A dealership CEO posted a video of him calling the new owner of a Tesla after hearing there was an issue with the battery. The dealership and Tesla have differing opinions on what happened to the vehicle.
Alex (@evautoalex) reached over 39,000 likes on his viral TikTok of his conversation with the car owner and a Tesla advisor. He captioned his video telling viewers, “Helping one of our customers with a 12 volt battery problem and figuring out how it happened!”
To start his video Alex sits at a desk as he explains how he is going to call a recent customer of his dealership. He says the customer bought a Tesla but shortly after purchasing, the 12-volt battery had a warning alert that said it needed to be replaced.
“Which is super common and not expensive,” he explains. When the customer called Alex about the issue, Alex says the company agreed to reimburse him for a new battery.
In order for the customer to get a new battery, Alex said, “we’ll totally pay for that,” and directed him to set up a service appointment with Tesla. “They’ll fix it and we’ll Venmo you the money,” he adds.
Unfortunately, Alex says the customer waited about five days before doing anything which caused the car to die. “Cause it’s the small battery,” he explains, “the 12 volts… that kind of gets the car started.”
The customer makes an appointment at Tesla. There, he learns the car has a salvage title.
What is a salvage title?
As CarMax subsidiary Edmunds writes, a salvage title is the label a car gets when the insurance company “has deemed it too expensive to repair and declared it a total loss. Whoever either chooses to repair the vehicle to sell it again or decides to use it for parts must apply for a salvage or ‘junk’ title, respectively. If it’s the repair route, the repairs must be completed and the car must pass a safety inspection, and then the state’s motor vehicle agency issues a rebuilt salvage title to inform future owners that the title is no longer ‘clean’—a term often referenced in used car listings.
The camera then cuts to a clip of Alex talking on the phone with James, the new Tesla owner. After explaining to James that he hasn’t heard back from Tesla after contacting them twice, Alex says “we have the full Carfax in front of us on that car, and it’s clean as clean.”
“No accidents,” he continues, “certainly no salvage or branded title.”
Alex mentions that the vehicle comes from one previous owner in California, and he insured that the car had all of the right requirements before purchasing. “I never would have bought the car, period, if it had any issues” he adds.
Tesla’s fault or the dealership’s?
Alex reminds James saying, “I know you trust us,” but he would never sell a car with a branded title. He further explains how he called Tesla and told them that he doesn’t understand how someone could even hide a salvage title.
“That’s why I’m not… extremely irritated or put out by this,” James says on the phone. He then mentions that Tesla told him that they have only seen this on a car once or twice, but that they can’t do anything about fixing it.
“They deemed it a salvage title… all of the battery warranties are void on it,” James says. He asks Alex to speak with the owner who he purchased the Tesla from in California to see if that could help solve the problem.
“That’s true if it’s a salvage title,” Alex responds, “but again, it’s not. There’s a mistake.”
Alex tells James that he asked Tesla to do a high voltage inspection on the car, and that whoever James spoke to prior was not telling him the right facts. He explains that when Tesla checked in the car at James’ appointment, the check system told them that car was a salvage title, “they didn’t deem it one,” themselves.
He says this caused Tesla to “throw their hands up” and tell James that they won’t work on salvage titles. “You don’t keep the car, we don’t keep the car,” Alex assures James.
Before calling Tesla a third time he says, “I’m still pretty dang optimistic that it’s a mistake, not an actual thing.”
So what caused the Tesla’s salvage title designation in the first place?
A Tesla advisor answers Alex’s call and he almost immediately asks for her to explain what happened with James’ car. The advisor says that a technician found structural damage and an alert for a high voltage battery replacement, which alludes to the car having been in an accident before.
“So someone might have not reported this accident and they probably got it fixed at a different shop,” she continues. “Paid out of pocket and then auctioned it off.”
She also mentions that she doesn’t know the history of the car, so this is why it doesn’t show up as salvage on Carfax. However, the Tesla computer picks up on this and logs a “severe” crash.
“We have to run tests on it to make sure that it’s safe for our technicians,” she says.
In response, Alex first tells the advisor that he has the physical title with him. It’s clean, “so it’s not possible for somebody to pay cash and not have the title impacted.”
“Also, if it was in a severe accident there’d be a police report, and there’s no police report on the Carfax,” Alex adds.
He next asks for the date of which the Tesla system marked the car as being in an accident.
“No,” she quickly responds. “That’s internal knowledge. It’s not allowed to release that information… we just see that there is structural damage to it,” she says.
‘I can’t release any information’
Going back and forth with one another, Alex says that structural damage is potentially very different from salvage title, and that he has a physical title that is clean. Despite this, the advisor insists that either way, the car is still in the Tesla system as salvage.
“I can’t release any information besides what I just released to you,” she says. She then suggests Alex go to Tesla legal if he would like to receive further information of the vehicle, but there isn’t anything else she can release.
A user told Alex in the comment section of his video, “It’s very rare these days to find dealers like you that actually care about the customer and make things right. Kudos to you and all the other dealers like you!”
“I’ll never buy a Tesla, used or new after watching this,” another said.
However one user said, “The right thing to do is take the car back and have him purchase another one. This shouldn’t be the buyer’s issue.”
@evautoalex Helping one of our customers with a 12 volt battery problem and figuring out how it happened! #cardealership #cardealership #evauto #tesla ♬ original sound – EV Auto Alex
Alex responded, “already did. took the car back right away. full refund. never a question.”
The Daily Dot reached out to request a comment from Alex via TikTok comment section and DM and Tesla via email.
Internet culture is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here. You’ll get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.
