So what is it about the car that makes them so popular now? I assume you could have refused to take it and they wouldn't be bothered because they could just sell it to the next person to walk in. Is it inherent to Tesla or is it just that all cars are scarce now and hard to keep in stock.
At this point I think the cars are popular because it's considered a cool status symbol, not because it's any good. I've got a co-worker who bought a Tesla and kept having issues with it, but still bought a new Model S a couple of weeks ago. It's already having electrical issues and other false alarms popping up on the phone app. He still gushes about how Tesla's are great cars, and how Musk is a genious that is leading humanity into the future.
It honestly reminds me of when I was in Iraq in the early 2000s, and you'd see police chiefs and mayors with iphones. The phones didn't work on the cell network, but they were still highly sought after because it was an expensive piece of technology that almost nobody there could afford.
The quality isn't good, but the performance and features of the car are. We just got a Model Y Long Range in September, and have found it fantastic as a family vehicle. Handles far better and has considerably more storage than any comparably sized vehicle. Great acceleration even in the long-range. I could go for more physical controls for things like hvac, but the UI is still better than most other vehicles I've owned. Aside from the quality control issues, the cars are legitimately great.
Regarding quality control, we had one interior trim piece that was installed with the wrong pegs and so kept falling out - fixed by a mobile tech. It also had a small ding in the front fender, which Tesla had us take it to a local PDR shop to repair. That got it to about 95% - the spot is still technically possible to find, but you need to know where it was and carefully inspect from close range. Slightly irksome, but definitely wasn't worth trying to get the whole fender replaced.
Edit: For what it's worth I also own a 997.1 911 Turbo and a Honda S2000, so I'm far from just a Tesla/electric fan. In fact I really didn't want to want a Tesla as I'm no fan at all of the company for reasons like the OP. Tested all the competitors. But they're just legitimately good cars.
> In fact I really didn't want to want a Tesla as I'm no fan at all of the company for reasons like the OP. Tested all the competitors. But they're just legitimately good cars.
That's exactly where I am. I want to go electric. I didn't like Tesla/Musk for all the obvious reasons. I test drove every electric car I could get my hands on. I decided to test drive a Tesla just for completeness. They gave me a Model Y overnight. It was amazing. I ordered one. I hope it has all its parts. Seems like a coin flip. We'll see how I feel this time next year.
Yep, exactly the same here. Even more crazy for me actually since I'm on Vancouver Island, so if anything significant does go wrong with the thing it's at least an entire day shot taking it over to the mainland to be serviced. Can't believe I ended up ordering one, but I really like it! Fingers crossed.
They're very different experiences. My 911 does 0-60 in around 3.2s, whereas the Y is about 4.2s now that it has the optional acceleration boost. So the 911 still feels considerably faster when it's at the peak of the power curve with the turbos fully spooled. It's a lot more work to extract the power though: you've got to be high in the rev range, get the turbos spooled up, shift the gears yourself (it's a manual), etc. And that's not necessarily a bad thing: extracting the performance like that is fun.
But it's also fun to just mat the throttle at any moment and have the vehicle leap forward, which is the electric thing. Even with the long range, it feels like you can go from a near stop to significant speed instantaneously. (Although one downside of that is that it starts to feel slower in comparison as you build speed, whereas the 911 Turbo is the opposite.) Also the traction control system is fantastic. It doesn't have the handling of the 911 (or the S2000), but it does start and stop on a dime, even in the wet. So you can extract a lot of performance out of it, but you need to drive it differently to do so.
I've autocrossed all three cars and tracked the 911 and S2000; each requires a significantly different driving style to get the most out of it. The S is a momentum car with crazy cornering capability, so it's all early apexes and maintaining speed. The Model Y is the exact opposite. You basically want to drive in straight lines, shortest path. Brake hard in a straight line to bring the weight to the front, short, tight corner, then hammer the throttle and straighten out, and let the traction control send the torque where it can go. If you try to carry speed through the corner it'll just push (understeer). The Turbo is somewhere in-between. On a big track it's the fastest of the three, but on an autocross course the S2000 and probably even the Y, if the course is tight or it's wet, have it beat.
Thanks for the thoughtful overview from a real driver’s point of view.
Is Porsche electrifying their cars? Would you get an all electric 911? Do you think electric is the future or some hybrid approach with instant electric torque replacing turbo spooling downsides?
Porsche is planning to electrify all their models, yes. I expect the next generation 911 will be hybrid. Not sure if this is what you were saying, but hybrid powertrains can work well with turbos because the electric motors can fill in the torque gap while the turbos are spooling up.
In the short to medium term I definitely think we'll see a mix of hybrid and full electric in sports/super cars, because full electric still comes with a significant weight penalty, and the charging makes track driving difficult. I expect most standard passenger cars to go full electric pretty quickly though, and eventually all but low volume and special purpose vehicles will probably get there.
Actually, the comparison to early 2010s iPhones is quite apt...you have the staunch iPhone evangelist who pressures all their family and friends into getting one, the one who waits in the lines for product launches etc. And on the other end of the spectrum you have the Android or otherwise user who cannot possibly comprehend why a smartphone, especially one as [locked down / hard to repair / expensive / etc] would be a good purchase choice in anyone's eyes.
10 years later the iPhone is still around but its competitors have more or less died out or left the smartphone game. The only flagship Android manufacturers that compete at the same price points are Samsung and Google, and pretty much nobody else is making a smartphone that doesn't run Android.
yo, no offense, but how is this comparison even relevant, let alone apt? it made sense in the parent comment, but the way you’ve extended it seems to imply BMW went out of business or something. where are you going with this?
also, again no offense, but do you mean “pretty much nobody else is making a smartphone that doesn’t run Android”? because you started by talking about iPhones.
the first paragraph made sense, maybe you just need to clarify.
Forgetting the brands, the battle right now seems to be between ICE cars versus EV cars. I'm implying that EVs will win in the end regardless of any existing drawbacks.
> do you mean “pretty much nobody else"
Yes, thanks for catching that. That omission does make my sentence rather confusing, lol. I was trying to refer to all the other manufacturers with proprietary operating systems like Blackberry, Palm, Windows Phone, etc. that are no longer around.
And sure, none of these are as dangerous as a self driving car making the wrong move, but we can separate the context of what a phone or laptop is supposed to be good at vs. a car. For example, this brake pad issue is the Tesla equivalent to Antennagate, since nobody would expect to buy a new phone that sucks at making calls, just like nobody would expect to buy a new car that sucks at slowing down.
I'm still waiting for some scandal at the Watergate Hotel again, to see how many journalists demonstrate their total and complete ignorance of the history of their profession by referring to "Watergategate."
Teslas are wonderful powertrains strapped to extremely underwhelming cars. Everything other than the battery tech that makes it a car is severely lacking for the price. Outside of the EV realm the Model S might as well be a Camry when compared to other full sized cars in its price range like the S class or 7 Series.
> So what is it about the car that makes them so popular now?
They're very popular with the type of person who genuinely believes that their Tesla vehicle will receive updates that will turn it into a robotaxi any day now, just like Musk has been promising for years.
>So what is it about the car that makes them so popular now?
Because the buying process is super simple and easy, you pick what you want, buy it, no haggling. They get it ready, you pick it up.
The cars are rated the safest on the road, have the fewest accidents per mile, practically no maintenance ever needing to be done, maybe change the brake pads every 5-10 years, battery will last 500k KM or more, autopilot is amazing, pre-warm up the car in a closed garage, and more.
I've never once had a problem in the past 3 years of owning it, it's just a joy to have and drive.
I even got an OTA update that tweaked the motors a bit and gave me faster acceleration and increased range compared to when I first picked it up, for free.
> I even got an OTA update that tweaked the motors a bit and gave me faster acceleration and increased range compared to when I first picked it up, for free
Wait, are you bragging about your car being intentionally nerfed which was then reversed “for free”?!
Cannot imagine purchasing a car that can be nerf’d OTA or features added or removed at the whimsy of a car manufacturer. An example would be purchasing a second hand wrecked Tesla, fixing it, and having features removed because you do not subscribe to them or did not pay the premium.
I have one and I'm happy with it. No manufacturing issues. Sometimes I think I overpaid but I pass more than one $5.99 premium gas station and that puts me at ease. I charge at work, even. Hard to not be satisfied with that.
Pretty much. If you refuse delivery, they'll just shrug and put you back in the queue. And then try to offload it on someone else, without disclosing why a previous buyer refused delivery.
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So what is it about the car that makes them so popular now?
Marketing.
> Is it inherent to Tesla or is it just that all cars are scarce now and hard to keep in stock.
Are you going to break a deal you invested so much into over a missing USB port, phone charger, and a fucked up bumper? Most people won't. They just want all that shit to be over with, so that they can drive their car home.
It does less traditional ads-on-search-results-and-television marketing, it does its marketing through submarine articles in a favorable press, and social media.
Elon Musk is also fundamentally incapable of staying quiet for more than five minutes, and for various reasons, has a large following of groupies, that do his marketing for him.
So what is it about the car that makes them so popular now? I assume you could have refused to take it and they wouldn't be bothered because they could just sell it to the next person to walk in. Is it inherent to Tesla or is it just that all cars are scarce now and hard to keep in stock.