Technology

My dad is pretty unhappy with his Mercedes EQS which costs significantly more than the model S, it also had issues with loose interior trim and panel gaps. And despite the fairly high price point its still riddled with shitty plastic interior. It kind of feels like all manufacturers are rushing stuff out the door at the cost of QC.

The vast majority of people who don't read Tesla hate blogs don't give a shit about panel gaps. But overall, the early build quality issues have been improving.

• why is wanting to sell direct shady? You may have reasons to think this particular situation is, but the model is not inherently shady. Meanwhile car sales from dealerships have a long standing and well deserved reputation for shadiness. Surely not all are, but the sales model encourages it. Many of us dread dealing with a dealer after experiencing shady sales practices, so are happy to try a different model and see if it will be different. Certainly this was one of the only car purchases I’ve had where I didn’t feel dirty and abused.
• Tesla’s chargers are standard. Sure, they had to create their own since there was no standard at the time, but last year their cable and connector was accepted as a standard in the US and adopted by the majority of manufacturers
• There is no monopoly on chargers, there is only Tesla installing more than everyone else, and making sure they work. Now that most manufacturers are adopting that standard, their vehicles are becoming welcome on Tesla’s network
• while you’re right that I don’t get the range that was on the sticker for my Tesla, this is “normal”: my old Civic got 12mpg, my old Subaru got 21mpg, yet both were rated over 30. How you use it makes a huge difference

Also, Tesla’s mileage estimates are notoriously exaggerated.

To be honest, this is like the ones from every other car, both EV and ICE.

I've driven 120k miles on my Tesla, and have a different observation on range and efficiency. Even with sub-optimal winter tires and roof rack rails, I can still attain rated efficiency. It does require appropriate temperatures and speeds though, more sensitive to that than ICE cars in my experience. 80k miles in a Chevy Bolt demonstrated about the same tendencies.

We are getting the standard in the form of NACS, but Tesla still owns the chargers. They could always abandon NACS and switch it up/require a costly adapter.