Comment by mwexler | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mwexler | Hacker News Reader

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It's fascinating that the Jobs Reality Distortion Field is alive and well in Tesla.

I don't own one, and each friend I ask tells me the same thing across S, 3, X, and Y: "Great tech! Amazing experience! I mean, sure, fit and finish is a problem, repairs take forever, hard to get parts, you just live with the smallish problems... Well, no, never had this many issues on <any other car brand> but this is the future I'm driving! I'll get even newer stuff in upgrades... Oh, the physical parts? That's a problem... But the savings! Of course, no gas payments! Well my power bill did increase, but it's gotta be cheaper than my gas."

Each person was initially effusive then, when pushed, realistic. Sloppy assembly, broken features, things that we would never accept in a usd$90K car from any other brand... Til Tesla both lowered and raised the bar, depending on your pov.

The power of Brand: the comfort with paying more for an item or service wirh equal or less quality than alternatives in general, but with one (or a small cluster of) perceived unique value prop. Amazing.

And even with all the evidence of the problems, I still want one too...

(A coda: the cutesy naming of tesla sort of sums it up around lots of flash, some amazing function, some tawdry qualities: the models sure are "s3xy".)

I hate Tesla fanboyism as much as the next person, but I bought a Model 3 as a midlife crisis car (joking, I think?) and it’s the best car I’ve ever driven. Probably most of this is the improved acceleration and handling of an electric car in general, meaning that it isn’t Tesla-specific — except that when I tried to buy another brand there was nothing comparable. But elements of the Tesla experience really are light years beyond and other car, electric or not: the supercharger network is ubiquitous and it “just works”. I can’t imagine buying another electric car and having to worry about where I’ll charge on longer trips. The UI and navigation makes other cars (including my friend’s newish BMW) look like a 2009-era Blackberry. Last week I scheduled a computer upgrade, and Tesla showed up at my house yesterday and did it in my driveway. Yes: the interior is more basic and probably it doesn’t have the excellent build quality of a BMW. But I wouldn’t trade back. In fact, I’m never buying another ICE car again, which means other brands had better get their act together and start shipping something that competes.

The TL;DR here is: people who rave about finish are like people who complained about the iPod based on storage capacity. Tesla really is doing something very right, and ignoring that based on the (very real) perception of fanboyism is cutting off your own nose.

Did you ever try a 45k$ sedan car before or are you comparing your tesla M3 to a couple years old Toyota Corolla? I also drove a tesla for a while and it didn't impress me. The acceleration is nice but it's not something you realistically care about in the long term (also acceleration kills your battery)

It seems pretty common that people compare Teslas with the car they had before. It's like comparing an entry dell laptop with a MacBook pro.

I think it's an immature car and most buyers are attracted to the brand appeal, and use it to appear next gen to their neighbors. As usual, no owner will recognize this but it's a well known phenomenon that manufacturers use against us.

I've owned a couple of BMWs. They were nice cars, and I particularly liked the interiors. Did not particularly enjoy the clunky entertainment system and navigation, or the relatively slower pickup and constant on/off cycling of the engine every time I came to a stop.

I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said. Admittedly, I'm a bit of a fanboy but I do recognize that there are some things on my MY that are not where I would like them to be. Regardless, the upsides of the car more than outweigh any downside I have experienced.

I feel like most people who say things like "Yea, it's nice, but what about all those problems?" would change their tune if they actually owned one. After the first test drive my view on other vehicles instantly changed to "How do people continue to drive those covered wagons?"

I traded my Prius for a used Fiat 500e, even trade, and it was the best decision I ever made about a car. I love my electric car, and hope to never own a gas-powered vehicle ever again! (After my wife's car eventually dies.)

Sure, for rare longer trips we have to take her car, but all of the benefits you mention for your Tesla are also true for my cheap, limited-range Fiat. The acceleration, the handling, it's a thing of beauty and a joy forever!

The iPod analogy is so perfect. Gotta love how it rhymes with the Jobs reality distortion critique while also striking at the heart of the argument. There is definitely a difference between the value generated by excellent attention to detail and that generated by sweeping an industry with transformative technological dislocations, and the impact of the latter can dominate that of the former.

These days, cars are generally scrapped at about 15 years.

Do you think Tesla has a commitment to that sort of longevity? People are always talking about theoretical reasons why electric cars should be more reliable. But if a Tesla is like a smartphone on wheels, who is using a smartphone from 2006?

The appeal is:

1. The driving experience (fast acceleration)

2. It’s different and unique

3. Owning one seems to have cachet

It’s not the worst manufactured car I’ve ever owned but it’s not the best either. The service experience varies but doesn’t match the luxury brands. With as many as are on the road people regularly want to talk about my Model S like it’s a Ferrari or something. The rise in my electric bill is a fraction of my old fuel bill but I can’t say it justifies the cost. The model X is particularly ostentatious with its gull wing doors. A couple families at our children’s private school drop their children off in one. The cars get far more attention than the more expensive luxury cars in the drop off line.

So it’s purely an emotional purchase. Something car manufacturers have been using to their advantage for some time now.

>And even with all the evidence of the problems, I still want one too...

Sometimes I think that owning a Tesla would be neat, but I always manage to kill that voice in my head by looking up the prices. Works every time.

It's the interior that does it for me. Model 3 is the one I find the least appealing. I doubt as many buyers would have accepted that if it was from another manufacturer at the same price point.

Oh yeah, not a fan of the ultra-minimalistic Model 3 interior. And if I understood it right, they didn't even bother to put windshield wiper controls on a physical button or stalk, which boggles my mind.

You can activate the wipers for one-time spraying and wiping from the stalk, and you can select wiper speed by voice command. If none of those options are suitable, it's the touchscreen.

One-time spraying isn't convenient when it starts raining. Voice commands are useless to people like me with a heavy accent. Touch screen while driving is not a safe distraction.

The wipers automatically activate when its raining. I've only had to manually activate the wipers a handful of times.

Maybe it works better on Teslas, but my experience with other cars is that auto wipers are a gimmick that I would pay not to have. I can't say if it's more because of the sensor, or the programming.

Looking at broken suspensions helps, too:

https://insideevs.com/news/447593/tesla-suspension-issues-ow...

What kills it for me is that buying a Tesla means tethering yourself to the company for everything. Parts, service, functionality, analytics and telemetry. I don’t want to have a relationship with the manufacturer of the goods I buy—I just want to buy the thing and have the ability to use and fix it without them always up my ass.

I bought my Tesla with 335k of its 340k miles on it. A bit of an experiment.

Not one feature was broken except one USB port, which I was able fix myself. Headlights were replaced once before I bought it (HID, not LED) and the motor was replaced under warranty in its first year. I had the front sway bar link replaced because it made a little clunk. It still has the original brakes on the rear (which I'm about to replace, myself, they're readily available outside Tesla). This is a third year Model S, remember. They've come a long way since.

There are places where the fit of the carpeting could be better; looking at new Model 3s, all such fit and finish issues seem far ahead. Still, mine's better by and large than my 2006 Jeep.

There are plenty of Tesla owners that have problems with their cars, and Tesla's customer service experience varies widely between service centers. But to say that someone else has had more problems with their Tesla than any other brand is just an unlucky Tesla owner. Or one that has never owned an Audi or a Land Rover or a Jeep or a Cadillac or a Jaguar or a first-gen Kia or a lot of other cars.

That Tesla could even make any brand-new car, in America, in the 21st century, is miraculous. The fact that it is a revolutionary car only adds to what you call a distortion field.

(Edit: cutesy naming? It uses [until Model 3] an AC synchronous motor, invented by Nikola Tesla. It couldn't be a more appropriate name, imho.)

Maybe it's too obvious to point out, but Apple, in which Jobs pioneered the Reality Distortion Field, is now among the very most profitable companies in the world.

The term was originally used in either awe or derision depending on the person, but in that case it heralded exceptional success.

I find that when speaking about many cars here in Australia, some people are very strong on their opinion of their cars and brands. Where you will find someone trashing a particular car brand, then another person of the view that they've had little to no issues at all.

I suppose with the Tesla maybe it's the feeling of buying a little ticket of the future and as such you might feel okay with dealing with teething problems when it comes to a car brand that is trying to do better for the environment in a way that car brands snobbed off in the past.

For me, it's the exteriors. The Model S is my favorite looking Tesla that's currently in production, and that's because the proportions are right, and the front bumper isn't one giant expanse of plastic, but is instead broken up by a faux grille. The Model Y and X look like unattractive blobs with poor proportions (in fairness, all crossovers look like this), and the 3, X, and Y all have the front bumper that is just an ugly expanse of plastic that has no visual breakup.

Eh, Apple had profit from the start and was on the path to profit as long as Jobs was in charge. Selling regulatory credits to attain profitability isn't a sustainable business model, nor is it novel in the least.

This is complete and utter B.S.

There are dozens of reasons why Teslas are much better EV’s than competitors have come up with. Most owners (I probably know an order of magnitude more than you) are pretty clear eyed on some of the quality issues, service and especially the buying/delivery experience. Most (not all) owners I know like the mission of the company and really love their cars despite some of those issues.

To the issue at hand here, this is the eMMC endurance issue. Tesla should absolutely replace that for free since it is their software writing too much data that destroyed them.

What do you think about the Porsche Taycan?

I have not have a chance to drive it yet due to the pandemic but I planned to. I would reserve most of my judgement until driving one.

I will say that for the price my expectations are quite high.

I think Porsche won over Tesla in producing the next generation of sports EV first. I don't think it's fair to compare the Taycan to anything Tesla offers except the new unreleased Roadster.

I haven't personally driven it either, but that's what I gathered from the reviews and spec sheet. Maybe after driving it I would change my mind, that's certainly possible..

It's also interesting that Bill Gates chose the Taycan as his first EV when he could have afforded anything he wanted.

Bill was always a Porsche man. He is the reason for an exception allowing you to import non crash test approved cars to US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show_or_Display

https://luxurylaunches.com/celebrities/from-going-to-jail-fo...

His car had to wait 13 years at customs before the law passed btw, despite all his influence.

Does customs charge storage fees?

I wonder what environment the car was stored in and its condition after 13 years.

I think it’s insane Bill waited a whole decade to jump in EV bandwagon.

Maybe he wanted the feeling of a traditional luxury car? Teslas are nice, but they certainly don't follow the "traditional" ways of styling. Was there any other reliable competition?

Well just looked it up and he's a Porsche fan and was always driving one. Well and Ford Focus until his last days in MS in 2008.

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