In some markets, it means having to spend more or purchasing a worse car. Tesla offers some very good value cars, and 0% interest rate for 3 years. It almost makes you want to forget about the CEO.
Unfortunately (or fortunately if you like cheap good cars) China has gotten ridiculously good at lithium batteries, and is rapidly eating the EV market. The traditional American and European brands are either sold to china, or falling behind.
Tesla lead the market for quite a while, but lost their way trying to become a software company instead of perfecting manufacturing. They don't heave a lead anymore, and trust for their brand is tanking. Between tesla and a chineese EV, i trust both about equally now.
Tesla sells made in China cars with Chinese batteries at good prices though. In Norway, you can buy a Chinese Tesla Model 3 for the price of a BYD Dolphin. Easy choice.
its evaluation med by musk yes. But they were a great car company, that would have done fine for itself regardless. Heck im not sure an overevaluation really helps their core buisness.
They were innovative and years ahead in technology. Their heatpump supermanafold is still ahead of the rest of the EV industry. While the rest of the western manufacturers struggle to even make basic software for their cars.
There is plenty to dislike about tesla, (asside from musk) like their spotty quality control and questionable infotainment cost cuts. But if they spent the last few years just perfecting and maturing as a manufacturer, they would be respectful leader in EVs now.
Instead we get Cybertruck (brilliant engineering whasted on a childish design) and an insistence being a software company which it isn't.
Chineese EVs had time to catch up, and now instead of a mature innovative and trustable western EV brand alternative, we got.... Tesla led by musk.
Even in the best case scenario where they were a major global leader in EVs (difficult when you have an American mindset on what a car is), their valuation would still be less than 1/10th what it currently is.
Also, how does the charging situation compare outside of the Tesla ecosystem? (Assuming you can't charge it at home)
Tesla really makes charging about as seamless as can be. It integrates into the navigation system (the car will automatically add charging stops, pre-warm the battery, tell you how many spots are open, etc.), integrates the payment, etc.
I've rented a Tesla. The most annoying thing about it was the goofy unlock (tapping a key card at the right spot on the door pillar) but I'm very wary of renting any other EV and having to dick around with finding the right charge place, determining if it has the right connection, will it charge fast enough, can I just pay by card or do I need some stupid app, etc.
> Tesla really makes charging about as seamless as can be. It integrates into the navigation system (the car will automatically add charging stops, pre-warm the battery, tell you how many spots are open, etc.), integrates the payment, etc.
Other cars have all that, too, yeah. I got a 2025 Ioniq 5 and it does all that, and it's also not restricted to just one charging company's chargers. The payment integration stuff exists, but it requires support from the charging company obviously, and IMO that's kind of a mis-feature anyway, so I never bothered to set it up.
> can I just pay by card or do I need some stupid app
In my experience, almost all chargers just use a card. 100% of the ones I've used in regular gas stations on freeway exits just use a card. Once in a blue moon you run into a stupid app one, but it's usually an older charger that was installed in a city center in the early days of EV charging. The apps seem to be mostly disappearing, thank god. Ironically I'm pretty sure Tesla's chargers require a stupid app for non-Tesla cars, but I've never used one, so not certain.
> determining if it has the right connection
Yeah, the adapters are clunky. It's just gonna take time to phase out CCS. Hopefully that's a solved problem in 10 years as everyone switches over to NACS. I did use a native NACS non-Tesla charger with my native NACS non-Telsa car once on a recent road trip. The future is... almost here!
The idea that you don’t need an app to charge is, in my view, highly dependent on the region. I follow several YouTube channels where people document long EV road trips to showcase how the charging infrastructure is evolving. While things have definitely improved over the past couple of years, using non-Tesla charging stations still often involves:
- Charging speeds that fall short of what's advertised
- A requirement to use an app for payment (even if no account setup is needed)
- Chargers that are out of service but not flagged as such in the system
Oh, I hadn't thought of it that way, but I bet you're right! I bet denser areas got chargers earlier, so they're stuck on the stupid-app-based model that was popular 5 years ago. Where I am in the upper midwest, the rollout has been happening only over the last couple years (e.g. several of the chargers I stopped at last month are not even on Google Maps streetview yet), so the chargers are in better shape and just have standard card readers now.
The parent was asking about EV charging experiences outside the Tesla ecosystem, so I replied with my experiences charging an EV without any Tesla products involved. Hope that helps!
Indeed, I (parent) have found the discussion interesting and helpful. (The observations about regional variations are also noteworthy in the context of renting/travel).
I'm glad to know that my mental model wasn't completely off-base, and happy to see that the situation is improving overall
And the parent response was a great case study in de-escalation. 5 stars, would ride again (assuming sufficient battery!)
The Tesla charger is now the North American Charging Standard NACS (standardized as SAE J3400). So most or nearly all new EV's in USA use it. So that's not an issue anymore.
In Europe, Tesla use the European standard Type 2 (standardized as IEC 62196-2) charger. So that's not an issue either.
> correction: I thought Tesla still used their own charger in Europe.
It was an EU mandate a few years back, I think every Tesla since about 2019 is Type2. I still have to deal with the occasional charger with a ChaDeMo port for old Nissan Leafs. I think those pioneers deserve some respect though!
On the other hand, I paid $41k for a 2024 all wheel drive 3 row (5 adults + 2 kids) Model Y. That saved me $20k+ compared to alternatives.
> 3d camera view
The illustrated overhead view is sufficient that I do not miss a 3D camera view.
>The ability to exit your vehicle if there's a power system failure
This is not true, at least in my 2024 Model Y.
Not having carplay/android auto sucks, but I haven’t missed it enough. And there are enough tactile controls, in my model at least, that it hasn’t been an issue.
All in all, I wouldn’t pay $60k for a Tesla, but sign me up @ $41k.
Fair enough for some of the points. My tesla is older so it has good controls, stalks, and parking sensors still. I can also exit the vehicle with a mechanical switch.
I personally don't really miss the fisher-price designed CarPlay (never tried Android auto). It's alright and often better than the car manufacturer infotainment, but it's also not very good. You can't even pinch to zoom the map for example.
There is a good choice of EVs from various manufacturers.