murphaph

I wouldn't buy a car I wasn't allowed to test drive on an Autobahn to be honest. I would be amazed if they said no as the Tesla probably performs better on the Autobahn than the competition with better lane assist and AP software than the other manufacturers.

His basic point was that we should not expect any improvement in build quality from the Grünheide built cars because all these Tesla factories are automated. But they are not automated to the same degree, Fremont being the least automated and where most of the cars failing the TÜV came from. So we should expect an improvement in build quality from Grünheide compared to Fremont. He should just admit that he was unaware that the various tesla factories have different processes and varying degrees of automation and we could move on. I'm moving on anyway as it's a distraction now.   I do wonder as time passes will the used prices of Fremont built cars reflect the anticipated higher TÜV failure rates. One would expect the market to "learn" that Fremont cars are "likely to have problems" and for this to be reflected in the prices of those cars compared to Chinese and German built models. It seems that even the Americans think American built cars are least reliable:   https://www.torquenews.com/1083/study-best-auto-plants-quality-all-outside-united-states   Even if German built cars aren't of better quality, Germans will probably assume they are as most Germans automatically think German cars are best, even where that reputation is not at all justified. I can certainly see a positive bias towards Grünheide cars developing.  

What is your actual point?

The TÜV doesn't care about visual rust on the brakes of any car. All that stuff (steering knuckle, brake caliper, brake discs) are usually made of cast or milled steel. They all have extensive surface rust as a matter of course on pretty much every type of car. They put the car on a brake force tester and if it passes it passes. If it fails it fails. Usually they fail a car because of what's called brake-imbalance in that one side brakes much harder than the other.    The suspension problems seem pretty widespread. I have googled a bit and in Ireland a lot of people had squeaking suspensions and Tesla replaced the control arms free of charge. The later control arms (they have revision letters on them) seem to be identical so the suspicion is they simply contain more grease in the ball joint as squeezing grease into the joint is a known DIY way to fix this problem.

No, the information provided is really great :-)

Thanks a million that is really great! :-)

One more question if I may @PandaMunich...how does income that affects the Progressionsvorbehalt actually appear on the Steuerbescheid or is it just used "internally" by the Finanzamt you can't see where it was used on the Bescheid? I think I may have incorrectly entered rental income once in that section and I would like to check if I did. Can I see that in the Steuerbescheid or is that information only in the Steuererklärung? It's probably too late to have this amended now years later but I am curious.

Thanks a lot Panda. That clarifies things nicely for me!

I think I found a partial answer to this in the Irish tax authority's pension manual: https://www.revenue.ie/en/tax-professionals/tdm/pensions/chapter-23.pdf   So the entirety of this sort of pension income is taxable solely in Ireland if you are a German resident. That simplifies things quite a bit and for most people this will be good news as Ireland has comparatively lower income tax on the sort of sums most people could expect to draw down from an ARF.   Still not sure if this income would affect the Progressionsvorbehalt, but I guess not as an Irish state pension would not do so also because of the DTA.

You insinuated that the cars (worldwide) were put together almost exclusively by robots and that therefore there would be no difference in quality levels between the US production runs and the German production runs (which I suggested there might be). I simply highlighted that the US builds at Fremont were clearly hand-assembled to a significant extent or there would be no need to employ 22k people there. The Grünheide plant seems more automated than Fremont, so that should in fact have a positive impact on build quality, which is what you were disputing originally!

Hmmm, there are several of these vids on YouTube so this is a common problem but to be honest the fix is easy for any half competent DIY mechanic. Doesn't even cost anything to fix them and I am actually impressed with how easy the Model 3 seems to work on in this area.  

Thanks for the details! That's something to watch out for. I hope it's not another VW B5 platform type thing that basically affects every single vehicle. The symptoms were the same, though in the VW/Audi the creak would become a loud clunk after a while.

Can you say what the problem was exactly? Was it also a Model 3 in your case?

I agree with Krieg. There are EVs with very slow acceleration but these are in the minority. One should be aware that they do exist however! There are also surely some EVs with poor handling, just as there are loads of ICEs with poor handling. The steering and suspension still needs to be engineered well, regardless of the power train used. Some cars are much better than others in both ICE and EV forms.   Personally I think we are at a real turning point in EV development. The (effective) ban on ICEs from 2035 (even if e-fuels are allowed in new vehicles registered after then, they are so expensive to make that hardly any fool will buy a vehicle that needs them!) will see and is already seeing massive amounts of research and development going into EVs. This research will continue to pay dividends and I am sure we will be seeing ranges comparable to ICEs by the time the ban is in force and also that DC rapid charging by then will offer recharging at speeds comparable to filling up at a petrol station.

Yay! I think you're safe enough. The culture here is not one of unannounced sympathy strikes. The general practice always seems to be when the DB strikes, the BVG does its best to get people around the city and vice versa. You should be fine on all the BVG modes, bus, tram and U-Bahn (not forgetting the ferries lol). Good luck with your OP!