If I was going to buy new I’d look at the Kia EV6 or the Hyundai Ionic 5 with the super fast charging. If you’re looking for a budget model then it’s hard the beat the Chevy Bolt or Bolt EUV, although they have significantly longer charging times. Great range, though.
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We will definitely go EV and PHEV for our next round of cars. I seriously doubt that we will get a Tesla again. And that’s not because we are unhappy with the one we have. Quite the contrary, the family LOVES it. We’ve had no issues with the car at all.
Rather, it’s the increased competition that Tesla faces with manufacturers far bigger than it. Telsa exploited the carbon credit trading that allowed it to subsidize at US taxpayer expense its massive losses to get where it is today. I guess some call that smart, but Tesla has been far from a profitable company when you exclude the carbon trading. I guess that’s changed now.
Telsa has a head start on EVs, but with companies like GM, Volkswagen (which owns TONS of brands), Ford, etc, Telsa is really going to have to up its game and lower its prices.
Competition is a very healthy thing…at least for the consumer. That’s why we are no longer exclusively focused on Tesla.
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And don’t forget Telsa’s secret sauce: carbon credit trading! 
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I agree with this point made in the Business Insider article posted above. “Traditional” car makers have a significant advantage: a large network of established service centers. They might blow it or they might not. Sure, an EV doesn’t need as much service as an ICE car, but when it does, waiting a week for something as trivial as changing that 12v battery is not acceptable (and not all customers would be willing to do it themselves). Back in 2020, our car was swiped by a truck… it was a small nightmare to find a body shop that could do Tesla work. Our insurance (was the same company as the insurance of the truck driver who paid) never worked with the shops that Tesla certified, so things dragged on. Things might’ve changed in 3 years, but with so many new Teslas jamming the streets, I just don’t see how Tesla can keep up with service demand.
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Speaking of VW, which owns Audi, Porsche, etc., they’re really dialing up their EV offerings.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a41943729/porsche-2024-macan-ev-ppe-platform-details/
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We recently had an experience with our Model Y. A neighbor grazed the back of the car, with a slight blemish to the paint but a bit of a gash in the back bumper. AFAIK, there were very few Tesla-approved body shops in the area. The cost was nearly $4000 to fix.
Wondering if the person upstream who needed a new key fob got that key fob! Sounded like a bit of a wait before someone could come out to the house to fix it.
An almost 4 day power outage. We did the supercharging to 100% just to be safe. But there is the constant feeling of vulnerability with an EV when the power grid is rather unstable. Given that our internet goes out about 18 hours after a power outage…I’ve put hubby on the job of investigating Starlink as a replacement for current ‘provider that sucks and has no humans available’.
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Great for net profits, yes, but carbon credits has nothing to do with Operating Margin on every car made. (and don’t forget, any manufacturer can avail themselves of carbon credits when they meet the rules)
the biggest problem is not availability of body shops, but availability of parts. Tesla is selling everything they make, so building up inventory for repair parts is not on Elon’s short list.
That said, my daughter’s Audi A3 got nailed in a parking lot and it took Audi 8+ weeks to ship a replacement bumper.
"We recently had an experience with our Model Y. A neighbor grazed the back of the car, with a slight blemish to the paint but a bit of a gash in the back bumper. AFAIK, there were very few Tesla-approved body shops in the area. The cost was nearly $4000 to fix.
Did you get a new bumper? I have read – but not confirmed – that Tesla ships them factory-painted so the local shop just has to instal them. (Of course, waiting for a factory-painted bumper could be months…)
We buy alcohol free gas at designated pumps and stations so that it doesn’t degrade.
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Yes, we did. Honestly speaking, that’s where the bulk of the cost for the repair was.
It didn’t take very long to get it though. This was in the Summer 2022.
Perhaps that can become an advantage when more EVs come with capability of becoming backup batteries for houses (like the F-150 Lightning) or at least for 120V appliances (like the Kia EV6). If the power outage lasts long, you can drive the EV to a charging station, charge it up, drive back, and plug it back in to power your house or whatever.
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great, glad it worked out for you.
Tesla ships a factory replacement bumper painted? If so, I’d be worried about the paint matching the rest of the car, depending on the age of the car.
Paint oxidizes and fades with time, and bird poop, which eats away at paint, doesn’t help either. So matching paint color on older cars becomes more of onsite “measurement” of the local paint shop.
Also atmospheric conditions and location changes the paint process as well. A car painted in the summer may look ever-so-slightly different than a car painted in the winter.
Now if you live in or around Fremont, CA and your Tesla was manufactured in Fremont, CA, then not as much to worry about, but for the paint aging process.
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We are in the Bay Area, so we’re not that far from the Fremont plant.
I honestly don’t know whether the rear bumper was pre-painted, but I do know it was EXPENSIVE!
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German parts notoriously take a long time, if not stocked locally. If you buy a German car, it’s par for the course.
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My first thought as well. The paint won’t match.
There was an issue a few years back with some of the bumpers not matching the rest of the car on newly delivered teslas!
yeah they are pricey, but I think they also include all new cameras & sensors.