
Why customers love Tesla despite its many mistakes - QuitterStrip
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/10/how-tesla-became-one-of-the-internets-most-polarizing-companies/
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mikece
What's not to like about Tesla? Charismatic CEO, moon-shot of an idea, the
product (car) looks fantastic, moves like a bat out of hell (when the battery
is fully charged), has a luxurious interior, and has has just the right Techie
Chic mixed with "I'm doing this for the planet" aura -- as well as being a car
that shows off your wealth because you could have bought a BMW for the same
price.

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Tomte
Deceptive, bordering on criminal advertising (autopilot). Criminal slander
(Unsworth). Wrongdoing in the securities market (funding secured).

I find there's a lot to dislike about Tesla.

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sliken
In 2005 I got a nokia 770, and my favorite app was maemo mapper. Nice maps,
could scrape data from multiple sources, and some limited nav.

In 2018 many cars still remind me of maemo mapper. Slow clunky touch screens.
Laggy, no multitouch, horrible UI, and tiny screen. Overall generally numerous
generations worse than my phone.

Most car manufacturers still to really skimp in the weirdest places. Things
like headlights... pay a few $k for nice lights or get crap. So much so that
the IIHS started lowering the safety ratings on cars.

Should $50k cars really charge $$$ for decent headlights and LED brake lights?

The Tesla was a breath of fresh air. Nice user interface, nice design, nice
big touch screen, great nav, good seats, good voice recognition, etc.
Especially as most of the auto world is moving to tiny, high rpm, "wonder" 2
liter turbos. They do well on MPG... during testing, much less so in real
world conditions. They also seem to have significantly less longevity than the
engines they replace. Saw quite a few of the CPO warranties decreased, which I
found particularly troublesome.

I don't feel nickle and dimed, there's no huge matrix of incompatible upgrades
engineered to up sell you. It's a safe car, fast car, fun to drive, and likely
to last longer than an ICE car.

It's also more american made than any other car.

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woodandsteel
People need to look at the larger picture. Decades ago it became clear it was
urgent for the human race to move off of fossil fuels, and this included
automobiles. The problem was the technology was not at all ready, especially
the batteries.

So Musk went to work developing li-ion battery cars that would be up to the
job, and cheap enough to buy. Over the years Tesla has made great progress,
and so did many other companies, and in addition many governments have been
pushing ev's. As a consequence the ev industry is taking off, and that will do
an enormous amount to help save the climate.

Why do so many people ignore all this and focus on criticizing Tesla? Some of
them are climate change deniers, or people invested in the fossil fuel
industry. Some are shorters who just want to make money. And some are haters
who are not happy unless they are busy hating something, and happened to have
picked Tesla and Musk.

So yes, there are things Tesla does wrong. But everyone needs to be focusing
on the larger picture, and the role that Tesla is playing in it.

