The premium pricing on Teslas meant I didn't even seriously consider them when choosing what car to buy. Years ago I thought Tesla was going to focus on making EVs affordable, but even their "consumer priced" Model 3 when it finally came out was unobtainable, and now MSRP is $43K (which only comes in the sedan form factor) [1]. It sucks to be the person who bought a car right before a price drop, but I'm happy to hear that they are lowering prices.
I don't know why this isn't discussed more often. EVs won't be able to replace traditional gas powered vehicles if the majority of consumers won't be able to afford one in the next twenty years.
I have spent the last ten years arguing this to people richer than me. I drive a used car, it is over twenty years old. I will keep driving it until it stops running or becomes too expensive to maintain. I do not have the money for a "car note" and I own my used vehicle outright. My credit is not in a position to purchase a new vehicle... which like, who in their right mind buys a new vehicle anyway when it loses a massive amount of value the second you drive it off the lot?
Unless the game drastically changes on EVs, they will continue to be something that mostly the affluent can afford to have, while the poor will continue fixing up their decades-old beaters until they're made illegal.
All I've ever wanted is an EV without all the bells and whistles... to help reduce the cost of the vehicle. Don't give me touchscreen anything, don't give me keyless entry, don't give me power windows, don't give me rear-view cameras and sensors. I want it all low-tech and cheap to replace. I can't afford to replace a $10k bumper that has a boatload of sensors in it when a bumper without sensors is a couple hundred bucks.
I'm curious: Is there 2nd hand market for EV's if the battery's performance drops significantly after about 5-6 years and the warranty's gone? The car might be fine, but replacing a battery is rather expensive, no?
The article is hit and miss. It rolls out the laundry list of plausible problems and assigns them all the most negative interpretation. It also doesn't compare problems other EVs have had. For example, FSD might be a multi-billion dollar liability if it doesn't work soon, which it won't. But so was the Bolt battery fire recall.
The real problem with FSD is that "robotaxi" revenues are a big big part of analyst price targets: ARK's PT is mostly based on robotaxi revenue. That's fantasyland. FSD isn't even designed to a robotaxi, and several companies are testing actual robotaxis in actual cities.
$TSLA is, still, way overpriced. On the basis of a tide of hype. When that tide ebbs, FSD will be seen to be swimming naked, and $TSLA will get repriced like other car makers are priced.
I'm no fanboy and don't own a Tesla or a spacex rocket, but I can recognize the characteristic putrid decaying stench emanating from that piece: the stinky Wall Street cheap shot of the short selling kind.
Sure, yes, Musk do deserve lots of heat from publicly going ding dong lately, but it was never really about him. He could die today, and it would make no difference. What he could humanely do in one lifetime, he did already. RIP Elon.
And what he already did was nothing short of amazing: through equally manipulative propaganda and deceptive marketing schemes, leveraging the most distasteful human attributes that are greed and envy, he almost singlehandedly turned around some of the largest parts of the global economy, all that in less than 20 years.
In other words, he (like Job before him) conned status hungry folks Worldwide making them believe they were going to fix everything if they bought into fast li-ion on wheels, always-on everywhere broadband from the sky, soon to be gated communities on Mars, solar rooftops everywhere, tweets from Hell, and what not.
Oh my, what a gullible flock we are. But magic really happened, and it worked (for most). Only to show one thing: when many dream something and don't give up or give in, things do happen. What we see now are people getting screwed from being too early to the party, or too late to reality.
But please, don't jump ship just now, the best Tesla cars are yet to come. Everything up to now was just alpha beta nonsense marketed to the bling crowd.
I would have simply said "the honeymoon's over" now Tesla has to compete as an EV car company with the rest and the playing field appears to be levelling.
I personally would like to hail a vehicle whenever I need one than own one. Get FSD working for that use case and I'll be a subscriber.
I would say, Tesla ruined Tesla. An expensive toy for rich people, with no benefit for the normal consumer.
Terrible HMI, small luggage space, luxury price with entry level customization.
1. https://www.tesla.com/model3/design#overview