I want someone to explain HN's obsession with anything Tesla related. Is it the technology, the disruption or just Elon Musk's involvement?
I understand articles appear that get upvoted I'm just wondering why this type of news would get upvoted.
I understand articles appear that get upvoted I'm just wondering why this type of news would get upvoted.
Yes, yes and yes.
That is so banal, AFAIK almost all brand have some sort of certified second hand channel, that I don't even know what sort of on-topic discussion it is supposed to bring.
The article itself has nothing else to offer either - no idea on the pricing or what happens to your access to the supercharger network with a second hand Tesla.
Very weak for a HN article.
So no, for me it's definitely not Musk. Cool guy, but you can only hear Martin Luther King have a speech so many times before you're like 'I agree, but I'm getting sleepy.'
For me it's really just the tech and disruption. The things Tesla and SpaceX and SolarCity are doing really are very cool, and they sit at the heart of some of the biggest problems and challenges of the 21st century. An inevitable shift to green energy and the final frontier. For Tesla it's just a cool startup with a slick product, some ballsy moves, frequent run-ins with local/state competition and media clickbait journalists, and a product that for me is a bit like the iphone: not the very first smartphone, touchscreen, mobile os, app store, not the thing the average western consumer will have let alone the average person on the planet, not the cheapest or the most inclusive, but a frontrunner with a huge and lasting impact that will drive everyone else, a company that sets a bar. That's exciting.
And for SpaceX, well, that's just really exciting. This notion we're regularly shipping all kinds of stuff to a freaking permanent space station and returning safely and making multiple trips with the same vehicle over and over, is insane. A one-time planned crash on the moon and on the earth is one thing, but we seem to start to really grasp real control in space, where we can comfortably do lots of different things at an accelerated pace, cheaper and cheaper, and renew the interest, investments and plans in space that laid dormant for a few decades. SpaceX being a part of that, as a private startup company that again is making ballsy moves, is a hugely compelling story.
SolarCity is the least exciting for me personally, but I think it's also hugely important. Generally sits in the top 3 solar companies in the US, doing cool work, like building the biggest ever US solar farm. Creating a solar security, solar leasing options and retrofits (a not so sexy but very important part of our energy discussion). I don't follow the company too much, oil prices have been low recently and shale gas has exploded on the scene, so I expect it to be the most difficult company to run as it's hard to get it cheaper than coal/gas. As solar only has a 'moral' benefit to consumers, and the average customer isn't willing to pay a large premium for something that's moral (because green) especially with all the rhetoric on climate denial, the company is in many ways limited to the growth in the industry. While Tesla and SpaceX can outpace competition, SolarCity probably can't very much.
Generally speaking, how much a car costs to fix correlates with what the car costs new. Part of this is parts cost; I mean, if you compare a 3-5 year old bmw 3 series to a new honda civic, you are getting a car of about the same size for about the same price... but the BMW rotors, for instance, are beefier to begin with, and they wear faster - even if you are just paying for the metal, you are paying more for bmw rotors. (with brakes and tires, there is usually a trade-off between performance and longevity, to some extent. Softer tires/softer rotors do the job better, but don't last as long.)
On an electric car, I would expect this to be dominated by the cost of battery replacement, which I would assume would dominate the cost of electric car maintenance. A smaller electric car is going to have a smaller (in both size and power) battery pack, and a smaller battery pack is going to cost you less to replace when it wears out.
The other part of it is price discrimination. Service and parts for the bmw are priced, you know, for people that can afford a bmw. If you have a bmw, the mechanic is going to charge you the "premium service" because it's a good indicator that you are willing to spend more on a car than the person that drives a civic.
Didn't really feel like I should be downvoted for my comment up-stream either.
Dog hair, child puke, vomit entering electrical panels, jamming seatbelt mechanisms.
Light collision damage.
Etc.
On a model that I sold I was able to get $450 approx for the snow tires. That said I didn't drive it much if I did I would have hit other maintenance windows.
Personally I would never keep a luxury or high performance car past warranty.
[1] Not only that but they are so large only certain places can even change them because of the width. Since the Porsche dealer is about an hour away I had to go to the BMW dealer to swap the summer tires at the end of the season. (There was a company that had a tire changing service that comes to you but they went out of business that was the best convenience.)
Complaining about expensive tires on a fast sports car is like complaining about the poor battery life on your 19" 4GHz laptop with discrete graphics.
Personally I would never keep a luxury or high performance car past warranty.
Which suggests you mean, because of the tires which is an odd thing to say.
Now maybe you didn't mean because of the tires, but then (to me) your post reads like a jumble of unrelated thoughts.
And of course the usual tire/brake maintenance...
hahhahahahahahahaha
The hyperloop is a distraction from actually building useful infrastructure, and one that is half-baked at best. It's what a billionaire doodled on a napkin one day and decided to publish to get free publicity for his other, more legitimate businesses.
What bothers me most is that he's building spaceships, for heaven's sake. He understands what engineering problems and solutions look like, and he knows this isn't one.
The hyperloop is a major, major step up from a train (even a "high speed train" so it's not acceptable to just say "stick with the old tech".
People were hating them and here is change.
Old companies protected by government just for a reason that there is no alternative got in people nerves.
The financial system very efficiently bankrupted the Auto industry, no problem.
I think the main reason is that people think the mere fact of associating themselves and reading anything Tesla and anything Elon Musk related makes them feel cool and modern. It's basically like a cult. How people who know "music" will always disparage pop music and think this random indie alternative band is the best.