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US made cars had the reputation of being low quality, too big, too heavy and too inefficient for european cities. Tesla was somewhat different. People bought T
by rmu09 1y ago
US made cars had the reputation of being low quality, too big, too heavy and too inefficient for european cities.
Tesla was somewhat different. People bought Teslas not for their promised "self driving" capabilities (I know no Tesla driver that took those promises at face value or got the FSD option FWIW), but one motivation was to "stick it" to snobbish arrogant european manufacturers wanting to develop "clean" ICEs with "green fuels" or other non-sensical crimes against thermodynamics like H2-cars.
Now, Tesla (and the US in general) has a brand toxicity problem, and it is worsening. People I know that would consider a Tesla some years ago now drive electric VWs or BWMs or KIAs, often times much more expensive cars than the comparable Tesla 3 / Y model.
This trend will probably continue the next years, and I don't see a way for Tesla to repair the brand image.
- estearum 1y agoFor what it's worth, Tesla is by a gigantic margin the lowest quality-for-dollar American vehicle you can buy. The EV thing was unique until it wasn't.
- potato3732842 1y agoAll the manufacturers are closer together in pretty much every attribute than car-illiterate internet fanboys and haters make it out to be.
- estearum 1y agoYou don't need to be car literate to know that a $90,000 Tesla interior feels on par with a bottom of the line Nissan Sentra. I'm not sure you can even buy another American-made car that feels so cheap? Curious if people have an idea of what American make/model feels worse to sit in.
- Gud 1y agoThis is completely false. Tesla commanded a premium when it was the only long range EV in time, despite its crappy build quality. Now everyone else has catched with equal drive trains but better build quality.
- potato3732842 1y agoYou're making my point for me. Nobody cared that the build quality is "a little worse" all around because it doesn't meaningfully affect the vehicle's fitness for purpose like the internet comment sections will pretend it does. As long as the vehicles were meaningfully different in other ways, those other ways were the dominating variables in the equation that make/break the purchase decision. Only when all else is within spitting distance of equal do Nth order variables like "muh door feel" and upholstery texture and speculative comments about reliability long after it's projected to replaced (gotta throw that one in there for the Toyota fanboys) start mattering....because they don't actually result in a seriously different ownership experience for the average user and the average user knows this.
- estearum 1y agoYou actually said the opposite of that. What you originally said is that there is little variance along any dimension. What you're saying now is there is variance along different dimensions and different people care about different dimensions. This is also what the original comment that you replied to said: build quality is bad (Dimension A), people were willing to accept it due to being an EV (Dimension B).
- potato3732842 1y agoMy point is that "bad" build quality is basically a non-difference. It was never a problem, or it's a manufactured problem in people's minds. Sure, tesla is probably "worse" from a statistical perspective but the average buyer could never see this. You almost have to be looking to see it, and so you're not gonna see it unless all your other problems are solved. Like if every OEM sets out to build a car of the same specs, they're gonna all be within spitting distance of each other. You'll have to scrape the bottom of the barrel (i.e. "muh build quality) to find differences. Tesla was winning before because they were the only ones who set out to build a car of that nature, build quality was a non-issue because it simply isn't an issue. It only became a meaningful one after the fact when more cars of the same sort arrived on scene and people went looking for minutia.
- fouc 1y ago[citation needed]
- estearum 1y agoGo sit in a $90,000 Tesla then go sit in a $90,000 literally-anything-else. That price range for Ford and Chevy trucks or SUVs for example are outrageously luxurious by comparison (not even considering their additional utility).
- dzhiurgis 1y agoFalse equivalence
- estearum 1y agoThey are American vehicles being compared on the dimension "quality-for-dollar" as mentioned above. Direct equivalence.
- dzhiurgis 1y agoYou realise there are more than one category. To start you are comparing wrong segments (premium vs luxury), wrong platform (ice vs ev) and wrong generations (plush shitbox vs self driving sports spacemobile). Compare to Rivian or Lucid and Tesla is actually cheapest (and yes worst interior).
- estearum 1y agoThat's a lot of words to say the same thing I just said (minus the weird cope about a "shitbox vs spacemobile") Now that there's competition in EVs, Tesla's shittiness is extremely problematic.
- fouc 1y agoexcept they're gas guzzlers? better to compare EVs to EVs
- bayindirh 1y agoTesla killed its brand reputation thrice. - First they went "camera only", alienating people who knows the tech. - Then they mocked car industry for so long. It was a necessary poke at first, but they didn't get prepared, and the elephant proved that it can run. - Then Elon's Trump affair and all the shebang happened. The broken FSD promises, using non-auto rated parts (and related failures), being negligent of their own errors and acting like they are deaf to the criticism is the cement between the layers.
- storus 1y agoThey had camera-only tech employing multiple 4k cameras running at over 2000fps. Not your grandma's 480p/25fps webcam many car manufacturers use as parking cameras. 2000fps gives you enormous safety margin even in case of individual frame misdetection. The long-tail issues they hit are present on LiDAR vehicles as well but LiDAR is much slower, more difficult to process and sensor fusion adds its own errors.
- bayindirh 1y ago2000 FPS is impressive. Not detecting overturned semis, road debris, and swerving to road dividers is even more impressive with that tech. Where a relatively simple radar can prevent without running a slow-motion camera rig and a wannabe supercomputing cluster on the car. To be frank, I'm not against 2000 FPS cameras, but I can't come into terms with not adding a simple radar to detect something unknown is dangerously close and the land missile needs to stop.
- 4gotunameagain 1y agoAssuming of course that the relevant computer vision components can run at 2000 fps as well.. I highly doubt it.
- bayindirh 1y agoRunning at 2000FPS in low light (and getting meaningful data at that sensor size) is also impossible to begin with. Even if you can do constant 60, you're in good shape. 2000 can be good for doing multiexposure and maybe detecting fine movement, but assuming that everything running 2000FPS (and processing 16000 frames/sec) is not a simple thing, esp, if you're running in an uncontrolled and chaotic environment.
- storus 1y agoI think it's more like that before only Tesla had working lane following system on highways that allowed one to do mostly hands-free driving during long drives but nowadays even the cheapest KIA has it working well so no need to spend extra money on Tesla. I know working-class EU folks driving Teslas who couldn't care less about any perceived toxicity of the brand typical for German green party voting snobs.
- rmu09 1y agoIndividual owners may care about brand toxicity or may not, but it affects how much tesla can charge for new vehicles and resale value of used ones. Of course this analysis is just MHO, maybe the real cause why EV market is expanding and Tesla is stagnating is something completely different, like missing "android auto" resp. apple equivalent thing functionality.
- prmoustache 1y ago> US made cars had the reputation of being low quality, too big, too heavy and too inefficient for european cities. Tesla was somewhat different. How so? Tesla doesn't produce a compact car by any european standard. Their smallest car, the Model 3, is the same size of a VW Caddy, an utilitary/7s seat Family VAN, bigger than a more refined VW Touran, another 7 seater family van or the popular VW Tiguan, a large (by euro standards) SUV.
- rmu09 1y agoTesla Model 3 is typical middle class sedan size IMHO, like VW Passat, Audi A4, BWM 3, i.e. one size up from VW Golf/Tiguan/Touran. Tesla was different because it was no gas-guzzling V8 behemoth that takes at least 20l/100km like what you used to associate with "US cars".
- prmoustache 1y ago> typical middle class sedan size IMHO, like VW Passat, Audi A4, BWM 3, i.e. one size up from VW Golf/Tiguan/Touran. Which have inflated one size/class bigger than they used to 25 years ago. The people who now drive these kind of cars today used to drive A6, BMW 5 series and E-Class Mercedes Benz. Cars lass/segments have slided both in size and luxury over a few decades. If you look at car sales number you will see that the cars that sell the most are in the small and compact segment categories. Here is the top10 in Q1 in Europe: Rank Model Units Sold Manufacturer Segment 1 Dacia Sandero 42,913 Renault Group Supermini 2 Citroën C3 34,064 Stellantis Subcompact 3 Peugeot 208 33,821 Stellantis Supermini 4 Volkswagen Golf 33,663 Volkswagen Group Compact 5 Renault Clio 31,754 Renault Group Supermini 6 Dacia Duster 31,217 Renault Group Compact SUV 7 Volkswagen T-Roc 30,949 Volkswagen Group Crossover 8 Volkswagen Tiguan 29,733 Volkswagen Group SUV 9 Toyota Yaris Cross 29,226 Toyota Motor Europe Crossover SUV 10 Peugeot 2008 28,072 Stellantis Subcompact SUV
- rmu09 1y agoI agree that a small / compact car is missing in the Tesla line-up and that also hurts their european performance (and will continue to hurt).
- rsynnott 1y ago> but one motivation was to "stick it" to snobbish arrogant european manufacturers wanting to develop "clean" ICEs with "green fuels" or other non-sensical crimes against thermodynamics like H2-cars Eh? Most European manufacturers (maybe not Stellantis) had at least one BEV by the time any Tesla was available in Europe. I'm not sure any European manufacturer has ever released a production hydrogen car? That's mostly Toyota.
- rmu09 1y agoIIRC there were BMW i3, Nissan Leaf (2010) and later Renault Zoe. BMW in cooperation with Toyota has/had H2 cars (currently iX5), but it is some sort of pilot phase. Tesla with their model 3 and supercharger network demonstrated that electric vehicles indeed are viable, and that got the ball rolling.
- rsynnott 1y agoThere was also the VW eGolf/eUp, and the pre-Zoe Renault (which IIRC was a bit of a disaster). The first Tesla didn't become available in Europe til after the Zoe came out. EDIT: Actually, looks like the eGolf was a few months after the Tesla Model S.
- zx10rse 1y agoModern ICEVs are super clean [1]. Teslas were bought because of their software advantage and I don't mean "self driving" I argue that Tesla in its core is a software company, the old brands quickly caught up on the software part, that is why you are going to see a shift from the Tesla market. Yes sure there is going to be some political factor but I don't think the % is that high, compared to better/improved software more slick UI and overall better build quality. I see quite the opposite trend tho. Hybrids are great this is where the push should have been. Dacia is doing really great in Europe. The old manufactures are again not in the loop. Dacia rebranding is quite something[2] their new Duster/Bigster line looks super cool and modern. The market is already starting to slowly shift less digital more analogue[3]. The whole TV screen cockpit, piano black plastic, AI everywhere is monstrosity its atrocious this is not luxury its grotesque. [1] - A negative emission internal combustion engine vehicle? - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231022005532 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135223102... [2] - 2024 All-New Dacia Duster: Reveal Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QtOa7cP6MQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QtOa7cP6MQ [3] - Hypercar Boss Chat! Fixing Jaguar, Horsepower Wars & More… | 4K - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6lAhRqHmuw&t=329s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6lAhRqHmuw&t=329s