Teslas are just fun to drive, I don’t think most people buy them to signal virtue, if they want to do that there is always the much cheaper Prius instead.

I don’t think most Tesla buyers also care much about Musk. The more likely answer is that Tesla went through a huge sales boom the last couple of years and that’s sort of done now, anyone who wanted a Tesla over that period has one now, and now people are watching their money more carefully.

I completely agree with you. In Southern California, you see people all across the political spectrum driving Teslas. As more options emerge, I don’t think it’s too crazy to see their market share go down.

Ya. I bought a BMW i4 instead due to the better interior. Although I’m missing Tesla’s better software experience.

When I see a Prius I think the driver probably has common sense and value's their money over their public image. When I see a Tesla I think the opposite.

Are you sure you aren't just imagining things about Tesla vs what is really true? When I see a Tesla, I think techie, likely Indian or Chinese, but thats just my own local profile of Tesla drivers in my region.

When I see Prius, I think either ecological grandma or Uber driver. Again, just a sample from my local region, it might not hold for other parts of the country.

Yeah I'm sure I am being unfair to Tesla owners. I see them as "dumb techies". Probably getting a fat paycheck they don't really deserve, thinking they're smarter than everyone else and their choice of car proves it.

I know it's wrong.

That's quite a lot of projection. I bought a Model 3 because it felt objectively better / better value than everything else on the market at the time, having, you know, actually test driven pretty much everything. (Kia EV6, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia e-Niro, Jaguar I-PACE, Porsche Taycan even).

Techies might (gross generalisation warning) tend to: a) Have higher than average disposable income b) Be early adopters of new tech c) Care less what other people think of them than an average person d) Judge things more objectively than an average person.

So it's hardly surprising a lot of them end up buying a Tesla Model 3. They are very well-packaged, fast, have good range, the Supercharger network, and are fairly mid-priced as cars these days go (similar to say a slower BMW 3 series diesel, at least in the UK).

The BMW i4 launched recently. The Tesla Model 3 is a six year old design. And yet the i4 has much worse range, is either slower or much more expensive, and according to all the critics seems to be less fun to drive.

Heaven forfend that anyone buy a car on its merits, as opposed to what other people think of the badge.

That's fair. And yeah stereotypes are not fair. But we all do it anyway. Drive to the grocery store in a Lambo and expect to get sized up. Even if you objectively find the Lambo to be a great value with superior tech.

You can’t fit a car seat into a Lamborghini.

The i4 has a range comparable to a model 3. It is still fun to drive, more so if you have the M50 but even if you have the i4. It has a better interior, but lacks software as nice as Tesla and the supercharger network, which IMHO is the only big disadvantage it has over Tesla.

Harry begs to differ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezmeX8c672U - it's 2.3 tonnes for the M50, which compromises all the dynamics quite considerably. He absolutely slates it in that regard. Regarding range "A range of under 200 miles is simply not good enough, especially at eighty thousands pounds. I would just buy the Tesla instead of this. The first real disappointment of 2022."

https://evcompare.io claims a real-world winter range in miles of:

192 for the BMW i4 M50

241 for the BMW i4 eDrive40

252 for the Tesla Model 3 Performance

282 for the Tesla Model 3 Long Range

So yes, the much slower i4 with the 18" wheels gets a similar range to the much faster Model 3 Performance with the 20" wheels. That's not really apples-for-apples though is it?

If you don't want the M50 / M3 Performance speed, then save the £6k and get a Model 3 Long Range. You'd have more performance and more range than the i4 eDrive40, and a car that weighs nearly half a tonne less.

(That's before options - it's about £9k to get all the things that are standard on the Tesla, like keyless entry, a heated steering wheel, electric seats, lumbar support adjustment, auto-dipping headlights, wireless phone charging, drive recorder, active cruise + lane keeping (autopilot), a glass roof, etc.)

I think you’re also being unfair to tech workers lol. At least you acknowledge you’re wrong. Next step is addressing it.

It’s not really dumb techies so much as likening 5-6 second 0-60 acceleration times. They really are fun to drive, a luxury if you can afford it, and much more practical than a ICE sports car.

Not really the point I was trying to make, but buying a commuter car for the 0-60 acceleration time is dumb. One of the many reasons to keep a healthy distance from Teslas.

I also wonder if the price cuts are a reaction to market saturation. They as common as Camrys in mid- and higher-income areas in California.

Aren’t they literally nicknamed the California Camry?

I hadn’t heard it before, but it’s perfect and I’ll use it henceforth!

It was that way a couple years ago, now most progressives I know wouldn't be caught dead in a Tesla, exactly because of Musks right wing egomaniac behavior. You are a few years late with this comment

I think the Twitter purchase made it impossible to ignore his BS.

Probably not, I hate Elon more than most people, but like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Passat#Sales (U.S. column) a lot of cars just see demand fall off a cliff when all they see is small refreshes over a decade. There's talk of Tesla being in the process of a full updates to various lines and until that (does|does not) happen it's probably a bit premature to chalk anything up to Tesla's cultural positioning (after all, unless (like me) you're a terminally online twitter user Musk's politics are probably completely unknown to you)