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Comment by blackeyeblitzar | Hacker News Reader

Hollywood overestimates its relevance. I don’t own one but Teslas are still the best electric cars.

Yes, but this is wider trend. EV sales are flat to down last quarter. This is pretty much exclusively due to sales of Teslas slumping. All pretty much all of the other EV manufacturers have sold record volume.

No, it's got nothing to do with Tesla. European manufacturers are seeing huge drops in sales too. ACEA is a European auto industry trade group:

https://www.acea.auto/press-release/european-auto-industry-c...

See the Notes For Editors section: "The market decline is affecting many brands, including and beyond ACEA members, across the board (ACEA August car registration data)"

All other EV manufacturers have short records compared to Tesla. I also think Tesla is suffering from its own success. People are getting tired of the same designs and want to try something different. If not for extensive government BS, almost nobody would be buying EVs at all because they are impractical for most consumers.

That might depend on what you value. I recently learned what it takes to open the door of a Tesla, in the case you crash and the doors lose power. Obviously there's an emergency door opener, but I wouldn't trust that my kid could find and use that on their own. That alone would keep me from buying a Tesla.

For me, Teslas have a number of what I consider design flaws, but which are sold as features.

Almost all that stuff is misremembered or misreported.

> but I wouldn't trust that my kid could find and use that on their own

I’m not sure how old your kid is, but you’re making something that is very simple in reality into something that is very complicated in your mind.

It’s a lever. People who don’t know to press the button pull it up all the time. It’s the most obvious thing in the world.

I will also add that “kid-proof catastrophic car crash back up door opening options” rarely rate high on make or break features for cars.

If anyone takes this concern seriously, I strongly recommend you take a test drive and check it out for yourself. There is a ton of FUD around teslas that largely seems to be spread by folks who have little or no actual experience with them.

I own a model y. It’s not perfect, but the imperfections are rarely the ones you read about on HN.

> It’s a lever.

In the backseat of the model Y it's a wire, hidden in the door compartment under a mat and a piece of plastic you need to pick up with your fingernails.

Unless they've updated it since I was shown it a few years back. Here is a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PbRBbIGnv4

But front doors are easy enough.

"best" is relative. They are innovative in some things.

I think there are plenty of other competent alternatives on the market now that match the price points of Teslas. Their supercharger network with free or cheap access was their main competitive advantage. I don’t think it’s as relevant now for a purchasing decision.

There really aren't.

I mostly agree. Tesla cars have been surpassed quality-wise for quite some time now by the established manufacturers from Europe and Asia. But Tesla's charger network is still a boon. Charging on the road is really a hassle with all the different networks trying to lock you in. In Europe AFIR [1] is going to change that, but it is going to take some time.

[1] https://transport.ec.europa.eu/transport-themes/clean-transp...

Lucid unquestionably owns the title of best electric car.

And in my opinion Porsche deserves second place.

But at price points well out of reach of most people.

Not forget depreciation... Which for some Porche EVs seem just to be absolutely horrendous.

That’s for a lot of EVs and that’s not going to change until they’ve been around for a while and people realize the batteries are rock solid.

Not necessarily, I have a Ford F150 Lightning and it’s a fantastic truck. I’d pick it over my old model 3.

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