- May 2019 – Online rumours start to discuss the issue, some members discuss it but it doesn’t appear to be an issue in the UK
- July 2019 – We start to notice the first owners being charged £2550 for a new MCU with symptoms inline with May 2019 TMC posts.
- July 2019 – We inform owners that this should be covered under consumer law and/or warranty
- August 2019 – More owners appear to have the issue
- September 2019 – We request feedback from members on issues and eMMC is a recurring theme
- November 2019 – In a meeting, we raise the issue with Tesla UK management and we’re told by Tesla UK the highest levels of engineering are looking at the issue but that this issue will be investigated on a case by case basis within service, within this same meeting we discuss UK consumer law and how our members are protected by this but that Tesla doesn’t always appear to pre-emptively follow it in our opinion. Tesla stated they intend to follow the UK law at all times and for us to bring any examples to their intention, they would investigate the issue.
- December 2019 – We request a new digital escalation method for UK customer concerns to stop people having to write letters etc – This is actioned + a statement from Tesla UK management
- January 2020 – We request Tesla UK provides us an update on the issue
- Jan 2020 – We poll Facebook members to get an idea of the scale of the issue
- Jan 2020 – We create this article to highlight consumer law, warranty documents and how to escalate beyond Tesla
- Feb 2020 – We create a public document explaining the issue / solutions / consumer rights
- Feb 2020 – Owners are being informed that they’re being asked to pay for diagnostics on their issues, we escalate this is troubling and putting owners off to Tesla
- Feb 2020 – Tesla provide further clarification on the charging for diagnostics and state they do NOT have a tool to check the overall health of the eMMC but that the service departments have access to multiple automated diagnostic tools to investigate issues experienced by customers. Each issue is dealt with on a one-on-one basis and more information might be given if people escalate the issue using the escalation methods listed on this page and the Facebook post in the announcements.
- May 2020 – We create a form to help us better understand the scope of the issue and remind people of their consumer rights and continue to explain the issue and options to members with symptoms or failed MCUs
- May 2020 – We remind Tesla UK that these major issues are damaging the brand
- May 2020 – We raise this issue with Elon’s team
- May 2020 – We’re evaluating and seeing if we can update our consumer rights and warranty information pages for members
- May 2020 – The executive committee continues to discuss our options and we await further responses from Tesla.
- May 2020 – We’ve secured an exclusive £50 discount on eMMC upgrades
- May 2020 – We’ve completed an analysis of the results from our survey
- May 2020 – You can view the data from our members that had the issue here.
- June 2020 – We co-sign and send a letter to Tesla’s EMEA Management alongside 15 other clubs [information on what this letter consisted of coming soon]
- June 2020 – We send the following email to Tesla UK
- June 2020 – We send additional responses to the Tesla EMEA Management
- June 2020 – We receive further clarification and publish an update (see below)
- June 2020 – A post is made which appears to contain hypothetical scenarios, e.g. Tesla refusing to work on cars that have had 3rd party repairs etc. We make contact with Tesla to request an update and see if any of the scenarios are true, awaiting update, a 3rd party repairer in the comments explains what happens and appears to put minds at rest.
- July 2020 – We notice the warranty for these replacements parts is reduced from 4 years to 2 years OR 25,000 miles
- July 2020 – Tesla inform us that price is reduced to £920 (inc VAT) + labour for a new remanufactured MCU with upgraded 64GB eMMC chip
- July 2020 – We get a response to the June 2020 post about the hypothetical scenarios, it confirms the post was effectively fake news, Tesla reminded all owners that they don’t recommend 3rd party repair.
- July 2020 – We’re in the final process of adding documents from the London Law Firm to the website for pair supporters
- August 2020 – We finalise the documents and ability for paid supporters to seek free 10 minutes of legal advice
- August 2020 – We explained to Elon’s team, EU escalation teams and some of the UK management team (based on the results from a poll we ran) how the eMMC issue is crippling UK owners with vehicles older than March 2018 and whilst some UK owners are welcoming of the price reduction from £2500 down to £920 for an upgraded 64GB MCU1 this issue is still massively damaging the Tesla brand and it’s clear to the committee that this wasn’t fit for purpose. We also made it clear that the stance taken by Tesla, effectively saying the eMMC chips are wear and tear items, should be urgently reconsidered before further damage is incurred. We spoke with top level management at Tesla US to discuss MCU2 upgrades/eMMC issue etc; in short they say it’s the biggest priority for service globally.
- August 2020 – We update our eMMC page with the latest info and the fact MCU2 replacements are looking to be coming soon
- August 2020 – Tesla will soon offer a daughterboard upgrade (a smaller section of the MCU1 which holds the eMMC on) for European vehicles, which will mean those having a failed MCU due to the eMMC wear won’t be faced with a £2500, £1800 or £980 bill but one closer to £300 (final pricing not confirmed, it’s based on a $340 repair bill we’ve seen in the US). Note: We as a club still believe this should be a Free of Charge repair and we will continue to push for this, however, it’s still a welcome change.
- September 2020 – We raised this issue directly with Elon
- September 2020 – Daughterboard upgrade options available in the UK for £314
- September 2020 – MCU1>MCU2 upgrades available in the UK for £2000+VAT
- October 2020 – We now advise members to take it legal with Tesla if they believe this isn’t being suitably addressed – Paid members get 10-minute free consultation with London Law Firm here
- October 2020 – We publicised this letter to a member that was seeking further clarification on this issue
- UPDATE NOVEMBER 2020: Tesla publicly announces fundamental changes to the warranty to address the situation. We continue our two way conversation with Elon and thank Tesla for finally sorting. We thank the teams in the UK and EMEA that also pushed this issue for us.
- April 2021 we speak with head of EMEA for an update.
- UPDATE 1ST FEB 2021 – We receive confirmation of a policy change as outlined in this statement
- May 2021 – In a meeting with Tesla UK management raises total of 0 refunds to date
- June 2021 – We push at Tesla for a further update as still no refunds
- June 9th 2021 – The first refunds arrive into accounts
eMMC failures on MCU1
What the Telsa Owners UK club has done to alleviate charge gate issues experienced by owners