I get that. I had already been burned by VW with the TDI scandal, so I was pretty frustrated with car companies in general. Are any of them truly ethical or consumer-focused? We saw that Tesla was at least trying to make the electric car thing work and we wanted to support that movement—not because we think electric cars are the endgame solution, but because we think they’re a step in the right direction and we wanted to encourage the market to follow their lead.

And buying a car is not an investment. It’s not like we own Tesla stock.

One thing I did really, really like about buying a car from Tesla is that they don’t use a dealership model. What a breath of fresh air! I never want to buy from a dealer ever again if I can help it. But I think the next time we’re in the market, we’ll buy used anyway.

I’m in a different position financially than where I was six years ago.

Flooding the used Tesla market is not a strategy I had heard before you mentioned it, actually. Maybe if I was in the same position that I was six years ago financially, I would be making different choices. But I’m not.

As for my soul, Lemmy talks a big game about focusing on the class struggle, but whenever I admit to having a Tesla, everyone piles on like I am the worst person ever. I got flat out scammed by VW and I certainly didn’t fucking know that Musk was quite as massive a tool as he has shown himself to be now. Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention. But all I’m saying is that I’m not the real enemy here.

I guess I see what you’re saying about not trusting Elon Musk because he had promised something that thus far had not been delivered. And you’re right, we didn’t trust him and didn’t purchase the option. But we thought the car was still okay. I still like the car, for the most part. Does that make sense? The car and the full self driving option were two separate purchases, one of which we did not make.

We did not purchase full self driving. My husband rightfully thought that it was a bit of a pipe dream. I’m too much of a control freak to allow a car to drive for me. Also six years ago was 2019 so if you think I fell for “full self driving by 2016” then I think you can’t do math.

Any car is sold at a loss. As someone who recently paid one of these off, I can’t stomach a new car payment in the face of our melting economy because six years ago I didn’t foresee the head of a car company turning out to be a freaking nazi.

Considering my Tesla replaced a VW TDI, I’m feeling particularly salty and completely disillusioned about ethical consumption under capitalism, etc. etc. I wish people on Lemmy could have some empathy and not just assume that everyone driving a Tesla is sanctioning anything that Elon Musk does.

You could say we bought our Teslas “for the environment” in a way, though a bit roundabout. When we bought them (2018), it was after having previously leasing a Leaf which had shit mileage and poor performance over 40mph. We wanted to signal to the industry with our dollars that we wanted the EV movement to succeed. Because apparently money is the only thing they listen to. We knew full well that EVs were only a step toward a greener future or whatever but we wanted the industry to take that step and understand that being environmentally friendlier was important.

I don’t remember exactly when I did but it was around then. Sooo much happier honestly.

You think some of the right-wingers who decry climate change will adopt EVs via Tesla since Elon sucks up to their guy now?

We just did. Only reason it took this long is because it auto-renewed this time last year for a year slightly ahead of when we thought it was gonna do that. Oops.

Some of us Tesla drivers refuse to use any of their bullshit auto-driving software (I don’t even use lane assist anymore) because of bad experiences so hopefully most of them are just driving normally. Which I do admit may not spark much confidence given how terrible some drivers are.

My gen alpha kids got it in 3rd grade. Or rather one did and one is about to.

That’s not what they’re saying. It’s essentially a “door ajar” warning. The sensor is what’s failing, rather than the physical part.

I wasn’t actually so mad at first. They bought back our smaller cheaper car and we felt very compensated. But for the second car, which was much bigger and more expensive, they only offered a “fix” which they said wouldn’t affect performance (yeah right), and a small amount in restitution. It felt like a slap in the face. In hindsight I would have gone about things differently but let’s just say that I have little to no faith in the way our justice system works anymore due to how we decided to proceed after that, and we will never buy a car from VW ever again.

Meanwhile, we actually replaced those cars with Teslas. And now we feel like we’re kind of back in the same place, having given money to a company that is pretty shit. We try to vote with our wallets as much as possible but there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, after all. It’s just really depressing and disheartening and makes me not want to buy anything anymore.

I’m in the opposite camp. What are the reasons you don’t like Rivian? (I don’t like VW because we had not one, but two vehicles caught up in Dieselgate. They’re dead to me. Which is a shame because I really liked them.)

I’m not a poster but I comment here way more than I did on Reddit. Some of that is because it feels a little “safer” to comment here. Hopefully that lasts, though I fear it won’t.

I (maybe, kinda) miss what Facebook was like in, er, 2008-ish. But then again I was also 25 so maybe I just miss what life was like back then.

Yeah, as I age I definitely wonder what is going to be my “product of the times” prejudice. I try really hard not to be prejudiced but it can be hard. For instance, I really don’t understand poly relationships. But I’m also not going to yuck someone else’s yum, especially when it comes to the rights of someone to do what they want if it isn’t harming anyone else.

For the first two decades of the century, what it meant to be Texan—as explained by the state’s politicians—was largely wrapped up in a feeling of competition with California.

As a Californian, I can’t help but think of that Mad Men meme: “I don’t think about you at all” or some such. Do all Texans really think this way or does this author just have a huge California-shaped chip on his shoulder?

Musk thinks he already did that with the model 3, right? Billionaires have no concept of “affordable” after all.

Yes! This is my dad to a T. Meanwhile, my husband and I (oldish millennials) “cut the cord” fairly early on but more importantly, we actually have the TV off occasionally. That only happens in my parents’ house if my dad isn’t home. When I was a kid, he’d be working in the garage — where he had a TV — but we weren’t allowed to change the channel in the living room because he’d go back and forth and didn’t want to miss anything.