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Model S has No Soul!

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There's a lot of nonsense on some of these threads, I'd just resist taking this 'no soul' crap to heart. What the hell does it mean for a car to have a 'soul'. Does my toaster oven have a soul? How about my washer/dryer? Geesh, unreal.

You don't get it. "Soul" is all about spewing nitrous oxides and other poisonous gasses into the air we all breathe that eventually will kills us all. We'll all need a soul when we meet the creator, whoever or whatever that is:)
 
Soul is a quality that you project onto the car, it is not a quality of the car itself. Since I like my car, it's absolutely loaded with soul.

My wife sees a car, any car, as a source of transportation only. Almost any functional car is as good as almost any other for her. In her view my car, like any other car, lacks soul. It is just a fancy cart.

So this soul thing says more about the person than it does about the car. If you ascribe the soul quality to the car itself instead of seeing it as one's personal projection on to the car, you'll assume differing levels are conflicts. There aren't any conflicts, just different people.

There are those that appreciate the car and those that don't. The car is a machine. For me, a delightfully complicated machine assembled with distinct qualities that separate it from any other machine. It has no feeling, no loyalty, nothing that it can use to bond to me. But I love the car. I'm bonded to it. I want it to stay new, shiny, and undamaged forever. But this is a wholly one sided affair. So it has no soul of its own, only the soul I see in it through adoring eyes.
 
So, I read this quote here:

Love my S also - but, it has no soul. I have a mid 90's Italian car - it has soul. I have owned several BMW E36 M3's - they had soul. But my Japanese cars and my Teslas - no soul, sorry.

Which I believe is answered by this quote here:

Soul is a quality that you project onto the car, it is not a quality of the car itself. Since I like my car, it's absolutely loaded with soul.

My wife sees a car, any car, as a source of transportation only. Almost any functional car is as good as almost any other for her. In her view my car, like any other car, lacks soul. It is just a fancy cart.

So this soul thing says more about the person than it does about the car. If you ascribe the soul quality to the car itself instead of seeing it as one's personal projection on to the car, you'll assume differing levels are conflicts. There aren't any conflicts, just different people.

There are those that appreciate the car and those that don't. The car is a machine. For me, a delightfully complicated machine assembled with distinct qualities that separate it from any other machine. It has no feeling, no loyalty, nothing that it can use to bond to me. But I love the car. I'm bonded to it. I want it to stay new, shiny, and undamaged forever. But this is a wholly one sided affair. So it has no soul of its own, only the soul I see in it through adoring eyes.
 
After years of trustworthy service we refer to our vehicles by pronouns 'She' or in the case of my truck 'He'. They dutifully take us places and bring us home and as servants we acknowledge that they can have human qualities. They can be hurt and still take us home. They respond when we give them extra attention.

Maybe 'soul' refers to 'devotion to humanity' and for that my vehicles qualify as having souls, all of them.
 
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It's no more strange to love the distortion of tube amps than the distortion and artifacts of the MP3-format (which research has shown is the case among younger people). People who grow up with EVs will think they have soul, while ICE cars don't. And those who grew up with ICE cars will tend to think those have soul while EVs don't.

It's all subjective.
 
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I remember back with the invention of the CD, music "purists" decried them as a bastardization of sound one could get from a record. Today, most music comes via hard drives and downloads. The notion that the old way was better would largely be ridiculed. I am wondering if the same will be true with electric cars. I kind of see it as inevitable.

I'm not sure it is that simple in that scenario. First of all, LPs have had a bit of a resurgence, whereas CDs have gone by the wayside... some of that is hipster stuff, but above all LPs did in fact have wider dynamic range than CDs (and wider than much of the digital music these days). Really fluent audiophiles actually did and can hear the difference, even if the mainstream just marvelled at the lack of scratch noises from their basic, dusty setup or somesuch... So, defending LPs vs. CDs was not just about nostalgia or whatever. To get better-than-LP dynamic range requires quite large digital files even these days.

I'm no "purist", but even I can hear that the digital Spotify stuff coming out of my Tesla is no LP, nor is it even a CD. :)

As for the ICE vs. BEV, there are some areas where ICEs still remain genuinely better, they have their strengths in certain types of spirited driving (off the drag strip so to speak). It will not remain forever so - I mean, digital music did eventually exceed LP quality, just not with CD - but for the moment certainly there are such areas.

Some of this is discussed e.g. here: Going from EV back to ICE
 
While I agree that the soul of an inanimate object is a projection, I would say it is not merely the projection of an individual, but it can be and often is a social, communal, cultural thing. What has soul, is often felt more widely than just a, say, a single person. There are different schools of thought, but even within cars, there certainly are the usual lines of thinking for what has soul.

For example, I'm pretty sure a lot of people would say Italian cars on average have soul, more so than Germans. Take something from the stable of Enzo Ferrari, Alfa Romeo... let alone something Carrozzeria got their hands on... and it will, for many, automatically be elevated to something beyond. We expect it to break down any minute, but it will break down with soul.

It has, in the end, little to do with poisonous gasses or even engine noise. It is an intangible, rooted in history, in art, in culture and wherever stirs our emotions.

I heartily recommend reading Christopher Alexander's book The Timeless Way of Building and the "quality without a name" he talks about.

IMO, that's soul.

Having said all that, I think Model X has soul. A somewhat dark one.
 
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At the moment I have two cars in my garage: A Model S and a restored 72 Corvette convertible with 454 and 4 speed.

The Vette is gorgeous and has more soul than James Brown. It has a custom cam so it rumbles like a Harley. It is fast and loud,.. very loud. When I start it people jump. It passes so much heat thru the tunnel that you feel like a turkey in a convection oven, even with the top down. I measure consumption in gallons per mile. It puts out a noxious brew of exhaust. It is fun to drive as long as you don't have to go anywhere.

The Model S is gorgeous. It is faster than the Vette. It handles much better. It is silent and has no exhaust. I measure consumption in wh/mi. I have taken long trips with stops at superchargers and they are a breeze.

In twenty years when nearly all vehicles are self driving, the next generation will marvel that people were actually allowed to drive cars. ICE will be as rare as horse and buggy. You worried about your car's soul? Call a priest.
 
After years of trustworthy service we refer to our vehicles by pronouns 'She' or in the case of my truck 'He'. They dutifully take us places and bring us home and as servants we acknowledge that they can have human qualities. They can be hurt and still take us home. They respond when we give them extra attention.

Maybe 'soul' refers to 'devotion to humanity' and for that my vehicles qualify as having souls, all of them.


Well the car is designed by humans, is made by humans, and is made for humans, so of course its build and function is devoted to humans. It is not as if the car is built by and for parrots.

Using pronouns no more bestows human characteristics than me calling my car a duck gives it feathers.

Function has absolutely nothing to do with a vehicle feeling a sense of trust or duty.

Whether it gets you home or not is a solely a function of physics, it has nothing to do with the car having human properties and being your servant.

If there is a sincere perception of human characteristics in a mass produced Tesla, I don't think the correct interpretation is that the person has purchased a magical car.

Anxiety Ranger not only created a soul for his X, but now he's seeing a sinister darkness in that soul. It's likely too late for him.
 
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Well the car is designed by humans, is made by humans, and is made for humans, so of course its build and function is devoted to humans. It is not as if the car is built by and for parrots.

It is that hand of humans that creates the soul of the machine - together with the mind of other humans perceiving the machine, of course. I don't see anyone in this thread attributing anything magical to it.

The idea of such intangible qualities to making is not a new one. I refer to the "quality without a name" literary reference above, for those so interested. Some human creations generate more of these sentiments than others.

Anxiety Ranger not only created a soul for his X, but now he's seeing a sinister darkness in that soul. It's likely too late for him.

Nah. Model X has some soul for the same reason it is famous and a bit infamous - its showy but tempremental existence. I think it will be looked back with something akin the DeLorean sentiment, perhaps, which is also famous and infamous for reasons beyond its doors...
 
I've been around here for years, but I must be looking at different threads because I don't see any argument that it has no soul.

Now I can understand this argument from someone who has never driven one, and who is just imaging what it would be like.

As an owner I would actually argue that it has more soul because it's viewed as more intelligent. Or at least we have the expectation that there is some intelligent aspect of it. :)

Some owners think of it as a guardian angel as if it saved there life because it stopped by itself preventing an accident.
Some owners think it's out to kill them like its a murdering robot.
Some owners think it's mostly stable with moments of crazy.

Some owners like myself think it's a bit too much like driving miss daisy on the corners. I'm sorry car, but geesh you really don't need to slow down that much for the corners. I still leave it in TACC, but then I push the throttle a bit to nudge it.

In fact when/if I do trade it in I'm going to feel a little more sad than I typically do when trading a car in. We've been through some great adventures, and we've both saved each other a few times.

To me it simply refined how a person connects with their car.
 
I have been reading this a lot lately and I know this might be a very controversial subject but I wanted to hear some explanations about this idea, that the Model S has no soul.

So the first thing I want to say as I am relatively new here and an admitted fanboy. For me, there is no better car in the world, and I'm wondering if the "no soul" argument is simply a BS way to push back against innovation.

I also don't get the "real car guys would never drive an electric" argument.

I consider myself a "real car guy". Do, I do my own oil changes in my driveway? No, but who gets to define "real car guy"? Why do my hands have to be covered in grease to be a "real car guy"?

Meaning, if I love a quiet ride, instant torque, technology and innovation, why am I not a "real car guy"? If I marvel at how smooth my Model S is over the herky-jerky transmission of my IS350, does it make me less of a car guy? If I prefer serenity over noise, can I not be a "car guy"?

As an admitted atheist... I don't believe humans have souls (but that is an entirely different thread) but when I read people (even "experts") saying the Model S has "no soul", what does it mean? What and who gets to define the soul of an inanimate object?

I remember back with the invention of the CD, music "purists" decried them as a bastardization of sound one could get from a record. Today, most music comes via hard drives and downloads. The notion that the old way was better would largely be ridiculed. I am wondering if the same will be true with electric cars. I kind of see it as inevitable.

Again, not sure what is meant by "soul" but if it means putting a smile on my face every time I sit down, my Model S has plenty of soul.

I am a car guy and also very much appreciate my S. I think what people refer to is a lack of drama and qwirkyness. To some learning how a car behaves, and doing the maintenance is part of the ownership experience and that doesn't exist with the Tesla.
 
My bare bones 10 year old VW with a manual transmission has soul. My Teslas have not had soul. My current F150 doesn't have soul. The A7 that preceded our first Tesla didn't have soul, but the A5 before the A7 definitely had soul. The Mercedes E500 before the A5 didn't have soul, nor did the Lexus before that, but the BMW 5 series with a manual had more soul than any other car I've ever had.

What's soul? I refer you to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous quote regarding obscenity: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it..."

I couldn't tell you the criteria for whether a car has soul, but I know it when I feel it (when driving the car). What I know is that when I get out on a twisty mountain or coastal road and I feel like I'm working with the car to push it to its limits, that's soul. The Tesla is a fine appliance, an amazing technological achievement and likely the future of automobiles. But it has no soul.
 
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This is easily the most absurd conversation I've seen in my 3 years on this site. :). And there have some doozies.

Next up... a discussion about how the Psychoscrotal EM field generated by a Tesla causes ED. And how wrapping the charge cable with the bark from the Brazilian Hokopoko tree linearly transformates the field, protecting the occupants from deflationary effects.
 
This is easily the most absurd conversation I've seen in my 3 years on this site. :). And there have some doozies.

Next up... a discussion about how the Psychoscrotal EM field generated by a Tesla causes ED. And how wrapping the charge cable with the bark from the Brazilian Hokopoko tree linearly transformates the field, protecting the occupants from deflationary effects.
So you've found those same issues? Here I thought I was the only one. ;)
 
Of course the Model S has as much soul as any vehicle. I'm also an atheist, but the concept of soul has meaning to me, best exemplified in the book by Terry Kidder, circa 1982 vintage, "Soul of a New Machine". Since reading that, I associate "soul" with the information that specifies the design of a thing, supporting its reproduction, in that case a microprocessor chip. In the case of a living thing, that design is encoded in DNA that is immortal enough to have been around for billions of years, rather than ephemeral engineering drawings or data files. There's no putting your hands on the design itself, only the real things that embody that design. But a "real car guy" or a "real computer guy" or a "real farmer guy" or a "real physician guy" would have a passion and appreciation for the intricate design aspects of whatever kind of guy or gal he/she is.
Quick note for those looking for this excellent book, it's Tracy Kidder.

Good post, as are most in this thread...
 
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