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Comment by bri3d | Hacker News Reader

From watching a few friends own Teslas, it seems that they offer a superior repair and maintenance experience to many German car dealers, which helps with owner satisfaction in the face of reliability issues. It certainly doesn't bode well for Tesla's attempt to move to high-volume, lower-margin production, though.

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As a Tesla Model S owner, and former BMW owner, I can say without a doubt that the german build quality (BMW, Mercedes, Audi) is superior to Tesla.

However driving a Tesla feels like having the first iPhone, and everyone else is driving around in Nokias. The Mercedes S class does however come close, in my opinion.

> However driving a Tesla feels like having the first iPhone, and everyone else is driving around in Nokias.

Weird I find the opposite compared to my Porsche Macan or my girlfriends Evoque.

The interior build quality is extremely poor on the Tesla and the giant screen looks tacky and difficult to use whilst driving.

I've never known a VW owner that has not had electrical problems within the first 5 years of ownership. Just my own data point.

Well, my last 4 cars have all been VW Group (Passat, Golf, Golf, ŠKODA Yeti) and I've never had any problems with them - mind you I kept them for 3 years so they were all within warranty.

Worst electrical problems we've had was with a Toyota my wife had - problems with the sunroof caused the instrument panel to fail!

neither BMW nor Mercs are in VW group (and god thanx for that!). Audi is, and generally, within those 3 brands, is considered as the cheapest, least luxurious, least fun alternative (R8 is an exception :))

To quote @GSElevator:

"Wearing a Rolex is like driving an Audi. It says you've got money, but nothing to say."

Tesla has no other choice than to offer the best customer experience - otherwise they wouldn't stand a chance on the market as a new player. The question is how long will they keep it up?

At 25% margins, they can afford to keep it up long enough.

Is that high or low?

Pretty high for a car company (typical margins are under 10%).

http://www.statista.com/statistics/280346/ebit-margin-of-the...

http://marketrealist.com/2015/02/intense-competition-leads-l...

This is really the wrong question. Offering the best customer experience should, looked at systemically (aka in the context of reality), be a return on investment. Looking at it any other way is simply incorrect.

Tesla is in Apple's position about 10-15 years ago. Apple had a solid product (a machine that ran OSX), a loyal fanbase, and great support ratings. They did eventually translate their brand value to mass-market dominance, but only through sidestepping into other markets using iPod and then iPhone.

I wonder if that analogy fits for Tesla?

Now we're doing reverse car analogies, comparing cars to operating systems instead of vice versa.

One difference is Tesla stock is already priced as if they had already won the wider market.

I think they are doing the right thing and exerting a lot of effort and eating a lot of cost to make right for their customers. Which makes me feel better about the ownership experience but nervous about the company's path to profit.

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