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Anti-Tesla Gibberish

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bonnie

I play a nice person on twitter.
Feb 6, 2011
16,429
9,943
Columbia River Gorge
I spent yesterday at the Roseville Earth Day. Lots of EVs and EV-ERs present. Everyone was great, lots of interest in EVs ... but the Coda salesperson seemed to have his sales pitch honed around 'Tesla is built for the elite, Coda has built for the masses'. He didn't let up. He didn't care that the Model S was effectively half the price, that Gen III would be even less yet. He was a broken record.

Even the Volt and Leaf owners were annoyed, saying, 'doesn't this guy realize none of us would likely be here without Tesla?'. I took the tactic of 'the more EVs sold, the better the infrastructure, the more EVs that will be sold.' I was amused, but it became wearisome. I hope this isn't Coda's approved sales pitch, but just a car salesman who was off-script.
 
I hope that Tesla trains their reps to be better than this. I've always felt you should stand tall on your own merits, not by pushing down and standing on others. Did he at least have some pitches as to why you should buy Coda aside from Tesla hate?
 
In this context, I've always found Tesla reps to be remarkably grounded, well-informed and polite to a fault - no rubbishing the competition about, say, their relatively limited range and such. I hope that continues as Tesla scales out further with their stores and events.

I've seen and heard of some rather elitist and nasty Mercedes, BMW and even Infiniti sales reps at dealerships ("Are you sure you can afford this? I'm kinda' busy otherwise!" crap) and Tesla should never fall into that sort of a trap.
 
Wow that sucks Bonnie. I attended the Foster City Earth Day on Saturday w/ my car and everyone was super cool. The Mitsu, Nissan, and Ford folks were all very cool. I ended up letting one of the Ford guys drive my car after the event and he was shocked by the performance. Coda was not there though. The only bad thing that happened (for my bank account) was I ended up chatting to the Lightning Motorcycle guys. I wasn't in the market for a new bike but.......

I gave away a ton of Model S brochures and even a number of Roadster ones (mostly kids to use as posters). One guy came by w/ his 16 year old daughter and said he was planning to buy her a Model S since it will be an environmentally friendly and safe car. I asked him if he was interested in adopting a few more "kids" ;)
 
In 1988 I was shopping for a new car. I had narrowed it down to three: Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, and (just to be fair) one American-nameplate car, I forget which.

The Toyota dealer was overflowing with bad things to say about the Civic, and about CU. Some of what he said about the Civic was just plain untrue. (It was fuel-injected, but he INSISTED that the Civic was carburated.) His attitude tipped me to the Civic. The Honda dealer was excellent in every respect.

Car salespeople want to sell cars, and they'll take whatever tack they think will work, whether it's honesty or dishonesty; whether it's bad-mouthing the competition or taking the high road. Different approaches work with different potential customers. Here on this board, we want to see more EVs on the road. It's in our interest, and we are dedicated to improving the nation and the world by weening transportation away from gasoline. But an auto dealer is a business, and makes money by selling cars, not by promoting what they think is good for the country.
 
In 1988 I was shopping for a new car. I had narrowed it down to three: Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, and (just to be fair) one American-nameplate car, I forget which.

The Toyota dealer was overflowing with bad things to say about the Civic, and about CU. Some of what he said about the Civic was just plain untrue. (It was fuel-injected, but he INSISTED that the Civic was carburated.) His attitude tipped me to the Civic. The Honda dealer was excellent in every respect.

Car salespeople want to sell cars, and they'll take whatever tack they think will work, whether it's honesty or dishonesty; whether it's bad-mouthing the competition or taking the high road. Different approaches work with different potential customers. Here on this board, we want to see more EVs on the road. It's in our interest, and we are dedicated to improving the nation and the world by weening transportation away from gasoline. But an auto dealer is a business, and makes money by selling cars, not by promoting what they think is good for the country.

I worked as a mechanic in a bicycle shop while I was in college. We only had about 2-3 high end models, we mostly sold mid range mountain bikes, entry road bikes, and tons of neighborhood bikes. I eneded up helping people look around and regularly recommended they go to 1 or 2 other good stores with a little bit more range. I ended up selling A LOT of bicycles because I did that.

That and I was dealing with a tank manufacturer (who was second in cost on their bid). They found out who was the winning bid (I think they actually guessed) somehow and sent me a huge email blasting the winning company. Well a week later when I am getting the contract in, the winning bid was going to be 2 weeks later than our schedule allowed (but still within their longest quoted proposed schedule). My boss told me to talk to the other tank manufacturer to see if they could meet the schedule. I showed him the email, and we decided not to contact them, and delay the finish of the project. Badmouthing has SERIOUS effects on LOTS of people.

Oh they missed out on $300k worth of tank contract.
 
I spent yesterday at the Roseville Earth Day. Lots of EVs and EV-ERs present. Everyone was great, lots of interest in EVs ... but the Coda salesperson seemed to have his sales pitch honed around 'Tesla is built for the elite, Coda has built for the masses'. He didn't let up. He didn't care that the Model S was effectively half the price, that Gen III would be even less yet. He was a broken record....I hope this isn't Coda's approved sales pitch, but just a car salesman who was off-script.

Our Earth Day Roadsters were right across from the Coda. Right off I had happy talk with the sales guy (I sadly have forgot his name but he never forgot mine over two days) We went to the Ford Focus booth together and asked questions. Always nice and even offed donuts (I declined).

Next Event the Coda guys were cool but I didnot hear their spiel. The Fisker team with three cars was a bit elitist.

Gadget was a bit of "better than Tesla" but I in no way had a problem with a guy financially struggling to build awesome conversions saying he had a superior product when in some ways (you can electrify any car you like) he is superior.
 
The "About the author" section is quite revealing in that one :rolleyes:
He doesn't say *anything* about the Model S. Nothing about the acceleration, the range, the ability to quick charge etc.
After that very article you could go "Name ONE reason why YOU would buy an Audi A6 over a Model S".
What freightens me most is that people get paid to do this :-S
 
The "About the author" section is quite revealing in that one :rolleyes:
He doesn't say *anything* about the Model S. Nothing about the acceleration, the range, the ability to quick charge etc.
After that very article you could go "Name ONE reason why YOU would buy an Audi A6 over a Model S".
What freightens me most is that people get paid to do this :-S

I was tempted to sign up and reply "One Reason? The Front Grill", which looks disgusting on the Audi.

The fact it's not even a fully electric car with less than 100 miles range. If you notice the author loves Clarkson, and Tesla/BBC Top Gear thing it's most probably gone on from that.
 
One reason: The Model S is in beta testing and due to be produced this summer. The Audi is a "concept" car. I.e. it does not exist.

And though they didn't ask for a second reason: The Audi is a plug-in hybrid or REEV, like the Volt, not an EV. The Audi burns gasoline. I prefer a car that does not.

The article denigrates people who like Tesla by referring to us as a "cult following." And it suggests that one Roadster that was "bricked" due to extreme negligence is a reason to reject the entire company. How many "burn and explode" cars (I usually call them "stinkers" because they stink) have been "bricked" when the engine threw a rod or the transmission went out?

Conclusion: The article makes a big deal about a concept car that does not exist and might never exist and if it does ever exist is years away from being available, and as a pointless aside, takes a few pokes at Tesla, which has built one of the most impressive cars on the road and is moving forward strong.
 

I wrote to the webmaster/editor about this:

I have a number of concerns over the "article"
"Can YOU Name ONE Reason Why You'd Buy A Tesla Model S OVER The Audi A6 L e-tron?"

I do not know where you got any of the information, but this is clearly an opinion piece and starts a "flame war".

Number 1: It looks like one paragraph of writing and a cut and paste job from the Audi press release

Number 2: Audi's reliability is highly questionable compared to other car manufacturers (look at edmunds.com or JD powers or any other car rating website). I question your statement about reliability. Given Tesla did have an issue with 4 out of 2,000 batteries, but in 2 of those cases, it clearly says to NOT TO DO IT. The other case, he did not have the correct plug in Japan, and the last case he used a 100 ft extension cord to charge (resistance and losses)

3. If you are unaware, in the case of a Roadster, Lotus built the frame and when the car was out of warranty for a Roadster owner, while doing maintenance, they noticed a hairline crack- instead of saying "it's going to be thousands of dollars" they fixed the car free of charge. Tesla tends to not tolerate manufacturing defects.

4. If the author had done even 5 minutes of research, they could have found out for themselves about the Audi e-tron and Model S. The Model S beats the Audi in almost every category, except pure range since you can go to a gas station and fill up the Audi.

5. Calling Tesla owners wealthy is a misconception. Most Model S buyers are of middle income as shown from the survey on Tesla forums

6. Saying that Tesla owners have something to prove is wrong. The starting price for the Model S is around the same as an A6, but the lifetime costs are lower. I would say that the Audi owner is trying to prove something

Please contact the author to let him know of his errors and make him do some initial research prior to posting.
 
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I don't get why many of the traditional car buffs are so anti-EV to the point that they wantonly spread falsehoods about the technology and the companies involved. Why do they feel so threatened?

Why not "live and let live"? If you don't believe in EVs, so be it; you continue on driving gassers into the sunset. Let those who are serious about weaning off oil completely take the 'risk' in going for an EV; what's your problem?!
 
I don't get why many of the traditional car buffs are so anti-EV

You're right--if you don't want one, don't buy one. That applies to most people, who are fine with EVs being available; they just don't want one because of all the horrible sacrifices they assume they entail.

In my experience, the few people that actively fight against them either:

1. Are pushing something else, like biofuels, mass transit, or power-dense batteries suitable for hybrids
2. Assume there is no reason to want EVs other than for environmental reasons--and they really hate environmentalists
 
I don't get why many of the traditional car buffs are so anti-EV to the point that they wantonly spread falsehoods about the technology and the companies involved. Why do they feel so threatened?

They believe that EVs, hybrids, etc. will threaten their lifestyle and anything to get rid of them is fair play. They see driving one of them as "giving up something" whereas the people who have them know that they are getting more. These are the same people who didn't want airbags, seatbelts, and other things that have made cars much safer then they were in the fifties and sixties.