[HNDV]

It's ugly because it was made to be as cheap as possible. For example, the "passenger" side door is the same door as the driver side, so the driver's door opens like a suicide door, while the passenger one opens like a conventional door.

All elements of the car were made to be as perfectly symmetrical as possible and interchangeable.

The so-called abomination has a hope of driving poorer people from A to B, while your beauty pageant Tesla remains a car for the wealthy. Because for all the talks about environmentalism from Musk, he has never cared about that. He has never cared about bringing cheaper green transportation to the larger public. It's all about wealth.

[toomuchtodo]

Cheap EVs aren’t profitable. If you want to make them cheap, supply chains must spin up to drive down costs, not sell lip stick on a pig death traps.

This is not Musk specific. Legacy automakers can’t bring cheap EVs to market that compete with Teslas either. They are glorified golf carts because they must be. Cheap out on batteries and motors and your warranty reserves and costs are exorbitant and destroy profitability, so you cheap out on fit and finish (Tesla does, and demand is still…robust) or safety (not great!). Go Google for what the Porsche Taycan battery warranty requires for it to remain in effect, and this is a premium vehicle supposedly.

Regarding “it’s all about wealth”, let’s set aside who Musk is for a moment and reflect on a $1B global dc fast charger network (“Superchargers”) and an EV manufacturing flywheel that continues to ramp (approaching 3 million units built and sold pa), together which has convinced major nation states to enact or pull forward their new vehicle combustion vehicle sales bans. Someone can be a pathological liar and greedy and yet have moved the needle. Tesla’s board recognized that he was irreplaceable, and that’s likely true. Obsessive people are motivated but there are costs personality wise.

High level, let’s recalibrate Tesla to not be just Elon Musk. Consider that he brought the funding, he ran the ship through the storm, but humble JB Straubel was the CTO and was a significant component in Tesla’s success (wrt battery engineering and manufacturing), along with countless decent, passionate engineers and ancillary roles over two decades. Tesla =! Musk. There is nuance.

(Tesla is building their own lithium refinery in Texas to drive down battery costs; point me to an automaker that is doing the same, they can barely source batteries at the scale they need)

[HNDV]

>(Tesla is building their own lithium refinery in Texas to drive down battery costs; point me to an automaker that is doing the same, they can barely source batteries at the scale they need)

With this kind of statement I have to believe you're arguing in bad faith. Even manufacturers that haven't jumped onto the full electric bandwagon like Toyota are ramping up manufacturing, see : https://www.thestreet.com/investing/automakers-in-race-to-ma... >The Japanese automaker said on Aug. 31 it will spend another $2.5 billion in its battery plant in North Carolina, called the Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina.

>The investment at its newest North American facility will increase capacity to support battery production. Toyota plans to hire another 350 employees for a total of 2,100 workers.

>Toyota said last year it plans to invest heavily in electrification and plans to spend a total of $70 billion, plus a total of $5.6 billion for battery production, which includes the new North Carolina investment.

> let’s set aside who Musk is for a moment and reflect on a $1B global dc fast charger network (“Superchargers”) and an EV manufacturing flywheel that continues to ramp (approaching 3 million units built and sold pa), together which has convinced major nation states to enact or pull forward their new vehicle combustion vehicle sales bans. Someone can be a pathological liar and greedy and yet have moved the needle.

Tesla totally invested in superchargers for the greater good and not to have a proprietary charging network! if it wasn't for the rules we have in the European Union they would have brought the proprietary chargers they had in America and would not allow competitors to use it.

The needle would move nonetheless, it is no longer a matter of choice but about the continued survival of the species as a whole. In France tesla are a rare sight but small delivery cars like these : https://imgur.com/a/kUUJKYV Have become extremely common sights in the city centre. We are also doing a lot in trying to get people away from cars as much as possible : Montpellier is going to make all local public transportation free.

[toomuchtodo]

It’s great to hear these auto makers are playing catch-up now wrt battery manufacturing capacity compared to when Tesla announced their Gigafactory in 2014. It only took a decade. I’m not being disingenuous, I’m just pointing out poor businesses operations, forecasting, and a lack of will at legacy automakers. Only very recently did Toyota shift their strategy from hydrogen to batteries because Tesla gave them no choice.

Tesla spent the $1B on their superchargers. Why would you let your competitor who are barely trying to deliver EVs freeload on it? Spend your own capital on fast dc chargers (or contribute to Teslas capital costs) if you want to offer your vehicle buyers a premium long distance experience (instead of the sadness that is random CCS chargers with no assurances they’ll work when you arrive). Legacy automakers will continue to have to be dragged to an EV future because of lackluster management and shareholders who can’t get comfortable with the cannibalization and transformation combustion vehicle manufacturing will have to go through to come out as EV makers on the other side.

High level, don’t slow down when you’re winning and don’t help your competitors. Drive them into the sea. “Innovator’s Dilemma” and all that jazz. Europe is a microcosm in the world where public transportation is likely a better option than EVs to your point (due to preindustrial revolution land use and urban planning). The rest of the world needs quality long range electric mobility.

https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/g...

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/exclus...

[clouddrover]

> Why would you let your competitor who are barely trying to deliver EVs freeload on it?

This is such strange thinking. It's not like Tesla will give away free charging. The reality is more EVs using your chargers means more revenue. High utilization is better than low utilization. But you won't listen to me about it, so listen to Tesla instead:

https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/28/22596337/tesla-supercharg...

This is what Tesla is already doing in Europe. It's easy in Europe because Europe has a common charging standard in CCS Type 2 Combo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y33AArvMUQ

A big benefit of CCS for Tesla owners is that they can easily switch to other charging networks when Tesla's network is uncompetitive:

https://www.electrive.com/2022/11/23/tesla-reduces-superchar...

The sad thing for North America is that it looks like Tesla will take the extremely cynical approach of allowing low volume manufacturers (like Aptera) to use Tesla's chargers if they adopt Tesla's plug. Hence the recent announcement of Tesla's plug supposedly being "open" and a "standard" now (as opposed to Tesla's previous faux openness):

https://www.tesla.com/blog/opening-north-american-charging-s...

Tesla believes that having the chargers support more than one manufacturer in this way will qualify Tesla chargers for US government subsidies. Tesla wants public funds, but doesn't want to provide public infrastructure by using CCS Type 1 Combo.

Maybe they'll allow other EVs to charge using a dongle, maybe they won't. But having to carry around a dongle merely to charge your car is just dumb. One more thing to buy, one more thing to lose, one more thing to break. Europe shows it doesn't need to be that way.

Closed, incompatible charging infrastructure makes EVs worse than ICE vehicles. You can fuel your ICE vehicle at any fueling station and you should be able to charge your EV at any charging station. Anything less is backward, primitive, and underdeveloped.

[gus_massa]

> so the driver's door opens like a suicide door, while the passenger one opens like a conventional door.

Is it really more dangerous than a normal door? Someone is going to use it only when the car is parked anyway.

(I'd used the oposite design. A normal door for the driver that is always present and when parked in the street opens the door into transit, and a weird door for the passenger that opens the door into the sidewalk. Am I missing something?)

[rwmj]

Wikipedia lists some advantages & disadvantages of suicide doors here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_door#Advantages On a modern vehicle moving at most 28 mph they are unlikely to be dangerous.

[zac23or]

A lot of expensive eletric cars are ugly too. like BMW i3. https://www.hotcars.com/ugliest-evs-produced-so-far/