It’s a shame. I really wanted Tesla to succeed.
But as time goes on, their products become less impressive and their CEO is not helping the brand.
But as time goes on, their products become less impressive and their CEO is not helping the brand.
Btw; Weird dig at "the governments success", considering a whole lot of Musk's ventures wouldn't be around without all kinds of government subsidies.
I didn’t really ask for a smart car.
I also drove my friends Volkswagen the other day, all the lane assist was just ridiculous. I was driving on a remote road pretty fast and the line markings went missing, it was a dark night. It immediately disengaged and had I not been paying attention we wouldn’t went straight into a barrier or other lane. It doesn’t claim to be autopilot but either I’m driving the car or not imo.
100% because of tesla? I remember in college before any EV being asked to sign a petition to car manufacturers, "please build EVs so I van buy one"
I agree Tesla has shifted the perspective on EVs. The absolutism that there was nothing else going on before in the absence of Tesla and nothing else since - seems perhaps myopic
I don't think any other major auto manufacturer had EVs on the radar in a serious way before Tesla.
I'll add that I think the self-driving, glass panel display, and all of that was unnecessary. They would have had as much success with normal manual controls and simple conventional cruise control with maybe lane assist and auto-braking like other luxury cars had. But that's mostly based on what I like in a car, I could be wrong from the perspective of the market.
Arguably range is still a problem for any EV on a long distance road trip - lack of charging stations (even for a Tesla, some routes are ok, but nothing guaranteed about any route). So if long distance trips are generally out, the previously mentioned cars did have enough range for around town and then some - similar to Tesla My opinion, I feel like Tesla ownership is overrepresented in specific metro areas, creating a bit of a bubble perception effect (if a person looks at SF or Seattle alone, one would think Tesla is crushing everything else, yet overall they still sell a fraction of what the other automakers are selling)
That said, I think tesla sped up that timeline quite a bit. Maybe a decade, maybe two. I don’t know how I would ever guess the correct number. but I think there’s no question EVs would not be what/where they are without Tesla.