borked on my name. Or not being able to order something because the system asking for a credit report then jumbled my name so they got nothing in return. Or just because "name doesn't match the one on the card", but it's a system along the way stripping my name. Sigh.
I find any report that lists Mini Cooper and Audi as the most reliable cars to immediately be suspect. I'm not a Tesla or Musk fan by any stretch of the imagination, but Mini and Audi are not known for reliability, at least in their ICE vehicles.
Because TÜV report are bullshit, Audis get checked and fixed by the dealer before the TÜV checks them, of course they have lower failure rates. TÜV competitor Dekra stopped publishing this kind of report years ago because of this https://www.dekra.de/de/dekra-gebrauchtwagenreport/
It sounds like they have much better service departments than Tesla if this is the case
The first two Mini Cooper generations had serious problems, but the newer ones (~2014 onward) are very good. This report only covers recent cars.
This is from November 2025. I suspect it was reposted due to the news[0] of Tesla discontinuing their other models and the Model Y being one of the remaining two (besides the Model 3).
Even that's a generous reading, given that Y and 3 are essentially the same car.
Some discussion then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46064456
That's a very fluffy blurb. They state simply state "drivetrain components" are unreliable on their overall EV set and don't get into any details on why the Tesla are unreliable. You're better off stopping at a Supercharger and asking 10 random strangers how their vehicle has held up.
I just want a chart of total maintenance/running costs per model.
Also maybe a chart of "uptime" per model - ie. how many days in the year on average was it drivable, vs in the shop being repaired/inspected/waiting for parts.
Does anyone make that?
There is an ADAC report, that reports the number of road-side defects per car type that the ADAC was called to fix: https://www.adac.de/rund-ums-fahrzeug/unfall-schaden-panne/a...
And they do provide some statistics about running cost: https://www.adac.de/rund-ums-fahrzeug/auto-kaufen-verkaufen/...
However, both aren't that trustworthy, just better than nothing, because:
The first one about road-side breakdowns is frequently gamed by car manufacturers, because in leasing and warranty contracts they often require the use of their own road-side assistance orgs, thereby bypassing ADAC. So the more expensive German manufacturers are definitely underrepresented there.
And generally, ADAC has been known to produce unreliable tests and statistics: https://www.focus.de/auto/ratgeber/sicherheit/neue-vorwuerfe... https://www.sueddeutsche.de/auto/neue-enthuellungen-sind-auc...
So generally Tesla Model 3/Y appears one of the best in that report...
I assume the denominator is cars registered with ADAC, rather than all cars in germany? Presumably that means those with lease contracts requiring another breakdown service wouldn't affect the stats?
> I assume the denominator is cars registered with ADAC, rather than all cars in germany? Presumably that means those with lease contracts requiring another breakdown service wouldn't affect the stats?
Not quite, the denominator is the number of road-side assistance calls they get.
ADAC has a driver membership system, where you get that assistance for free as part of your membership as a driver. You can still call them as a non-member, and I suppose those calls will factor in the statistics as well, but that is expensive, so it's rare. And you don't register your car with them, so they don't know what their members are driving, you just tell them your membership number and can get assistance for whatever car you are currently driving in.
As pointed out by many here and a report from TUV competitor Dekra:
These numbers are meaningless because the top manufacturers do pre-checks/repairs at the dealer before you go to TUV for inspection.
You can have a read of the Irish stats posted above. No pre-inspection confounders here, all tests performed by an independent body. Teslas fail a lot more than comparable EVs
European propaganda at its finest! > Report doesn't mention which defects were responsible for the Model Y's disappointing performance Because the only thing they really saw were rusty brake discs that aren’t heavily used, because Tesla tries to be really Eco and recovers energy instead of wasting.
> Mercedes will usually receive better care than a cheap Dacia that may never see an authorized repair shop Poor Mercedes. Authorized shops never recommend to replace transmission fluid or do care about engine roughness. Unauthorized shop and Dacia will replace engine oil every 10-15k km or 40-60k km for gearbox and the car can easily do 2-3x more distance than Mercedes. Audi TFSI engines require full rebuild after 120k km because of such servicing, Mercedes V8s break after 25-40k km (valve springs break, cylinders got scratched).
It’s great that for 2nd time in HN this propaganda without facts is spread again. And even if I’m defending Tesla here I love and drive petrol V8s. Not supporting diesel gate, simple maintenance and maybe some day (because they don’t break) easy repairs.
It does indeed look exactly like they support this headline with nothing else than "they are the worst, just trust us bro."
Interesting been driving a Tesla since 2014 - worst issue I had was the seat belt recall - had to drive to the service center for a guy to tug on my seat belt and tell me I was all good… my current 2019 x has been rock solid - due for new tires but otherwise solid
"The most important section is that of 2-3 year old vehicles, because maintenance and mileage play lesser roles in reliability. The best performers in this category were the Mazda2 (2.9% defect rate)"
Once again, my intuition is wildly off regarding how bad even the relatively good things are. 3% defect rate is good?
Tesla seems insane. How do you get away with being so much worse for so many years in a highly competitive market?
Is this once again because electric vehicles don’t get pulled into a mechanics shop every 10,000 miles for their oil to be changed and coincidentally inspected at the same time for mechanical defects that could be caught before they get pulled into a TUV annual inspection?
Hrm, I wonder.
All cars in Germany need an inspection every 24 months (or 36 months from new) - so you'd expect other electric cars to have similar issues here if that was the case.
Other brands force you into doing yearly/x-1000-km inspections to keep your warranty, even for EVs. If you were to skip their inspection cycle, they may decide not to cover the issue, even if it's clearly a warranty case.
You go to the garage for a Tesla only if it's broken.
In my experience with my M3 2019, I think many people don't even realize they have issues, because the cars are generally silent and decently insulated (the Highland even more so). Also, lots of people pay no attention to sounds and general driving feeling their cars make (e.g. steering wheel shaking, clicks doing certain actions, ...). The main/biggest issues with well-kept Teslas are basically suspensions, for which there is no monitoring/sensors, so the car cannot report to you that something's off.
Example #1: I asked the Tesla service center in Dec 2024 for an inspection, because I was leaving for a country with no service centers. Everything was fine after 6y and ~60'000km, they told me to just break every now and then because otherwise the brake rotors will rust. So it'd have likely failed the TUV inspection only for having a little rust on the rotors, otherwise perfectly fine and driveable.
Example #2: last year (after changing country) my rear axle nuts came a bit loose, not enough to be dangerous but enough that the axle/wheel hub interface would have some play (which could potentially become dangerous if you leave it alone for a few thousand kms). You'd hear a clunk from the back when applying torque from a standstill. My wife and mother in law kept insisting everything was fine, that they couldn't hear anything, that it was all in my head. Took it to the mechanic: rear axle nuts were loose, right more than the left one (and I heard the clunk from rear-right). Fixed with 30min labor. Different people, different reactions.
Now I have the front-right wheel clicking at times that is likely the same issue or may have something to do with suspensions, but again, if you ask my wife, everything's fine. And without mandated inspection cycles, you only learn of issues at the mandatory state inspection.
Other brands will have dealerships do "pre-inspection" work. The data may be skewed if certain brands are more likely to have pre-inspection done. Some brands even offer it as a free service - maybe they know the public looks at these numbers. Tesla doesn't care, or doesn't have the infrastructure to offer the same service.
Other brands do have scheduled inspection though.
If this was the case you'd expect a noticeable difference between ICE cars and EVs in the statistics. According to the statistics, EVs are a mixed bag. For instance the Mini Cooper SE and Audi Q4 E-tron have very low defect rates (3.5-4%). Overall defect rates for 2-3 year old EVs seem to be close to that of ICE cars.
Since Tesla have very high failure rates they may be dragging the overall EV numbers down. So the sensible thing to do would probably be to look at reliability of EVs with the Teslas taken out of the dataset and look at what it does to the overall reliability numbers for EVs. I have a feeling it might nudge EVs ahead of ICE cars more clearly.
> Is this once again because electric vehicles don’t get pulled into a mechanics shop every 10,000 miles for their oil to be changed and coincidentally inspected at the same time for mechanical defects that could be caught before they get pulled into a TUV annual inspection?
Last time I saw a TÜV report it was that electric cars show up with a) rather little service checks in between and b) they are too heavy for the axels and that causes wear compared to a regular car.
Other EVs are incomparably better though.
Other EV:s have service inspections as part of the warranty requirements. That means they get inspected by workshops, which means that problems are more likely to be first found during the government inspection.
I don't think the actual quality difference under Equal conditions is a large as the TUV report suggests.
This is the problem with this report. It doesn't mean that the cars break down more often, it means that they are so rarely at the shop that the drivers don't notice the used brake pads, tires etc.
I’m an American living in a state with no roadworthyness inspections so I don’t have any first hand experience with this. But in previous threads, people have mentioned that the typical thing to do is, at the vehicle service (oil change or whatever) prior to the inspection, you mention “hey, my car needs to get the roadworthyness inspection soon, can you look it over for that while it’s in the shop?”. And if something is wrong, it’ll be brought to your attention and fixed before the official inspection. Then you show up for the official inspection and oftentimes, it goes smoothly. The pro-Tesla theory is that BEVs require less service so people don’t catch these things prior to official inspection.
Seems like if that’s true of BEVs generally one could find similar trends with Nissan Leafs, etc.
In my country, most people do the oil change and the roadworthy test at the same time, but we do drive less than in the US.
You'd need to be quite careless not to notice bad breaking on such a heavy car
Not really - EV regen is really good. Even on my 4000 pound Fusion Hybrid, I don’t brake as often as I would in a gasoline powered vehicle because I’m able to coast down on the motor braking itself.
But in an emergency situation you still want it to work and not being rusted away as it is "never" used.
This is a software, not a hardware problem. Suitably intelligent software could gently apply the brakes every now and then in addition to regenerative braking even when it doesn't need to, just to keep the brakes in good condition.
The better you get at this, the more you'll drive around without getting the break pads checked. This also increases the risk of running out of braking power when the car needs it the most, you'll be fine on an easy drive and then rear end the car in front of you or worse.
> This is the problem with this report. It doesn't mean that the cars break down more often, it means that they are so rarely at the shop that the drivers don't notice the used brake pads, tires etc.
The average European drives about 12,000 km (~7500 miles) per year [1]. The maximum inspection period allowed by the EU for most personal cars is 2 years [2].
The average person in the US drives about 13,400 miles (~ 21,500 km) per year [3].
So, roughly, the average European vehicle is inspected after a driving distance which is about the same as that which the average US vehicle puts behind it in a year.
I thus doubt that the Tesla numbers from the article are greatly affected by a lack of inspections.
[1] https://www.acea.auto/fact/fact-sheet-cars/
[2] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2014/45/oj/eng (chapter III, article 5, point 1).
>The maximum inspection period allowed by the EU for most personal cars is 2 years
Your source clearly says that the first inspection needs to be at least four years after registration, so if you now buy a Tesla Model 3, you won't need to have it inspected until 2030. It's how Finland does it, so 4 years to first inspection, then every 2 years until the car is 10 years old, and then every year (4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12…).
> Your source clearly says that the first inspection needs to be at least four years after registration, [...]
That doesn't mean the first inspection is only required after four years, only that it must be required after four years. The countries can still introduce stricter rules, like Germanys TÜV - the first inspection has to happen in the first three years here.
Thanks for pointing out the possibility (but, as someone else pointed out, it's just a possibility - the EU regulation obviously does not set a minimum) of a double gap for new vehicles. On the other hand, don't new vehicles typically see an extra inspection by the manufacturer/dealer early on? (I don't know).
Again, not just a possibility, but lived reality. The maximum inspection interval here is four years.
Again, just because that's the case in Finland doesn't mean it's the case everywhere in Europe.
The maximum in EU cannot be two years if any EU member state allows more than two years.
The regulation is quite clear: in any EU country, inspection must happen at least every 2 years for vehicles older than 4 years. I understand that Finland allows a 4 year gap after first registration. After that, the max period is still 2 years. Individual countries may also require 2 years (or less) during the first 4.
It doesn't mean that the cars break down more often, but it does mean that the average Tesla Model Y on the road is in much worse shape than another car of similar age.
EVs have breaks, suspensions, and tires like all cars. A responsible owner should have his car checked out once a year.
(2025)
Some discussion then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46064456
Can't Musk 'encourage' Germany and EU democracies to vote for the right people and take over a wrecking ball to all these agencies causing mischief to his many and varied businesses? I'm sure there are politicians who need a couple of hundred dollars.
One does not mess with the TÜV, it won't end well. Even in Turkey where they introduced TÜVTÜRK to get Turkey closer to EU regulations.
Fisker owner here, hold my beer
I've been saying for ages that when I see a breakdown truck it most often has some sort of Tesla on the back, and lots of people sneer about that and say I must have some kind of "EV derangement syndrome".
Nope. I do see a lot of broken Teslas.
When they rolled out the Model X I remember the local Tesla dealership having to lease more parking space to fit all the broken Model X. I used to drive past the lot on my way to work, and it was always full and I'd notice cars standing there for weeks.
This is EU's fault because they have democracy and other liberal bullshit, pure woke propaganda.
~ Lord of the Lithium.