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Comment by zippergz | Hacker News Reader

If you don't care about the electric drive, there are MUCH nicer cars available at the same price as a Tesla. It doesn't even compare. This is why I don't have a Tesla. I could afford one, but I have spent a lot of time in them, and they do not feel like a car in the price range that they are. The interior is fine, but not premium. The touch screen makes it feel like you're driving a computer, not a vehicle (not in a good way). The styling is obviously entirely subjective, but I think that most cars in the Model S's price range look nicer, and the Model X is downright ugly.

While it may sound like I'm anti-Tesla, I'm really not. I'm glad they're pushing this market forward, and I have many friends who have one and are very happy with it. I'm just saying that I don't buy the argument that it's a great car for the price if you ignore the fact that they "happen to be electric."

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I think the missing piece that explains Tesla's success is that they got Prius owners to buy $90k cars. They aren't cannibalizing the 7-series owners, who know what to demand at that price point; they're getting people who would previously never dream of spending so much on a car, and never have.

In my opinion, it's easy to feel that way when you are used to gas cars. You are already comfortable with the downsides of gas cars and less comfortable with the downsides of the tesla. It would be easier if the tesla were strictly better than comparably priced gas cars, but it certainly isn't.

However, if you already had a tesla and the competitors were offering you better interior materials and longer range as long as you were ok stopping at a gas station every week or two and having service appointments at a dealer at least once a year (or more depending on model) and losing a lot of the satisfying low end torque you might not think it was a great deal. Oh and you have to stop getting software updates also! Your phone will continue to be better than your car's computer in every way and the car won't even try to mitigate that problem.

Anyway, I think the idea that some competing car is MUCH nicer is mostly about your prior assumptions or at best what particular aspects of vehicles you care most about.

I know I'm weird around here, but I view OTA software updates on a car to be a huge downside, not an upside...

And yet, in the full-size luxury (US) car market the Tesla Model S is dominating.

http://gas2.org/2016/02/15/tesla-model-s-outsells-mercedes-b...

is this fake news?

In comparison to specific lines/cars that are at similar price/market it's true.

Model s is outselling BMW 7 series sedans and Model s is outselling mercedes S-class sedans.

It's definately not a blanket statement, the volumes of mentioned lines are low

It's very targeted and therefore specious comparison. Merc and BWM have like 20 different models, Tesla has 2.

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