6 ms·

In my circle (relatively young and educated people in a 2nd world country) Tesla has completely supplanted BMW et al as 'the exclusive car brand'.

peshooo 6y ago
Maybe your country is moving up the food chain. In my eastern-European country it seems like every third car is an old BMW.
- iridium_core 6y ago
  Exactly - BMW is the has-been German brand, that you can buy as a 10-20 year old import. It holds no cachet and is harder to maintain and less fuel efficient than other brands with similar features. Tesla is the brand that people aspire to own, that people snap their eyes towards on the street. In small towns, all of the owners of Teslas are known and prestigious individuals. Functionally though - Teslas are too big and too fast for old European cities. The Renault Zoe seems to sell well but is still very expensive for mass adoption.
  - schmidp 6y ago
    kids are also a pretty good indication. if for some reason my model 3 is not parked where it's usually parked, the kids of the neighbourhood come over and ask where the Tesla is. i'm not joking. nobody ever cared where my previous bmw mini, vw golf or land rover parked.
  - janoc 6y ago
    Teslas fit just fine into European cities, they are no larger than BMWs or a VW Passat, not to mention the humongous SUV "tanks" that seem to be so popular. Tesla isn't that popular in Europe simply because most are not insane enough to spend 80kEUR for Model S - for that price one can easily have a Porsche or some other real luxury or sports car. And Model 3 is very overpriced for what it is. 55k EUR? For a compact car with mediocre range? Seriously? You can have a Porsche Cayenne for that price. Or two compacts like Renault Clio or even VW Golf. That is really only for die hard fans of the brand. Nobody else buys it here. Also, the network of charging stations is much less developed in Europe than in the US and most are paid (and pretty expensive at that!). Status symbols are cool but most people don't have Silicon Valley salaries here.
    - b4mboozler 6y ago
      That is a very high level observation, although I do not disagree entirely. You should not forget about countries like Norway, the Netherland and Switzerland where people really have valley-like salaries. EV registration numbers are going thru the roof in Norway and the Netherlands. Also, the most basic Cayenne costs 100k EUR, at least in Switzerland.
      - radu_floricica 6y ago
        Tax policy in some of those countries is doing a lot to equalize the playing field.
      - janoc 6y ago
        Yes - but only because of massive government subsidies for buying electric cars and installation of charge points in those countries, especially in Norway. And given that Tesla is/was pretty much the only thing on the market in that class, no wonder it is selling a lot there. E.g. Norway has exempted electric cars from 25% VAT. That's some 20k EUR "discount" on a Model S right there. Plus it has excepted EVs from other taxes levied on gasoline and diesel cars. So no wonder that people are buying these vehicles there, they would be stupid not to. The issue is not people buying electric cars but Tesla's claimed status as some sort of status symbol. Heck, I would go electric myself if there was a car on the market I could actually justify buying - i.e. with about double the range of the current offerings, reasonable battery replacement costs (not costing more than the value of the car after 5-7 years - see Nissan Leaf ...) and reasonable price at the dealers (i.e. about half of what they cost today). People aren't stupid, they see the advantages of driving electric - but also can buy only as much as their wallets allow. Cayenne prices start around 78k EUR in France, VAT and government ecology maluses included. So I doubt that 100k figure from Switzerland which has much lower VAT taxes, unless they have slapped some sort of "gas-guzzler" tax on it there (which wouldn't surprise me).
bluGill 6y ago
Fads come and go. The minivan was once in. SUVs were next. The prius is in... Who knows what will be next.
m000 6y ago
Where I live, Tesla has supplanted Porsche as the "compensating for something" car brand.
fock 6y ago
where I live, most young and educated people don't see anything exclusive in a car. My tech-centric pals drive their old diesel-engines (they had since high-school...) to work and only the people actually working at BMW/Porsche/Mercedes are playing the "lease"-our-stock-game.
slumdev 6y ago
This is a weird statement. There's nothing exclusive about the Model 3 or the criminally ugly SUV. Now, if you meant to say that the Model S is exclusive, you'd be right. Buying one of those puts a person in the exclusive club of people who were too stupid to spend the money on an A8 or a 760 instead. Edit: An S class would also be a good option. But Heaven help the person who thinks a Model S is in the same league as any of the other $100k cars. Its ride quality is trash. The interior is trash. I've heard plenty of people get defensive about the Model S, but I've never heard anyone mount a real defense of it.
- symlinkk 6y ago
  I think the exclusive thing about the Model 3 is the $40k price tag? Sometimes people let little comments like yours slip on this website and I realize how different of a world some people live in

peshooo 6y ago

Maybe your country is moving up the food chain. In my eastern-European country it seems like every third car is an old BMW.

iridium_core 6y ago
Exactly - BMW is the has-been German brand, that you can buy as a 10-20 year old import. It holds no cachet and is harder to maintain and less fuel efficient than other brands with similar features. Tesla is the brand that people aspire to own, that people snap their eyes towards on the street. In small towns, all of the owners of Teslas are known and prestigious individuals. Functionally though - Teslas are too big and too fast for old European cities. The Renault Zoe seems to sell well but is still very expensive for mass adoption.
- schmidp 6y ago
  kids are also a pretty good indication. if for some reason my model 3 is not parked where it's usually parked, the kids of the neighbourhood come over and ask where the Tesla is. i'm not joking. nobody ever cared where my previous bmw mini, vw golf or land rover parked.
- janoc 6y ago
  Teslas fit just fine into European cities, they are no larger than BMWs or a VW Passat, not to mention the humongous SUV "tanks" that seem to be so popular. Tesla isn't that popular in Europe simply because most are not insane enough to spend 80kEUR for Model S - for that price one can easily have a Porsche or some other real luxury or sports car. And Model 3 is very overpriced for what it is. 55k EUR? For a compact car with mediocre range? Seriously? You can have a Porsche Cayenne for that price. Or two compacts like Renault Clio or even VW Golf. That is really only for die hard fans of the brand. Nobody else buys it here. Also, the network of charging stations is much less developed in Europe than in the US and most are paid (and pretty expensive at that!). Status symbols are cool but most people don't have Silicon Valley salaries here.
  - b4mboozler 6y ago
    That is a very high level observation, although I do not disagree entirely. You should not forget about countries like Norway, the Netherland and Switzerland where people really have valley-like salaries. EV registration numbers are going thru the roof in Norway and the Netherlands. Also, the most basic Cayenne costs 100k EUR, at least in Switzerland.
    - radu_floricica 6y ago
      Tax policy in some of those countries is doing a lot to equalize the playing field.
    - janoc 6y ago
      Yes - but only because of massive government subsidies for buying electric cars and installation of charge points in those countries, especially in Norway. And given that Tesla is/was pretty much the only thing on the market in that class, no wonder it is selling a lot there. E.g. Norway has exempted electric cars from 25% VAT. That's some 20k EUR "discount" on a Model S right there. Plus it has excepted EVs from other taxes levied on gasoline and diesel cars. So no wonder that people are buying these vehicles there, they would be stupid not to. The issue is not people buying electric cars but Tesla's claimed status as some sort of status symbol. Heck, I would go electric myself if there was a car on the market I could actually justify buying - i.e. with about double the range of the current offerings, reasonable battery replacement costs (not costing more than the value of the car after 5-7 years - see Nissan Leaf ...) and reasonable price at the dealers (i.e. about half of what they cost today). People aren't stupid, they see the advantages of driving electric - but also can buy only as much as their wallets allow. Cayenne prices start around 78k EUR in France, VAT and government ecology maluses included. So I doubt that 100k figure from Switzerland which has much lower VAT taxes, unless they have slapped some sort of "gas-guzzler" tax on it there (which wouldn't surprise me).

bluGill 6y ago

Fads come and go. The minivan was once in. SUVs were next. The prius is in... Who knows what will be next.

m000 6y ago

Where I live, Tesla has supplanted Porsche as the "compensating for something" car brand.

fock 6y ago

where I live, most young and educated people don't see anything exclusive in a car. My tech-centric pals drive their old diesel-engines (they had since high-school...) to work and only the people actually working at BMW/Porsche/Mercedes are playing the "lease"-our-stock-game.

slumdev 6y ago

This is a weird statement. There's nothing exclusive about the Model 3 or the criminally ugly SUV. Now, if you meant to say that the Model S is exclusive, you'd be right. Buying one of those puts a person in the exclusive club of people who were too stupid to spend the money on an A8 or a 760 instead. Edit: An S class would also be a good option. But Heaven help the person who thinks a Model S is in the same league as any of the other $100k cars. Its ride quality is trash. The interior is trash. I've heard plenty of people get defensive about the Model S, but I've never heard anyone mount a real defense of it.

symlinkk 6y ago
I think the exclusive thing about the Model 3 is the $40k price tag? Sometimes people let little comments like yours slip on this website and I realize how different of a world some people live in