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Comment by KKKKkkkk1 | Hacker News Reader

> As I watched Tesla’s messy, hiccuping line, with workers dashing in to fix faulty parts in place, my mind travelled back to the Honda plant I had visited years ago in Marysville, Ohio. Clean, calm, everything moved smoothly. I was so shocked by the contrast that I imprudently voiced my concern. That didn’t go over well with my fellow Tesla owners. I was a killjoy, I was calling their choice into question.

Well, it's exactly the experience you get when you criticize Tesla on HN.

View on HN

I am under the impression that the criticism here on HN is more nuanced than I normally read on the web.

It is. Always when we are not talking about Tesla, Apple or self driving vehicles.

The difference is that Honda doesn't make interesting cars. People are ready to cut Tesla some slack because they are truly innovating.

Because they put a battery in a car?

Because they single-handedly forced the market against its will to accept electric cars, and we're all better off thanks to it, now that regular car companies decided to join the party too.

Forced? Not really. They made a good battery-powered car and a lot of governments heavily subsidized fully electric cars.

They made a first quality electric car that both solved the range problem and was sexy enough to attract a wide enough audience, thus for the first time making electric cars a viable and desirable alternative to ICE cars. The subsidies followed.

Federal subsidies in the US started in 2008, while the Model S wasn’t released until 2012.

Governments have heavily subsidized combustion engine car makers.

Nope, because they made a car without a combustion engine and still managed to convince some people to buy it.

Because they built a car that people lust after. Breaking it down:

Exciting, classy exterior shape Retracting door handles Giant touch screen World class consumer software UI Regular OTA updates Ludicrous mode Auto pilot

Each of these is individually incremental-- the sum is amazing... just like the iPod and iPhone: there were many MP3 players already in the market and my Windows mobile 5 smart phone worked pretty well - but nobody lusted after those things.

> Tesla [...] are truly innovating.

LOL

> The difference is that Honda doesn't make interesting cars.

You might have missed, for example the Honda Insight hybrid launched in 1999. Cd was 0.25 which was the lowest drag coefficient for a production car for a decade until bettered by a large electric sedan with 0.24...

Then there are the conventionally-powered Integra, S2000 and NSX[0] which are renowned amongst driving enthusiasts.

[0] actually the latest NSX is also a hybrid

All of those cars are not even close to recent except for the NSX. And even the NSX was dead for over a decade before they brought it back! Honda used to have some interesting, fun, simple sports cars... But those days are pretty far behind them at this point.

One low-volume, $150k+ car does not make it seem like they "make interesting cars". They certainly have in the past, but at the moment they really don't from a sports car perspective.

The Type-R has universal praise.

Honda's been know for quality for decades, I'd say that counts as an interesting car. Just not by your definition which sounds like it just means electric.

As an Honda element owner I would disagree. Except that its discontinued and nothing out there now matches its practicality. Stylish it is not however.

I was a fellow Element owner for some years. Interesting was just about the nicest thing that people who didn't get the ride would say. I loved that thing, it just wasn't the most fuel efficient vehicle I've owned and my commute changed to a point where fuel efficiency became more important than being able to do interesting things with the seats or insides. But still, interesting nonetheless.

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