Turns out that the average consumer of $40k+ EVs doesn’t give a shit about minor cosmetic issues if the rest of the car is years ahead of the competition. Maybe there is a lesson in there about always questioning priorities to ensure they are inline with the market.
There are other good EVs, and more in the pipeline. I think it would be more accurate to say that Tesla fans don't care much about minor cosmetic issues, because ... they're fans. This makes sense.
Drive a Tesla, I bet you'll find things you like that are way more important than minor cosmetic issues, which seems unlikely.
Sure when making cars at 5k a week or more, there's some mistakes. A friend had a piece of trim misaligned. Tesla came out, on site, and fixed it. He's pretty happy.
This is a brand new car company that has built manufacturing from scratch. 10 years ago, car companies had been manufacturing cars for decades. This stuff doesn't happen overnight.
I don’t plan on buying a Tesla anytime soon, but the amount of critics that seem to hate everything they do is stunning to me. They are producing an electric car you can buy. They basically forced other companies to produce electric cars you can buy. It’s awesome. Be a little kid again for just a minute...
"They are producing an electric car you can buy. They basically forced other companies to produce electric cars you can buy. It’s awesome. Be a little kid again for just a minute..."
This seems like a proverbial "reality distortion field" to me. The Tesla model 3 came out about 7 years after the Nissan Leaf, didn't it? And given a reasonable budget, it's arguably still not an example of a car "you can buy".
Yes, there were Teslas before the model 3, but there were also electric cars from other manufacturers for many years.
TBH, I think the idea that the Leaf from 7 years ago is in the same segment requires some distortion of reality. The Leaf is not nearly as sporty, had a much lower range, and also had a much less reliable battery.
The modern Leaf fixes these problems by being as expensive as a Model 3, and its still slower.
It's absolutely an early-adopter surcharge. At luxury prices, because that's the only way to start a completely new car manufacturer at this scale.
Most new car companies are small affairs that hand-build fairly simple cars at luxury prices from their garage. They get away with it because they offer something unique. So does Tesla, only they try to do it at scale.
Roadster 1.0 definitely was not a luxury car. It was just a proof of concept to show that an EV could be made that doesn't suck. It got attention and investors to fund the development of the Model S.
It’s in the same price range as an Audi A4, Mercedes C300, BMW i3, Audi TT, and Lexus ES. It’s an entry level luxury car. It’s twice as expensive as a Volkswagen Jetta, Toyota Corolla, or Honda Civic.
What is your time estimate for a company to fix their assembly alignment and paint issues versus the technologies being years behind in a car? That’s the point here.
I don't know much about cars manufacturing, but it sounds easier to source powerful/recent chips than ensuring all of your factories produce high quality mechanical parts.