Have you driven a modern ICE? I rented a new Honda Accord this weekend. Besides the Model 3's crazy acceleration, and automatic lane changing, I think the Accord matches or exceeds a Model 3 in every single way, and it's roughly half the price. This isn't to say Teslas aren't impressive, but I do think they're overhyped.
> Besides the Model 3's crazy acceleration, and automatic lane changing, I think the Accord matches or exceeds a Model 3 in every single way
Except noise, pollution, complexity/maintenance cost, OTA updates, large touchscreen navigation that gets updated continuously, having to visit gas stations etc. etc.
ICE is just obsolete technology. Half the performance at 10 times the noise and infinitely more pollution.
Not saying that Tesla makes bad cars or that electric vehicles are not the future, but you have to realise that the things you mention are not necessarily things everyone cares about or even appreciates. For many people all Tesla cars are way out of their budget for example, or not big enough, or they don't like the interior finish, or they actually enjoy the sound of a powerful ICE, or they don't like longer charging times and need/want longer range, or they like to be able to work on their own cars or take them to their preferred repair shop for maintenance, or they have a brand affinity and want to wait for an electric model of their favoured manufacturer, etc.
Even in spite of all the good things about Tesla's, the list of reasons people could have to not want buy a Tesla is endless.
This is not even considering the fact that some people (myself included) won't even consider a Tesla just for Musk's antics alone.
The quality control within Tesla is quite poor though, especially considering the price of such cars. I've watched various Tesla videos after seeing some "tear down" videos of a Tesla Y. After that I regularly get various electric car video suggestions. There's a lot of channels/people covering and liking Tesla, while saying things like "ah yeah, they just restarted production so obviously quality is bad and you should not have ordered a car at that time". Then another person talks about the crazy amount of times he had to bring back his car because of issues that it had from once he got it. But instead of being angry, he's happy it's a "free fix", completely forgetting how much he paid for something which apparently wasn't checked that much. Also noticed loads of people mentioning that the Tesla paint department is known to be quite poor. That goes back many years.
I'm very happy people are buying electric cars. For Tesla the increase in experience and expanded production should bring down costs (learned this from an article about solar power costs; costs doesn't just go down because you build bigger, it's mostly the increased experience which brings down costs).
I like that people more drive electric. Tesla is building a factory in Germany, hopefully a with a better paint department. Various EU countries are pushing for more electric, so really hope the price goes down and the quality goes way up. Meanwhile, I'm happy with my bicycle.
> After about 20mph tire noise drowns out engine noise.
This has been claimed over and over and is possibly true in some test scenarios but not in any real situation. Noise is additive, the engine noise may not be clearly audible, but tire+engine noise is always louder than just tire noise. And any time an ICE actually revs up, it's clearly audible at any high speed.
My supercharged V8 5.0L Jaguar would be an absolute disappointment to anyone expecting much in the way of engine noise. The sound dampening in the engine compartment is far better than any car I've had before, and the cabin has adaptive noise canceling specifically for engine / road noise.
> Noise actually isn't a factor. After about 20mph tire noise drowns out engine noise.
I drove (passenger) in a friends electric car once. That car is significantly more quiet than a lot of cars I've been in. Some other people mention that noise dampening takes care of the noise, but that just proves above: an (ICE) engine is very noisy!
It's also very apparent in some hiking trips: any ICE is terribly noisy. You can easily determine which cars are electric though. Everyone driving electric would hugely cut down on road noise. I cannot wait until everyone can afford and uses one.
I can hammer the go pedal in my Tesla any time I want and not worry about trumpeting the intersection. It's pretty satisfying actually. Which is probably why ICE drivers are starting to hate Teslas. But you know what they say... if you can't beat 'em...
I like EVs but the biggest thing that prevents me from buying one is range anxiety. I say this because I think it's funny that you consider having to visit gas stations a weakness of ICE, when I consider it the only reason to still own an ICE.
I own a Tesla, and it’s really nice to never worry about “filling up” except on long distance trips. Gas stations are such an annoyance that some day will be a thing of the past.
The 50+- electric range is plenty for my commute or running a few errands; it's weird to think that when you have hundreds of miles of range, you're mostly lugging around 3+x the amount of batteries you need on average, "just in case", like that XKCD comic. Instead, I lug around a generator and 8 gallons of unleaded, "just in case".
I've got a Model 3 and a Model S. It took me about a week to get used to the central placement of the sole Model 3 screen and lack of a dashboard, but now I prefer it. The dashboard is always in my eye line yet frustrating blocked by the steering wheel. The Model 3 screen is off to the side where I can ignore it (most of the time), yet the information I need is close at hand when I want it. My impression is that it was initially a cost-saving measure, but I think it's a huge improvement over the Model S.
Hm, interesting, I appreciate your comment as someone who has regularly driven both. I've only driven the model 3 a bit, with much more time in the passenger seat and I feel like I have to look away from the road a lot.
I agree that EVs are the future, but plenty of companies have been working on them, but nobody gave a shit until Elon made them sexy. Also, most people will drive ICEs until EVs get cheaper and enough infrastructure is in place to support them.
Have you driven a Model 3? It's like night and day. Everything that burns gasoline feels like a dinosaur to me now after driving a Model 3. I can't stand renting cars, they are all complete junk compared to my Model 3 at home. I said this to a Hertz in Denver, they gave me their best Jaguar. It stinks, it is slow, it is pathetic. It's basically game over for ICE, and they know it. They have 10-15 years maybe but at that point, nobody will be buying a gas car, because they're disgusting, expensive, unsafe, and slow compared to an EV, and everyone will know it by that time.
ICE is rapidly going obsolete, and Tesla is making money digging the grave.
Replying here because your other comment hit the depth limit.
For decades ICE cars have been designed to drop off the mounts and go under the cabin while absorbing energy in a frontal crass. There's not some dramatically higher risk of the engine crushing your legs vs a BEV.
There are many reasons to prefer the BEV, but please don't spread FUD.
I don't see why it's FUD. Having the engine go under the mount pushes the car... up in the air, where it can roll over. The fact is that mass distributed at the nose and tail (gas tank) is worse for dynamics than having the mass evenly distributed along the bottom of the vehicle.
I took my BMW i3 in for service recently and got a high end 2019 BMW SUV loaner..worth 50% more. I was expecting to be impressed. Instead I was amazed how much I disliked it - clumsy tech, loud, needs fill ups...it seems ICE tech is at a dead end. I truly wouldn't want that vehicle if it was free.
Almost everything unsafe about gas cars applies regardless of the power train. The only exception is leaving it running in a closed room (and even there it isn't nearly as bad for a modern car)
Every car I've ever owned had no problem reaching freeway speeds. Even my geo metro which is rightly considered underpowered at best (and mine had a misfire problem). I'm not going to a track so I don't need more speed than is legal.
EVs are much safer than gasoline cars because of how the mass in the car is distributed. Gasoline cars have a giant brick in the front (engine and transmission) which moves back into the passenger compartment in a frontal collision. Automotive engineers have to work all kinds of magic to stop the engine from smashing passengers. In an EV, the big sled of batteries in the bottom causes the car to rotate away from the crash energy, and makes it almost impossible to flip. Plus EVs can use that frontal space for energy absorption.
I couldn’t find any after a quick search, but are you aware of any studies that compare EV to ICE safety normalized for model year? It would be an interesting comparison given the assumption that there are a lot more older (and this less safe) ICE vehicles on the road
It would be. I also can't find any. One of the challenges here is that in many cases Teslas (the pre-eminent EV of course) aren't even considered "cars" that qualify to be in a safety survey, because (just as an anecdotal example) "they don't crash enough": https://insideevs.com/news/370539/tesla-safest-list-didnt-cr... or in other cases, they simply aren't a qualifying car (not enough market share.) So while actual studies seem to be impossible to come by, commercial studies that sell magazines are completely unreliable due to mostly just not including EVs.
So eventually we will get the data; after all, in some places Teslas were the #1 selling car in the second quarter of 2020. It's hard to ignore the #1 selling car. For now, engineering principles and crash test results are all we have to go on.
Model 3s drive great for a practical sedan, but for getting to point A to point B, I'd slightly prefer a regular economy car. Tesla's UI doesn't quite make up for physical knobs and buttons yet, and gasoline makes road trips a lot easier. I'm really looking forward to the Rav4 Prime and plan on getting that after I move to a place with charging.
> I can't stand renting cars, they are all complete junk compared to my Model 3 at home. I said this to a Hertz in Denver, they gave me their best Jaguar.
I can't stand meat. I've asked McDonalds to give me their best BigMac and it was horrible.
