Tesla certainly has its issues to resolve, but among the biggest problem for me with buying a Tesla is that it represents the gradual but seemingly unstoppable

Tesla certainly has its issues to resolve, but among the biggest problem for me with buying a Tesla is that it represents the gradual but seemingly unstoppable transition of car ownership becoming very much less “ownership,” the way that had happened with software and computers in general. The actual QC issues do seem somewhat serious, but having been inside of a Model X I can 100% understand why someone would be more than happy to deal with an abnormal amount of service issues in exchange for the experience; to this day I would not be surprised if there are no strong direct competitors. Last I looked, most electric cars focused on budget, and I’ve heard newer more luxury focused options still come up a bit short. I’m not a car person. I have only been in a few “luxury” cars. The Tesla was definitely the defining, “OK, I understand why people enjoy this” moment for me. The amount of torque is terrifying, and it doesn’t really feel like it attempts to emulate the limitations of a gas car in any way. It feels very futuristic. Compared to my Civic, it’s obviously a hell of a time. But there are some points worth noting. The Sensing feature on the Civic sounds like a nice additional safety feature, but it is pretty abysmal. Of course you wouldn’t expect it to be anything like Waymo Driver or Tesla Autopilot, but even as a safety feature its value is tenuous, very occasionally doing things that could be dangerous (like automatically firing the brakes during a sharp turn...) And the Civic is a well-respected line in terms of being cheap and fairly reliable from what I understand, but there were a litany of hardware and software QC issues in at least the 2016-2018 range. Again, you can’t really compare these two vehicles. But the Civic is a vehicle you buy because it’s a safe choice, yet you could easily end up spending thousands to fix climate control components that should’ve been recalled out-of-warranty, or have issues with software-controlled brakes failing (not in a safety-critical way to the best of my knowledge, but there are some bugs, which makes you feel a bit uneasy...) I feel like Tesla owners know what they’re getting into: it’s buggy, it might even be insecure, and there are even ethics issues at hand, but it’s luxurious and it feels like the future. Not too many people sell the future in entrenched industries. A Tesla is rare, and I think that is probably why it generates so much hype... I could probably afford to buy a Tesla. However, I’ll pass. I would like an electric vehicle, but I am just going to hope that there’s an option more down my alley in the future. Maybe there will be an option where you actually own the car you buy, even! Let’s all keep donating to Louis Rossman, on that note...