Elon Musk

Yup

x-post to anagram, just curious: I think I've mentioned before this strange Tesla owner thing I've noticed, where they all (the three or four I know) love their car while simultaneously admitting it's nowhere near as nice or reliable or well-made as comparable/previous luxury cars. Was this at all your experience?

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, June 17, 2022 8:14 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Well we've never had a comparable size/price car before so I have nothing to compare it to really.

― joni mitchell jarre (anagram), Friday, June 17, 2022 8:58 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

seems like this is pretty common ppl who were not previously lux car buyers drawn to tesla because they wanted an ev and then being like hey this is really nice, next might want to *whispering* check out a bmw

Yeah, fwiw the dudes I know with Teslas mostly came *from* German luxury cars *to* Tesla.

thats crazy to me taking a step down things of that nature

I imagine it's because Tesla, for a minute, was the future. And now that the future is here, or closer, Audi, Mercedes, BWM, VW, Porsche et al., they all have their own EVs. I wonder, given the starting price, if some folks gravitate (or gravitated?) to Tesla not for its environmental benefits but as a luxury brand, back when they were more scarce. And now that they're becoming more common (in every sense) they lose that cachet while offering little on the tech front that every other car won't soon offer, too.

I am not sure German cars are what they used to be. My oldest, who drives a tow truck and sees all kinds of automotive disasters, is not a fan.

farts tho

german cars are as they have always been subject to disaster

if anything theyre much more reliable than they used to be which is true industrywide

The newer BMWs aren’t as nice inside as like a Mazda CX-5 until you’re really climbing up the price list.

I've almost never even been *driven* in a luxury car, let alone driven one, but a friend of mine has a Porsche SUV, and even as a passenger I could tell it drove so much better than our Nissan. Of course, $$$, including maintenance, gas, etc.

The CX-5 is on my wish list.

if anything theyre much more reliable than they used to be which is true industrywide

I don't think it's reliability as much as safety and durability.

i think the biggest criticism of new german cars which is also true of cars in general is theres just too much stuff too many features too fussy too many little things that can break to much computer shit mediating the driving experience

The newer BMWs aren’t as nice inside as like a Mazda CX-5 until you’re really climbing up the price list.

― papal hotwife (milo z), Friday, June 17, 2022 2:28 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is crazy talk

I got a CX-5 in 2014 and love it as much today as I did in the first year. I think my enthusiasm on ILX was one of the reasons tipsy mothra got one a few years later.

Whenever I read any cars reviews (infrequent) they always bring up all sorts of shit I never considered. Engine noise, road noise, how smooth it shifts, etc. I'm so used to just driving utilitarian cars.

Two of my siblings got violently T-boned in a Volvo 700 series sedan in the '90s, and the state transportation safety board sent investigators to look at the wreck to see how it was possible that anyone survived it completely uninjured. Idk about these days, I haven't kept up.

Volvo used to have an unparalleled reputation for safety, right?

basically all cars are safer at least in construction than the best volvo of the 1990s, they way in which theyre not safer is theyre all huge and fast now

the tesla interior, minus the dash screens, reminded me of a Saturn lol

interesting blog post https://danluu.com/car-safety/

i saw someone online say they rode in one recently and were shocked by how theres just nothing in it, said it reminded them of a bachelor apartment with no art on the walls, which makes sense considering their fan base lol

That's def. one of the things one of my Tesla friends likes about it, the cleanness of it all (which somewhat mitigates the cheapness of it all). Which is all moot, because it's only a matter of time before Musk starts selling targeted ads for their touch screens.

"For just $5 a month extra, you can use your touch screen ad-free!"

ive heard them called minimalist which is such an insult to minimalism

Volvo used to have an unparalleled reputation for safety, right?

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, June 17, 2022 6:35 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

That's why we had a couple and my sister drives one now. It did get bigger, as caek said--now she has some kind of SUV. But she also has 3 kids, 2 in carseats, which wouldn't have fit in the 740.

I suppose no passenger car is going to save you when you rear-end a tractor-trailer at high speed.

https://i.imgur.com/1ZEfjXP.png

crazy thing is the usa had been making steady long term gains in driving safety until it just wasnt, a lot of the recent flattening is prob due to increasing car size, but that last lil upward blip might be because the pandemic drove people crazy

can confirm that, I was out driving around town last weekend and thought I was driving bad, then I saw two separate incidents of cars blowing through red lights on the way home

yeah also the police have been on strike

also the gains stop when smartphones were introduced.

yeah good call

i don't know how to reveal this to humanity, because it is incredibly bad news, but i dumped all the car fatality data into Numbers and ran a 6th order polynomial trendline on it, and ...we're all going to die next year

ah well it could be worse

idk I think the fact there's nothing on the dashboard except the screen is kinda cool

until the screen goes dark for some unknown reason

Whenever I read any cars reviews (infrequent) they always bring up all sorts of shit I never considered. Engine noise, road noise, how smooth it shifts, etc. I'm so used to just driving utilitarian cars.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, June 17, 2022 2:33 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

The one time I was actively shopping for a car, I remember rapidly realizing that reading any kind of professional car review was completely pointless because they are all written by car fetishists. Would have loved to find some resource for people who need to buy a car because they need to buy a car and just for people who are really into cars.

Hasn't happened to us yet! xp

xp. they're often reviewed like this guy reviews tools, i.e. without telling you what it is like to own and use them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GTJMhJuL68

Road noise is legit, though. I drove my ex-roomie's Wrangler when I helped her move four hours away and even with a hard top the ambient noise was giving me a headache - and I was driving a utilitarian work pickup at the time.

Volvo used to have an unparalleled reputation for safety, right?

I think Saab actually tested better, but Volvo was more than happy to have people circulate this idea

(I've always had a weird, unjustified love for Saabs, which I'm sure would be dashed if I actually owned one)

Saabs are forever associated with the Clickhole "Garbage Sons" article for me now.

https://www.classicargarage.com/assets/images/f/saab-sonett-2-1967-two-stroke-red-rouge-rot-rood-02-3162057f.jpg

A 2-stroke 3 cylinder motor? gimme a break, of course I'm in love

not drive my car? xp

No, "I don't cry. I Saab"

"FIAT" stands for "Fix It Again, Tony"

Found On Road Dead

Terrifying Electric Shitty Loser Asshole