sleepydoc
Well-Known Member
Tesla started at the high end with the S and X then made a move to the middle with the 3. Pricing is difficult right now, but with the price increases, the 3 and the Y are have moved to the upper middle or upper end. The problem is at this price point, people rightfully expect more. Tesla’s interiors are not luxury, standard features like TACC have bugs (phantom braking) and they’re missing features like blind spot monitoring and cross traffic monitoring that are standard at this price point. I don’t know about the 3, but the Y’s suspension sucks and it rides more like a cheap Civic Si than a $70-80k car. Autopilot has been one of Tesla’s killer features but similar capabilities are now available in many other brands. FSD has been promised for years and is finally in limited beta release but at the current rate is still at least a few years away.Tesla never touched this market which traditionally was dominated by the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Bolt. Now this space is getting even crowded. Tesla should not touch this market with a ten-foot pole until they bring to the market a product that’s clearly superior, the same way they have dominated the high-end market since the beginning.
Essentially, they have a high priced car that lacks parity in features and quality with other similarly priced cars, or even cars priced $10-20k less. Tesla earned their reputation early on. My fear is they are going to do like BlackBerry did and ride their reputation too long while either being oblivious or in denial about the competition. If this happens they end up losing their brand value and it’s all downhill.