lost key

Joulee the Free Salvage Tesla is still stuck at the Big Port. We were told that she would ship out on 2024-10-12, but she didn’t and instead we were given several dates, one was 2024-11-03.

We got a call today asking if we could “drop by the port and give us the spare key.” Uh, we’re hundreds of miles and an ocean away.

So after a frustrating discussion with Matson — who is trying to claim that this is somehow all our fault even though they’ve had possession of Joulee since 2024-08-20, I thought I’d better send our agent the whole story as it seems likely Matson has been lying about it (somewhat edited):

Aloha
I just wanted to write out the sequence of events for the Tesla
so that you will have something to share with any folks at
Matson who don’t have the whole story. I think it’s important
that you read this thoroughly so that you have the full context,
as I don’t think Matson has been honest in their dealings with
you (they certainly haven’t been with us).
We dropped the car off at xxxxx on 20-Aug-2024, midday. They
photographed the car, changed some settings, verified that the
state of charge was within their range of 45-65%. In fact, we
had scrupulously followed every requirement and suggestion from
Matson prior to shipping.
We were given an expected delivery date in xxxxx of 30-Sep-2024.
However, the agent said we should check in with customer service
once the ship reached xxxxx because it would probably be
delivered earlier.
Per their instructions, I did not check the status of the car to
avoid battery drain. In fact, I deleted the app from my phone so
that I wouldn’t accidentally trigger it.
I tracked the progress of the ship online, and when it reached
xxxxx we reached out to Matson Customer Service but were told
that there was no new information and that they would contact
our broker as soon as they knew. I believe they said the broker
was “xxxxx,” but we assumed that meant you.
The very next thing we heard, on a call from you on 23-Sep-2024,
is that the car had arrived in xxxxx, it “wouldn’t start,” and
they had already sent it on its way back to xxxxx. At this
point…


Matson had given us assurance that we would be contacted
prior to the car’s arrival in xxxxx. They failed to do so.


They made the unilateral decision to not contact us when the
car was in port, but to transport it to a distant port without
authorization from us. Likely this was purely a decision of
convenience on their part.


It may be that it’s within Matson’s right to make such a
unilateral, extra-contractual decision after taking action to
deprive us of the opportunity to intervene or otherwise mitigate
damage, but by so doing they accrued all liability for the
consequences of that decision.
It should be noted at this point that simply plugging the car
into a standard electrical outlet for a few minutes would have
allowed it to be driven away from the port. Had Matson followed
through on their promise to let us know when the car arrived, we
could have made that happen any one of a number of ways. It
wouldn’t have had any more impact than what happens when a
gasoline-powered vehicle arrives with a dead battery — a
situation which surely occurs if Matson typically takes over 30
days from drop-off to (almost) delivery, as they did in this
case. Instead, Matson’s unilateral decision has damaged the
car’s battery pack, a part which costs $18,000 to repair.
During the call, you put a Matson representative on a conference
call. She said that the port at xxxxx is “too small to have a
tow truck” which is why the car was sent to xxxxx, but that once
in xxxxx they would attempt to charge the car. I explained at
that time that all the necessary charging equipment was in the
front trunk and that all the car would need was to be plugged
into a 120V, a 240V, or a Level 2 EV charger and that the
necessary adapters were all available. The Matson representative
promised that they would let us know what happened when the car
got to xxxxx and they plugged it in.
Instead, we got another conference call with you and “Nathan”
from Matson. Nathan said the car “wouldn’t start” and they
recommend that I call Tesla. We said that we had been told they
would attempt to charge the car, and Nathan said “we tried
everything.” But when I asked him what, exactly, they tried, he
refused to answer and when I asked what happened when they tried
he said “it didn’t work.” He would interrupt whenever we tried
asking questions. At another point he said “there was no plug.”
When we told Nathan that calling Tesla would be a lot more
useful if we knew what had actually been done and what the
results were, and if there was somebody else who might know what
had been done and what happened, he interrupted to say “there
isn’t anybody else” AND HUNG UP.
At this point, and knowing that the car was sustaining damage
while Matson failed in their promise to attempt to charge it, I
had no option except to contact Tesla, arrange to have the car
towed to Tesla where they could perform diagnostics and charge
it, then have it towed back. The direct expenses for that were
in the neighborhood of $700. This also entailed re-installing
the Tesla app, which I was able to use to verify that the car
was, in fact, dropped off at the port after charging.
The car was dropped off at the port on 07-Oct-2024 by the tow
truck driver who, following their long-standing,
frequently-practiced protocol, left the key with the port agent.
You emailed us to let us know that the car was scheduled to sail
on 12-Oct-2024 and we could check the tracking around
16-Oct-2024. Instead, on 15-Oct-2024 we started getting
notifications from the app that the front driver-side door had
been left open. I also noted at that time that the car had been
driven to a different location at the port, where it was now
parked with the door open. Having the door open for several
hours was a concern, as that causes the climate control system
to run which will deplete the battery. In fact, it now seems
likely that it is this sort of negligent behavior on Matson’s
part which led to the depleted battery in the first place as
Tesla was unable to find any technical explanation for the loss
of charge.
Today (18-Oct-2024) we received a call from you stating that
Matson claims they do not have a key to the car. In a conference
call with “Reina” from Matson, she strongly implied that they
never received a key. This is false, as they would have had to
use the key to drive the car around the port. She asked if we
could “drop a spare key off at the port.” (No, we’re on a
completely different island!) It is clear that in the eleven
days they let the car sit around, they treated it with
negligence (leaving one of the doors open) and LOST THE KEY.
So at this point Matson has had our car for sixty days and it is
still nowhere near its destination port (promised for
30-Sep-2024). Matson has damaged the vehicle causing us to have
to spend many stressful hours and $700 mitigating against
further damage. Now they have lost the key and attempted to
blame us for it. We do not know how much damage they did to the
battery pack, but it is notable that Tesla charges a flat fee of
$18,000 to repair any such damage (they don’t do component-level
repairs to batteries). We do not know what it will cost to
replace the key. We do not know how, if, or when we will ever
see our car again.
There are workarounds (for example, I can start the car and
allow it to be driven remotely) but I absolutely do not, at this
juncture, trust that Matson has the competence to deal with the
timing and communication issues that would likely arise.
So that’s the story. If you have any ideas how to proceed, they
would be welcome.
Mahalo,

—2p

← previous|next →