I know it’s not a common opinion here, but there’s nothing remotely close to Tesla in terms of bang for the buck (whole experience, features, autopilot, charging infrastructure, power, range).
What are the ones you have in mind?
I’ve never driven any fully electric car yet so I’m not 100% sure about anything, but right now if I had the money I’d buy a Hyundai Ioniq 6 or Kia EV6 (or maybe a Polestar but I don’t like how they charge money to unlock features the car already has). From what I’ve seen and heard it seems like the Tesla vehicles are just poorly built and unreliable. Either way though I would just never buy a car that supported Musk because he is a genuinely horrible person.
(Also, not that it really matters that much compared to everything else, but I just feel like Hyundai/Kia has the best looking cars on the market right now and I love their designs so so much)
The kia is gorgeous! It’s incredible how they’ve improved all of their designs in the last couple of years! I love the ioniq 5 but really dislike the 6 because of its rear.
The built quality of Tesla is greatly exaggerated. Tesla is the most shorted stock so people with big pockets push really hard to make it look worse than it is. Never had any issue with mine, of all my friends with Teslas, never heard any issue except for the old models that were fixed right away in their driveway under warranty.
The whole experience of Tesla with the keyless system (you just walk to your car, open the door, sit, it adjusts the seat and wheel to you, and you just drive away, no button to start, just engage the speed)
The navigation system (reading from your calendar or suggesting based on your habits, sending an address from your phone even hours before you get into your car, selecting from favorites, voice search or typing in that huge responsive screen and it just calculates everything including charging stops based on peak usage to select one with less chance of any waiting time, no other company does that)
The scheduling to get the car ready (heated in winter, cooled in summer), it even defrosts and remove the snow from almost everywhere as it’s all glass, incredible!
The charging experience (charging stations everywhere, super reliable, like 3-5x more reliable than others, the speed of it, I almost never have to wait for it because I’m going to get food or emptying my bladder, the streaming services built in with Netflix/Disney/… always available, the games built in with controllers)
The clean inside that now makes me see all other cars as commercial airplanes, the autopilot that makes everyday drives and long road trips a complete pleasure and super relaxing, the constant updated with new features…
Of all this (and more), some other manufacturers get some stuff good, but none gets anything as spot on as Tesla, because they vertically integrate the whole stack, they know software, they know hardware, they know user experience. I can’t see myself use any other car than a Tesla until something close gets to the market.
But, I understand not willing to support Musk, just as I don’t want to support Apple or Bell.
