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.