Comment by dissent

Comment by dissent 2 days ago

I bought a new Model Y a few months ago.

On the whole, it's a great car, it really is. They've pretty much nailed the fundamentals. It's opinionated, not unlike Apple, but if the opinions work for you you'll enjoy the car.

But there are shortcomings, and they are jarring. The parking sensors basically don't work at all due to being vision only - and apparently can't be made to work properly. The lane change and reverse warnings are just crap and may as well not be there. My previous car implemented these to perfection, but I cannot trust the Tesla. The autopilot is a gimmick that offers you nothing but increased risk - and there's no way in hell I'd trust FSD for car that can't accurately detect the distance of my house when parking. The big touchscreen is great for passengers, but outright dangerous for drivers.

Having said all that, it seems strong emotions around Musk and Tesla cause people to want Tesla to fail. They want the car to be bad. There is so much motivated reasoning around this brand that it's hard to take any article like the above, or half the comments in this thread, seriously.

frm88 2 days ago

There's also the various reports of federal technical supervision instances that attest Teslas have the highest failure rates:

Germany: https://www.autoevolution.com/news/tuev-report-2026-tesla-mo...

Denmark: https://fdm.dk/nyheder/nyt-om-trafik-og-biler/tesla-skandale...

Ireland: https://www.rsa.ie/road-safety/statistics/nct-statistics-and...

At some point you have to acknowledge the data as facts.

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dissent 2 days ago

I kind of don't really care, as long as I get good service if my car is affected. I'm not defending them here. The next few years will tell if it was a bad buy or not. So far I'm really happy with it.
My point was there's a huge anti-Tesla bias entirely as a reaction to Elon Musk. It's emotional, not rational. It's not objective criticism of Tesla. Sure, there are some awful moves he's made, vision only, FSD claims, but if it was another car company it wouldn't even be on HN. Wasn't so long ago that VW (a manufacturer literally started by the Nazis by the way!) were caught falsifying their emissions.

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- whynotmaybe 2 days ago
  
  Outside of the personal opinions of Musk, what is the most annoying for me is the constant false promises.
  They sell cars based on promises that a missing function will work in a few months/years and that your car will be compatible.
  With the years of feedback we have now, we know that those were not promises but lies.
  Other brands sell as-is cars, without empty promises. (outside the stupid "perfect outback trip" in every SUV/pickup ad)
  I now see Musk as a con man, a very smart con man with a lot of money, not a visionary.
  Yes there is dieselgate and yes, every car manufacturer tries to circumvent the system to improve profit. (Every includes also Tesla)
  
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  dissent 2 days ago
  
  Thanks for the thoughtful response. You know what, I do feel a bit conned by this vision only implementation. It wasn't obvious when we test drove it, and they didn't mention it. When we picked the car up, on the shop floor, before it had even moved we saw the "Park Assist Degraded" warning and questioned it. They assured us it just needed time to calibrate. It has never gone away. It will never go away.
  As a consumer, I'm pissed off. I do feel conned.
  But I'm fine explaining Musk's promises away as hubris. He made promises he should not have, and couldn't keep. He shouldn't have done it, but I do think he believed it. I don't think it was an intent to mislead. Incompetence before malice and so on.
  He deserves credit where credit is due. He did push us into the EV era.
  
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- zombot 2 days ago
  
  And now the US has its own car manufacturer literally started by a Nazi. If you dislike Nazis, is that rational or emotional?
  
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  dissent 2 days ago
  
  I actually don't really care if he's a nice person or not, just like I don't care who the CEO of other car makers are. But for the record I think it's pretty silly to call him a Nazi.
  
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tzs 2 days ago

> The parking sensors basically don't work at all due to being vision only - and apparently can't be made to work properly

What's stupid about this is that it is hard to come up with a good reason for it. The no LIDAR thing is at least understandable because at the time LIDAR was very expensive. Ultrasonic parking sensors are cheap.

Same for automatic windshield wipers, which have been a significant source of complaints from Tesla owners. Pretty much everyone else uses a dedicated sensor that is simple and inexpensive and works well. Technology Connections has a good video on how it works [1]. Tesla uses vision.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLm7Q92xMjQ

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NalNezumi 2 days ago

>There is so much motivated reasoning around this brand that it's hard to take any article like the above, or half the comments in this thread, seriously.

Funny, because for the last year, any submission that have Tesla or Musk or Musk associated with something negative have been flagged very quickly. I assume by Musk fanboys. So when an article or two slips the Crack, it naturally is filled with criticism. Survivor bias at its finest.

Your criticism paragraph being longer than "it really is great!" paragraph does point towards motivated reasoning going both ways.

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dissent 2 days ago

If I said I wasn't a Musk or Tesla fanboy, I would expect you to take me at my word. I gave a two sided account of my Tesla experience. I do like this car, and I bought it because I liked it.
Maybe it gets flagged because there's no chance of having an intellectually honest discussion if it involves Elon or Tesla? I certainly don't flag them.

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