Andyw2100
Well-Known Member
As much as I disagree with others on issues, and I use that disagree in the kindest possible way, I can understand a vast majority of the positions expressed. Those that I do not understand, I use a mirror on myself and think they must view me in the same light.
sorka, I think you missed the mark on the quote above when it comes to me. I believe I have enough seat time to comment with conviction. The real issue here for me is that a motor is not an engine. Applying engine standards to a motor so you can be upset is not taking responsibility for knowing the difference. It is not that the PDL can not perform like an ICE up top but that an educated buyer should know that it never had a chance to in a production BeV with a long life battery. This is why I can not get upset over the issue. By the same token, I've heard arguments about buying the car in Europe based solely on the hp numbers and being disappointed. I can not logically dispute that position.
I think it's just hit really me why you haven't been sympathetic to those of us concerned about the 691 HP issue, even though you have certainly demonstrated recently that you are willing to be critical of Tesla on stuff like imposing a penalty for paying for auto pilot features after delivery, when the features aren't yet available. I think it boils down to what you wrote above, and your definition of an educated buyer.
You know so much about high performance cars, BEVs, etc., that what you consider to be an educated buyer I think, if you really try to look at it objectively, you might agree would really have to be considered an EXTREMELY educated buyer. You believe that pretty much anyone who did their research on the P85D should have been able to reach the same conclusion that you did.
I'm suggesting that you're bringing with you a level of expertise that makes it difficult for you to remember how much others may not know. My point is that I don't think it was a lack of trying to educate ourselves that caused us to be mislead, but that at least for some of us, we didn't possess the background and knowledge to be able to educate ourselves to the level necessary to see through the marketing hype.
I'll again use myself as an example. I may not be the most typical example of a P85D customer, but I don't think I'm that much of an outlier either.
I had never shopped for a real performance car before. The P85D cost more than three times what I had ever paid for a new car before. (I had only bought two new cars previously--a 1992 Pontiac Grand Am and a 2004 Acura TL.) I wasn't some rich dandy, throwing money around willy-nilly, deciding to buy the car on a whim, without researching it at all. I actually did a lot of research, but just never reached the point of being able to realize that 691 HP in an electric vehicle didn't mean what it did in an ICE. I watched the D launch video many times. The "everything gets better" part stuck with me, as did the "half again as much power." I started reading threads on TMC, and I quickly came to realize how much people thought of the P85--the car that my car was going to have "half again as much power" as. I was attracted by the tech more than by the performance aspects of the car, as the tech was easier for me to understand.
And as I've also said before, I wouldn't even know there was an issue with my P85D's performance at speed were it not for reading the threads here. My "butt dyno" basically doesn't exist. I'm only upset because I feel like I, and others, were misled, and at this point have received less than we were led to believe we would receive.
I do understand why people like you, lolachampcar aren't upset--you weren't misled because you had a much higher level of expertise to begin with. But I hope you can at least try to put yourself in the shoes of someone without your level of knowledge, and realize how, even if we were trying to glean every bit of knowledge we could about the car before ordering it, we could have failed to understand that the car would not perform as the 691 HP implied it would at speed.