Not surprisingly, companies that have been making cars forever are pretty good at making cars. Cars have always been a very competitive market, so you didn't have the kind of absolute stagnation you see in some other industries. Tesla just gave them a kick in the butt to make electric cars.
That's true, and they are insanely fast. But I will never forget when the Model S was released and was competing against flagships like the 7 series and S class. When I tried one out, my overwhelming first impression was: this is it? And that was 2012. And it's still basically the same car!
The frame and body and interior was garbage. That drive train though.
AIUI, it turns out that the ability to select drive vs reverse is considered safety critical, so it has to work even if the infotainment system is not operational. This involves something along the lines of a dual-port touch sensor so that an independent, higher-reliability system can detect the gesture to change direction, and the hardware for that is not free. And the “gear shift” stalk was simple and cheap.
I haven’t tried it in an appropriate model Tesla, but I suspect you can trigger an infotainment reboot using whatever the current button press combination is, and then, before it finishes rebooting, select drive or reverse by swiping the left edge of the screen, and it will work.
Score one for car regulations doing the right thing? Maybe, but this all misses the mark, because how many people will know to do the ridiculous swipe on an invisible target when the need to get out of the way of an emergency vehicle and their infotainment system isn’t working.
(I don’t know about newer Teslas, but infotainment glitches on older models are common.)
That was Tesla's sales pitch. Model S was no competitor for Mercedes-Benz S-Class. It competed against the E-Class.
Success is self limiting. It makes people start to engage in magical thinking about their own abilities and vision.
Sit in a Toyota and you’ll understand what is cheap.
If price and fuel wasn't a consideration (diesel cars and fuel have crazy taxes around here) I'd end with Toyota 10/10 times.
The current Model 3 seems to use about 25kWh/100mi. The off-peak rate (PG&E EV2-A) is 31c/kWh, giving $0.078/mi.
Tesla is winning, but not by a ton.
Supercharging seems to be a bit more expensive than home charging. Gasoline is less expensive outside California. Electricity is much less expensive outside of the investor-owned utility territories. Heck, Palo Alto (not exactly a low cost area) only charges $0.21c/kWh.
Where I live in Norway, this morning diesel is around $1.85 / l (so around $7 / gallon) and that is on the cheaper side since the pandemic ended.
I’ll take a Toyota Century over a Tesla any day of the week.
The most obvious example is they have few ways to customize the look of your vehicle. A model S has what 7 colors and 2 kinds of wheels vs 2025 EQS 450 with 18 colors and 6 wheels to choose from. The Bens then has 23 Upholstery options and 4 independent trims and that’s before all the odd option packages.
Tesla used to operate an exclusive charging network which was a premium feature, but they opened that up to other manufacturers.
CCS2/Type-2 were adopted as EU standards with enforcement to start this year, although it sounds like it's more of a "the charger must have this, but can have others".
The vehicle keeps also falling apart. The wheel covers keep falling off because the clips keep breaking, even though there has been no damage that should have caused it.
On the previous one they were about seven or eight repair attempts for the window failing to roll up so I was unable to secure the vehicle and they kept failing to provide loaners when it was in for service.
This is for the model X and model S, which is supposed to be their “luxury” vehicles
By the way, if you would like to lemon your Tesla, please read your purchase agreement for the email to send your request. You get back all of the interest, payments, tax, registration and everything.
Lemon laws are laws that provide a remedy for purchasers of cars and other consumer goods in order to compensate for products that repeatedly fail to meet standards of quality and performance. Although many types of products can be defective, the term "lemon" is mostly used to describe defective motor vehicles, such as cars, trucks, and motorcycles.
https://www.wordsense.eu/lemoning/ It's number 5 here ^
At this point it feels like you're misunderstanding the chain on purpose.
Facts are definitely treated as misinformation by a certain class of people these days, that's for sure.
First time riding in both. The road noise in the Y made it feel really cheap. Rough ride. Generally cheap feel.
The Kia was much smoother, quieter, obviously more premium materials.
It's really simple, Tesla people will tell you the car is built around a computer while other manufacturers stick a computer in their car. They're correct, and that's not a compliment for the Tesla because the ergonomics as well as the fit and finish were clearly an afterthought.
Kia EV6 GT Dry Michelin PS4S Summer 255/40-21 255/40-21 64,4 66,9 68,8 67,06 Tesla Model Y RWD Dry Michelin Pilot Sport EV Summer 255/40-20 255/40-20 64,5 67,1 68,7 67,09
Source: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HOwktdiZmm40atGPwymz...
You clearly haven't sat in a loaded '25 Camry.
Funnily this happens only in my model 3, not my X (I bought them before Elon went crazy). Both have automatic wipers on.
Nothing spells out "luxury" better than misadjusted panel gaps..
Tesla is upper middle class (model S) or lower, just with potentially more horsepower in some models. It has great straight line performance and thats about it, but then ie dragsters should be in ultra-luxury class by that logic.
It baffles me that they were ever considered “luxury” cars except as to price.