The disapproval of Elon Musk is the top reason Tesla Model 3 owners are selling their electric vehicles and going for another brand, according to a new survey of 5,000 Model 3 owners.
That’s the risk when your brand is a “status symbol” and the company is closely linked with your personality.
Steve Jobs knew how to do this well. Elon is no Steve Jobs…
My partner needed to buy a new vehicle. A Tesla Model was easily in budget. But they opted not to buy one because they want zero affiliation with Musk or any connotations that they may endorse his behavior by owning one of his products.
FWIW, they’re also terribly made cars that keep poorly.
I will probably buy an EV in the next year but I have zero interest in a Tesla. Musk is the reason.
Let me add the fact quality control/build quality is absolutely awful to your list
Tesla spent years building a brand identity that is intimately woven together with Musk. It’s damaged goods now as far as I’m concerned. Every time I encounter one of its products I think about it. It wasn’t too long ago when I was eagerly following product updates in the hopes of eventually buying a car power wall or that solar roof system. I was enthusiastic about rationalizing away the poor build quality and terrible customer support. Now, I would never buy a thing from them and I’m happy to pass judgement on anyone who does. $tslaq
Even beyond Musk the quality of Tesla’s for the price is absolute shit. His presence just makes it even worse. The main selling point for them was the higher range but seems like that may have been a lie the whole time.
Curious what quality issues you mean?
Tesla is the most recalled vehicle brand. That’s impressive. Looking at you Kia/hyundai and Nissan.
Musk himself admits Tesla has build quality issues
Search “Tesla panel gap issues”. Tons of people complaining and many say that trying to fix the issue causes other, bigger gaps, or just gets worse. I’ve heard rumor that if you try to fix them, you’ll void some kind of Tesla support.
Oh, and one of the most damning ones in my book. During a car fire, which Tesla has had PLENTY of, some genius decided that the door locks should default to LOCKED. Who the actual fuck thought this was acceptable? How did they ever make it into production.
There’s a video floating around of a guy kicking his windows out to escape his burning Tesla.
Dumb dumb musk decided he was smarter than everyone else, (spoiler he’s not) and overrode his own engineers. He decided there were no physical sensors required for auto driving, only cameras. Every other manufacturer knows that not possible yet, but musk knew better
Yes, a lot of car fires are difficult to extinguish, and yes, electric/hybrids more so, but teslas are exceptional. Can’t out out the many teslas that catch fire When the local fire dept came by to inspect our business we got to chatting and they said that they had a Tesla catch fire. They used everything in their arsenal, and a LOT of water. Like more than you could imagine. Then it got towed to a holding yard. Someone parked it up against a building, and next to quite a few other vehicles waiting for legal things/inspections. Tesla reignited in the tow yard and took out everything near it too. The yard is in BIG trouble for damaging a whole lot of evidence/vehicles being held for court cases, etc.
I could go on, but those are the biggest ones.
I’m not a Musk fan at all but some of these are misleading or just downright wrong.
Tesla is only the most recalled brand if you categorize “recalls” to include software updates. If Tesla can fix an issue via an OTA update, it shouldn’t be considered a recall but it is in the source being used.
Teslas do have build issues but they’re not overwhelmingly more present than other cars. They’re only showing that way because Tesla only has 4 models of car and the build issues carry over from year to year. That’s not the case for other cars where, like with a Jetta, the body is redesigned but the name stays the same.
The door lock thing is also misleading because the case would be the same for any other car where the driver locked the doors. Either way, the fire department is breaking a window. They don’t have magic keys to open every car door out there. The fire department could pull on the handle all day long and it wouldn’t matter. The driver locked the doors and could have opened them but didn’t (and there’s even a special manual override for them along with a Fire Department quick access switch at the front of the car).
Edit: People are downvoting objectively true information.
https://www.autoblog.com/2022/12/29/most-recalls-by-car-manufacturer-2022/
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/attachments/smartselect_20191224-132903_adobe-acrobat-jpg.492495/
First and foremost, when you have a vehicle with an electric door lock, you ALWAYS fail it to open. On a “normal” car (yeah there are some that are all electric now too), you have a physical switch that you flip, and it’s unlocked. The locking mechanism for the Tesla is electric, so in the case of the wires being damaged, or as witnessed, the car being on fire, you have no MECHANICAL mechanism to open the door. Supposedly, there is one INSIDE the door, lol what? but how many people will know that, and more importantly be able to access it in a panic?
I did a little more digging. SOME models are equipped with a mechanical release on the door (I assume it’s something you have to pay extra for), but not all of them. As I mentioned above, there is a mechanical option, but you would have to know exactly to remove the door card trim panel, and access the cable. People don’t even read enough of the owners manual to know how shit they really want works, let alone a safety issues.
Clearly you don’t understand what a recall is. Recalls are highly regulated, and things like a software update for the aircon do not fall under the recall term. In fact, manufacturers do everything in their power to avoid recalls. They will often issue a TSB, instead, when a recall isn’t being forced by the NHTSA. Good try though. As you can see from teslas own website (I don’t believe this is even close to all of them) they are ALL safety issues, which is what recalls are for, either voluntary, or forced by NHTSA.
No, they absolutely have more build quality issues than even the lowest trim shit econoboxes. I always say that a tesla is a corolla with a big computer in it, but even the corolla is built WAY better, and I’m old enough to remember 80s cars. Those were pretty damn bad.
Hey… I loved my 80s Corolla. I drove it until it was practically dust. And it was a manual. You can barely even find manuals these days.
I wanted a Tesla for years. I even had stock which helped me buy my house.
I no longer want a Tesla and it 100% has to do with musk. And I decided that before I realized I’m trans.
On the other hand, maybe we should start a foundation to buy Teslas for trans people. Can you imagine how pissed Musk would get if it suddenly became cool to be trans in a Tesla?
Who is actually selling their car because the CEO is an online troll douche? Can’t really be more than a handful of people surely?
TBF I’ve considered selling my Model 3 because of his Nazi bullshit. I won’t, though, because it’s just too much hassle and there’s not really many alternatives on the market. My next car very likely won’t be a Tesla, though.
Leased a tesla MS in 2017 because I knew 250mile battery was not going to be the max in 2020 and guessed 350mile was possible (i was right). Right around then Elon came out as a conspiracy twat, so I was more than happy to turn my car in when he went full right wing twat.
3 years on, I’m the proud owner of an ebike with a few thousand miles on it, created by a company not owned by a twat. My insurance is $50 a month and my uber rides fall far below anything I spent monthly on my insurance and lease payment ($1300 or so). Helps to work from home and live 5 miles from most places I need to go to or from the public transit.
Honestly, had he kept his insane ideas to himself I might still own that car or it’s newer version. I do miss it, but I just can’t support people like that. Also, 3 years on I don’t miss the car payments…
Awesome that you’ve switched to cycling, it’s crazy how expensive your insurance is though!
I just got a quote for my ebike, it’s only £60/year!
In the UK plenty of cars cost less than £300/year to insure…
Yeah, Europe and UK seem to be cheaper for those things. While I was in Rome I paid €40 for the year, but stayed 2 months. At one time we could get insurance for our petrol car at $59 a month with minimal coverage, now it’s twice that.
That $50 is not all for the bike, I added supplemental coverage to pay for US healthcare in the event of an accident. I have full theft and damage, plus a balloon policy that pays out for medical, accidental death (for2 people). I think it was $120 for just the year on just e-bike, but an accident could cause my heath insurance to not cover due to it being a vehicle in motion accident.
… What kind of ebike do you recommend?
Really happy with the Rad Power Plus series. reasonably priced, 1000 miles and counting on the motor and battery. They seem to be getting a little hate of late for their customer service, but I have a local shop so I don’t see these issues.
