What will it take to make you seriously consider an EV?

Yes.

 

How long have you had it, and how do you drive it (commuter or highway or whatever)?

 

Commuter but highway for longer trips maybe a couple times a month. Had it for a year but have been religiously following the ev space for many years now and have talked about it at length a few years ago in the stock market thread to anyone who would listen.

 

I'm going back to gas after owning 2 Teslas. I ended up buying a Dodge Ram Longhorn Edition because I bought some land outside of Austin and I needed a 4x4 truck. After owning the Dodge I'm done with the Tesla interior. It's just cheap. Also, at the time I bought the Ram I started having issues with the Tesla computer and Tesla service was complete trash. They had my car in for over a month and didn't even work on it. The only way you can contact their service department is thru their app which didn't work in my case because it has to sync up to your car...which was broken. It was completely ridiculous. Since I got it back the car boots up/starts up MUCH slower than it ever did before and they also took Sirius satellite radio off the media center for some reason.

I still love how an electric car drives compared to gas and thought I would never go back, but here I am.

 

Sucks to hear. Tesla service is by far their Achilles heal right now, a result of outgrowing their ability to handle the volume (without losing massive amounts of money). You would think that as they mature and slow down in the future that would improve, or else that would be some real long term brand damage.

 

Lucid looks good. If they can produce better quality cars than Tesla, they can carve out a pretty good customer base.

I passed on Tesla and got the e-tron because of Tesla’s crap quality.

 

It's an interesting point on brand damage, and I've heard robbie's sort of stories before on Tesla repairs/service/software issues.

To my eyes, as an American consumer, Tesla's service proposition mirrors what we see from many successful brands and companies now, minimizing customer service and follow-up overhead while they do everything they can to quickly grow the number of new customers. Not sure if and when that check comes due. That probably depends on the exact X% of customers who end up with a robbie-like situation. If it's low enough, the company can just plow along and lose those unhappy customers, after they've already ponied up substantial buy-ins.

My friends who own Teslas still love them. I hadn't heard the interior complaints before. I do have a good friend whose children hate the Tesla and are embarrassed by it. This is the model that's supposedly more family friendly and has those wings that open upward. Haha.

 

Im waiting for Honda or Toyota to manufacture EV.

 

Toyota went into the fuel cell thing and that's not going well.
Both of those big boys seemed to put a lot into their hybrids.

Don't sleep on the Hyundai EV's. I've driven the Kona and found it surprisingly comfortable... almost fun. (But I clearly like small cars; one of two reasons Teslas were a no-go for me = literally won't fit in our tiny garage.)

 

the kona is nice but im just too tall for that. I drive too much for work to drive uncomfortable. Might just stay in the hybrid lane for now

 

My father in law has one of those. It's neat, but I get your point. He fawned over it so much that it embarrassed her sister when the sister lived at home.

Difference in these company situations, though, is that one brand is hawking a $50-100k car. Can't shy away from people after that purchase. Elon has a history of overpromising and underdelivering, and I feel this may be a part of that.

 

Yup, there’s even a book written about this corporate strategy called Inside the Tornado by Geoffrey Moore. Premise is that if you are in hypergrowth you take all the customers you can get, even while knowing that customer satisfaction is going to go down because you can't service them all adequately because the benefits outweigh the downside. However you have to adjust this in the long run when growth slows you won’t be able to outgrow the lost sales from brand damage.

 

The interior complaints are one of the big Tesla issues. Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda...all the big car companies have 100s of years combined in creating car interiors. I've heard from several forums and from several Tesla owners that Tesla interiors "age" quickly. Up until now, there weren't that many "old" Teslas...but more and more Tesla's are getting older and the interior issues are starting to pop up.

Small things, like squeaks and rattles. Seats that have seams that look old. Peeling issues on the dash. Panel gaps. Paint issues. Its a thing with Teslas.

Its a question for the future, actually. Is it more difficult to start with the disruptive technology (electric drive train, batteries, self driving stuff) and build a quality car around it. Or is it easier to take a quality car, and put in the disruptive technology. We're going to answer the question in the next 5-10 years.

Does Musk really want a car company long term? Or does he want a tech company? Right now, they're straddling both.

I'd wonder what the market would do if there was an annoucement like this: Tesla and GM have signed an agreement. All GM cars and trucks will be build with licensed Tesla technology starting in 2023. Tesla will no longer manufacture cars but will be responsible for all EV technology, including battery, motor, and drivetrains. GM will be the sole partner with Tesla for the next 20 years. You can pre-order your 2023 GMC Yukon Tesla edition now.

 

This is fairly common among most manufacturers. Audis, BMWs, Hondas/Acuras, etc all have squeaks, rattles, etc. Most German makes have all kinds of issues, but people still keep buying them because of the image and whatever other reasons. Chevys and Buicks always have great looking interiors initially that seem to start aging quickly with things like the seat "leather" wrinkling or cracking and rattles popping up. But you see that a lot nowadays in Hondas and other vehicles, too. Rattles are a bane of many car manufacturers sadly and they come and go with various generations of vehicles.

The difference, for me at least, between a Tesla and say a Mercedes interior has always been that when I get into a Mercedes I feel like I'm sitting in something superior (even if the thing breaks down in 3-4 years... lol). When I get into a Tesla, I see a really cool giant tablet with maybe decent seats, but the rest of the car just looks like a prototype or unfinished. I never feel like I'm sitting in a $40-$100k car for the most part.

That would be interesting, but GM already has their Ultium battery platform they invest(ed) heavily in. I don't know if they'd be the company to do it, but who knows, you may be right. It would be more interesting to see if they would a venture with Ford like that. I don't think Ford has their own battery technology -- I think they outsource battery tech to SK and LG (?), but I'm not completely sure about that.

 

jiggy: "I don't think Teslas look that nice."
also jiggy: posts vid of a weird Cadi that looks like it's already been in several wrecks.



EDIT: actually, I just watched the video finally, and it does look pretty good to me. Not going to lie just for the sake of a joke.

 

Some similarities. Ram is a great truck, own one and own a tesla. I love the tesla, its a smooth drive. But tesla's service and access does suck, but they moved the needle to show that this can be practical and convenient. I'm definitely now on the EV train and it wasn't for the environment, I love not filling up gas. Its a great step in the right direction, now you have porsche, Ford, Rivian, and some big wigs coming in and the market should get better, hopefully that raises the bar on what tesla can offer in service.

Theres till a place for both of them. I'm very open and intrigued to the new suv/truck offerings now that I've gone electric. A ram electric would be fantastic, they've done a wonderful job with their truck.

 

The only one that looks better than Teslas is the Porsche taycan and that one costs double for less performance. But of course tastes are subjective, so fair point.

Obviously miles better in range(that was the pun), battery tech, charging tech, driver assist/self driving tech, battery longevity, charging availability/network, software/UI/infotainment, over the air updates (doesn’t even exist for vast majority). There’s a reason they basically invented the modern EV and owns 80% of the US market.

When people say the incumbent “heavyweights” are now coming, you guys realize those guys have zero experience in battery, charging or software right? They are only incumbents in interior and maybe seats, steering wheels etc lol. For the real value add stuff, they have 100 years of experience developing and perfecting the gasoline engine/transmission, which is now becoming obsolete. They are the newbies in battery/motors/ev drivetrain and Tesla is the 800 lb gorilla. The financial markets already woke up to that, I guess latecomers will realize it too, but just later.

 

My truck is for work, the gen3 cts v has 1000hp for fun. If the cyber truck can serve both work and performance I'll buy one using Doge coin.