Hacker News Reader

Comment by beachstartup | Hacker News Reader

yes, parent comment is typical carguy fanboyism translated into 21st century context. my favorite carbrand is special and unique, because of X reasons!

a new company producing cars isn't doing much "from scratch", other than design, and the basic concepts there are also pretty well established. as far as i can tell tesla is producing the same basic product as everyone else except all the tech people are into it because of elon musk, where they probably hated or didn't pay attention to cars before.

View on HN

I'm a car guy, the type that loves manual transmissions, etc. My 'brand' is Toyota/BMW. I scoffed at electric cars as being even worse than an automatic, all that changed when I stepped into a Tesla.

I agree that Tesla's are an economic substitute for Toyotas but when you step into a Model S as a car guy you know it's different.

There's only two reasons I didn't buy it 1) I love road trips and there's one supercharger station in my province, and more importantly 2) I couldn't afford it. Tesla's are like BMWs you know they aren't that reliable, are really expensive, but there's nothing like driving one. Like BMW, it's a smiles per gallon car you buy it because when you step on it, it goes, not because it gets great gas milage.

so it's too expensive, and isn't practical, yet you pine and lust for one. it's also really really fast, and looks super duper cool and it's somehow better than the others. does any of this sound familiar?

in other words, same basic product as any high end fast car. this is coming from someone who has a high end fast car, is a car guy, has a 'brand', and has ridden in all the high end fast cars.

they're all basically the same.

musk is a car guy and lives in LA (bel air), car capital of the known universe. he's a genius for recognizing this market angle.

Isn't that exactly the point that Tesla made electric cars desirable (not practical)? Not sure that can be easily dismissed. They took a class of car that usually seen as weak and put into the same class as Porsche. That is no small feat IMHO.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com