The disapproval of Elon Musk is the top reason Tesla Model 3 owners are selling their electric vehicles and going for another brand, according to a new survey of 5,000 Model 3 owners.

  • xenomor@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Tesla spent years building a brand identity that is intimately woven together with Musk. It’s damaged goods now as far as I’m concerned. Every time I encounter one of its products I think about it. It wasn’t too long ago when I was eagerly following product updates in the hopes of eventually buying a car power wall or that solar roof system. I was enthusiastic about rationalizing away the poor build quality and terrible customer support. Now, I would never buy a thing from them and I’m happy to pass judgement on anyone who does. $tslaq

    • LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      In addition, almost all big car manufacturers now have far better EVs in terms of quality, features, and looks. Tesla no longer has the monopoly they enjoyed for almost a decade. If you’re selling me an EV with this shit stain on it, I’d just go the shop next door.

      Let his fascist followers buy his EVs….oh wait, they hate them. Remember all the rage against EVs in Texas that led to “rolling coal” in Teslas, purposely parking F250s to take up all the Tesla charging stations, vandalism at charging stations, keying Teslas parked at malls? Yeah, those are the people he is fighting for.

    • Naia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      I wanted a Tesla for years. I even had stock which helped me buy my house.

      I no longer want a Tesla and it 100% has to do with musk. And I decided that before I realized I’m trans.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        On the other hand, maybe we should start a foundation to buy Teslas for trans people. Can you imagine how pissed Musk would get if it suddenly became cool to be trans in a Tesla?

    • almar_quigley@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Even beyond Musk the quality of Tesla’s for the price is absolute shit. His presence just makes it even worse. The main selling point for them was the higher range but seems like that may have been a lie the whole time.

        • AttackBunny@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Tesla is the most recalled vehicle brand. That’s impressive. Looking at you Kia/hyundai and Nissan.

          Musk himself admits Tesla has build quality issues

          Search “Tesla panel gap issues”. Tons of people complaining and many say that trying to fix the issue causes other, bigger gaps, or just gets worse. I’ve heard rumor that if you try to fix them, you’ll void some kind of Tesla support.

          Oh, and one of the most damning ones in my book. During a car fire, which Tesla has had PLENTY of, some genius decided that the door locks should default to LOCKED. Who the actual fuck thought this was acceptable? How did they ever make it into production.

          There’s a video floating around of a guy kicking his windows out to escape his burning Tesla.

          Dumb dumb musk decided he was smarter than everyone else, (spoiler he’s not) and overrode his own engineers. He decided there were no physical sensors required for auto driving, only cameras. Every other manufacturer knows that not possible yet, but musk knew better

          Yes, a lot of car fires are difficult to extinguish, and yes, electric/hybrids more so, but teslas are exceptional. Can’t out out the many teslas that catch fire When the local fire dept came by to inspect our business we got to chatting and they said that they had a Tesla catch fire. They used everything in their arsenal, and a LOT of water. Like more than you could imagine. Then it got towed to a holding yard. Someone parked it up against a building, and next to quite a few other vehicles waiting for legal things/inspections. Tesla reignited in the tow yard and took out everything near it too. The yard is in BIG trouble for damaging a whole lot of evidence/vehicles being held for court cases, etc.

          I could go on, but those are the biggest ones.

          • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I’m not a Musk fan at all but some of these are misleading or just downright wrong.

            Tesla is only the most recalled brand if you categorize “recalls” to include software updates. If Tesla can fix an issue via an OTA update, it shouldn’t be considered a recall but it is in the source being used.

            Teslas do have build issues but they’re not overwhelmingly more present than other cars. They’re only showing that way because Tesla only has 4 models of car and the build issues carry over from year to year. That’s not the case for other cars where, like with a Jetta, the body is redesigned but the name stays the same.

            The door lock thing is also misleading because the case would be the same for any other car where the driver locked the doors. Either way, the fire department is breaking a window. They don’t have magic keys to open every car door out there. The fire department could pull on the handle all day long and it wouldn’t matter. The driver locked the doors and could have opened them but didn’t (and there’s even a special manual override for them along with a Fire Department quick access switch at the front of the car).

            Edit: People are downvoting objectively true information.

            https://www.autoblog.com/2022/12/29/most-recalls-by-car-manufacturer-2022/

            https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/attachments/smartselect_20191224-132903_adobe-acrobat-jpg.492495/

            • AttackBunny@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              First and foremost, when you have a vehicle with an electric door lock, you ALWAYS fail it to open. On a “normal” car (yeah there are some that are all electric now too), you have a physical switch that you flip, and it’s unlocked. The locking mechanism for the Tesla is electric, so in the case of the wires being damaged, or as witnessed, the car being on fire, you have no MECHANICAL mechanism to open the door. Supposedly, there is one INSIDE the door, lol what? but how many people will know that, and more importantly be able to access it in a panic?

              I did a little more digging. SOME models are equipped with a mechanical release on the door (I assume it’s something you have to pay extra for), but not all of them. As I mentioned above, there is a mechanical option, but you would have to know exactly to remove the door card trim panel, and access the cable. People don’t even read enough of the owners manual to know how shit they really want works, let alone a safety issues.

              Clearly you don’t understand what a recall is. Recalls are highly regulated, and things like a software update for the aircon do not fall under the recall term. In fact, manufacturers do everything in their power to avoid recalls. They will often issue a TSB, instead, when a recall isn’t being forced by the NHTSA. Good try though. As you can see from teslas own website (I don’t believe this is even close to all of them) they are ALL safety issues, which is what recalls are for, either voluntary, or forced by NHTSA.

              No, they absolutely have more build quality issues than even the lowest trim shit econoboxes. I always say that a tesla is a corolla with a big computer in it, but even the corolla is built WAY better, and I’m old enough to remember 80s cars. Those were pretty damn bad.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Hey… I loved my 80s Corolla. I drove it until it was practically dust. And it was a manual. You can barely even find manuals these days.

    • sweetdude@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Someone point me in the direction of an EV that’s better in terms of price and performance. I hate Musk, but this anti-tesla shit is ridiculous to me. I’d buy another one because the CEO of a car company isn’t the reason for my car purchase. How people can’t separate that is so strange to me. Capitalism sucks, but what other car company is transitioning us away from fossil fuels better and quicker? Fuck Musk, but Tesla has the right mission statement. Without them, EVs would still be another few decades away

    • mikeboltonshair@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Lol so are the CEOs of all the other manufacturers people to look up to and admire? Would you buy a Volkswagen or did you own one when Martin Winterkorn was running it?

      Elon is a man child, I don’t look to him for any insights or knowledge, would I buy a Tesla? Ya if the car itself is good, if it’s not good then I wouldn’t buy it. It wouldn’t have anything to do with Musk however

      Who do you bank with? Do you hold those CEOs to the same standards and not use their products?

      Good luck buying anything where there isn’t some ethical issues surrounding the people who are the the top of those corporations

      • m0darn@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Tesla spent years building a brand identity that is intimately woven together with Musk.

        It worked well for a long time but it makes sense if people lose faith in Musk they lose faith in Tesla. Because he is synonymous with the brand.

        Lol so are the CEOs of all the other manufacturers people to look up to and admire?

        They haven’t built their brands around the reputation of their ceo.

        Would I buy a Tesla? Ya if the car itself is good.

        How can you evaluate if a car is good? It has recently been revealed that Tesla/Musk was exaggerating their range so severely that Tesla owners thought their cars were defective. Tesla has been trading on a reputation of ‘goodness’ that it didn’t deserve.

        Tesla is seeing repercussions from risks they took tying their brand so tightly with Musk.

        • mikeboltonshair@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          If anyone bought a Tesla because of Musk they were idiots, so same logic applies the other way

          You could argue Apple built its brand around Jobs (who died because of his moronic beliefs about natural cures) and now Cook… pretty sure Apple kowtows to Chinese censorship and also does shitty things (I’m typing this on an iPhone right now) so I’m no fan of Jobs or Cook I just don’t give a fuck about them, I bought it because it’s the best phone for me

          The range issues are pretty funny, people thinking they were defective is comical, I will however point out that is nothing new all auto manufacturers have done this for the decades with fuel economy numbers, I can’t tell you how many people we would have come through the dealership complaining about fuel economy after buying a new car

          As far as evaluating if a car is good or not of course you can do that, do research on reliability issues, check recalls, ask friends and family who have actually owned them if they are any good, if you have a mechanic that you know ask them

        • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          In that case you must then remove yourself from society, since not only does at least 90% of the money you spend end up in the pockets of evil people, but evil people are also keeping much if not most of your hard earned money for themselves before you ever know it existed by paying you less than your labour is worth (what you earned them).

          This is a feature, not a bug.

        • mikeboltonshair@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Nothing wrong with that but… again do you do that across the board all the time because if you do congrats it’s not an easy thing to accomplish

          And I’m not dumb I know it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing, doing it when you can is great I just can’t stand people who pontificate about shitheads like Musk but buy all their shit from Amazon

      • SnowdenHeroOfOurTime@unilem.org
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        1 year ago

        Ah the ole “you’re a hypocrite because your life contains contradictions”… Elon musk shoved his way into my life but according to you my buying decisions are wrong if I don’t actively ignore that douche

        • mikeboltonshair@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          It’s less about hypocrisy and more about what’s wrong with just buying something and not having it also have to be an existential moral crisis, don’t buy a Tesla because you think Musk is a genius but if you already own one and are gonna sell it because of Musk then that’s also ridiculous, if you are looking for an electric car and strictly won’t buy it even if it’s the best option based on the money then that just seems over the top to me is all

          I have a bank account yet I’m no fan of banks, I’m typing on an iPhone, apple does shitty things, I buy shit from Amazon when I have to… I despise billionaires

      • Flykr@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        Biggest issue is social. Buying a Tesla associates you positively with musk (by design), and from my experience most Tesla owners are incredibly annoying about it. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to avoid the stigma. Same reason people buy Harleys - the brand name and cultural associations on a vehicle matter a lot, sometimes even more than the car itself.

        • mikeboltonshair@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I can see what you are saying but that’s not a universal thing, like when it comes to Tesla I never associated that with Musk he’s just the shithead that owns it, to me it’s more about the most widely available semi affordable electric car you could buy since the legacy manufacturers dragged their asses wasting time with hydrogen and hybrids

          I guess the difference I have here with people is exactly that, I don’t attach him as being Tesla

          That was a good way of putting it describing it like a Harley, makes sense. I ride motorbikes and I dgaf about what brand I own, I’d ride anything including a Harley

      • SpaceBar@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You can’t have a rational discussion about Tesla on lemmy. So many people are so sick of hearing about Musk that only those who REALLY hate him will click on an article about him. Those people can not separate the product from the vocal dirtbag that is its CEO.

        It’s not worth even trying here.

        • mikeboltonshair@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I personally think Musk is a massive pile of garbage but that wouldn’t make me not buy a Tesla, I’ll buy it if it’s a decent car, if I had the money right now it would be between a Tesla and an Ionic

          People trying to tie their purchases to the ethics of the people who run the companies are divorced from reality imo