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Comment by MildlySerious | Hacker News Reader

> Tesla's build quality never seemed to impact stock performance.

Tesla for a long time had a lack of serious competition, and a popular hype man at the helm that kept investor's eyes pointed at the future, by making promises such as "Fully self driving in 12-18 months" for a decade plus.

With the age of pop culture hype taking a turn for Musk and Tesla, competition starting to look quite attractive, and the whole sector becoming more mature, attention is beginning to flow back to boring things like build quality.

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Which electric car can I buy that has similar range, similar charger infrastructure and is priced at a similar point to eg. Model 3?

Genuinely curious, last time I checked everything non-Tesla was severely compromised somewhere.

Why do I care about those things if all I do is drive to town and back and I charge at home? Not everyone is a jet setting Bay Area resident who also drives to wine country every weekend. I would prefer a reliable Toyota over the quality issues plaguing Tesla, plus the poor working conditions at the factory put me off of ever buying a Tesla, for ethical reasons. I don’t care if the model 3 is gold plated and cheap, the company and product quality sucks.

Maybe Tesla has quality issues, but what car market doesn't (at least their wheels don't fall off - and I love Subaru).

Have you actually looked whether the other manufacturers don't have issues with working conditions?

Last time I cared to check a few years ago, there were 3x more injuries at Tesla plants versus UAW plants, feel free to research it. I don’t care to look into it today, Tesla lost my business long ago and I’m going to lunch with my wife, which is more important than arguing with Musk fans on this site.

I think plug in hybrids may be real competition for them.

I had to buy a new car recently, and was thinking about electric and Tesla was one of the potential options.

I ended up buying a RAV 4 Prime instead. I do most of my driving within the EV only range of the vehicle, but it leaves me flexibility for road trips when needed. Eliminates the range and charger infrastructure concerns entirely, but I've also only had to fill up the gas tank once on the vehicle in the last 6 months.

Maybe there will be an EV that will directly out-compete on all those categories, but I think they've got competition coming at them from pretty much all angles.

None.

But I don't care about the superchargers (I have a 2nd non-EV).

If you ignore that feature, the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Bolt are both cheaper and slightly more functional (hatchbacks).

Props to Tesla for pushing the chargers - EVs have benefitted - and now with Superchargers opening up to non-Tesla + other charging stations building out - the distinction will soon be minimal.

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