Those are completely different marks, from completely different countries, and completely different aims and feel.
And as someone who drove multiple cars, from multiple East Asian and European marks, I suggest you try drive newer cars, because your opinions don’t match 2024-2025 MY cars from those brands (except for maybe MG, and Toyota, but both aren’t designed or sold for the driving experience. Toyota leaves it for their Lexus brand, and Chinese marks don’t even try to compete on that yet).
The modern (2023-2025) KIAs (is that what you’re referring to?) have been horrifically crashy in terms of suspension and ride compared to the Germans in my experience. Definitely wouldn’t be for me. We’ve got a 2024 Skoda Octavia VRS and had a 2021 V60, both of which seem to be a much more sensible ride than the (both e and non e)-Niro and the Stonic. The sportage was a whole other level of rolly, and we don’t really get non SUVish-but-not-really models in the UK. Even my 2010 325i was a whole other level of comfort compared to what is being produced by the eastern markets today.
Early on (Model S being new) they used to do a lot of "hypercare" as some corps call it, short of white glove service, to keep customers happy and essentially advertising their brand.
I suspect a lot of reputation from then helped them paper over naysayers when they abandoned it with expansion
Whoa if still true, that's insanity. All of the ways this company is ran make DOGE a scary proposal... Considering we are essentially both the Tesla customer and the car, if DOGE is Tesla...
Disagree strongly on the soundness of the reasoning. Divesting themselves from manufacturing facilities, equipment, and skilled personnel has been a slow motion trainwreck for the big three US auto manufacturers. It opened them up to competition from Tesla and others. Tesla, who make the majority of their own parts here in the US.
Country of origin is what I said: "Tesla, who make the majority of their own parts here in the US."
And is the relevant measure, as all auto manufacturers employ job shops for various parts.
I don't care if Tesla or Honda manufactured a part in a building under their logo. I care that they invested in US infrastructure and paid US citizens to build the car I drive. That's what country of origin measures.
Heaven forbid we have to fight another war and all the factories and skilled tradespeople are in Mexico or Canada.
But that wasn’t my point. My point is that Tesla buys the parts and assembles them. They don’t build the parts. Just like VAG for example (who also assembles, and doesn’t build. They’re actually pretty interesting because they insist on multiple vendors in multiple regions for each part)
And my point is that they do not "manufactures/assembles about as much as any other western car company", as you claimed, as roughly 70% of the parts for their entire fleet are made in the US while other manufacturers are hovering at or below 30%.
We can keep going back and forth. It doesn't change the numbers.
Some Chinese auto manufactures are pretty good, but a lot are startups in the worst sense of the term: a couple of months from shutting down.
Cars are not disposable, so you kinda want a 15-years of support. Which isn’t just the brand keeping the lights on, it’s a whole service infrastructure.
That’s where Tesla fails, and where a lot of Chinese manufacturers fail: they don’t build one. In that, they aren’t very different than Tesla.
What do you mean by this? I get more support from Tesla than any other car I’ve had. Bug fixes, new features, all OTA.
In terms of service infrastructure, I can open a ticket from my phone, chat with a service person and have an appointment booked. They will even send someone out to the car to fix any issues. I had my window realigned and never even interacted physically with the person.
You have complex software in your car regardless if it was purchased anytime in the last couple decades. The difference is whether you receive updates when it's brought in to a service center, or OTA. I personally prefer the former, even as someone whose job is simplified by the latter.
My car doesn't have critical bugs. And instead of making software more complicated, it should be made simple to reduce the chance of a critical bug to zero.
Has your car never had a recall, or are you simply unaware of any software recalls that have been done to it? Recalls are often done with software updates these days, so if you're not applying updates you're deliberately choosing not to apply safety fixes.
Last year there were five major recalls. One was a software fix for backup cameras not always working. Two were Tesla software issues. Two were non-Tesla hardware issues. I think if I avoid a Tesla, I don't have to worry about software updates for a while.
There were dozens of recalls in December alone. Every manufacturer has software bugs that need recalls, or fixes for hardware issues that involve software workarounds.
> Each vehicle on the road contains around a hundred microcontrollers (MCUs) to operate lower-level functions, such as electric seats, transmission changes, and range reporting.
The software that runs on these microcontrollers is not bug free. At the very minimum, having an OTA update fix a bug reduces the number of journeys with the bug by one vs driving to the service centre and wasting your own time.
Also, I realise it’s a common hn trope to want a technology-free car, but having a coffee at lunch time and watching Netflix on the big screen is one of the few times I get to myself in a post-child world. All of the infotainment technology is great to be honest, from the charging experience to the Apple Music integration.
I understand the value of a large screen. I don't understand the value of it not being a dumb monitor. My cellphone can play Netflix on the screen just fine, thank you. And it is far more likely to have interesting non-Netflix entertainment options as well.
And yes, code on microcontrollers can have bugs. But bugs mostly occur with advanced features or having those features hook into more basic ones.
The general public can’t handle non vertically integrated things. My mum will never, ever know how to switch inputs on a display despite growing up with the first TVs and using one every day. My wife can just about do it.
Also it’s not just Netflix, it has other integrations and a full browser.
> And yes, code on microcontrollers can have bugs. But bugs mostly occur with advanced features or having those features hook into more basic ones.
It’s much worse than you think. Legacy car makers treat each micro only as an item on a BOM, software and all. It’s getting better now, but you would have a vendor for each of those microcontrollers with no coordination between any of them. The path from bug fix to rollout was non existent for a lot of them.
Not to mention the microcontrollers themselves are probed / final tested using VBA in a piece of “software” built on top of Microsoft Excel. No, I’m not joking.
I’m also still getting extra safety features added to my Tesla. I now get cross traffic alerts when reversing.
> I know it's more than just Netflix. But I'm sure it is in all ways inferior to the offerings on the smartphone.
Bigger picture and better sound in the car, which is 100% of the audiovisual experience.
> Your Tesla is getting extra features on a system that I don't want at all.
That’s fine. In your original comment you expressed your ignorance on two topics and people have tried to educate you on both. We seem to have bottomed out on this one which is fine. Not wanting extra safety features or immediate bug fixes is definitely an opinion to have and I’m sure we could find some others who share it.
On the other topic you have also expanded your knowledge on why software needs updates, although your conclusion that your car doesn’t have any critical bugs needs a citation.
What about hardware? If a part breaks, how long do you have to wait for a new one? (Insurance
costs for Teslas are extremely high because parts take so long to acquire).
How often does it break? (Tesla notoriously don’t use automotive quality parts, which reduces costs, and increases MTTF).
And who can fix it? Can you get service manuals for it?
Not every car is a Hilux, notorious for being extremely fixable, but every serious car manufacturer had a whole infrastructure for serious after sales support.
Tesla is still not there, and by choice. That was never a priority for them.
Never had a part break. I had a creaking noise from the boot trims and they were replaced quickly in a remote visit.
Waiting for parts seems to be an industry wide problem at the moment, and my anecdotal evidence supports this with many people I know waiting for parts for their non-EV vehicles. My colleague was without his Ford Puma for 2 weeks due to waiting on a part.
> Note that some people would not view that as a plus.
Those people would have the choice of driving to the garage and waiting if they wished to. I chose for the home visit then cycled to work and came home to a fixed car.
Keep in mind that China is on a completely different level when it comes to repair and the ecosystem around repair. What you might see as an unacceptable situation might be workable in China because of their freedom and ability to repair and remix parts.
I dont want to downplay your comment as there are also pictures of cars rotting in fields so despite the repair culture they dont have their incentives aligned 100%, i'm just trying to see both sides of the issue.
I was under the impression that Tesla has put a lot of effort into building out support infrastructure? My perception is a bit clouded by the fact that I live a few miles from a service center.
Try to get spare parts for teslas. Or fix them at a non-Tesla owned shop. Both are 100x more complex and expensive than any other mass produced car made in the last decade 20 years. And it is like that by design: it was never a priority for them.
No one cares about the plug itself. The thing people care about is access to charging networks.
Tesla recently decided the moat of having their network available only to their own cars isn't worth it anymore. Some of it to get federal money that can only get on stations that serve multiple vehicle brands, and not just their own.
They could've do the costly things, and made their charging stations with multiple plugs, like other networks do. Or they could've used the same plug as other cars, as they do in Europe (because there the regulator was ahead of them, and forced them to actually be compatible with everyone else). Instead, Tesla did the ingenious thing, and got other manufacturers to bear the cost of making their vehicles compatible with Tesla's chargers.
At various times, Hyundai offered purchasers of their e-gmp models rebates of $7.5k-10k, or 2 years of free charging at Electrify America stations, or level 2 home adapters/chargers, sometimes including some costs towards installation. With a bit of patience and haggling, you could've gotten at least two of the three, if not all.
The Kona EV, like the Niro EV and non-numeric Ioniq models, isn't based on the electric e-GMP platform, but is using the old gas vehicle platform, and incentives on those models are lower, probably because there is less need to increase sales of those.
Your argument is correct, but you're overestimating the actual price of the car by 10%+, and underestimating cost of a level 2 charger by about the same amount (or rather, a level 2 plug or adapter. Unlike DC-DC charging, the AC-DC charger is installed in the car itself: the on-wall device just handles handshake and various safety shut off mechanisms).
And as someone who drove multiple cars, from multiple East Asian and European marks, I suggest you try drive newer cars, because your opinions don’t match 2024-2025 MY cars from those brands (except for maybe MG, and Toyota, but both aren’t designed or sold for the driving experience. Toyota leaves it for their Lexus brand, and Chinese marks don’t even try to compete on that yet).