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Comment by helpPeople | Hacker News Reader

I'm shocked you love a 50,000 dollar car when your last car was 8 years old budget car.

Reminds me of comparing this year's iPhone to a no name Android.

Op, did you realize you did this?

Well of course the Model 3 is amazing, but my point was I would NOT spend this kind of money on a BMW or a Mercedes or any other existing luxury car. I am not a luxury car owner and never planned on being. I saw the idea of what Tesla is going for and want to see the future Musk and his cult of personality are trying to build. Self driving cars sound cool, but they lead to all kinds of interesting societal changes. My cousin was killed by a drunk driver. Self driving cars means less drunk drivers. My father had a seizure while he was driving and almost died in the resultant wreck. I'm not saying he (Musk) will necessarily meet all of his goals, but if he hits even 1/2 of them, it is the future I want to live in. I purchased the Tesla to help him make it so.

I jokingly have been comparing the Model 3 to an A10 Warthog. The A10 Warthog (famously) is literally a plane built around a really big gun. The gun is the primary focus of A10 designers and it shows. When it comes to a Tesla, it is a computer with amazing batteries that happens to live in a car. It isn't like any existing car on the market, because primarily, it is a computer. This is really exciting, and very different.

This is the thing that always drives cognitive dissonance for me. Computer professionals know how buggy and unreliable computers are more than anyone else in the world, so why would we want to actually drive a computer and put our (and others') lives in the hands of software to this degree? "It's a computer" is always my explanation for what I DON'T like about Tesla.

The problem with this point of view is that people drive incredibly poorly. I went back and hit my dashcam over the last week, and there were _5_ illegal actions, two of which could have resulted in potentially fatal outcomes if one more thing went wrong.

Yes, software is limited. So are people, so I choose to combine both systems for safety. I use autopilot, but my hands stick on the wheel. I spend much more time on total awareness as opposed to just what is immediately in front of me.

Compare the Tesla's system to the current flawed system, not a utopian system where people don't make any mistakes.

What I always tell everyone is that the car and I together driver better than either of us on our own.

Humans are just as buggy, they're just buggy in ways you're comfortable with. I can almost say with certainty that a tesla will never rearend another car while self driving while texting humans do it often. A tesla on the other hand will see a half painted line and veer into a concrete barrier while a human probably won't.

They both have their risks so it's whatever you're comfortable with. I ride a motorcycle in los angeles and own a tesla model 3 so I have a pretty good feel for how drivers behave and I've been equally pissed off at both drivers. haha.

I will say that the Model 3 is definitely an amazing car by what it does already. Last night I had it pick me up in front of my grocery store and I loaded the trunk and took off. It honestly makes me giddy what it can do now considering the flaws.

Because we know how buggy (imperfect) and unreliable human being are, and we are more concerned about other human drivers than we are about computer drivers.

IF you're this spooked about a computer in a car, let me tell you about what runs the airplanes and ATC's...

Any car past the year 2000 probably has a computer in it, and virtually all modern cars have them. Your 2013 truck or 2016 sedan are all using computers to balance gas, traction, gear shifting, and other critical functions.

> it is a computer with amazing batteries that happens to live in a car

hum pretty sure the value of your Tesla will drop to zero if it can’t drive anymore. What are you talking about?

I don't see how this comment ties to the parent comment in any way? What part of their comment are you referring to?

Like how the Tesla is an amazing computer? Besides the ML chip.

You fundamentally didn't understand my comment. Like the A10 being a gun with a plane built around it, Tesla vehicles are computers with amazing batteries and a car built around them.

My Model 3 didn't have an alarm system or dashcam when I purchased it in November of 2018. I got that later as an OTA update. How many vehicles can do things like that even today in 2019? Precious few that aren't Teslas, mainly due to dealer network legalese. They wanted us to bring our Ford Fiesta into the dealer for them to load a new version of Sync on it via a thumbdrive. Such silliness.

I was telling my family this yesterday. This is the first car I have ever owned where it is unquestionably a better car a year later then when I purchased it.

Did you compare it to a $50K Audi or BMW? They’re also pretty fun

Even this is misleading, since in terms of TCO, the model 3 is _not_ a 50K car, it is much more comparable to a 35-45K car, depending on your own mileage.

While the electronics are good, they are somewhat limited, no "birds eye view" for example, and the interior fit and finish are not equivalent to 50K cars, IMO at least.

However, people look at the sticker price, and get shocked by what it costs, and don't think about the TCO.

Just to be clear, I am not saying that this is a cheap car, far from it, but it is cheaper to own than the sticker price would suggest.

Disclaimer: I _do_ have a Tesla. They are great cars, but they are not sticker price comparable to other luxury cars, at least not in fit and finish. Driving on the other hand…

I sold a 2017 Audi TT convertible for a 2019 Model 3. I've previously owned an RX-8, a BMW M3, and an MX-5, and the Tesla is my favorite car just barely squeaking past the M3.

Turns out this is part of a trend of luxury car owners switching to Tesla and its driving down costs of pre-owned luxury cars:

https://www.capitalone.com/cars/learn/finding-the-right-car/...

I compared it to my buddy's Mercedes GT sports car and an Audi A5. The Tesla's instant acceleration is like driving a roller coaster. There is simply no comparison.

My stepfather asked "So Jeff, how many gears does this have?" right as I pushed the accelerator to the floor. The glasses ontop of his head flew off and he said a few choice words. There are no gears in a Tesla and it is instant torque. The interior in both the Audi and Mercedes were nicer no doubt, but you I care about the driving more than the interior. The Model 3's interior isn't terrible, but isn't luxury by any stretch.

Does that make sense?

>There is simply no comparison.

The numbers would indicate that Dodge makes several points of comparison though making such a comparison would certainly get everyone to recoil in horror as though you brought up Bud Light in a discussion of micro-brews.

Which one? Isn't the Hellcat their top-end one? A Dodge Hellcat's 0-60 is 3.6 seconds. A P100D Tesla Model S's 0-60 is 2.28 seconds. Tesla doesn't win max speed against really any of the muscle cars until they actually produces the Roadster v2, but I was referring to acceleration.

The Demon does 0-60 in .02 sec more than the P100D for $50k less (83k vs 133k according to Google). The Hellcat does 0-60 in .4 sec more and costs ~$10k more than the Performance trim Model 3.

In any case, nobody ever won internet points (or the approval of snooty coworkers and neighbors) by driving a Dodge.

You also get to cry every time you fuel up several times a week. I owned many performance gas cars before. BMW M3, MB C63s and now have a Performance Model 3 that is a joy to drive.

The best part? it only cost me $20-30 a month in energy cost.

I don't think anyone buying a $50k+ car that specifically caters toward performance (i.e. excluding work vehicle owners) is going to be doing much crying over fuel economy.

Tesla Model S Performance is currently $99.990, not $133k.

0-60 is a much more practical metric as it lets you get away hairy situations and you get to use it everyday.

How many times have you drove a car at max speed really? You'd be lying if you tell me all the time. Unless you track it every weekend.

Exactly. As an Android user, I always used to laugh when (10 years ago) people would upgrade to an iPhone from a flip phone and say "the best phone I've ever had".

Ridiculous :).

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