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Why can't the existing industry do this? Why all the mediocre product that's the tail end of pumping billions of dollars into R&D staffed by largely the same fo
by corresation 13y ago
Why can't the existing industry do this? Why all the mediocre product that's the tail end of pumping billions of dollars into R&D staffed by largely the same folks Tesla has been hiring?
The car being reviewed is $90,000. Are competitively priced vehicles really "mediocre"?
The Tesla was not built independently. Most of its components come from the auto industry. Most of its innovations are auto-industry innovations. When you make a $90K car, you have the capacity of really optimizing the entirety of it.
- Groxx 13y agoProbably. from the video: "This car performs better than anything we've ever tested before. Let me repeat that: not just the best electric car, but the best car. It does just about everything really really well."
- corresation 13y agoThey specifically state that their love of the vehicle is because it's an electric car -- that side effects of being an electric car yield a result that they enjoy (e.g. low battery packs helping weight distribution, etc). Does that really make every other car "mediocre"?
- Groxx 13y agoIf electric cars allow producing things that are so much better, why haven't we seen them from other car companies? What's that R&D going to? In general, I got the feeling that "mediocre" was referring to all the shitty interfaces on cars, and general lack of polish that Tesla seems to be doing correctly. This is something that car companies could / should be doing for minimal effort since they employ so many and spend so much money, but they're not.
- corresation 13y agoAgain, this car is $90,000, which is a market that the major automakers aren't traditionally interested in (aside from very small-run flagship vehicles). I would expect the Tesla to be very polished at that price point.
- Groxx 13y agoYou hear similar things for their other cars (still high-end though, yes) - basically everything they've demoed has had reviews saying "wow" to the electric, and "even more wow" to the execution of everything else. Why is Tesla doing so well, with the same people, unless the existing industry has been lazy?
- nilkn 13y agoThat statement is a far cry from saying that every other car in this price range is mediocre. Generally, $90k cars are pretty great. The Model S might just be slightly better due to, say, the battery pack helping weight distribution. This is also just one review. It's not like this is suddenly the world's universal judgment of the Model S.
- corresation 13y agoI tried to avoid going there, but there's there is the issue that Consumer Reports have generally terrible subjective reviews. They're great at objectively layout basic facts. Poor at subjective measures. Worse, over the past few years they've become rather attention crazed, so it's an endless sea of "iPhone not recommended"-type attention eliciting narratives.
- bfe 13y ago"Most of its components come from the auto industry" is incorrect. Tesla makes most of its components from scratch.
- corresation 13y agoAside from the many vendors that Tesla engages, do you really thing the in-house components were invented "from scratch"? Of course they weren't. Like every other automaker, they look at what everyone else is doing and individualize. Outside of being electric, there is nothing about the Tesla that is truly revolutionary -- most of its components are minor variations on what everyone else is doing.