Why We're Falling Out of Love with Tesla

My problem with Tesla (besides Elon) is that you look at the corners being cut and can only think &quot;Imagine how much better it would be if they hadn&#x27;t built Cybertruck&quot;.<p>I have a 2018 M3 and was almost tempted by the redesign, until I saw how they butchered the steering wheel, and some of the worst customer support I&#x27;ve ever had to deal with.<p>Also stiffing customers on what should be warranty repairs, but because the suspension is a wear item they only provide free labor, all 2018 M3 have suspension problems.<p>Now they are all in on self driving robo-taxis that we all know are going to be far more problematic than Waymo.

As other manufacturers come out with electric drivetrains, Tesla is really falling behind.<p>I own a Model Y and it’s really barebones and plasticky. For the similar price, the Ioniq 5 is much nicer.<p>Similarly, the Rivians blow Model X out of the water in terms of features.

I rode in a Tesla once for my Uber. The suspension was like a golf cart, super stiff. It made me sick to my stomach. I had to ask the driver to pull over so I could get out. Not sure if they since changed that. The Musk love vs hate that people foolishly adopt as their identity is the result of a power struggle between teams of elites.

Historically, most consumer-oriented companies had CEOs who were the definition of bland, and they tried to stay out of the public eye for the most part. We are perhaps about to rediscover why?

I think Tesla really had a chance to make a truly premium electric car, but they lost their way somewhere. It just feels so generic. Even the shapes of their models aren&#x27;t particularly beautiful, in my opinion.<p>It&#x27;s a shame, because they could have produced something really special.

I bought a used Tesla in 2020. It&#x27;s been a great car. I will never buy another Tesla while Musk is the CEO. He has a stench I will spend the rest of my life trying to wash off myself. He is an anti-brand and he&#x27;s wrapped himself around Tesla like a python.

We have a model-Y for 18 months, it was our first electric vehicle. In another 18 months when we change the car, I&#x27;ll get another EV but not a Telsa. Only because of Elon, unfortunatly.

I don&#x27;t own a car and was looking at options recently. Tesla just doesn&#x27;t seem that great, and I&#x27;m wouldn&#x27;t say I&#x27;m particularly adverse to buying one due to Elon.<p>- IMO Tesla&#x27;s minimal M3 interior aesthetic at first was cool because it was different, but really is just quite boring. It looks like necessary cost-saving from a time where EVs were more expensive to manufacture that just never went away.<p>- Chinese cars look great. I took an Uber ride in a BYD in Mexico City; it was very good. The ride was smooth and the interior was very futuristic. They&#x27;re apparently cheaper too. They&#x27;re an option for me because I don&#x27;t live in the USA.<p>- It doesn&#x27;t sit well with me that Tesla has promised so many things it hasn&#x27;t (and probably will never) deliver. I&#x27;m not buying a Tesla expecting to eventually have a robotaxi, or even expecting it to eventually drive itself, but it&#x27;s still just sketchy that they promise so much on such ambitious (at first) timelines and then just don&#x27;t deliver.<p>- Tesla doesn&#x27;t win on price. There are cheaper options. I feel like I&#x27;d be paying for &quot;the brand&quot;, but I&#x27;m not a &quot;for the brand&quot; buyer.<p>- The stuff Tesla seems to be better than others at —the speed, the acceleration, or even the autopilot— are not things I personally consider I need. They&#x27;re cool party tricks. My friends who have Teslas have shown us the acceleration punch, autopilot in the highway, etc. Autopilot almost drove us into another car once, so definitely not paying $8,000 for that. The 0-60 I know I&#x27;d barely use, the top speed it&#x27;s fair to say never, and I wouldn&#x27;t miss them much as a nicer interior or whatever else I can buy me with what I&#x27;d save if I opt for a cheaper option.<p>I still can get by without a car, so I&#x27;d rather wait a year or two to see how the EV market develops. Looking at the options available right now it&#x27;s just not looking great for Tesla, and outside of the USA and Europe, I&#x27;m not even sure it has that much to do with Elon&#x27;s antics.

These things are all subjective, but.... I&#x27;ve been ingesting negative opinions about Tesla for a about a year perhaps. And now with Musk&#x27;s public insanities I started to believe those messages.<p>But then I tried other cars. And now I have no idea what they were talking about.<p>My 3 year old Tesla is a far better car than any new EV I have managed to test drive so far. They tend to be riddled with pointless or borderline evil crap (e.g. an ID.7 listened to everything I said inside the car and tried some AI shit on me) whereas my car is simple and to the point.<p>I might not get a new Tesla due to politics and I sure hope the other EV manufacturers are able to catch up before that time comes. Does not look promising right now.

We leased a model 3 about a year ago. The driving experience is good. I love the responsive acceleration -- though that&#x27;s not particular to Tesla. The car itself is &quot;ok&quot;. We wanted to get the Polestar but needed to save money. Range is nowhere near what was promised. We tried the FSD (got two months free trial) and it was terrible; neither my wife or I liked it. Will not go back to a ICE car (charging at home, at night, saves us a lot on gas, plus environmental concerns), but when our lease runs out we will likely not be getting a Tesla as there are others we like better (and that&#x27;s besides the Elon-wannabe-MOTU factor).

High priced, low quality, fake marketing cars, built by a company whose CEO stokes hatred?<p>Nothing is obvious folks.

Not gonna lie, I&#x27;ve always been slightly bearish on Tesla. Electric powertrains are simple enough that most manufacturers can figure it out, and they&#x27;ve all got far more auto building experience than Tesla...<p>Tesla did have that Apple-esque hype going for it though, can never underestimate that...

Musk aside, I think I first rode in my friend’s one in 2015 or so, and he was pretty excited, as was I. An electric car! That insane acceleration! But even then he was pointing out the comparatively shitty build quality, and the premium aspect of the brand seems gone with the lower-end models being everywhere. Also how did they fuck up the self-driving stuff so badly?<p>Feels like they squandered a ten year headstart somehow, and I don’t understand how the current valuation holds. My feeling is they needed a Tim Cook to show up about ten years, and instead got Musk still stalking factory floors. If I needed a car, I’d choose electric, but I’d choose one from a car company these days: all the advantages of a Tesla seems to have dried up … and that’s before the associations with That Man.

Maybe a better measure of the CEO factor would be the Tesla Power Wall. That tech still seems good, perhaps better than much of the competition

Even outside of the politics angle (which I think is real) -<p>It&#x27;s been too much hot air for too long.<p>Tesla started as basically the lone electric luxury car, and it was entering the market claiming that self-driving was coming soon. Which, when combined with SpaceX launching not long after... seemed like it might be the real deal.<p>But that was 16 years ago. They kept attention for a long time with repeated promises of FSD, and SpaceX definitely kept things interesting by doing increasingly impressive landings with the boosters, which lent a ton of credibility... but...<p>The competition is here, now. And instead of getting that self-driving that was promised, it basically capped out at a moderately useful cruise control that still requires your attention and input, and they&#x27;re now admitting they don&#x27;t have the ability to shove it over the line,<p>So instead of being a revolutionary vehicle that frees the driver from the monotony of traffic... it has to actually compete as a traditional car, against a litany of decent entrants into the EV space, contesting it on both quality (Audi, BMW, Rivian, Lexus etc) and price (Chevy, Ford, Honda, Citreon, Leap, Fiat, etc).<p>And compared to those... Tesla just isn&#x27;t that good. It still not bad (although for the love of god I wish they would stop with the doors that stop working after a crash) but it&#x27;s just mostly a solid &quot;meh&quot;.<p>So... it&#x27;s not really clear how Tesla expects to compete at this point. They aren&#x27;t the best, and they aren&#x27;t the cheapest, and they&#x27;re not settling into the legendary utility status of the Prius (where it&#x27;s not the best or the cheapest, but it&#x27;s a good, cheap workhorse).<p>Could have probably coasted for a long time on goodwill, but Musk seems deadset on burning that to the ground on his drug &amp; ego filled rollercoaster in politics and the media. In theory... they should have plenty of ability to compete, so they aren&#x27;t done... but they need to ditch the ego that produced the recall prone cybertruck, send Musk to rehab (or exile), and make a real luxury car for a competitive price. I&#x27;m not sure they have it in em.

WE aren&#x27;t. I have a Model Y and still love it.

Another flagged article that was critical of Tesla.

The article gives business reasons in addition to the political entanglement.<p>People in CA were plenty upset at his Twitter takeover and trashing of employees.<p>It has been said that the laws of physics limit his wild excursions in product businesses, whereas the &quot;social media&quot; business is largely the wild west thanks to Section 230 carried to extremes, and the capitalist dream of &quot;self regulation&quot;, which never works.<p>In the unbridled worlds of social media and politics, the worst tendencies come out, such as racism [0] and unintended &quot;move fast and break things&quot; consequences, such as not knowing that that DOE cuts affect the nuclear stockpile [1]<p>[0] The Shadow of Apartheid South Africa in America. (FT)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;Y1Uz9" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;Y1Uz9</a><p>[1] Trump administration officials fired more than 300 staffers Thursday night at the National Nuclear Security Administration — the agency tasked with managing the nation’s nuclear stockpile — as part of broader Energy Department layoffs, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. (CNN)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnn.com&#x2F;2025&#x2F;02&#x2F;14&#x2F;climate&#x2F;nuclear-nnsa-firings-trump&#x2F;index.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnn.com&#x2F;2025&#x2F;02&#x2F;14&#x2F;climate&#x2F;nuclear-nnsa-firings-...</a>

&gt; And It&#x27;s Not Just About Elon Musk<p>Considering how important brand is to Tesla, it’s ridiculous to think someone could pretend they can evaluate it without that factor.<p>The change in attitude on this very board since 2018 is strong evidence of that.<p>It’s Kind of funny to watch the Tesla owner shift from proud liberal to frugal suburban dad, like Prius did.

For me, Tesla is a negative brand for one reason: trust.<p>Trust in the quality of the product: The car quality is spotty. A coworker bought an early Model 3. It didn’t even make it 1 night before the main electrical harness shorted and the car failed to power on in the morning. the panel alignment is a notorious issue.<p>Trust that the company won’t assassinate you in the court of public opinion. Tesla has 2 types of responses when a Tesla car has a high profile crash: quiet and VERY VOCAL about it being the driver’s fault (because they send data to their servers even though I ostensibly own the car). I don’t want my car manufacturer snitching me out to my insurance company, no matter who is at fault.<p>Options for service: Teslas are not cheap to service (I understand why) and (my information is quite dated), but 3rd party repairs are quite limited or non-existent. I have no option but to trust the manufacturer. There is a lack of competition in repairs&#x2F;service, so costs are high and wait times are too.<p>The situation with Musk + Gigafactory Nevada security team framing a worker (IIRC their stance was that he was a leaker and was stealing corporate secrets) and then pressuring the local police to arrest him was suspect. But when the deputies found the man, they found no reason to arrest him.<p>The extraordinary crash test ratings that “were so high they broken the rating system”, but were later revised much lower were suspect.<p>The incident where the GigaFactory was found to be improperly disposing of factory byproducts such that they are&#x2F;could leech into the surrounding environment was ironic for a company that markets itself as “green”.<p>The dickhead in charge. I get that he’s only a small part of the company, but he’s still a lying (or very reality-challenged) shitposter who moonlights as CEO of a few large companies. Incidents like “Pedo guy”, the Pelosi attacker conspiracy theory, him pumping shitcoins, lying about earning top rankings in 2 popular video games, now deleting federal departments like the same Dept of Energy that invests in innovative companies like Tesla and that does national security work like nuclear inspections. Link to the RationalWiki to remind us about all of the other incidents: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rationalwiki.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Elon_Musk" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rationalwiki.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Elon_Musk</a><p>I don’t know when I soured on the company, but I know I had a neutral-to-positive view in 2016. Maybe Musk was still on his meds. Maybe all of these issues existed, but I was blissfully unaware.

HN Musk fanbois are flagging articles about Tesla now? Give it up, guys.