May I ask why? I just still have a hard time believing Ford is a serious player in the electric vehicle space.
The fact that the Tesla forums blame my cousin for this (it’s still not clear what they are blaming him for, considering they don’t offer any suggestions about what he should do…maybe they’re blaming him for posting about it and therefore being anti Tesla?) makes it hard to believe that Tesla actually has any incentive to improve. And with the abuse my cousin received online for being horrible enough to ask folks for suggestion would indicate that many simply don’t talk about the BS a they face with their Teslas.
A large part of it is a cult. It remains to be seen how much the cultish behavior can overcome the poor quality once real competitors come into play.
I definitely wouldn't consider it normal to be left without a car if your car needs repair (at least with most established car companies).
In the EU, Model S orders have simply been halted, with the delivery dates constantly being pushed back (orders from end of 2020 have a ship date now of some time in 2022H2, but nothing firm). I know a few people who have since cancelled their orders and gotten other high-end EVs (think Porsche, Audi). Tesla absolutely will continue to lose hearts and minds over this.
I get it that the early birds had to deal with a lot of criticism when there was a chance that they were betting their life savings on a company that could disappear overnight, or during the growing pains when they were getting vehicles that were 85% complete as compared to today. That doesn't justify the backlash I get for mentioning that some Teslas will not charge at their normal rate when the temperature drops below 26 degrees, and will take days to recharge unless connected to a supercharger. I've met people who had that happen to them. But mention that online and you'll get called bad names and receive 5 articles explaining how wrong you are when you yourself have seen the vehicle stuck in the driveway because it was too chilly outside for the tesla to charge itself with the charger.
The companies that aren't serious about them today are Toyota, Honda, and Stellantis.
The reason was simple. Most of the politically powerful Japanese companies are huge conglomerates who make a lot of money in heavy industry areas where until a few years ago hydrogen was an obviously better choice than electric powered motors, which meant that there was a lot of pressure on the Japanese govt to put pressure on the car industry to align in the same direction.
There is also the fact that both companies were early innovators in making gasoline engines much more efficient with things like (non plug-in) hybrid drivetrains, so they have an interest in pushing gas focused technology.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2022/0...