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Perhaps a side-effect of the same delusion that can fuel the sunk cost fallacy. Once you have paid $10,000 for full self-driving, you have to tell yourself it w
by cma 6y ago
Perhaps a side-effect of the same delusion that can fuel the sunk cost fallacy. Once you have paid $10,000 for full self-driving, you have to tell yourself it was worth it and it is going to be great, and some kind of halo effect bleeds into enjoyment of the car?
This is at least part of how it works when people make religious donations for promise of material reward in situations like prosperity preaching, or when they are led to believe their donation will cure a grave illness in the family.
The connections to prosperity preaching go even further as FSD was sold as the feature that would make Teslas the first ever appreciating mass-market car, bringing in great fortunes for the owners who had enough faith (claims with a strong indication of a 10-20X return on the FSD investment by the time the robotaxi network was to go online in 2020). I may be wrong on this, but I think the income from it is also tax-shielded like a church, as long as they never deliver it never gets recognized and then never gets taxed.
The head Pastor/Technoking can then put the $10,000 payments into Dogecoin investments if he wants, though Tesla would have to pay taxes on any realized gains there.
- walrus01 6y agoPeople are down voting you for some reason, but you're not wrong, but I also think the part about driving a sunk cost fallacy is not specific to Teslas. I know probably at least seven people who bought expensive two-seat performance cars that run on premium fuel and use very expensive tires that wear out quickly, in addition to other costly maintenance items, and they absolutely are the definition of a sunk cost fallacy. The majority of the people I know with such cars that have found them to be expensive and impractical are unwilling or unable to sell them because they don't want to admit to themselves that buying the thing in the first place might have been a mistake. They all ended up buying another much more practical car (corolla, civic, etc) and using that for most daily purposes. My opinion is that this phenomenon can be seen with almost any very expensive status symbol car. Not just Teslas. Probably a $120k model S is a better example than a $35-45k model 3, but even so...
- johnisgood 6y agoYeah I think the OP is right, I interpreted it to be the choice-supportive bias, which is pretty much a known bias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias. > Choice-supportive bias or post-purchase rationalization is the tendency to retroactively ascribe positive attributes to an option one has selected and/or to demote the forgone options.[1] It is part of cognitive science, and is a distinct cognitive bias that occurs once a decision is made. For example, if a person chooses option A instead of option B, they are likely to ignore or downplay the faults of option A while amplifying or ascribing new negative faults to option B. As you said, it is not limited to Teslas, of course.
- jimmaswell 6y agoI got an old Z31 for fun and ironically it has the same mileage as my daily driver Grand Cherokee (~14mpg). And I feel like all in all it's a cheaper and easier car to work on, smaller tires less electronics etc. I believe most modern sports cars get even better gas mileage than this so maybe my tolerance for gas cost is just outdated. What kind of sports cars did the people you know get? A Mustang shouldn't be that bad but some of the other brands can be ridiculous.
- walrus01 6y ago350z, 370z, RX8, people who put too much money into modifying a Miata, stuff like that. The RX8 owners were particularly unhappy after the engines all failed. If you really want to see some poor choices in automotive purchasing, talk to military officers who've seen their direct report E2/E3 go out and buy top specification Dodge Chargers at 25% interest on 72-84 month terms. It's a whole trope.
- minhazm 6y agoThe Model 3 is priced comparable to a BMW 3 series. The only maintenance you have on them is tires, air filter, wipers, windshield washer fluid, and eventually brake pads. There’s no engine maintenance, no oil changes, no premium gas, no transmission issues, no timing belt, starter, ignition, etc. If you look at an actual cost of ownership comparison, the Model 3 actually compares favorably to even a Toyota Camry over 5 yrs of ownership. Even in expensive electricity places like CA it’s still way cheaper than gas. The up front cost is a bit higher, but long term it’s cheaper.