Several years ago I wanted to buy an electric car. I didn’t like Musk, so my plan was “anything but Tesla.” Chevy Bolt was unavailable due to the fire problem. Cadillac Lyriq and Hyundai Ioniq 5 weren’t out yet.

I drove everything available to buy in my area. My real options were the Mustang Mach-e, Volvo XC40 Recharge, Hyundai Kona, Polestar 2. I decided to test drive a Model Y for completeness.

And CRAP.

The Model Y was obviously the best car. So much more refined than the other options. Way better charging network. 7 seat option. The only real downside was the zany CEO.

Fine, I thought. I’ll live with it.

I bought a Model Y and love it.

But.

I’ll never buy another Tesla. I have a bumper sticker disavowing the CEO. I paid off its loan so nobody would make money from me owning a Tesla. I honk support at the No Kings protestors outside the local Tesla facility.

I think the only thing that can save Tesla is a crash/buyout/relaunch. Get Musk out of the picture. Reset the stock price to something sane. Ditch the distractions. Release a Model 2. Keep expanding the SuperCharger network.

That’s a long hard road. Nobody involved makes money in that scenario. It’ll only happen when there are no other options.

As for me, I’m driving my Model Y until the wheels fall off. With the bumper sticker.

> Overall German equivalent of model Y is at least 20000€ more expensive than Elon‘s car.

What?!? VW id.4 has the same starting price as a Tesla Model Y if I look it up on their German websites. Don't see where the swasticar would be cheaper.

Regardless, owner is a nazi and utter POS to be polite, basically same material as trump. Nothing in the world is going to change that, not now not in 40 years. He keeps insulting whole Europe (meaning all of fucking us living here) and our leaders almost daily, looking down on us very publicly.

Why the heck would I buy such car, even if it costed 1 euro? Have some self-respect and morality ffs, do you also go to restaurant where you know they will spit on you and insult you, just because they have cca same stuff as all other places, often worse while more expensive? [1]

[1] https://www.autoevolution.com/news/tuev-report-2026-tesla-mo...

not having door handles in an obvious location is such a subjective "feature" that people have been killed in fires because of the door handle placement.

I've lost count of the number of times i've seen tesla drivers "defrosting" their door handles. You may live in a sunny desert but many people do not.

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yeah, they legitimately used to be but the rest of the world has definitely improved and Teslas weirdly haven't that much. They're cruising on name brand and a really decent charging network, but even that moat is being breached.

The entire car is a surveillance machine and the company is happy after a crash to taint the driver in the public’s eye if it will improve the image of their AutoPilot. It’s bad enough having to deal with car insurance after a crash without your car’s manufacturer blaming you in public, sending the recipients to news outlets.

Tesla has a monopoly on their car repairs, which reduces the number of mechanics qualified to work on it, increasing the cost and the wait time.

Teslas are a very expensive platform to service being largely an aluminum frame. Difficult+expensive to repair and replacements are expensive compared to cheaper cars which usually have more plastic. This means insurance is also expensive.

And this doesn’t even begin to get into the weirdness of their reputation for hiring private eyes to stalk employees and call the police to in an attempt to get an employee killed. Having an exec who has a ketamine problem and mania issues doesn’t lend itself to long term stability.

You see electric Volvo's everywhere in the more electrified markets in Europe like Norway and the Netherlands. Especially the smaller models like the ex30 and ex/xc40. They fit very well design-wise and I think software quality wise in the European market and they are essentially Chinese (Zeekr). I think it helps that they use Android Auto as the main interface and some of their designers are still located in Sweden. Korean electrics are also taking over marketshare hand over fist.