[TheAlchemist]

Well, simple there is no need to reconcile it ? One can be successfull in one area and fail in another.

Tesla is not a bad company. As an EV maker, it's as good as it gets (although it's still bad as a business). But if it was just that, it would be valued at 10% of what it is today, at best.

But it's promoted by Musk, and priced by the market, as a revolutionnary one. And if you look at the history of it, you see it's all smoke and mirrors. In the process Musk cashed out > 40 billion USD.

[_yb2s]

They don’t seem to be a great EV maker anymore… they were definitely first to market with practical luxury EVs, but the old school car companies have caught up with better designed EVs and much higher build quality at the same price points. The high end German EVs from Porsche, Audi, BMW and Mercedes are overall much better cars then a Model S in the same price range. Not just the general build quality, but the EV tech itself is generally more advanced than what Tesla is offering- faster charging, better battery cooling and charge management, better traction control, etc.

[metadat]

The range of the Porsches still sucks, go to any dealer and notice the beautiful and fancy Porsche Taycan EVs sitting around unclaimed with a sales guy eager to make a deal. The BMW's are also a blight upon the eye, it's laughable.

But you aren't wrong, Kia has nailed it where it matters.. their latest are extremely popular, there are tons in the Bay Area. Yuck, but it's true*. May be worth a shot if you're in the unfortunate position of needing new transportation.

https://www.kia.com/us/en/ev

* I have no vested interest in any car company, I drive very few miles per year and my cars are old AF. I have a lot of friends, though. Only want the best for you, Internet friend. Cheers.

P.s. Combustion Kia's suck ass, trash trying to move upmarket, lol. Hello humanity.

[_yb2s]

My daily driver is a 25 year old Porsche sports car and it has less fuel range than a new Taycan. Porsche has always sold track ready cars from the factory- with all of the compromises that entails. The Taycan is a much better designed and made car than a Model S. Porsche also is a company that doesn’t exaggerate their specs like Tesla does- a quick google search suggests the real world range of the Taycan is actually higher than the Model S despite a massive difference in the specs.

I’ve also heard Kias EVs are great cars.

[threeseed]

Porsche Macan has a range of 613 km (381 mi) better than a Performance Model 3.

And is overall better at charging (270kw max).

Also BMW has seen strong EV growth: https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/article/detail/T044372...

[metadat]

SUVs and crossers are only Porsches in name/badge. If it isn't a sedan contraption it's really a VW. Good styling, but not true to the essence.

I am in admirer, but my entire collection of multiple automobiles is worth less than 25 grand. Yet they're actually pretty nice and cool, one is comfortable.

[_yb2s]

> not true to the essence

As a longtime Porsche fan that was exactly my first thought also when Porsche started making SUVs, but I couldn't have been more wrong. They're not just very much in the spirit of Porsches history- I find the SUVs to be more impressive and interesting than any of their sports cars.

The Porsche SUVs are really unique and impressive performance vehicles in their own right, each in different ways- especially the Cayenne. The Cayenne is indeed very similar to a VW Touareg, but the Touareg itself is nothing like other VWs and started out as a crazy expensive Piech era offroad supercar with V12 and V10 engines that is also the basis for the modern Bentley and Lamborghini SUV supercars. Look at YouTube videos you will see these same vehicles posting sports car worthy lap times on a track, as well as easily doing some of the most technical offroad trails. To me it's a mind blowing feat of engineering to make a single vehicle that can handle such opposed things, and do them both extremely well.

You can also find a lot of nice older Porsches for much less than 25 grand- 10 grand will get you a nearly perfect condition low mileage first gen Boxster or Cayenne these days.

[threeseed]

So I can buy a VW that is identical to a Porsche with the same handling, build quality, interior quality, performance, charging etc for a fraction of the price.

Please tell us which model it is as this could shake up the industry.

[_yb2s]

Touareg- which VW pulled from the US market because it also cost as much, or sometimes even more than the very similar Cayenne, and people wouldn't pay Porsche money for a VW badge. In 2004 you could buy a new VW twin turbo V10 Touareg for 60-70k, or about 100-120k adjusted for inflation. VW went through a weird time when ran by Ferdinand Piëch, the grandson of Ferdinand Porsche who was involved with a lot of really high end and unusual performance cars that were cool but didn't really end up having a market.

The Macan does share a similar design to the Audi Q5, but is also heavily modified for performance over the Q5, and it isn't similar to any of VWs models. That also seems like hardly an insult as the Q5 is also a high end SUV with great performance and handling.

[iknowstuff]

hard disagree. american and euro oems are far behind, making inefficient, expensive and unprofitable EVs with shitty ass software.

[_yb2s]

The software on the high end euro in particular is light years ahead- and I don't mean the touch screen UIs (which I personally think are dangerous and should be illegal as you have to take your eyes off the road to operate), but the actual software controlling the cars hardware, like the traction control and stability systems, which work much better on those cars, especially VW/Audi/Porsche.

On paper Tesla dominates in range and performance specs, but they seem to be lying, while the older brands are under-estimating, as real world range and track lap time specs don't reflect the supposed higher specs of Teslas cars. Tesla seems to be a fundamentally dishonest company, whose claimed technical advantages are all lies/hype.

For example, Mercedes advertises their EQS at 350 miles range, but car magazine tests have gotten 400-500 miles on them[1]. Tesla claims 405 miles range on the Model S long range, but car magazines only get ~320.

[1] https://www.autoguide.com/manufacturer/mercedes-benz/2022-me...

[iknowstuff]

the model 3 did 380mi. way over epa. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S6rgzGizgaQ

> actual software controlling the cars hardware, like the traction control and stability systems, which work much better on those cars, especially VW/Audi/Porsche

im gonna need a source on that lol how do you even quantify that

[dmd]

Anyone who thinks Tesla is “as good as it gets” hasn’t tried literally almost any other EV in the last few years.

[Schiendelman]

In the last year, I've driven almost every new EV available for under $100,000.

Tesla has more range per dollar than almost any others. Many have antiquated, unusable infotainment systems designed for legacy cars. Some get marked up by $10,000 or more by dealers. None have the simplicity of charging.

Tesla is still selling most of the EVs on the road. Slowdowns attributed to Musk's shit behavior are never compared with their peers, who are having even worse slowdowns. Having driven nearly all of them, I understand why.

[babyent]

I bought a P3D in 2018 and it was quick. But the interior deteriorated in like six months. Rattled like crazy, center console lid wouldn’t stay closed, and after the hw3 upgrade it rattled even more.

When I made a service appointment through the app I got a message that it would cost me ($180 I think?) to have it inspected to determine where the noise was coming from.

I got FSD for $2k back then and while I only had the car for 3 years and drove mostly the 101, I found it helpful in traffic jams. However I didn’t trust it much at higher speeds because it would phantom brake or swerve randomly especially around bridges or when I was in lanes that intersected. Really scary!

I got a Mazda CX-30 after selling the Tesla and it had no interior rattles and felt more premium even though it was $26k. The steering wheel felt more like a sports car than the P3D.

Just my opinion.. I do miss the crazy acceleration. I don’t miss the rattles and poor interior quality.

Not sure if I’ll get another EV until Mazda or Honda make a nice reliable car. I’m a little scared to buy any car from companies that are burning money like crazy lol. I don’t mind moving fast and breaking things on the browser, but not on the road!!

[iknowstuff]

the CX30 feels like a cramped, slow toy compared to the 2024 model 3.

[LUmBULtERA]

I felt the same. In the last year I test drove the Model 3 (pre-highland), Y, and pretty much all their competitors. I still landed on a Y, and I love it. I'm always surprised at how much hate Tesla gets ... I understand some folks won't prefer their minimalist interiors, and that's fine.

[tw04]

>Tesla has more range per dollar than almost any others.

They don't - they inflate their estimated mileage across the board. Lucid runs circles around them dollar for dollar.

>Many have antiquated, unusable infotainment systems designed for legacy cars.

They pretty much all have carplay and android auto which runs circles around Tesla's antiquated interface. It was revolutionary a decade ago, it now looks like a tired android skin. Have you tried youtube music? You can't even properly like or dislike a song, much less properly navigate playlists.

>Some get marked up by $10,000 or more by dealers.

This literally isn't a thing. I don't know of ANY EV that you can't get at cost if you spend even 30 seconds looking. The dealers marking up cars ridiculous amounts during COVID hasn't been a normal thing for quite some time.

>None have the simplicity of charging.

Huh? You can drive a Ford Mach-E up to a Tesla charger, attach your adapter, plug it in, and it starts charging. The very first time you ever charge a given car, you do need to start it from the app to tie a tesla account to the car itself, after that it's plug and charge.

>Tesla is still selling most of the EVs on the road. Slowdowns attributed to Musk's shit behavior are never compared with their peers, who are having even worse slowdowns. Having driven nearly all of them, I understand why.

Having driven nearly all of them, I think I'm questioning if you have. Literally every other car I have driven has a nicer interior, a better technology system, and basic functionality that actually works like: auto wipers, cruise control that doesn't phantom brake for no reason, things you just take for granted in any modern car that Tesla decided wasn't worth spending a couple dollars per car to have work reliably.

Tesla is absolutely compared to peers, and no their peers aren't having "even worse slowdowns".

https://electrek.co/2024/10/22/gm-outpaces-us-rivals-q3-fewe...

[infecto]

We realize you have a lot of bias but I think what the OP was getting at is that Tesla still has the best EV experience. The drivetrain is generally rocksolid, charging is a solved problem, going on road trips the navigation works seamlessly with optimal charging stops. The interiors are absolutely bare bones and will rattle, though I have heard the latest refresh on the 3 is a lot nicer. You are also right, they have a lot of hubris, the wipers are a debacle, it would be nice if they just paid for the sensors like all other car companies for automatic wipers.

I think the Hyundai is getting close and the Mercedes lineup is nice but a little $$$. Tesla still is a nice sweet spot.

[Schiendelman]

Are you interested in discussing any of these things you've said? Or are you interested in 'being right'? Let me know. Happy to discuss.

[tw04]

Sure. Let’s discuss why a 6-figure Tesla doesn’t have functioning automatic wipers? Elon insisted that would be easy with nothing but cameras. And if they can’t even get the wipers working, why should any of us believe they’ll solve full autonomy with nothing but cameras?

[Schiendelman]

This is not the way to have a conversation on HN.

[iknowstuff]

wipers work fine

[iknowstuff]

thinking the bandaid of carplay/android auto is better is just hilarious

[TheAlchemist]

I meant an EV maker - as a business. They are making profit* while other EV makers are mostly not.

As for the cars quality, you're absolutely right.

* I also believe Tesla is pretty much cooking their books to show profits.

[ivewonyoung]

Cybertruck became the 3rd best selling EV in the US after Model Y and 3. Looks like the people have spoken after looking at "literally almost any other EV in the last few years''.

[_ea1k]

Yeah, Tesla has been really good at getting the whole package together with cars. The Model 3 is really the best EV on the market, IMO.

It isn't the fastest accelerating. It doesn't charge the fastest. It doesn't have the longest range. It isn't the cheapest.

But the balance of all four of those still manages to be better than basically anything else out there, though the Ioniq 6 is extremely close.

[marticode]

But it has the worst build quality, interior and controls. These are not numerically measurable but they certainly do matter to prospective buyers. As does even more subjective things like styling, which is now pretty dated.

Either way I suspect it now doesn't really matter because this is becoming the "Trump-mobile" which makes it a non starter for a lot of politically conscious peoples.

[iknowstuff]

counterpoint; love the interior. all the widgets in other OEMs look hilarious by comparison. controls? the car literally drives me around town by itself