electrifyme
Member
Driving engagement is very lacking in these cars. That's why people still buy porches, lambos and mclarens.
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Roadster 2023
- Thread starter Ian Spencer
- Start date
My P3 with sport coilovers is no GT3, but it’s very solid. My plan is to get the Roadster in hopes they figure out some magic but if it’s not truly fun to drive I’ll go SF90 or something like that.
Elon has had a McLaren F1. He understands what a great drivers car is. I’ve been in a couple F1s, they are better than the legend. Hopefully Tesla performs yet another miracle.
n2mb_racing
Active Member
Cool. Have you driven the Plaid? I test drove the Taycan before buying the Plaid, but they only had the Taycan 4S to drive and it felt really slow. I was coming from a Model 3 Performance, so it was even slower than that. I would like to drive the Taycan again. Hopefully they refresh it with 1000 HP, as rumored!
Jigglypuff
Member
If you liked how the Model S handled, you just didn't know any better at the time. Now you do. Porsche suspension is far more advanced. A fully loaded performance version will have rear steer, active shocks, active antiroll, and a high level of professional tuning. Tesla, in comparison, basically slaps crap on the car and prays. The stock MY ride is an embarrassment. The M3 and M3P are just so-so. The X? Doesn't it have parts that keep failing? My i4 is fantastic in comparison.
The Teslas do lack driver engagement, but I'd say more people go to BMW than those three.
whitex
Well-Known Member
No, Tesla did not offer Plaid test drives when I inquired at the time. They told me I have to buy on faith (in Elon I presume). I asked if I can buy it but get 100% refund within 7 days if I don't like it (Elon boasted this benefit at some point, for people who could not test drive) but I was told that they won't do that either - probably something which was never actually available in the real world, like Elon's "Everyone gets a new P100D loaner while in service, you can buy it if you like it better than your car" which I also never got during my decade of owning and servicing Model S'es. That said, I suspect I could not live the stalkless yoke, so me wanting to test drive the Plaid was just trying to give it a try to see if somehow I was wrong, but honestly I don't think so. Even the round option today is stalkless and touch controlled, so IMO the worst of both worlds, since your hands are no longer always positioned in the same position next to touch controls (there is a reason why the stalks don't rotate with the round steering wheels on other cars). Furthermore, for longer and/or spirited drives (I recently did a 3,500 mile fly-and-drive to pick up my Taycan for example) I like to use driving gloves, which further complicate touch controls.
About the acceleration, I do know what you mean. Even switching out of Ludicrous I felt the 4S was lacking on highway acceleration as compared to my Model S. That is why I wanted so long to get the Turbo (lower availability than 4S). The Turbo did not disappoint on power. I got to try it out driving across the country with nice 80mph+ speed limits for prolonged stretches of highways. Handling exceeded expectations for such a heavy car (I speced my Taycan with all the handling options such as torque vectoring, dynamic chassis control, rear steering).
lolachampcar
Well-Known Member
I get the feel complaints on Plaid. I was an M car buyer prior to Tesla and loved the way the cars felt.
That being said, I find the Plaid a real joy when it comes to mechanical grip. I've seen over 1.1G lateral in track mode and see close to that in my daily driver suspension settings. Whatever Tesla did to change wheel geometry (roll centers had A LOT to do with it), they are getting a ton of grip out of all four wheels and are doing a masterful job of having the front motor pull the nose around a corner. Sure, you slide all over the cabin with those seats making spirited driving a bit awkward but my 4800 lb land yacht gets around corners better than an M5 Competition which says a lot for the changes.
Oh, and getting 30k miles (instead of 20k) out of a set of PS4s without having to rotate side to side is a very nice plus.
Just my two cents.....
n2mb_racing
Active Member
How are you getting 30k miles? Mine are leaking air and about to delaminate at 10k miles. Did you put on camber arms?
lolachampcar
Well-Known Member
Jigglypuff
Member
HankLloydRight
No Roads
I know it's useless trying to argue with you, but you are conflating two very different things.
There are real products and costs, like FSD that people actually paid real dollars for. There's the Roadster award where thousands of people did millions of dollars worth of free advertising for Tesla and they were promised a reward for those referrals.
None of that is equivalent to the "expectation" of the revenue "robotaxis" *might* generate. Anyone with four brain-cells to rub together would have known that the entire Robotaxi thing was a huge boondoggle to begin with.
That's NOT the same as paying $10k for FSD or getting one or two Roadster referral prizes. If people were 'expecting' to generate revenue on their cars at some magical point in the future, that's entirely on them. Tesla never guaranteed that -- it's been a stupid Elon pipe dream, which will obviously NEVER HAPPEN.
Everyone was just gaga over Elon's visions with millions of robotaxis running about and nobody did a demand-side analysis. Nobody asked "If there are a million robotaxis running about, who's going to be riding in and paying for all of them?" And of course, that's AFTER Tesla nails down L5 FSD ***AND*** all the legal and legislative hurdles are overcome. People really thought all that would happen by 2020?
Also, dropping $10k on FSD is just that -- paying for the FSD software suite -- and we can argue over whether or not FSD will or won't happen (it won't).
But nowhere does Tesla promise that FSD will automatically turn into revenue from Robotaxis -- that would require Tesla actually building the Robotaxi ridesharing network. And anyone who is or was relying on Elon's Robotaxi mouth diarrhea will get what they deserve. That's not the same as PAYING for FSD or winning a Roadster award.
And "not getting a free Roadster" is very different than not delivering Robotaxis or the taxi network. People put real time and effort adding up to millions of person-hours busking for referrals. That's different from simply listening to and believing whatever crap comes out of Elon's mouth and "expecting" to generate income.
My original point is: If Tesla reneges on the Roadster awards, they'll have hell to pay and most certainly a class-action lawsuit.
But if Tesla reneges on the Robotaxi network (which they've already done, essentially) it will result in nothing more than this: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There's no actionable cost or liability to consumers for Tesla not delivering the Robotaxi delusion.
AMPd
Well-Known Member
I’m just shocked to see so many silly people selling used model 3s for less than new… clearly unaware that it’s an APPRECIATING asset! …
I’m still not sure what musk was thinking with that one.
whitex
Well-Known Member
If you go back and read posts from people in 2016, you will find a lot of people who, according to your theory, have less than 4 brain cells.
Well, this was on the order page (as part of the FSD selection description)
Tell me, at which point Tesla actually made if fine for a 2016 Model S (or any Tesla for that matter) to be used for ride hailing for friends and family, in ANY jurisdiction? Also, where is the Tesla network also mentioned in this description?
I get your point but we'll have to agree to disagree. I personally thing it's the opposite, a class action lawsuit for FSD has a higher chance of succeeding that a class action lawsuit from a small number of people who collected enough points for a Roadster, especially if they get offered free Plaids instead (for which they will have to waive any rights to sue for the Roadster which never came).
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HankLloydRight
No Roads
That's correct. Too many lemmings following Elon blindly off the cliff. Very few people, if anyone, asked "where are all these robotaxi riders going to come from?". The ASSumptions people made about this were simply moronic. If/when Tesla launches the Tesla Network of robotaxis people assumed: (a) there will always be paying riders for every single robotaxi, every day, generating buckets of PROFIT (not just revenue) for the owner; (b) that Uber and Lyft are no longer competition; (c) that everyone who needs a rideshare is going to be OK with getting into a driverless car; and (d) all current car owners are going to sell their cars and use rideshare exclusively instead of owning a car. It's like nobody ever studied simple microeconomics. And all of this is after Tesla finishes L5 autonomy and it's legal to have driverless cars on the road. Applying even a modicum of critical thinking would have led people to the same conclusions I've made. But most people are too happy to swallow the *sugar* that spews out of Elon's mouth.
Nothing on that page promises profit, or even revenue from the Tesla Network. Whatever revenue or profit people thought they might make from the Tesla Network is 100% on them, and not a liability for, nor a promise from, Tesla.
Yes, I agree, but I wasn't talking about a class-action w/r/t to FSD. I was comparing the differences between the promises Tesla made for Roadster awards and the Robotaxi network, which is what you originally asserted above.
n2mb_racing
Active Member
Not to jump into the fray here, but I think an FSD class action lawsuit might work to get our $10k or whatever back. It's pretty clear they haven't met their promises and aren't going to be able to. We should be able to get refunds on the $10k we paid. Unlikely to get any more than that.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Court should award at least interest on the money, if not something more creative (like TSLA shares which the price of FSD at the time of purchase would have bought).
whitex
Well-Known Member
I think the argument was pretty simple. Driverless cabs will be cheaper than Uber, Lyft and all other human driven alternatives. The number of customers siphoned off from ride-share and cab companies should be significant. So yes, Uber and Lyft would not be much of a competitor.
Ok, but the page does say it will be ok to use it for ride sharing of friends and family, who were going to save on using Uber or Lyft, hence implied profit.
I was just saying that Tesla will disappear Roadster 2 with less fuss or consequences than not delivering FSD. Do you seriously thing Tesla will actually sell and deliver the Roadsters in the next couple of years?
HankLloydRight
No Roads
LOL. It's a free market. In light of new competition, you think Uber/Lyft are going to just do nothing and disappear? No, they'll lower their prices and/or lower their costs in order to be price competitive. Once again, it's simple microeconomics -- all firms will set their prices where marginal cost=marginal revenue. The Tesla Network will raise their price to maximize profit, and Uber/Lyft will lower their price to achieve maximum profit. Uber/Lyft won't just 'disappear' -- there will be a price equilibrium in the marketplace. I am not convinced that Robotaxis will always be cheaper than human-based cabs.
And as I said above, even if the robotaxis ever exist (they won't anytime in the near future), not everyone is going to be willing to get into a driverless cab, so there will still be a huge market for the meat-based rideshare networks. And just wait until the first person dies from a Robotaxi accident. We'll probably be dead by the time any type of robotaxis hit the road in real numbers.
That's not profit. That's saving your friends and family a few bucks. The owner of the robotaxi gets warm-and-fuzzies helping their F&F. That won't pay the loan on the car.
Tesla will likely make the roadster, not because Tesla feels obligated to make good on its commitment, but rather Tesla will eventually make the roadster for the same reason they announced it, because it makes competitive sense to prevent companies from coming downmarket and to prevent new entrants upmarket.
Can they get it done in two or three years? Cybertruck launch has to free up resources that won’t be working on the Mexican Model 2 or the bot.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Again, Elon's argument was robo-taxis will be cheaper than meat based alternatives, which is not that much of a stretch. The other part of his argument is that Uber and Lyft will not have the robo-taxi alternative, so they will have to stick to niche markets which will not get into a robo-taxi for some reason - like people who won't take commercial flights, only chartered private flights; private planes did not disappear from the market, but their market share is much less than commercial flights, pretty much since they were introduced.
Robo-taxis already exist in limited markets. Not quite Elon's vision where the car owners buy, maintain, clean, charge the car, and Tesla only arranges for passengers and takes a cut, but there are autonomous taxis on the roads today. From the limited data we see so far, people learn to accept them fairly quickly. To be honest, the data actually surprised me how quickly people get used to it. We have autonomous trains and subways in large cities, nobody even bats an eye anymore, even though initially there were people crying out that it will kill people - then it turned out that people operated ones killed more people than autonomous ones.
To be clear, I think Elon's vision has many holes, such as liability for accidents caused by robo-taxi owned by private individuals. Personally I think corporate owned fleets are the future of robo-taxis. not personally owned vehicles serving Tesla equivalent of Uber or AirBNB. I've been trying to warn people about Elon's BS since FSD made an appearance in 2016. I tried hard, telling people they are buying cars which are "mostly FSD capable", so they have FSD capable floor mats, seats, windows, etc (Tesla logic used on other things they sold before FSD). But if they did in fact reach Level 5 FSD in 2018 as Elon preached, and they would have taken on all liability for car driving under the Tesla Network, It would have been an unmitigated success.
whitex
Well-Known Member
IMO Tesla is past the stage where Roadster makes any sense. They are currently in the maximizing sales volume mode, which is absolutely incompatible with the Roadster. The next stage after this is profit maximization, also not compatible with a loss project like Roadster. There is no way Roadster makes a single dollar in profit, unless they make it into a $2M+, hand assembled car.
That said, let's see if Roadster delivers in 2023 or 2024 (only 4 years late, right?). I sincerely doubt it.
