Personal attacks will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. Please review <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html</a> and don't do this again. We've had to warn you about this before.<p>Your comment would have been fine with just the middle paragraph.
I personally wouldn't purchase a Model 3. I rented the long range version for a round-trip trip from San Francisco to Sacramento (about 90 miles/2 hours each way). The main things that stood out:<p>- Changing volume and airflow through the central touchscreen were much more challenging than the physical knobs and buttons most cars have. I'd even argue they were distracting and dangerous to use while driving. I don't believe this was a learning curve issue. Having to accurately place your finger above a touch screen and repeatedly hit a plus button is an inferior experience to rotating a knob.<p>- The self-driving ability has a long way to go before it is useful for anything except cruising on the freeway. In two separate instances, the car slowed at a stop sign down to 15mph before blowing through it (which could have been a non-cheap ticket that went on my record if a cop were around), and almost hit another car when two lanes merged into one.<p>- The supercharging stations charge at a slower rate than advertised, and cost only a little less to use than filling up a car with unleaded gas.<p>- The door handles are difficult to use. Maybe this is a learning curve issue, but pressing the handle in at the correct position takes more dexterity than simply pulling on a standard handle.<p>The technology and presentation is impressive, but I felt the driving experience was subpar.
> Tesla’s competitors are feeling it. Sales of the Mercedes-Benz C-Class, the best-selling luxury sedan in the U.S., plunged 24 percent last month and are down 28 percent for the year through September.<p>> And it’s doing so at a higher price than other mass-market cars. The most expensive versions of the Model 3 are currently the most popular, with an average selling price approaching $60,000.<p>It would be very interesting if Tesla's surge in ranking would be caused more by fleeing luxury customers (from brands like the referenced Mercedes) versus gaining new customers.
The car is unbelievably good coming from someone who used to drive entry-level luxury sedans. It's light years beyond anything BMW, Infiniti and Lexus have to offer.
> It’s an imperfect ranking because Tesla didn’t break out sales by country, and the Model 3 tally included some deliveries to customers in Canada.<p>Seems a bit strange to base an entire article on faulty data.
I cannot for the life of me rationalize spending so much on a car. The $35,000 just doesn't make sense in New England, so I need to add in AWD. Then I need to add in the autopilot because isn't that the point of owning a Tesla so you don't have to drive your car someday? Now, <i>with government incentives</i>, this car is $50k.<p>Couldn't you grab a Rav4 Hybrid with Comma AI and basically have an electric car with AWD for $30k less?
With all the negative press directed at Musk it's easy to overlook the fact that he's done an incredible job leading Tesla through highly uncertain waters.<p>Tesla's enemies are everyone from Trump to the incumbent car companies Tesla would have already soundly beaten if they hadn't received a massive bailout.<p>I think based on this that Tesla's stock is still fairly significantly undervalued. I wouldn't buy it for anything other than a 5-10 year time horizon, during which time I think it will become obvious how superior Tesla's approach is to traditional manufacturing approaches.<p>Of course, the enemies will still be able to attack through intellectual property theft, frivolous lawsuits, etc., but Tesla is one of the giants of modern manufacturing and design.
Tesla Model 3 is just the new iphone. Everyone wants the new thing. new Iphone model, new computer model, its not exciting anymore. The THING everyone wants now in our consumer society is the Tesla Model 3. It is a cultural icon to own right now.