As far as ICE vehicles go, most mechanics will advise you to lease a BMW / Audi over buying one. After 60k miles, the maintenance costs and electrical gremlins are noticeably frequent.

German EV's are probably better built - fewer electrical issues over a longer duration (I hope), and fewer moving parts to replace.

I think this is a product differentiation / segmentation problem. People who wanted the current Tesla offering are being outnumbered by people who want buttons / information displayed front and center.

Surely the dealers leasing those vehicles are factoring cost of maintenance into the lease, no?

See it as an insurance. It's not likely something will break, if you are the unlucky one though, those spare parts aren't cheap. A dealer can distribute that risk over many more cars.

I've never owned one but the folk wisdom I've always heard is to have a good foreign car indie mechanic (or do a lot of your your own work I guess) or just plan on keeping a BMW/Audi/etc. to the end of the warranty period because dealer bills add up fast afterwards.

Even if German cars don't last, when they roll off the assembly line, they don't have panel gaps and loose or missing parts.

There's also a difference in brand positioning. If I know nothing except the car one drives, driving a Tesla, BMW, Audi or Mercedes conjures up different stereotypes in my mind. Which manufacturer wpuld you associate with the following: a Senior VP at Goldman, a petrolhead who does occasional track days, a Bitcoin millionaire, a suburban mom, a FAANG L5 SWE in the SF Bay?

Your reasoning is based on 5 year old data. A lot has changed since then.

The case for me was that it was a strong influence, but not the only factor. I cancelled my Model 3 order due to some of Elon's actions and words, but I was already on the fence due to concerns about quality, etc. If it had been a slam dunk purchase, probably would have followed through (there are products I still purchase despite terrible politics of the owner/company)

Hasn't seemed to matter for sales or profit. Every big oem loses money on their cars. Hows that for an avoidable failure

We cancelled ours when he tweeted and insinuated there were valid reasons for someone sneaking into the Pelosi house and hitting her husband in the head with a hammer.

It would have been our second Tesla purchase and now we have none. Could not imagine being associated with Elon in any way and certainly not in the car I drive around.

The article is about European sales though. I know some European people are obsessed with American politics as if there was nothing worth discussing that's European, but the number of people who knows and cares about whatever happened at Nancy Pelosi's house, then knows what Elon had to say about that, then deciding it's so egregious that they can't buy a Tesla anymore it's probably single digits.

Elon is not exactly beloved in Europe either, for all sorts of non Pelosi related reasons

> The article is about European sales though.

Which is probably the main point. It's well known that American companies sell a higher proportion of their cars in America than in Europe and vice versa. That a foreign company was ever outselling domestic producers in a region with a large automotive industry is an unusual and generally short-lived phenomenon.

Musk's comments know no border, the EU also gets to enjoy his wisdom on highly sensitive subjects:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/elon-musk-wades-into-ge...

Along with X's well adjusted moderation policies:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/elon-musk-gives-gold-ch...

I'm sure the Germans are thrilled with all of it.

> We cancelled ours when he tweeted and insinuated there were valid reasons for someone sneaking into the Pelosi house and hitting her husband in the head with a hammer

Actually it is you who is insinuating something, incorrectly. You’re suggesting that Musk said the attack was justified. He didn’t. He retweeted an article that suggested a connection between the attacker and Paul Pelosi, and Musk added, “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.” Musk was careful to acknowledge that the chance that there was more to the story was low (“tiny possibility”). He also later deleted his own tweet within a few hours of it being posted.

I don’t see a problem with people speculating about what may have happened. We know what happens when speculation is not allowed - you get situations like the lab leak theory being incorrectly suppressed until it is too late to investigate WIV or hold the CCP accountable. As for why people speculated anything in the Pelosi situation at all: the official recording of the police interaction in this incident has Paul Pelosi telling police that David was a “friend”. This caused people to search for reasons this friend would be visiting the home at odd hours.

Why would I want to know about Musk thinks in this situation? I don't particularly look to CEOs for guidance on political and societal issues.

> Musk was careful to acknowledge that the chance that there was more to the story was low (“tiny possibility”).

These days I usually default to reading that sort of comment as saying the things with the tiny chance was likely, and the smaller the stated chance the higher the likelihood.