Stoke-on-Trent billionaire John Caudwell vented his anger on social media after his £90,000 Tesla Model X broke down – on the day the four-year warranty ran out.
The 72-year-old ex-used car salesman suggested Tesla needed to ‘up their game’ after the ‘catastrophic failure’ left him with no wheels and he struggled to get help. He shared a photo if his Tesla stricken in the snow at his Ecclehsall mansion on Facebook.
John, who grew up in Shelton and Bentilee, wrote: “‘Tesla really needs to up their game to survive, let alone prosper. What kind of appalling customer service is this?
“My Tesla Model X broke down the day the four-year warranty expired. Or possibly just before. While still under warranty, we charged it overnight, and by morning – despite being fully charged – it wouldn’t move. You’d think this would be straightforward to resolve, but not with Tesla.”
John, who made his fortune by starting Phones4U which he sold in 2006 for £1.5 billion, explained he could not speak to a person for help and instead had to go through the app.
He added: “Frustrated, my security drove (in another car) over an hour to the nearest Tesla dealership, only to be told the earliest available appointment was three weeks away. Otherwise, I’d have to arrange a costly, specialised transport to get the car there because the Model X requires a specific loading method.”
He said that the main high-voltage battery, which powers the car, has its own eight-year warranty, so if the problem was with that, the repair would be covered. But if it was the 12-volt auxiliary battery, that’s part of the expired four-year overall warranty and he would have to pay.
The former Berryhill High School student, whose main home is a mansion near Eccleshall, said: “Up to now, I’ve generally loved my Tesla and its many innovations. It’s a pleasure to drive – despite autonomous controls occasionally dangerous brake-slamming – and I love that it’s environmentally-friendly.
John Caudwell on Titania
(Image: OK! Magazine / James Rudland)
“But all of this has really disgusted me and soured my experience of the brand. In light of the lack of customer service, we worked on the car ourselves and found, as suspected, the critical 12-volt battery discharged
“After externally charging it, all was good, though we still have no idea why this catastrophic failure occurred. Given their recent reduction in sales and the Chinese onslaught in the EV market, Tesla really need to up their game to survive, let alone prosper.”
As well as his Eccleshall home, John also owns a 45,000 square foot home in Mayfair which is a far cry from his humble beginnings in Stoke-on-Trent. He abandoned his A-levels to become an apprentice at Michelin, and worked for several years there as an engineering foreman while gaining a HNC in mechanical engineering.
In 1987 Caudwell registered Midland Mobile Phones as a mobile phone wholesaler, initially taking 26 Motorola mobiles at £1,350 each. It took eight months to sell these 26 phones to local plumbers, taxi drivers and television repairmen at a price of £2,500 each. The company made a loss every month for the first two years of operations..
The business became the Caudwell Group, which included an independent mobile phone network service provider called Singlepoint and high street mobile shop Phones4U which he sold for £1.5bn in 2006.
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