The shaken owner says he still doesn’t have answers about why his Model Y self-immolated after two weeks have passed
by Stephen Rivers
3 hours ago
by Stephen Rivers
A man says that after his Model Y inexplicably burned to the ground, Tesla asked him to tow it to a service center. His claims allege a truly brutal customer service experience that adds insult to injury after losing his car. It’s not the first time that Tesla’s after-sale care has come into question.
Bishal Malla is the same man we told you about last week who, after thinking he had a flat tire, pulled over to find smoke pouring out from under his Tesla Model Y. Shortly thereafter the car caught on fire and then burned down to the ground. Malla still isn’t sure what happened.
According to his posts and comments on Reddit, he’s been reaching out to Tesla in hopes of getting answers. “Tesla don’t care about anything. I called them multiple times and it’s not easy to get hold of their customer service,” he claims. According to another post, it’s been two weeks and he still hasn’t received a “single follow-up or check-up call from Tesla.”
Malla told Insider that when he reached out to Tesla’s customer service to complain, they “took the report,” but “no one responded.”
Read: Tesla Blasts Through Crossing Despite FSD Seeing Pedestrian
Malla alleged that “I’ve tried them more than 10 times but those folks at roadside assistance customer service can’t do anything. One agent I talked to had an audacity to tell me to take my fully burned Tesla to the Tesla recommended servicing center.” He hasn’t yet offered any proof of these claims beyond his word.
Many in the comment section on Twitter are rightly pointing out that the man’s issue may be with his insurance company, not with Tesla itself. After all, when most cars suffer similar fates it’s usually an insurance company that steps in to move the vehicle and determine what happened. In this case though it’s worth noting that Tesla provides insurance too. Did it provide insurance on this Model Y? Malla doesn’t say.
We doubt it though because he confirmed online that “Yes, insurance will cover the car.” So he’s clearly communicating with whomever that is. Regardless of what’s actually going on in this case it’s worth noting that Tesla used to be somewhat notorious for poor service. The issue was such a problem that evidently Elon Musk pulled resources from sales and development in the past to increase service quality.
Carscoops has reached out to Tesla and to Mr. Malla in an effort to get a better understanding of the situation and to substantiate these claims. As of this writing, neither party has responded to requests for comment and additional information. Should we hear back from either we’ll update this post.