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They also ranks first in customer satisfaction survey -- 4 years running: https://thedriven.io/2021/11/15/tesla-dominate-top-10-most-satisfying-cars-in-consume
by LanceJones 5y ago
They also ranks first in customer satisfaction survey -- 4 years running:
https://thedriven.io/2021/11/15/tesla-dominate-top-10-most-satisfying-cars-in-consumer-reports/ https://thedriven.io/2021/11/15/tesla-dominate-top-10-most-s...
- tragictrash 5y ago
- jayd16 5y ago"Loyal" means something different than they simply like their car? Why is it painted as somehow disqualifying?
- tragictrash 5y ago100%. You can like your car, but be aware and open with the flaws. Thats me with my car. The behavior I see surrounding these cars is definately not that. I haven't really seen this with another brand of car, at least to this extent. I see it a lot with iPhones too, but that's not a car. Definitely disqualifies your statements if I know they come from a place of blind infatuation.
- lillecarl 5y ago[flagged]
- kube-system 5y agoThis pattern is more of the norm than not for expensive high-tech cars. Rich people like nice stuff and are willing to pay maintenance and repair bills.
- walrus01 5y agoand then later in their life they become impossible to fix at a reasonable price. somebody might sell you a mostly okay running older BMW 7 series for $4500, fully loaded with all the options but take a look at the parts and labor cost to fix something on it.... you might as well throw away the whole car.
- ghaff 5y agoWhile I've driven them (on a track) and appreciate the attraction of the German sports luxury brands, what I've always heard is that if you want to keep them past their warranty period you need a trusted independent foreign car mechanic--and it can still get pricey. Just has never been a sufficient priority for me.
- sonofhans 5y agoYou’re spot on. I’ve done exactly this for the last 20 years with several old Mercedes. It only works because I have a great local independent mechanic, and I don’t mind spending $2k/year in maintenance.
- chihuahua 5y agoIf that $2k/year gets you a car that runs fairly reliably, that's a pretty good deal compared to the depreciation of a newer car. I assume your cars are depreciated to the point where there's no further depreciation?
- sonofhans 5y agoYes, the maintenance is mostly preventative, with the goal of the car being in functionally new condition. Putting the second 100,000 miles on a well-maintained, reliably luxury car is the best deal going, I think, aside from not driving at all. E.g, in 2011 paid $16,000 for a 2003 E320 wagon in perfect condition. It was $70,000 brand new, so the original depreciation is eye-watering. Since then I’ve probably put $2,000/year * 10 years into it, so less than half the depreciation. It’s still functionally new, with a fair share of small aesthetic issues. I once bought a car with negative value, in that I spent more on deferred maintenance in the first month than I paid for it. That was a magnificent vehicle, though, once I fixed it up; identical to this — https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1987-mercedes-benz-300sdl-14/ https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1987-mercedes-benz-300sdl-...
- 5y ago
- LanceJones 5y agoSince you're making broad, sweeping generalizations, I can play. There are 7 people in my social circle who are Tesla owners but not fiercely loyal. They are not rich. And none of them have experienced more than minor issues in their ownership.
- kube-system 5y agoThey are "not rich" in only the most privileged of perspectives. Even if we limit that perspective to the US, which is a pretty wealthy country by most measures: the average vehicle on the road in the US was built before Tesla even opened their first assembly plant. The used car market in the US is 2.8x the size of the new car market. Median income buyers struggle to afford new cars of any fuel type or brand. But, call 'em whatever you want. My point was, the demographic who buy new cars which compete in a luxury-priced segment are a demographic who are motivated by the technology of the product rather than value/price/maintenance.
- matsemann 5y agoIf you own a Tesla you're almost by definition rich. If everyone in your social circle is driving expensive/new cars, you're all rich. Not to go all "check your privileges", but seriously..
- wumpus 5y agoThis is where Hacker News is at its best: endless discussions about what the word "rich" means.
- bananabreakfast 5y agoA model 3 MSRP is $45k. A used one can be found for even less than that. Check your local car prices, b/c that is not really that expensive and certainly nowhere close to "rich" territory. A fully loaded F-150 is $78k. I would be shocked if you also said anyone driving an F-150 is by definition rich. Also, a cheap used car may be drastically less expensive to buy for most people, but they will ultimately pay thousands of dollars of maintenance, part replacements, fluid changes and gas which a Tesla really never has to deal with, ever. No one seems to talk about this.
- woodruffw 5y agoConsumers tend to rate higher satisfactions with "luxury" goods (i.e., goods at premium prices, regardless of material quality or value) than they do with non-luxury goods. It occurs to me that that bias affects Tesla's reception as well.
- bumby 5y agoI vaguely remember (or perhaps misremember) Mercedes doing a study that consumers respond less favorably to their cars when they are pierced below some threshold compared to the same cars when prices higher. There’s definitely some consumer cognitive bias effects around pricing
- ALittleLight 5y agoPresumably the survey includes other luxury cars.
- woodruffw 5y agoCertainly. The effect happens with all luxury items, and the report suggests that other luxury brands are similarly grouped at the top (and similarly have reported reliability issues).
- rsynnott 5y agoI think Tesla would be the only all-premium vendor of significant size in the US market? And almost certainly the only one to sell a significant fraction of >100k cars.
- ok123456 5y agoThat's pure survivorship bias. Everyone else who encounters major problems with their Tesla gets rid of it, and therefore wouldn't choose to buy their Tesla again because they don't have it anymore. People who do have one new enough not to have a major defect will overlook small issues with the build quality and other complaints that people have about Tesla, because they've bought into a luxury and lifestyle brand. When someone else dies in a Telsa fire or dies in an autopilot accident, they convince themself it was the operator "doing it wrong" instead of an inherently defective product. When story comes out about Tesla remotely disabling functionality on a car capriciously, there has to be "more to the story" instead of it being a shocking erosion of consumer rights.
- josephcsible 5y agoWhy wouldn't that apply to every car brand?