[stonogo]

Have any of your car guy friends driven a Tesla? They're some of the worst-handling cars on the market today. Quick 0-60 times land them in lots of headlines, but the second you have to turn the car, it's really frustrating.

My car friends fall into two camps: those who have never driven a Tesla, and those who have. The former group is optimistic and looks upon Tesla products with naked desire; the latter group has already dismissed the entire company as The Sharper Image of car sales.

[secabeen]

I haven't found a Tesla to have bad handling. I'm not a handling expert, but during a test drive, it met my needs for handling. I'd buy a Tesla for the zero emissions and driver assistance features. The handling as-is is sufficient for me. (I don't recall any of the major automotive publications mentioning bad handling in their reviews. Do you have links to the C&D, R&T or Motor Trend reviews that mention this issue?)

[stonogo]

Very rarely do mainstream auto reviewers talk about this sort of thing. A couple of exceptions are in the case of a car that is damn near dangerous to drive, or a car that is expected to handle properly and fails to excel.

Since the Tesla is a car that competes with luxury cars rather than sports cars, it falls into neither of these categories. A reviewer calling it out for poor handling will thus generate a ton of ill-will and angry comments sections from the 'who-cares' crowd, so they don't bother with it.

Here's an example of what passes for an excoriation from mainstream auto media:

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/tesla/model-s/ride

The phrasing here, combined with a lead-photo of abysmal body roll, indicates to car people that this thing handles like a boat. I've verified this myself behind the wheel.

I understand and agree that this car handles just fine for the mass majority of people, but "meets needs" is kind of a shitty bar to set for a car priced to compete with the BMW M4.

[chrisbennet]

I have driven one (two?) and was very impressed with it's straight line acceleration. I didn't press the handling at all (the owner wasn't the kind of guy who would/could appreciate that) so you may have a good point.