Tesla would do well to distance themselves from Musk, for a lot of reasons. But it may be too late - the damage to their reputation may already be fatal.
They could definitely bounce back if the board fired him and the new head of the company made changes that actually made the cars better, rather than make the model numbers spell S3XY or have the horn make a fart noise for a premium or make and sell whatever the fuck the
Powell Motors HomerCybertruck is.The problem is that Elons con man routine is the only reason Tesla is so overvalued. I’m sure they are afraid that if they let him go the stock price would readjust to a reasonable market price.
No matter what you think of him, he is brilliant at conning a tech enthusiast’s money out of their wallets.
Oh, it’s not the only reason, and the other may actually be worse. They sold $1.8 billion of carbon credits to other auto manufacturers last year. Which is pretty much free money to them. And hastens climate change, but, you know, free money.
That just comes with the territory of being wealthy, which he lucked into thanks to Peter Thiel taking a liking to him (probably because he wanted to fuck him). People confused the companies he invested in which happened to be successful despite him, and would probably more successful if he weren’t involved- see SpaceX when Shotwell took over day-to-day operations.
Lots of people, otherwise smart people, smell someone with money and say, “I want to go to there” because they think wealth can be transmitted through close contact.
I call it the Biggest Asshole in the Room strategy. Capitalists can be extremely successful by simply being the biggest asshole in the room. Smarter, more talented, better comnected people will cater to the biggest asshole in the room simply because it makes life easier to appease them. See also: Trump, Jobs, Bezos, Gates, anybody on Shark Tank, Ortega, Murdoch, Koch Bros, etc., all masters of the strategy. It’s a personality type that aligns perfectly with the free market where inertia and friction generate profit from the work of creation, innovation, and productivity.
Nah this iant true at all. I covered this in another xomment so Im gonna copypasta it here…
Tesla has the following:
Custom AI silicon designed by the designer of Apple’s M1 chip. It’s designed for training. They are about to scale it massively to create the Dojo supercomputer. They look to be on par with NVidia on performance/$. No small feat, and means they arent reliant on NVidia
They have custom inferrence chips used in all of their cars and their android robot. It gets fantastic performance per watt. My 5 year old car has first-gen inferrence chips and it’s still getting better with software… meaning it hasnt reached its potential. The latest chip design is probably much better, but I dont know much about it
They have possibly the best humanoid hands and arms that will work with this AI goodness.
Their walking and navigation is looking to be top notch… We’ll see
FSD really is incredible. I drive with it and it improves every year. Just got 12.3 and it’s pretty bomb.
Tesla solar is still a thing. The model 3 kinda derailed development a while back and it never really recovered. I think competitors are doing well and Tesla sees better returns on their other projects. Tesla needs to bring down their Solar prices which they just dont seem to be doing. Im guessing they dont want to scale manufacturing yet.
They have some of the largest casting machines on the planet and press out the frames of their cars for far cheaper than their competition can stamp and weld theirs. Stellantis and Toyota are adopting this manufactiring strategy as fast as they can, but they are a year or maybe 2 behind. I suspect Ford, VW and GM are adopting this too.
Tesla factory floors are much more efficient at iterating and improving. Their in-house software for managing workers and workflow development are unique to Tesla. Just look at the efficient packaging of their HVAC system after dozens of iterations every year for a couple years. It’s by far the best HVAC in the car world.
They have developed a lithium clay extraction process that vastly reduces chemical waste and water usage. They’re still 5 or so years out from implementing this in even a small capacity and clay extraction isnt guaranteed to be superior to spodumene. I expect the efforts they’re putting to this will pay off in 15 years.
They own lithium clay rights in Nevada where some of the richest Lithium clay deposits are. I think theyre doing permitting for mining, which will probably take to the end of the decade. Mining’s crazy
They offer the best price for grid-scale batteries and are growing that business faster than their cars grew. Hawaii just replaced their last coal peaker plant with Tesla batteries. California and Australia are saving a lot of money with them. The batteries pay for themselves when used to replace peaker plants and stuff to maintain frequency.
They are growing so-called virtual power plants and have been doing extremely well in a few test locations in Texas, Australia and Puerto Rico. I think the UK too?
After funding and working with the inventor of the lithium battery’s team they’ve been getting first looks at new battery chemistry. The thick walls of their 4680 are designed with adding silicon in mind. I suspect theyre testing this out at Kato road production facility.
They’ve collected a bunch of battery manufacturing patents over the years and their dry-electrode process is providing very good economics. Getting them to scale has been excruciatingly slow, but they’re about to triple capacity this year in Texas and I think are starting development of another iteration of their 4680 battery production process at their Kato road facility right now.
They are on track for becoming a top-three battery manufacturer by the end of the decade.
GM and Ford’s battery packs are like 5 years behind tesla’s. Tesla packs more battery in less volume using less weight with better thermals and ridgidity. Their packs are a lot cheaper to produce too.
Tesla claims they have a ferro magnet motor in development. We’ll see. If so, watch out for very cheap electric cars with no rare-earths or cobalt
They just signed deals with BP and an another conglomerate to sell chargers for the other business’ charging infrastructure. More volume means cheaper manufacturing for their own charging stations too.
All cars will soon have the NACS plug so everyone will be able to charge at a Tesla station… Which is the largest and most reliable charging network in the world.
Battery prices keep falling. Gas cars are going to have to compete with cheaper electric by the end of the decade. Tesla isnt competing with other electric car makers so much as it’s competing with fossil fuels. Electric will win this. The faster the better
Elon has contributed to these only in a “we’re gonna fund these wild ideas!” Way. Like Edison. He’s smart and avoided bad projects and embraced fast failing to great success… Things are maturing and I dont think there’s much value to get from Elon…
Tesla will be fine without Elon. I’d argue better.
The only fear of Elon leaving would be big oil investors buying control and derailing things… I dont think that’ll happen though. I think enough investors are in it specifically to eliminate fossil fuel dependency.
The fear of Elon staying is he drags Tesla into his edgelord bullshit and uses it to dick over the world as hard as he and some dictator/billionaire friends can… Which seems more likely
After he derailed the CA bullet train with his hyperloop hyperbole and joked on twitter abould the Bolivian coup, I dont trust his ass one bit.
I think the problem with these claims is that they’re all being made by Musk. Who has proven time and time again that he over-promises and under delivers literally every project he associates himself with.
If we actually look at where they are actually making their money it’s primarily just in their vehicle sales/leasing. They aren’t a silicon valley start up, they are a vehicle manufacturer, and when we analyze them as such, there is no real way to equate them with having 10x the market cap of ford.
I dont trust his ass one bit.
I don’t know how you could not trust him one bit, yet trust that what he claims Tesla is doing is what Tesla is actually doing. Custom ai chip, dojo super computer, android robot with the best hands…all of these seem like marketing scams. How does this improve the sale of cars to a significant degree? Seems like he’s just like every tech bro in the country scrambling for the new block chain, or VR type marketing gimmick.
They’re all fields of study that already have huge companies that have already invested significant amounts of capital and research on. What makes us assume that Tesla is going to be able to profit from these ventures when they haven’t even figured out how to make a truck?
I’m not claiming that Tesla is a worthless company, I just don’t think they’re worth 10x more than the most popular vehicle manufacturer in America.
I only have one question about the Cyber truck. Why haven’t I ever seen a rusty DeLorean, especially considering I have seen DeLoreans that lived in KY, GA, MS, AL, and LA
(Louisiana, not the city in California, not to be confused with Canada. Why TF do we reuse so many two-four letter abbreviations?)
The general theory is that they used a cheaper grade of stainless, specifically one that is still magnetic because it makes material handling easier during manufacture, meaning higher iron content, meaning more prone to rust if you don’t pay extra for the clear vinyl wrap. People will say the “real” name of the material is “stain less” steel, which is not true – “stainless steel” is just 1910’s marketing wank – but it is accurate enough as a description.
You won’t see rusting DeLoreans because there wasn’t very many made and they have always been something special. If you’re seeing one, it’s been cared for. But find one in a junkyard, they might not have that shine
Jerry, what’s the sticker on this thing?
Maybe. But they’re not the only game in town when it comes to electric cars anymore. There are real auto manufacturers with good reputations making them now.
I agree. I was just speaking in the abstract about Tesla in specific and how they could potentially save themselves.
I doubt they will though.
the damage to their reputation may already be fatal
Definitely. Tesla = Musk in my mind and always has been ever since it blew up with promises of a greater tomorrow that never materialized. All it did was up the EV competition, imo.
Yeah there was a time I thought they were enviable. Now it would just be such an embarrassment.
I’m someone who’s buying an EV and due to Elon alone, I won’t buy a Tesla. I’ve wanted one for so long but waited for the data to show how well they hold up after years of use and now that the data is out, I’m buying a non-Tesla. Thanks Elon, you moron.
I literally sold mine because I was embarrassed to drive one after Musk called that cave diver a pedophile.
Ugh… I almost forgot about that. What an insufferable jerk he turned out to be.
I have a datapoint of 1, but I’ve also heard from my wife that when she’s traveling outside the US, so many cab companies and rideshare drivers have started using Teslas that the brand prestige is taking a hit, regardless of quality (which is also low).
Interesting… where I’m from most cabs are Mercedes limousines. I never heard about people thinking less of Mercedes because they are popular with taxi drivers.
Sure, be repelled by the dork, but stay away because of the unsafe lack of tactile dashboard controls.
The fact that they removed the stalks on the steering column so all functions are on the screen is reason enough. Do I really want to slide my finger up/down to change from D to R? I know they have wipers on the steering wheel, as well as turn signals but the changing of gears? Hard pass.
The damage to their design certainly could be reversed though.
Didn’t someone have a picture of a Tesla in the wild with a bumper sticker that read something like: “I bought this before I knew Elon was a complete idiot.”
I’ve seen that sticker in person, multiple times.
Also seen a few Teslas that were completely debranded.
Unfortunately, debadging is a pretty common thing in the car community regardless of how well liked the car is
I see it on a lot of BMWs
Option from the factory.
And then you get people who not only have the premium badges but also a license plate that say the cars make or model AND a frame around the plate that also says it lul. I see it all the time in Cali. I want to de badge my car, mostly cause if they want me to advertise for them they should be paying me. It’s just that the front and back badges are indented Into the car and I haven’t found any replacements I like. I also haven’t found any custom maker online, maybe I just need to commission a 3d printer to try something for me.
Lol, my Chevy bolt was debranded when I bought it.
Didn’t realize that. Purely anecdotally, I don’t recall seeing any debadged cars other than Teslas out on the road, but it’s not like I’ve been looking for them.
Debranded? Nice. I dislike that modern cars are covered in logos and tacky chrome symbols and words. Give me a nice plain car with nothing but paint on the outside.
someone needs to make some car badges that have the same style and size as the T logo to replace them with. maybe a big ‘F’ for Fucklas or something
Buying that for my neighbor. We’re both Jews. Called him out last year and he acknowledged it but they bought the car a while ago.
No shit. My lease on the Model 3 I got in 2020 is up in a few months and the requirements we had for the replacement was “anything but Tesla”.
(which turned out to be a VW ID.7)
“No shit” we’re the first words in my head too. Will be buying electric in the summer and the list starts with anything-but-Tesla.
I’m hoping my next car (might be a while, my Prius is only 8 years old and I will continue to drive it until it becomes necessary to replace it) will be an EV or a PHEV, but it will not come from Elon’s company.
I had the same hope, then got rear ended and my 12 year old Lancer got written off. My plan had always been to keep it as long as possible, maintain it, and drive it into the ground, but I hadn’t banked on someone else doing that for me.
Have a PHEV now, charging infrastructure where I live is pretty asstastic, and I do just enough longer range driving to make a full EV annoying under those circumstances.
Thankfully, I don’t need a huge range, so that isn’t a big deal to me. I’m in the U.S., in Indiana, in coal country, so yeah, electricity is not clean, but I’m also not under any illusions that me driving an EV or PHEV will help save the planet, either. The savings in gas is a bigger issue to me and I would be happy if I never had to go to a gas station in the middle of winter again.
Savings in gas, oil, transmission maintenance, brake pads adds up nicely. However be prepared to lose some of those savings in higher taxes because you aren’t contributing to the roads via gas tax (which is stupid because by and large the ones tearing up the roads are truckers). And of course battery replacement is expensive but I think that’s less of a problem than most people expect.
Caveat: I own a Volt, not a full EV, but I’ve been watching for quite a while.
I don’t know that it would even out with taxes, I think I’d still come out ahead, but I’m not sure I admit. Never having to go to a gas station again as long as I live unless I wanted coffee or something would be worth it alone. I absolutely loathe pumping gas. Everything about it. Especially the smell.
I’m not concerned about the battery issue. My Prius is from 2016 and the battery is still in great condition.
I’m stuck at hybrid, as I work from home and live in an apartment complex that has only one level 1 charger for some 300 units near the front office where the property manager parks her stupid Tesla.
I’d go full electric if I had a place to reliably charge it.
I think the biggest hurdle for PHEV and EV adoption is going to be people like you living in apartments. Landlords have no incentive to spend money on chargers. It should be subsidized.
Absolutely. And the real kicker is apartments tend to be the exact demographic that could use a midrange electric vehicle to commute daily with the most.
my Prius is only 8 years old and I will continue to drive it until it becomes necessary to replace it
That might be a while. My parents had one of the first hundred Priuses imported into the US in 2001, and it barely needed maintenance and hit 200,000 miles before my niece totaled it in an minor accident. When they bought it she still needed a car seat.
That’s fine with me and great to hear! I have no interest in regularly getting a car upgrade. Every car I have ever owned, I have driven until it was either too expensive to keep driving it or it got totaled in a crash (never something that was my fault, thankfully).
I mean I would love an EV or a PHEV, but not enough to do anything about it unless I have to. If I’m lucky, by the time I need a new car, they’ll actually be self-driving and I won’t have to worry about that either.
Thirding the no shit
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were and we’re aren’t even pronouned the same?
The fuckin irony lmao
Ah yes, typos are famously based on how things are pronounced.
Absolutely correct. ‘Were’ isn’t even a pronoun.
I feel this. I own a OG body style model S. I still have unlimited supercharging. The battery is starting to show its age and i’m sort of starting to look around. The Rivian R3X is my current front runner.
The RX3 looks fantastic and is the car that got be actually thinking about a full EV, and not a hybrid. If it comes in at 45k or so I think it could be a killer car.
Buddy of mine was in market for model S price range. Only because of this moron’s fascist shenanigans, my friend ended up getting BMW iX. Much better vehicle sans the fascism.
Indeed
i am not spending a fucking dime on anything that Elon Musk earns money on
i even deleted my twitter account when he bought it
But, even though Elon is an ass, the way tesla handles repairs on their cars, makes me not want to own one anyway. I wanna just use my local mechanic. Not exclusively teslas own
I think that Elon being an ass trickles down to the way his company does business.
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Shit rolls (and trickles) downhill!
His vehicles aren’t even safe for other Dragons to ride on. Why would I buy from a company who unironically had the below answer for me when I googled from the back seat of one of their cars while Ubering and thought of that news:
Opening a Rear Door with No Power
Not all Model Y vehicles are equipped with a manual release for the rear doors. Remove the mat from the bottom of the rear door pocket. Press the red tab to remove the access door. Pull the mechanical release cable forward.
Emphasis mine. Still don’t know which kind I was on, but an emergency would have not been the ideal ‘find out’ time. I’ll avoid that by not fucking around with purchasing their cars.
Not all Model Y vehicles are equipped with a manual release for the rear doors. Remove the mat from the bottom of the rear door pocket. Press the red tab to remove the access door. Pull the mechanical release cable forward.
How the fuck did that pass road safety tests in the US? That’s lethal in any event where you need to leave the vehicle in an emergency. It’s essentially always-on child safety locks.
Are there mandatory road safety tests in the US ?
Yes. There’s multiple checks for manufacturing cars. The first one that would have caught this is from their design prior to sale: NHTSA: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This would prevent such an obviously dangerous car from ever being sold. So clearly they have dropped the ball off a cliff.
If someone were to alter their car post purchase, it might be caught at yearly state inspections. These all vary by state but generally ensure that cars are road legal and not dangerous. They most often catch broken or illegally altered lights and exhaust.
Don’t fix the typo, I’m enjoying the mystery.
Oooh, other billionaires, cause that one billionaire lady died.
Ah, I see.
I wanted a Tesla and couldn’t afford it. Now I can afford it and I would buy one right now if it weren’t for Musk turning into a complete shit bag. (I realize he always was, but he hid it well and I thought he was an awesome dude) Fuck that guy, and fuck every company he’s a part of. I’ll just wait until conversion parts become cheap enough it’s worth playing with.
You’re gonna wait a long time then
A while ago, someone posted a photo (I think on Reddit before I left) of a Tesla with a bumper sticker that said something like, “I bought it before we all found out Elon was crazy.”
I think that should be encouraged for all people who bought a Tesla before the ‘pedo guy’ incident. After that, you have no excuse.
My partner reported seeing a similar sticker.
Related: I saw a cybertruck in the real world over the weekend and laughed heartily. I thought about stopping to take a pic, but fuck it.
I appreciate that Teslas helped normalize electric cars, but yeah, I don’t trust him enough to drop that kind of money on a product from one of his companies.
What’s to say he wouldn’t do something recklessly impulsive the moment I buy one that makes it harder to get parts, removes software features, or gets my car keyed by someone who hates his guts?
Said it many times but I still think musk’s tesla had a negative impact on EV cars overall.
When the cars were first hitting mainstream markets (rather than being the car your weird uncle buys), automakers were already selling hybrids. I forget if they were plug-ins or not, but stuff like the Prius were ubiquitous to the point it was a joke on The Office.
Then the story became you need a full pure electric vehicle. And the way they marketed the distinction was that the most important thing in the world was a long battery range because coverage of charging grids was shit.
Which gets us to, funny enough, the cybertruck where the range is “okay” without hauling anything, dogshit if you actually USE your truck, and being marketed with a really expensive add-on to get an even bigger battery (and even less cargo space) because RANGE IS GOD!!!
And… that is the problem we see facing all EVs (moreso in the US, but also in Europe and Asia). The idea that you need an EV that will last you all day for a long roadtrip just to buy some groceries. Rather than a focus on improving charging grid infrastructure (which, we are actually seeing even in the land of the free ar-15 with a 12 piece mcnuggets) and fast charging of smaller batteries.
If we had stuck to the hybrid model we would have a lot less emissions over the years AND people would be more understanding of what they actually need to go “full electric”. I am a generally strong supporter of electric vehicles (who lives in the ass end of nowhere…) and even I was amazed at the mileage I was getting with some toyota hybrid rental a few months back.
Just because it deeply bothers me. If you think an EV can’t be used for a roadtrip, go watch the Technology Connections video where he talks about doing exactly that. The short and skinny of it is that you DO need to put a bit more effort into route planning (and there are great sites for that), but it mostly boils down to stopping for 20-40 minutes to charge up most of the way once or twice a day.
Which sounds bad until you remember you aren’t in your early 20s anymore and that sitting in a car for a 36 hour drive is a miserable experience. Stop at a rest stop for some food or a target/walmart for some snacks and a piss break. When you get done, your car is mostly charged up.
And if you ARE in your early 20s and considering an EV: Kid, go spend more money on avocado toast.
Plugins weren’t a thing yet iirc, at least not from the large mainstream brands. Prius was just normal hybrid without charging.
Imo it’s impossible to say what would have been, in a what if scenario like this. Without Tesla, large battery tech would probably/maybe/possibly be a lot less developed than it is now and we might not have seen plugin hybrids become mainstream just yet. Personally, I do think that Tesla deserves credit for accelerating the development of these technologies, and I drive a hybrid and generally loath Elon Musk :)
That is just it. If we are saying we can’t make educated guesses based on situations and trends then we also cannot make any claims that musk’s tesla was a net good.
But once we look at the past decade or so: We see hybrids pretty much universally get shit on for “not being worth it” and “a step in the wrong direction”. Which… there are merits to those arguments. But they are still better than pure ICE vehicles.
I did not see hybrids universally get shit on. I do know one person with that opinion, but I wouldn’t call him universal and I don’t put much stock in his opinions anyhow, he had had more weird takes before he spouted that one.
I take a lot of motorcycle trips. I have a 4.5 gallon tank and get around 40-50 MPG depending on how I’m driving. I’m stopping every 3 hours whether I like it or not anyway.
I think that’s totally reasonable. I’m just ready for the infrastructure to be there in the places I want to go.
After those safety issues around 2019, I was getting really uncomfortable and lost interest in buying a Tesla. When he went pro-covid, I watched friends getting nervous. When he went anti-union, I watched my tech-bro friends sell their Teslas.
I think if you slap a Trump sticker on there, you’re likely to get a pass from the sorts of people who key cars. All it costs is integrity and self-respect.
To this day, you can still find conservative media that shits on anyone with electric vehicles, for some reason.
Now Musk opened his mouth and said stupid shit, and the other side doesn’t want his cars either. All he’s got left are the people who don’t care, already bought one, or fall over themselves to kiss his feet.
A lot of the conservative world seems to be conditioned to be anti-EV.
That conditioning cost a lot of money
No doubt, but was it worth it for them?
Whether it was their doing or the natural gullibility of their base, it has worked incredibly well.
I was going to make a comment about “look who they want to make President again,” but they have been denying reality for decades.
Misread doing as dung; this does not affect the comment.
Ronald Reagan was a brilliant man and his wife had some skills of her own.
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I’m just upset I didn’t get some of that Nancy action.
The new biden decision to phase out the sales of ICE vehicles and that oil money is pushing for more EV criticism
Because oil money
Yeah, decades of it.
What he’s got are NFT tech bros who don’t actually know anything about the technology they buy.
Anecdotally I agree. Back when all I knew about Tesla was that they made fancy electric cars, I dreamed of the day I’d be able to afford one. Now I’m looking to buy a new car this year and I won’t even take a Tesla on a test drive.
My situation was similar a couple of weeks ago. I had to either buy a new car or dump a couple of thousands on my then car (which is still good for at least a decade).
I did test drive a Tesla though as to have a ‘baseline’ for the other contenders. I did buy a different electric car just as planned but I’m glad I did the baseline.
BTW - just a heads up: make sure you check the headroom on the back seats of any EV you fancy. I might have bought a Kia EV6 if I didn’t bump my head in the ceiling in the back - and I’m of average height.
I am avoiding Tesla because their design philosophy and decisions are gimmicky and don’t not prioritize functionality.
If I am going to spend big money on a car I am going with quality. Not some gimmicky pos where you can’t even open the doors if the battery cuts out. I’ll pass on the touchscreen with wheels.
Not some gimmicky pos where you can’t even open the doors if the battery cuts out.
There is a mechanical lever that you can use if the power is out. Probably it was required by regulators, but it’s there.
I’m sure that wasn’t the deciding factor anyway.
Like I’m going to find that lever when I’m drunk and sinking into a pond
Why would you drive drunk?
Maybe they were a passenger and the actual designated driver got in an accident due to something out of their control.
I don’t know that we have the full story on that, but if your car is deep enough to disrupt power to the door release, you’re already too deep to be able to open the door against water pressure. Is it really any better to be drunkenly ripping at a handle while you still can’t open the door and are drunkenly sinking into a pond?
A lot of things went wrong for this person, but I don’t believe an electric door release was one of thenm
Some of the cars do. Others don’t. And those that do have them, like model S, it’s hidden and only exists for front doors. Good luck getting out if you ever need to in case of emergency.
Ok, that’s not ideal. Recent 3 and Y have the levers in fairly obvious places though, to the point that you have to explain to unfamiliar people to ignore them and press the little button instead.
I keep wondering what the cars could be if Musk hadn’t hadn’t gone off on the wild cybertruck goose chase or spent so much effort on self driving instead of driving.
He needs to be pushed out and not just because he’s a lunatic. He’s also incompetent.
I get the hype for futurism and I also think other manufacturers are too timid in making big steps. Instead they just do incremental upgrades. This whole EV push has given us some really good looking cars and finally some daring designs and color choices. But at the same time you really can’t sacrifice safety of the people.
If I am going to spend big money on a car I am going with quality. Not some gimmicky pos
I’m not sure any manufacturer is producing that car today EV or ICE.
Even the expensive European brands have gone completely to shit. BMW and Mercedes have given in to it over the last decade. Audi has been a shitshow for years (ask an Audi mechanic if he’d buy an Audi, I dare you).
Enshitification cannot be stopped.
Car is a gimmick. Big ugly heavy gimmick.
Considering my current car isn’t a poorly designed gimmick I’m going to have to hardcore disagree with you dawg.
What car do you have?
Lexus CT.
I am sure you’re going to go find a reason to call it a pos but it’s still leaps and bounds better than a Tesla in the design department.
I am sure you’re going to go find a reason to call it a pos
Why do you assume that? I looked at a CT200h years ago and found it to be a good car, being a Lexus badged Prius. As far as gimiky, it wasn’t immune. The OEM sat nav was pretty outdated and the method for controlling it was clumsy in my opinion. The factory head unit was also a non-standard narrow shape meaning it wasn’t possible to replace it with a better aftermarket unit. These are fairly small complaints. It was a solid car when I looked at it, but not completely gimik-free either.
but it’s still leaps and bounds better than a Tesla in the design department.
This is subjective. Especially comparing a traditional hybrid vs an EV. Its using essentially 15 year old technology, which is solid, but also limited in its efficiency. Does that qualify it as a better design than a modern EV?
This is subjective. Especially comparing a traditional hybrid vs an EV. Its using essentially 15 year old technology, which is solid, but also limited in its efficiency. Does that qualify it as a better design than a modern EV?
It’s definitely subjective. Some people don’t mind having the speedometer off to the right on a touch screen display. Personally I do not. It’s poor design choice for my personal flavor for interacting with the car. The same with the shifter.
The way you interact with the car and satnav and all that is mostly just the standard way Lexus does things. Again it’s subjective but I find it intuitive and not nearly as gimmicky as a giant touch screen. If that’s your biggest complaint for gimmick then I think it’s a leap.
When I talk about quality I am not arguing about ICE vs Hybrid vs EV.
I have nothing to say about Tesla when it comes to EV technology. It could be great for all I know. It isn’t my concern.
My concern are the design gimmicks of the rest of the car. Tesla could have the greatest quality EV tech and I couldn’t give a fuck less because I think their door handles and giant touchscreens are fucking stupid.
It’s definitely subjective. Some people don’t mind having the speedometer off to the right on a touch screen display. Personally I do not. It’s poor design choice for my personal flavor for interacting with the car. The same with the shifter.
My prior car, a Toyota Prius, also had the center-placed speedometer. So that’s not a Tesla only thing. I thought it would bother me. It didn’t end up doing so.
The same with the shifter.
Every shifter prior to 2024 Model 3 has the shifter on a stalk. Thats been a staple of cars since the 1950s. I’m not a fan of buttons for shifting, nor touchscreen. Both require you to take your eyes off the windshield.
So far GM has the worst design for shifting IMO. Its a set of pull levers under the HVAC controls!
You have to tilt your head nearly looking at your lap they are so low to find them, further there is a small cut out that accommodates a single finger you have to find to put your finger in and pull the lever back to engage that function. So when pulling out of a parking spot on a bright sunny day where your eyes are used to looking outside, you now have to look at a wall of a back dashboard and find that little hole to stick your finger in, pull it, remove your finger to back out turning the wheel, then do that same search and eye adjustment all over again to find the “drive” lever. I had this on a rental car once. I avoid all GM rental cars now on the off chance they do this stupidity too.
That setup is so bad, it makes a touch screen gear change a better choice, and I would hate to have a touch screen function for that. Its at least at near eye level, so you don’t have to fumble in the coin tray feeling for it. Its also backlit so you don’t have to wait for your eyes to adjust to the darkness to make the change.
If that’s your biggest complaint for gimmick then I think it’s a leap.
This is the second time your taking a statement I’ve said and made it seem more aggressive on my part, and I don’t know why. The first was when I asked you what kind of car you had, and you automatically said I’d say it was bad, and now this one where I even already stated that these were very small complaints. I pointed them out because they were small on an otherwise good car. If feels like you think I’m attacking you, where I have not done so in any of our posts between us. Why are you doing that?
My concern are the design gimmicks of the rest of the car. Tesla could have the greatest quality EV tech and I couldn’t give a fuck less because I think their door handles and giant touchscreens are fucking stupid.
You’re welcome to your opinion of course. There are certainly design and implementation choices I don’t like on Tesla cars. There are lots of things missing on non-BEV cars today in my opinion too. However, I haven’t found a perfect car yet. So its a choice of measuring the pros and cons of a vehicle with respect to our own tastes and judging on total balance whether its one you like or not. We’ve both done this calculus and arrived at different answers, and there’s nothing wrong with either of our takes because they are right for our own personal experiences.
I agree with you 100%, but your example doesn’t work. There IS a mechanical way to open the door. There’s a concealed handle near the window controls.
Still won’t buy one because the quality is shit and Muskrat is a shitbag, but if you’re gonna hate, hate for the right reasons :)
No my example is perfect. And you used the right word to describe it.
CONCEALED.
Ok so maybe the owner knows about it. Not every body who rides or even drives the car is going to be the owner. There are a lot of extenuating circumstances.
You shouldn’t need to be instructed on how to open the fucking door when there is a power failure. It should be intuitive. It’s intuitive in literally #every single car on the road today except for teslas. Oh no. If you are driving in a Tesla you better be briefed ahead of time where the concealed door handle is incase of an emergency and if you don’t happen to know where it is then I guess you’re fucked.
No thanks. I’d rather just buy a car that isn’t designed by brain dead idiots trying to make a buck off a stupid gimmick.
100% fair. And I agree with you dude. It’s a STUPID fucking design.
But to say there isn’t one at all is disingenuous and detracts from the 100% on the nose argument you’re making.
actually if we’re talking about the Model 3 it’s not concealed it’s extremely obvious. most people try to pull that instead of pressing the button to open the door.
idk if it’s concealed on other models?
Either way opening a door shouldn’t be confusing. This is part of the problem.
This is part of the problem.
Sounds like a personal one.
In an emergency when you are panicking and haven’t practiced opening it tho? If you even know where it is?
I would be surprised if even half of tesla owners know where the handle is
Knowing what I know now at this very moment, I would preemptively practice emergency exit from a Tesla ASAP. Practice regularly like we would practice fire drills in a house.
Nah, you can’t do that bruh. It’s only for emergencies. In fact using it can damage your door. It’s a STUPID fucking design.
Yikes, that’s awful. K I’ll stick with my Mercedes, am no longer remotely envious of teslas anymore.
It’s not “unobvious” either.
Been in one a few times. Had zero idea that was there.
FRONT DOOR ONLY!
I’m curious as to what you consider “quality”. Legitimate question, not being facetious.
Volvo P2 front seats. Probably the most comfortable seats ever made. The rest of the car requires constant repairs though.
I am going with quality
I don’t think quality and longevity really exist for EVs yet. The technology is still too new, constantly changing, and the vehicles may disappear as quickly as they appeared. Legacy manufacturers are still mostly talk. If that’s your criteria, I think we’re still in the stage where leasing is better, only keeping vehicles a few years
This is an odd take. There is more to quality than whether or not it’s an EV.
Listen I get it. EV technology is new. But just because EV tech is new doesn’t mean you have to design your doors like an idiot.
I am not bashing Tesla quality because it’s an EV. I’m not criticizing their batteries or EV technology.
I am criticizing their basic quality characteristics and basic design quality.
For example they don’t put the speedometer on the center dash like literally all other cars do. No instead they put it on the ridiculous touchscreen that is mounted off to your right. So if you want to see your speed you have to glance to the right looking away from the road.
These are design gimmicks from Tesla. It has nothing to do with EV.
For example they don’t put the speedometer on the center dash like literally all other cars do.
There are other cars that do this, or did this in recent history. Mini Coopers for example, and some entry-level Toyotas like the Echo.
And it isn’t ok. Nor would I ever buy those cars for the exact reason. Shit design choice.
Considering the fact that this design choice never became mainstream across the car industry is a good indication it was a shit idea that very few people liked.
I wasn’t trying to justify it as a good choice. I’d never buy one either. But it is simply not true to say that “literally all other cars” other than Teslas have a common speedometer placement.
But it is simply not true to say that “literally all other cars” other than Teslas
You’re right. It’s news to me that there are other car manufacturers out there implementing this horrifically moronic concept. Sadge.
At least it isn’t mainstream. If there are other cars out there with this plague then at least it’s few and far between. I’ve never seen it in any car I’ve ever been in.
I’d like to think it hasn’t become mainstream due to most people agreeing with how stupid of a concept it is. One can only hope.
I bought my first EV last month. I’ve been looking forward to making the switch for 10 years. I would have been happy to buy a Tesla back then (not that there were many options). I didn’t even consider it as an option now because of Musk.
Same.
My wife just got a new car and a Tesla would have been on our short list 4-5 years ago. We didn’t even consider it now.
Mostly because of musk but also because of their subscription BS, features that don’t transfer if you sell it, and their general failure to deliver on many(all?) of their self driving(and other) promises.
I could have probably talked myself into ignoring most of the shortcomings but with Musk–im not going to touch a Tesla. I don’t want to support that.
My father-in-law just bought a new car and said the same thing.
I’ll probably need a new car in a couple of years and I am excited about all of the other electric vehicles. Rivians, BMWs, etc.
Same.
We just bought the ev Blazer this weekend. Fuck Tesla.
From the same company feeding the trolls anti-EV propaganda when Tesla went through their growing pains, and now can’t admit that changing fundamental technology and scaling up can be hard. That Blazer is having all the same quality problems and growing pains people laugh at Tesla over - looks cool though, and was on my list as well
In my case, lack of CarPlay was a big factor against Blazer, although I’m ok with that on my Tesla, because at least they do good software
Not arguing any of that. The point here is that I find Musk repulsive enough that the Tesla, for all of its superior software, was never even in my decision making process.
Same here. Every company sucks in some way but Musk is just the worst. We went with the Mach E and it’s been great so far. Not perfect but a huge improvement for us over ICE.
As someone who owns one, i bought it before i knew how truly awful he was. As a car it’s actully been really great, it’s s done just over 100,000k with zero issues no rattles, still feels new and I’d be lying if i didn’t admit it’s the best car I’ve ever owned. The only maintenance is tyre changes from wear.
What sucks is i hate being seen in it because it makes me look like a Musk fan boy, and I’m understating is when i say i dislike him intensely.
The reality is I probably won’t buy another Tesla when i eventually drive this to its grave, purely because of the association with possibly the world’s biggest douche.
I live in hope Tesla will jettison him from their company and refocus on just making eclectic cars without him, then i might consider staying with the brand. But if he’s there I won’t be, and clearly im not alone.
You are not alone. I’m a well paid engineering manager in silicon valley and I’m target demo for Teslas. I’m 90% sure I’ll buy an electric car for our family’s next car, however I absolutely won’t buy a Tesla as long as he’s running the company. And I like Teslas. I just dislike Musk more.
The only maintenance is tyre changes from wear.
And brakes, you gotta change the pads.
Regenerative braking reduces this need pretty significantly though
Yes, reduces but not eliminates. Just don’t want people thinking their EVs literally only need new tyres and that’s it.
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This reply is consistent with your patently false claim about brake pads on an EV. lol.
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100 megameters with no issues? How could Tesla not be #1 in car reliability rankings with that kind of performance? The rankings make it seem pretty average in terms of reliability.
That distance corresponds to about 4-8 years of regular driving. It’s really not unusual for any model of car to go that long without a major repair. When someone is claiming this is surprisingly good, it makes me think their bar is really low.
And for what they cost, that bar should be REALLY high.
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That is also striking to me. Not the 100k example above, there always are outliers, but the situation overall.
It seems electric cars in general and Teslas in particular (given their headstart), having way less physical components that could break, must be considerably more reliable.
But no.
I was talking to a fervent Musk fan. He was explaining how much he loved how much Musk was pissing off liberals and how he was such a good businessman. I asked him if would ever buy a Tesla and he said no. I told him that Musk doesn’t sound like a very good businessman.
Maybe lefties boycotting Tesla will cause MAGAs to go electric… Silver lining?
