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Comment by tomdell | Hacker News Reader

I genuinely can’t understand why so many people are willing to make a large purchase from a company so willing to lie to and exploit its customers.

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Because the product is better than anything else on the market, and the lies are fairly benign and easily excused as brash optimism.

Pretty much exactly this. I want an autonomous car. I want an electric car. I want an electric car with an extensive charger network. I want fancy doodads in the cockpit. Teslas tick off all the boxes here, and... really no one else is close.

If it was the choice between Musk's offering and a car from a bland manufacturer without an asshole at the helm that still did everything the Tesla did? Sure, I'd drive the Mercedes or Cadillac or whatever. But there just is no such car. What I want is a Tesla, period.

> If it was the choice between Musk's offering and a car from a bland manufacturer without an asshole at the helm that still did everything the Tesla did?

I think most people know what Elon Musk is like. He promises a lot. He delivers a lot too. But his promises are always optimistic and running ahead of delivery. That's especially true on timelines, but true on other matters like functions or capabilities as well. I think most people take that into account when processing his statements, and mentally subtract some of the over-optimism from them.

They have the best electric drivetrain and are pretty bad for everything else.

I suppose another way to phrase that is that for anyone who considers the lies to be fairly benign and easily excuses them as brash optimism, there probably isn’t a better product on the market for them.

A Tesla is better than a BMW? In what ways? Certainly can't be the interior.

Powertrain, drivetrain, efficiency, ADAS, software UX. You do have a good point about the interior though. BMW wins at service too.

Exploit? Really? They pay money and get a car that most seem very happy with. Where is the exploitation?

There’s been a gross overusage of the word exploit in the past 10 years or so. Just because you personally don’t find something to be a good deal doesn’t mean it’s exploitative.

Exploitation would involve taking advantage of someone in constrained circumstances to coerce them into doing something they would rather not do. This does not describe one single person who is capable of affording a Tesla.

There has not been a gross over-usage of the word exploit in the past 10 years. See google trends, the word's usage is trending downward. Its peak was actually around 2005.

Google trends tracks what people are searching not what they are using.

Nope, they have data since the 1800's. Don't think they had search engines back then.

That's Google Ngram Viewer. It's different from Trends, unless they have merged them recently.

Ah thanks, i didn't know that

Charging people 10k for a feature that will not be released during the lifetime of their car seems pretty exploitative to me.

That is not what exploitative means. You’re free to charge any amount for anything. Others are free to buy it or not. It’s not like you’re charging diabetics 10k for insulin. Nobody is forced to buy it.

If lying to take someone's money is not exploitation, I don't know what is.

The common term for deception for financial gain is fraud.

Maybe some examples will help.

Things that are exploitation:

Slavery

Prison Labor

Victorian workhouses

Retail managers forcing minimum-wage employees to clock out before cleaning the store, knowing they won't complain because they can't afford to lose their job.

Things that are not exploitation:

Rich people paying to enable future software updates on their luxury car.

The dictionary lists three meanings for exploitation. Your examples are all for meaning 1—the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work. But there is also another one—the fact of making use of a situation to gain unfair advantage for oneself. Making use of people's optimism and warped perceptions about the imminentness of autonomous vehicles (warped perceptions which were formed in a large part by none other than Tesla itself) to part people from their money would fall under this definition.

And just to humour your point, let's say it's not exploitation. So what? It still would be deception, shameless lying, snake oil salesmanship, etc. etc. It's not like corporate actions are binary: exploitation and totally OK. Even if Tesla's actions were not exploitation, they would still be as wrong.

If I choose to buy it under the assumption I will get it, and then I don’t, then it’s pretty clear cut. If the deal wasn’t one where I was exploited I’d like the $10k back with interest.

You're not getting nothing for that 10k. I don't know where this idea's come from that nothing at all has been released.

Social: Tesla drivers could be seeking status and a strong virtue signal (Hey! I’m cool, eco and up-to-date).

Product: Tesla has the most foolproof and reliable charging network. Their cars have/had better range than the competition. Everyone’s heard about Autopilot whereas other manufacturers call it cruise control still.

True about the product. Highly dubious about the social. While there are enthusiast communities for every kind of car, Teslas also get a lot of hate for various reasons. In my view it’s the biggest obstacle (that and the ho-hum design).

I will probably buy anyway due to no other EV being even close functionally, but it’s a vulnerable position. Once platform-halo-bearing competitors like Apple enter the market and close the product gap, it’s a whole different ballgame.

I bought mine because, despite the limitations, it adds enough value that I wanted it.

Because they are the best. I really wanted to buy a Porsche Taycan, but my friend has a 3 year old hybrid Porsche, and he can't use the charger that he used a year ago, because they updated the software version in the charging station. Also I heard that Porsche's self driving suite is dangerous even on the highway (where Tesla's makes it easier to do long trips).

Ya, this is really it. I bought a Model 3 about 6 months ago. I spent about 3 months researching, test-driving, talking with dealerships. I had zero interest in a Tesla when I started, but I begrudgingly bought one because it was so far ahead of every other car I tried—even ones that were higher price points.

The Taycan has a standard CCS charger, it would be pretty surprising if that stopped working given how pretty much all non-Teslas have it. What self driving suite are you talking about? Pretty sure the Taycan just has active lane keeping like a tonne of other new cars.

Yes, active lane keeping. I don't know much about them, as I have a 15 year old car that only has ABS that helps with breaking, but I read that Porsche's is much worse than Tesla's suite (even if you just want to stay in the same lane)

It's almost as if 'marketing' is a form of manipulation

Let me introduce you to something called the "stock market" also, be careful of "startups."

Identity

Partly, but I think it’s also about hope and wanting to feel a part of contributing towards progress. Some people want to be a part of something greater then themselves (cults, startups, nonprofits, teams of all sorts, whatever), which is about identity, but also nuanced.

Not to say it’s always rational.

What people identify with is usually pretty complex as far as their actual identity goes. They may choose fairly weird things, but if you ask them the meaning and their own identity attached to it is usually much larger than say ... an energy drink. But that thing fits into it, so there they are with energy drink stickers all over their vehicle.

I have a sticker for a local university on my car (just one...), I didn't even go there but what it means to me is the experiences I have when I do. That's much more than a logo.

I think the helping with progress rationale is probably part of purchase decision, as well as the product feel and performance itself, but there is also the fancy tech coolness aspect. It seems to be viewed in a similar way to Apple products. There are lots of positives with products from both companies but they also seem to be viewed almost like fancy tech jewelry.

Are you talking about Tesla or Volkswagen?

I feel jealousy in your words. Tesla is a cool electric car. That's it. Everyone else is still producing using fossil fuel cars but the trend is going in different directions (for a very good reason). So I genuinely can’t understand what is the problem with Tesla. I just hope other car companies stop selling their ass to the fuel moguls. P.S. I'm not a Tesla owner or a Elon toady

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