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How is it worth to lose the UK, AU and Japanese market with this move? I'm seeing a lot of Teslas in London, I don't see how eliminating the right-hand configur
by sph 3y ago
How is it worth to lose the UK, AU and Japanese market with this move? I'm seeing a lot of Teslas in London, I don't see how eliminating the right-hand configuration is justifiable economically.
Yeah it might be a ball ache to design a car that supports both driving styles, but all brands with global reach have to deal with it.
The grabbing stick is equivalent to being told "fuck you for living in one of those countries, deal with it." Terrible idea.
- shortcake27 3y agoIt’s just the S and X. 3 and Y are still offered in these markets in right hand drive. I assume they are not selling enough to justify the tooling. Agree the grabbing stick is a joke though.
- alignItems 3y agoElon’s ego getting into Tesla decision making.
- someweirdperson 3y agoYou want a Tesla? Simply change your local rules of the road from left to right.
- teekert 3y agoIs he wrong though? Sometimes you need to make a statement, like Apple not willing to do chatcontrol. Sometimes it's just time. It's time to drop empirical units, to much damage has been caused. My own language has so many exceptions to the "rules" that every generation spends a lot of time learning them (i.e. we say all 2 digit numbers backwards, it gets every generation, every time), again and again. It's like technical debt for a country. I thailand I almost died getting on the road with my scooter, because of the other side of the road rule. Just bite the bullet, switch, feel the pain, but then, feel that sweet sweet relieve.
- piloto_ciego 3y ago[flagged]
- chrismsimpson 3y agoFrankly, kind of glad see less edifices to that moron here (Australia).
- sph 3y agoCertainly, a supply vacuum means someone else will eat the EV lunch in those very rich markets. Someone with smaller ego and better business acumen.
- masklinn 3y ago1. Is it really a surprise coming from Musk? 2. Teslas are not built in the UK, between the import duties from brexit and the extra strong recession from brexit, I wouldn’t assume it’s a huge market for tesla 3. Same as japan, where teslas are status symbols for people with a lot of money, they sell low-mid thousands a year, which is less than they sell in Norway (a country with 1/20th the population) in a month. That leaves australia, I’ve no idea what the EV market is over there. Though I would assume range anxiety is pretty major concern, SA, NT, and most of WA (and QLD outside of the coast) seem to have very little coverage on anything but 3-phase in caravan parks.
- alibarber 3y agoWhat import duties are Telsas imported into the UK subject to that would be different to those imported or built in the EU?
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoThis only applies to the S and X we are talking about, which aren’t huge sellers to begin with unlike the 3 and Y (that still have RHD versions and are the vast majority of UK, JP, and AU sales).
- bb123 3y agoThis is just plain wrong. Last year Tesla sold 56,000 cars in the UK. That makes it about the same size market as the next three largest European countries combined. Given the doom mongering in the news you’d assume everyone in the UK is foraging in bins for their food, but the reality is there is plenty of people with money.
- carlmr 3y ago>you’d assume everyone in the UK is foraging in bins for their food, but the reality is there is plenty of people with money. There is almost never a dearth of people with money. The median income is more telling about the state of a nation.
- 3y ago
- alias_neo 3y agoThe stick really is a "fuck you", that Tesla fan boys will think is funny; I think it's funny someone spending so much money would accept that, maybe they've never driven a wrong-handed car in the UK before and just don't realise how much of a hazard it is. That said, I'm more interested in why it's not illegal to intentionally sell brand new cars with the wrong handedness, in any country. There are several manoeuvres that become dangerous when you can't see properly due to being on the wrong side of the car.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoTesla is basically not selling the S and X in the UK anymore. But they are still allowed to buy a LHD version for some reason, that must have more to do with UK’s own laws on fancier cars that they already import from Italy and Germany?
- alibarber 3y agoIt's not illegal to sell or register a 'wrong-handed' car in the UK and most (all?) of Europe.
- detaro 3y agoDefinitively legal in all EU member countries (registration potentially with some adjustments, e.g. to correct the beam pattern of the lights).
- alias_neo 3y agoI'm not sure. Even Italian super cars in the UK are right hand drive, but with an import I can understand it being ok; the person buying it knows what's what, but I feel like Tesla (or anyone else) shouldn't be allowed to sell LHD direct to the public in the UK when we don't drive on the right.
- masklinn 3y agoLegally speaking there’s no issue with driving LHD in the UK, or RHD on the mainland, as long as you keep to the correct side of the road (which is a legal imposition).
- drumhead 3y agoYou're forgetting another massive RHD market in India.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoNot to mention Indonesia. None of these are big S/X markets, simply because the S/X market isn’t that big to begin with. I wonder how many people commenting here thinks this applies to all Teslas and not just the S and X?
- bb123 3y agoI think in the UK and Japan the model S and model X are far too large to ever be big sellers. There are even some bridges in the UK that the model X can’t cross because it is too wide.
- darreninthenet 3y agoSome of the most popular higher end cars on our roads in the UK are Land Rovers and Range Rovers (and similar sized less high end SUVs from Kia etc), all of which are wider than an X. I've driven some really rural narrow roads in my Range Rover and have never encountered a bridge or road I can't use... would be keen to read a source on that bridges thing as it's completely new to me and is failing my sniff test.
- bb123 3y agoThere are tons of bridges around the UK with a 6ft 6 width restriction, for example Chelsea Bridge in London. The X is 6ft 6.6 inches wide.
- darreninthenet 3y agoRight ok I misunderstood I thought you meant physically can't cross rather than not permitted, yes that is correct! However if you stand at the Albert Bridge (which is the one you meant with that width restrictions) you'll see tonnes of LR and RR going through which are wider than that as well as Sprinter vans which are about the same as the X... I can only assume the police take the view that if you fit through the width restriction (which must have some leeway on them as bigger LRs are about 81") they won't bother you...?
- bb123 3y agoYeah I think that is true, I think the goal of the width restriction is really about weight - they don't want very heavy HGVs going back and forth over it all day so they probably don't care about SUVs