At this point, I'm not sure why anyone would actually buy a Tesla. The alternatives are far less expensive, the "features" of a Tesla are unpolished and dangerous, and the money doesn't go to a megalomaniac with a god complex.
this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2024
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As someone who bought one recently (past yearish) there's several things:
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The charger network: Superchargers are so much more plentiful than the alternatives, and there's still not a great central charging app. I have 3 different ones installed on my phone and honestly most of them suck besides Tesla's. Non-tesla chargers are basically just at apartments, businesses, and malls. Very few of which actually help me
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Autopilot: when used within reason it's a great feature. I use it in clear weather conditions for highway driving which probably covers 75% of my total time driving. In the optimal environment it feels much safer than a human and the (admittedly biased) data seems to back that up. Also having it commute for you in stop and go traffic is a huge game changer
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Tesla is an all electric car company. I don't necessarily trust other big auto companies to continue supporting electric, and to keep supporting specific electric models. We've already seen major auto manufacturers drop a charging standard (which is probably better for Americans) but what's to stop them from doing it again? What stops them from stopping support for a specific model and running out of parts for it? I don't expect an all electric car company with 5 models to do that
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Yes, Elon is a massive piece of shit. You know who else is? Every auto exec. The only difference is that they're quiet and effective. Those old money fucks have done so much more harm to our planet because they know how to influence politics effectively. Something something, ethical consumption, something, something, capitalism
Overall I got a mid-price electric car with a decent set of features. I'm relatively happy with my purchase while understanding the clear limitations of it
I just wanted to thank you for your reply. It was so well written and easily digested I feel like I got hours worth of research out of it. God bless Lemmy.
My 2 cents (more like $2 now that I wrote it) is that no car made in the past 20 years can be maintained to the degree older cars could, and electric cars will suffer from the same ephemeral lifespan as all modern autos do. Electric or not, makers will continue to abandon vehicle platforms regularly and aggressively in order to ensure no single component or technology becomes affordable or obtainable outside of a manufacturer-sponsored limited warranty plan. And they will lobby against our attempts to extend the service life of electric drivetrains in the name of safety or design secrecy.
Oh your battery still working at 1 million miles? Sorry we don't make your seats or dash anymore.
I'll carve a dash from a tree and craft seats from junk, but when they stop supporting the software, then you're super fucked. I love my Model Y, but I hope every day to see news that someone has jailbroken it and is working on an open OS for it.
This is actually something I'm paying attention to: Which EVs get hacked and fossed.
I'm hoping the 40KWH zoes get done soon.
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The charger network: Superchargers are so much more plentiful than the alternatives, and there’s still not a great central charging app. I have 3 different ones installed on my phone and honestly most of them suck besides Tesla’s. Non-tesla chargers are basically just at apartments, businesses, and malls. Very few of which actually help me
Good thing Elon Musk fired the entire Supercharger team then.
Yes, Elon is a massive piece of shit. You know who else is? Every auto exec. The only difference is that they’re quiet and effective. Those old money fucks have done so much more harm to our planet because they know how to influence politics effectively. Something something, ethical consumption, something, something, capitalism
Other autodealers aren't fucking their own company over by destroying the top reason you listed for buying their cars. We're well into the point where its clear that Elon is a terrible businessman not just morally, but also for you as the Tesla customer. There's no way Superchargers can be maintained (let alone expand) if the team is gone.
Well when I purchased my car he hadn't done that, so it didn't factor into my decision. To your second point. That's literally what they just did, I mentioned that in my comment. A bunch of auto manufacturers are switching their primary port, that's another way of fucking your charging network. However, to my benefit, they'll probably be picking up some of Tesla's slack on NACS charging stations. Finally, worst case scenario it's not like Tesla disappears off the face of the earth. If Elon fucks it all to hell they'll break the company into pieces, sell the various pieces to other auto manufacturers and life will move on
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What's everyone's suggestion?
I want the dumbest smart car available. Like a Honda Civic but just electric. No smart features.
Closest in the united States is a chevy bolt, but that's still pretty far.
I'd love a fairly dumb ev. Give me just enough computer for battery/charging management and let me do the rest.
It's a shame that's not the default because while do find EVs interesting there's no way I'm buying a car that may stop working after a failed software update. Did early EV manufacturers feel the need to put as many bleeding edge features as possible in their vehicles to make them more alluring? Cause I can't imagine another reason to turn a car into a driveable smartphone.
The new EV only manufacturers often have a lot of tech bros involved. See, for example, how Elon Musk’s hatred for physical buttons led to even the glove box not having a physical latch to open it; you have to dive through menus on the center console to open the glove box.
Unfortunately even the legacy manufacturers are following the tech bros’ lead on this. Most new cars (even non-electric cars) are replacing physical buttons and knobs with touch-sensitive buttons or settings controlled only by screens or voice control. I hate it! I want to be able to reach over and adjust the volume or air conditioner without having to look at what my hand’s doing instead of looking at the road. To me these decisions are being made by people who don’t actually spend a lot of time driving their cars.
Of course, there’s also the part where manufacturers are licking their chops trying to add the sweet recurring revenue of subscription services to their hardware products, like BMW trying to make people pay a monthly fee to use heated seats in their car.
Don't forget GM rolling their own infotainment system that is tied into god knows what instead of allowing Android Auto and Car Play in a twofold decision to have shitty software and sell your driving habits for extra spending cash. That's for all of their vehicles.
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Dunno about no smart features, that's a tall order regardless of powertrain, unfortunately. But otherwise, what's your budget and can you charge at home easily?
Budget is 20,000 or less. I can trickle charge pretty easy.
Ill probably be getting a used electric in the next 5 years, but if its not repairable or good for the next 10 years, ill just wait. With everyone else getting electric, It will be easier to find parts. Or go more on my bike. I did not have a car for a couple of years, its a good way to keep in shape. But it was very dangerous where I am at.
I had a 2017 BMW i3 for about five years. Absolutely loved it. No other EV like it out there, and there should be plenty of them out there in good condition for under 20k. As long as you're ok with the range (70-110 miles depending on model year) and slow DC charging (50kw) Same story with a used Nissan Leaf - evem cheaper and solid car, if range is good enough for you.
VW e-Golf or Ford Focus Electeic would be fun choices too, probably with similar limitations tho
Chevy Bolt is also a solid choice with a more modern range, tho DC charging still at 50kw so not the best for long roadtrips.
Otherwise anything by Kia or Hyundai (Nero, Kona, Ioniq)
VW ID.4 is not perfect but comes close to what you're asking for. also qualifies for full US tax credit. yes it integrates a bunch of stuff into the touch screen. But in terms of "fancy functions" it doesn't really have much except CarPlay/Android Auto.
I went with a Nissan Leaf. But only because it was the only EV I could have gotten on 2022, as it felt so hard to get them and dealers didn't seem to keep me updated on availability.
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Most smart features can be disabled on modern cars if you dont want to use them.
The tracking is harder, but if you are willing to remove the stereo head unit, a lot of brands have their GPS junk attached to it.
Honestly I'm hoping EV conversion kits become cheap and common. Id rather drive an EV converted 2010s Civic than most of the modern internet connected spyware cars out today.
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I dislike Musk and Tesla’s interiors enough that I’m going with a different brand, that said…
The big answer is still the charging network, even with Telsa opening up to NCAS from other manufacturers. If you buy a non-Tesla NACS car, you still only get access to about 1/3 of their network. And the Telsa’s network is still usually much faster and more reliable than its alternatives.
I would also argue that the price to range ratio is still pretty compelling when compared to the competition.
Yup, the Supercharger network is great. Last year my wife and I did a road trip up a down the east coast in our Model Y, and thanks to the superchargers and their integration with the Tesla navigation system we never had any issues.
Having said that, I’m hoping that the rollout of other NACS networks picks up steam. 5 or so years from now when I start thinking about a new car I’ll be taking a hard look at non-Tesla options for both vehicles as well as charging.
the biggest reason back then was that it had the best charging network option. as NACS slowly becomes the defacto connector standard, the unique factors that teslas have starts to yo dwindle.
in pure EV though the alternatives arent entirely less expensive. its a game of certain features over others. For example with traditional car conpanies, many of them still have a terrible cartainment system, with some threatening for example to take away apple carplay/android auto in favor of their own propietary service.
It's one of the few cars that qualifies for the full federal tax credits
... which it has no fucking business doing. This is further evidence of oligopoly
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How much of a brainlet do you need to be to have a huge lead in an industry and instead of making good products you fire your entire charging team?
How much of a barinlet do you need to be to give the culprit billions of dollars as a reward for this?
And when making hundreds of billions of dollars off of the 'woke' crowd that subscribes to the 'building a better tomorrow' ideal, turning into an ignorant and unrepentant fascist piece of shit is a good way to erode market share for free, if you exclude the $46 Billion USD social media site purchase, which is now worth essentially nothing.
The charging team thing seems like pretty standard power trip behavior from an exec, not that it's good... seems like the plan is to hire some of those people back and continue to invest in charging infrastructure.
What seems really braindead to me is the Cybertruck... they could have made a normal mid-size pickup and been absolutely killing it right now. I probably would have already bought one despite my opinion of Musk.
Honestly, because of the EPA regulations, it's difficult and expensive to make the small trucks that were so popular in the 1980s and 1990s. Tesla could have cleaned up with a simple single-cab electric truck (especially if it came with fleet purchase options). Because of the economics of the situation if it were priced in the 25-35k range it would fly off the manufacturing lines and become the new standard workhorse for local businesses (think plumbers going out to 5-6 calls a day and then charging overnight), plus it would have the added benefit of a "bring your generator to the worksite" stuff.
They'd just have to be willing to strip a lot of the fancy electronic stuff out for manual things (like manual doors, environmental controls etc...).
pretty standard power trip behavior from an exec,
Definitely not in public, and I doubt even behind the scenes is such behavior normal, despite most execs have psychopathic tendencies for powertrips, they usually have more self control than Musk.
Musk was not just being an asshole, he was being an outright idiot about his own company.
Regarding the Cybertruck, I believe it's a vanity project, because he wants to get rid of the woke image, as if that hadn't already happened.
He wants that psycho right wing macho image, that comes with a "brutal" truck.
Hell, Simone Giertz showed us with "Truckla" that an El-camino/Brat inspired pickup made from a Tesla sedan is more than enough. So the answer isn't all that far from business as usual.
Edit: or just mod a car from 1968 instead: https://www.evbuildersguide.com/electrifying-transformation-of-a-1968-chevrolet-el-camino-beloved-baby/
and it'll continue to fall, especially if they waste resources on dumb things like the cybertruck.
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The market for hybrid vehicles has lately been growing even faster than for fully electric vehicles; hybrids, which do not have to be plugged in, allow consumers to avoid a patchy national public charging network.
Not to mention the lack of chargers at rented residences, and the inability for most of us to afford to buy our own house.
In the US, plug-in hybrid is a decent way to cover the breadth of consumer desires. Get a battery big enough for 50 miles of daily commuting, but have the ICE for 500 mile holiday trips. More complicated, having both power systems, and you still have the tie to gasoline, but you don't have to lug a massively oversized battery pack everywhere you go and you still get most of your transportation energy from the electric grid.
Yeah, if you've got a short commute, and some way to charge it at home, that's the way to go. I've heard second hand about people needing to add fuel stabilizer to their plug-in hybrid because they use so little gas.
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Who wants to buy a car with no stalks? Maybe BMW drivers, as anyway they don't use the blinkers, but having the gear selector on a fucking touchscreen with no tactile feedback is dumb
Should this matter to anyone other than Elon Musk?
Success!
After Goya did a stump for Trump they made The Enemies List and I was like "I don't know how you got a vegetarian to hate a can of black beans, Goya, but you fuckin' did it"
Dig this big crux: Elmo wrecked the company, it’s toast. His idiot layoffs have blocked the way forward, the focus on being a blowhard fascist has taken focus away, he’s an awful leader and a terrible ideas guy - he’s proven these things over and over again. And his crony brother board let him do it. There are no doubt many violations of various flavors which will go uninvestigated.
Oh well. SAD!
You might want to check in your portfolio to make sure that whatever Tesla stock you had got sold already. It's just going to go down from here.
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