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Old 5th December 2017, 06:53   #1
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Daimler rents a couple's Tesla, then torture tests & disassembles it

... and then asks the owner to claim insurance.

They claim it is a standard industry practice.

http://jalopnik.com/mercedes-parent-...opnik_facebook
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Old 5th December 2017, 09:11   #2
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Re: Daimler rents a couple's Tesla, then torture tests & disassembles it

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... and then asks the owner to claim insurance
One would think that Daimler has enough money to buy and dismantle its own cars. Also, more importantly, knows how to put a car back together again.
The note in the glove-box hasn't been explained though.
Hope the couple gets back its money.

The rental cars in India go through a similar amount of abuse, not from manufacturers but individuals. My one visit to the Zoomcar yard showed any number of damaged vehicles. Wonder how the owners of these cars make any money.
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Old 5th December 2017, 09:26   #3
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Re: Daimler rents a couple's Tesla, then torture tests & disassembles it

There are companies which provide professional bench-marking services. Why not just get their services? This is outright unprofessional on the part of a giant like Daimler.
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Old 5th December 2017, 15:11   #4
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Re: Daimler rents a couple's Tesla, then torture tests & disassembles it

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There are companies which provide professional bench-marking services.
In this case, it's possible they haven't benchmarked the Model X.

Also these benchmarking services are good when you want to know the basics, but in a case like this the engineers could probably get a lot more from having hands-on time with the car.


Nonetheless, shocking that this even happened.
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Old 5th December 2017, 16:09   #5
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Re: Daimler rents a couple's Tesla, then torture tests & disassembles it

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Originally Posted by Rehaan View Post
In this case, it's possible they haven't benchmarked the Model X.

Also these benchmarking services are good when you want to know the basics, but in a case like this the engineers could probably get a lot more from having hands-on time with the car.


Nonetheless, shocking that this even happened.
Stripping and torture testing a competitor's car is not out of the ordinary.

But they usually BUY the car first, possibly through a third party agency to ensure anonymity and confidentiality. Renting a car and then returning it damaged is utterly reprehensible.

There are some specialist agencies that do exactly this sort of thing, serve as a third party intermediary to make covert / double blind purchases that should not be traced back to the original company for confidentiality reasons.
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Old 5th December 2017, 16:38   #6
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Re: Daimler rents a couple's Tesla, then torture tests & disassembles it

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There are some specialist agencies that do exactly this sort of thing, serve as a third party intermediary to make covert / double blind purchases that should not be traced back to the original company for confidentiality reasons.
Manufacturers used to buy cars and tear them down to understand inner workins and perform a cost analysis. One enterprising engineer who understood the methodology decided to buy the cars and tear them down and sell the same report to various manufacturers. They save money on buying and tearing down cars. I beleive there is an anonymous farm outside Paris where this is done

The only reason for "renting" would have been to stress test as well as get the "hands-on" feel.
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Old 5th December 2017, 21:15   #7
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Re: Daimler rents a couple's Tesla, then torture tests & disassembles it

Since tesla sells direct to consumer without an intermediary dealer etc, could it be that they wanted to avoid any intimation to the company? I would think they could avoid it easily by buying a used one, but probably they wanted a fresh car(relatively).
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Old 5th December 2017, 22:12   #8
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Re: Daimler rents a couple's Tesla, then torture tests & disassembles it

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Since tesla sells direct to consumer without an intermediary dealer etc, could it be that they wanted to avoid any intimation to the company? I would think they could avoid it easily by buying a used one, but probably they wanted a fresh car(relatively).
As I said earlier, there are specialized agencies which do this sort of anonymous buying - they are quite regularly used for competitor market research. Diamler could have used one of several vendors in this space.

Or they could have one of their employees' wives, friends etc buy a Tesla and then acquire the car from them, if they don't want to pay a vendor for this.

Whatever the case, there are plenty of ways to acquire a Tesla for themselves rather than having to demolish a rental.
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