Elon Musk may have a rat problem.
Fans of the South African billionaire’s electric cars say rats, mice and rodents chew on their Teslas. And even though Tesla lost tens of thousands of dollars buying the expensive vehicles, Tesla refuses to cover the damage
Sarah Williams, a 41-year-old medical doctor who lives in Manhattan and uses her Tesla to commute to work in the Bronx, told The Post about an alarming incident while she was a Tesla dealer in Paramus, NJ, her Model 3 in mid-2018 brought. May after their air conditioning stopped working.
“You opened the glove box and a rodent fell out,” she said. “It’s crazy.”
The pest apparently found its way into Williams Tesla, intertwining several internal wires insulated with soy instead of oil, which critics say makes it more attractive to rodents.
When Williams – who paid $ 59,200 for their car – complained, the company refused to help. The repair took more than a month and the estimated cost rose to over $ 5,000, she said.
Despite repeated promises that the expensive vehicle will be ready soon, Williams was unable to pick up their Tesla at the time of this release – almost two months later.
“Most automakers use soybean vs. oil in their wire insulation for newer vehicles because it’s cheaper and more environmentally friendly,” Tesla service advisor Jose Solis wrote in an email to Williams shared with The Post. “Use of this material would not be considered a ‘defect’ in design or use … Because there are too many factors beyond Tesla’s control, we cannot provide a warranty or repair to cover this.”
Solis is right that it’s not just Telsa.
Automakers have been slammed for years with complaints about their supposedly rat-friendly soy-based wiring. And like Tesla, they have all refused to cover the damage, claiming that rats chewing on car interiors are a result of nature and therefore not their problem.
“It’s a long-known fact that rodents are attracted to chew on electrical wiring in homes, cars, or any other place where they can nest,” Honda told the Chicago Sun-Times in June of the effort from an Illinois man, one class lawsuit against it.
Tesla only appears to be unique so far because it has escaped legal action related to its use of soy materials. But that could change as complaints about rats in Teslas seem to be rising along with the popularity of the brand, which is now valued at $ 632 billion.
Toby Bateson, a British inventor who developed a product that keeps rats out of vehicles, said his company had seen particular interest from Tesla drivers.
“We get a lot of inquiries from Tesla owners because they seem prone to the problem,” he said, adding that his company was contacted by about 150 Tesla owners with rodent problems over the past year.
Bateson sells a product called the RatMat, which he calls a “horizontal electric fence,” which prevents rodents from entering vehicles. In New York, the RatMat is sold by a Kips Bay company called HoneyDoBoys, which charges about $ 1,500 to $ 1,700 for a single system the size of a parking lot, the company’s owner Paul Turzio told the Post.
Bateson said that in addition to the cable damage, some Tesla owners told him that their brake cables had been chewed by rodents “to the point where the car became unusable.”
Other Tesla owners who have complained about rats include a user on the Tesla Motors Club forum who complained that his 5-month-old electric vehicle “went nuts” after a mouse chewed through the coolant hose could be made from soy materials, although it is unclear whether this is the case with Tesla.
“Apparently this is not uncommon for electric cars,” complained the user.
And that year, a supposed Tesla owner complained on Reddit that his brand new Model 3 was undrivable due to rat damage just two weeks after it was shipped. Several other users have also complained about damage from mice and squirrels on the forum.
The Post did not immediately receive a response to a request for comment from Tesla owned by Elon Musk, who was nicknamed “Muskrat” as a child according to a 2009 New Yorker profile.
The complaints come as concerns about rats have grown across the board.
The number of rodent complaints on New York City’s 311 hotline rose 80 percent in March as the economy reopened to 2,906 – even above the 2,395 level in March 2019, Bloomberg recently reported.
One reason could be that rats were forced to change their habits during the pandemic when their normal food sources dried up, including moving to empty office buildings, Pest.co.uk said.
“We are preparing for a busy 2021,” said Jenny Rathbone of Pest.co.uk.
Meanwhile, more Teslas are being introduced to rat-infested areas like the Big Apple. At least one Model 3 is currently in use as a Yellow Cab – and according to Business Insider, hundreds more will be put into service in the coming years.
Williams says she wouldn’t recommend any other New Yorker to buy Teslas until the company has made their vehicles rodent-proof.
“It could be a disaster for me if I’m really fast on the highway and grab something in my glove compartment and a rat crawls out. “Who cares if you have this great technology if there’s a rat in there eating the wires?”
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