I passed a Prius yesterday that was going about 50 on a 70 mph stretch of highway, causing traffic to back up as everyone going the “normal” speed was trying to get around. The license plate on the Prius read “SLOWDWN”. I yelled “Speed up!” as I passed it. 
As for Teslas, I saw one of those as well on my drive yesterday and thought it was pretty cool. They’re still a rare enough sight around here that I get kind of excited when I see one.
I don’t know why people keep asserting this as though it’s gospel. I only ever hear it from Tesla fans who claim it’s true because of course it is.
It also doesn’t make sense because the major automakers have been experimenting with electric vehicles since long before Tesla was a thing. The Nissan Leaf has sold better than every Tesla model combined. Tesla is just the most successful electric-only manufacturer.
Building a car is not difficult, and doesn’t require an “experience base.” Pretty much everyone is building the same two-liter direct-injection four-cylinder turbo engine now. If you wanted to start building one yourself, you just need a couple of engineers from Ford or VW or Fiat or Honda or whoever, or you could just source one from one of those companies, or a third party seller like Ricardo. Almost nobody builds their own transmissions; Borg-Warner and Getrag and Xtrac and Aisin do it for them. Automakers’ experience base is in building very large products to low tolerances and efficiently as possible. That’s it. Building very large consumer goods in high volumes is difficult, and not coincidentally that’s the part that Tesla isn’t very good at.
I don’t believe it’s a Tesla thing. Look at the culprits,…it’s almost invariably a fat-assed slob of a white woman vandalizing cars, stealing Christmas decorations, stealing packages, etc. Once in a while it’s a black woman, or an hispanic woman, or a pudgy/fat dude, but they are the exceptions. I’ve also noticed that in the past the most aggressive, rude drivers tended to be white men in big trucks, now it’s mostly fat-assed white women in vans or suvs.
I haven’t yet encountered the stereotypical “smug” prius driver, however, every prius I have encountered (sadly far, far too many) have had a problem in achieving the speed limit, it’s like they were genetically designed to be the slowest modern vehicle on the road, and I have had the unfortunate experience of driving one of those anemic, sluglike transportation appliances…
over the summer, a local electric car club had a “meet and greet” where we could get up close and personal with various electric cars, at first I thought i’d experience hostility driving into the parking lot in my DIESEL Golf TDI…… 
nope, they were pleasant, and actually curious about the TDI, and actually startled that the tailpipe of a diesel car with 50,000+ miles had no carbon or soot on it, it was completely clean…
they had a smattering of Tesla 3’s, a couple Bolts, an E-Golf, and a couple Model S’s, I was quite impressed and actually pleasantly surprised to discover the Model S was basically a big hatchback 
and I love hatchbacks…, if I had the disposable income, i’d consider a model S
I wasn’t as impressed with the 3 as it was a sedan, and I hated the “lets stick an iPad in the dash” style instrument cluster, the S had the MFD integrated more smoothly into the cabin.
My area doesn’t have the proper infrastructure for electric cars, otherwise i’d seriously consider one, my local VW dealer does have an E-Golf for sale for around $12K with around 23K on the odometer, so they are getting more affordable, the e-Golf just doesn’t have the range I need, my TDI generally can get around 510 miles per tank, the E-golf get around 90-100 miles per charge, a rather drastic difference…
…once the new VW ID series come to the US, it may be an option for me…
The leaf is the best selling car still and your point still stands, but the “every Tesla model combined” part is no longer true. Worldwide Leaf sales are in the 400,000’s and Tesla sales are now past 700,000.
Do you disagree that a big chunk of detroit automaker design experience is in categories of engine, ignition system, oil supply, fuel supply, transmission, and exhaust system, or that these experience areas may not transition over cleanly to their EV equivalents?
No, I disagree with the implication that this somehow “threatens” their existence.
From one article about the GM strike:
Also see this Wired article.
This is a pretty big one. Tesla’s driveline is just a VFD-controlled electric motor and a single-speed gear reduction unit. IC Engines and transmissions require a huge amount of R&D to make them civilized (quiet and smooth), clean (EPA-compliant), and durable, and it takes a huge amount of labor and parts to build them. Hybrid vehicles - even plug-in hybrids - wouldn’t have been a cause for concern about job security during the past couple of decades, since they were at least as complex as conventional drivetrain vehicles, but now that pure EVs are on the rise, I’m not surprised to hear that jobs in the auto industry are going to dry up even further.
But nobody is correcting for other factors. Electric vehicles are (at least at the moment) mostly small cars. The US auto market is now mostly dominated by large trucks. Small cars take less manpower to build. Granted, as the plug-in vehicle market expands, it will start to include more large-segment vehicles, but that won’t happen overnight.
I think that any industry that undergoes a major upheaval (such as internal combustion -> EV ) such that a large chunk of all the legacy titan’s core competencies become obsolete, there’s going to be some growing pains from the transition. New competitors are going to enter the market, as the previously insurmountable “head start” that the legacy titans maintained (due to all of that built up institutional knowledge) starts to evaporate, all of those highly paid, specialized engineers and technicians either need to get retrained from scratch or laid off, and all of the specialized infrastructure and tooling is swapped out. This is obviously a threat.
It may not be much of one, depending on how flexible the company is, how well they’ve planned for the eventual transition, and how much money they have to throw at the problem to shore up any shortcomings. The threat still exists.
The advent of MP3s was a disruptive innovation for the music industry.
The advent of streaming video was a disruptive innovation for the brick-and-mortar movie rental industry.
And yes, EVs are a disruptive innovation for the auto industry.
That’s the one I was going to link to. The unions themselves are worried about the transition and think it will cost tens of thousands of jobs. It’s hardly just Tesla fanboys.
Rivian/Ford/GM and Bollinger have that base covered.
I’m not sure it really takes much less manpower to build a small car vs a larger one. In some cases it’s easier to get stuff put together when you have more room to work.
[quote=“echoreply, post:14, topic:841829”]
I tell people the Tesla is an American muscle car. That is usually met with skepticism, but the only things it’s missing are a V8 rumble and smokey donuts.
And, Musk is a smug ass.[/QUOTE
It is not a muscle it is a technologic wonder that is fast due to the electric motors but has the panache of a cafeteria tray. Still I don’t cotton to people vandalizing anyone’s car for their political beliefs or their aesthetic choices…
I think Tesla are way over blown for what you get and many of us think they are butt ugly especially the 35k one. The also use no union labor, which cracks me up thatmy brethren in the left will abandon their Union sisters and brothers for a cool car and status. Hurray for me and f you. There are loads of great electric and hybrid cars out there. Tesla aint one of them. They had the highest worker injury rate in 2017 <https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwij_pOIkKblAhVDKH0KHealAw8QFjAGegQIBBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theverge.com%2F2017%2F5%2F24%2F15681472%2Ftesla-model-3-electric-car-factory-injury-rate-worker-safety&usg=AOvVaw13zmEKFtS2QDGA7veO2LKg> And have among the highest warranty costs (due to poor quality and part to a non union workforce.) <https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-warranty/high-warranty-costs-reflect-teslas-struggle-with-quality-idUSKCN0XO1M3>
Meanwhile for less than a third of the cost, I purchased a Volt which I have almost 80k trouble free miles. Greater range and I am not limited to where there are plug in stations nor am I concerned that my car will be vandalized for being boosh wah. Meanwhile I can still keep my 2005 Jag in the garage with 105k of trouble free miles. Which is faster, sexier and handles away better than a Tesla.
Oh btw is Tesla making money yet? I was supposed to be profitable um like 3 years ago. Just sayin’
[quote=“steadicam, post:76, topic:841829”]
[quote=“echoreply, post:14, topic:841829”]
I tell people the Tesla is an American muscle car. That is usually met with skepticism, but the only things it’s missing are a V8 rumble and smokey donuts.
And, Musk is a smug ass.
[/QUOTE
It is not a muscle it is a technologic wonder that is fast due to the electric motors but has the panache of a cafeteria tray. Still I don’t cotton to people vandalizing anyone’s car for their political beliefs or their aesthetic choices…
I think Tesla are way over blown for what you get and many of us think they are butt ugly especially the 35k one. The also use no union labor, which cracks me up thatmy brethren in the left will abandon their Union sisters and brothers for a cool car and status. Hurray for me and f you. There are loads of great electric and hybrid cars out there. Tesla aint one of them. They had the highest worker injury rate in 2017 <https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwij_pOIkKblAhVDKH0KHealAw8QFjAGegQIBBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theverge.com%2F2017%2F5%2F24%2F15681472%2Ftesla-model-3-electric-car-factory-injury-rate-worker-safety&usg=AOvVaw13zmEKFtS2QDGA7veO2LKg> And have among the highest warranty costs (due to poor quality and part to a non union workforce.) <https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-warranty/high-warranty-costs-reflect-teslas-struggle-with-quality-idUSKCN0XO1M3>
Meanwhile for less than a third of the cost, I purchased a Volt which I have almost 80k trouble free miles. Greater range and I am not limited to where there are plug in stations nor am I concerned that my car will be vandalized for being boosh wah. Meanwhile I can still keep my 2005 Jag in the garage with 105k of trouble free miles. Which is faster, sexier and handles away better than a Tesla.
Oh btw is Tesla making money yet? I was supposed to be profitable um like 3 years ago. Just sayin’[/QUOTE]
Which model 2005 Jag? I can’t think of one that could outperform the AWD Teslas.
[quote=“Capn_Carl, post:77, topic:841829”]
Let me add a shout out for my 2019 Jaguar iPace AWD EV. I’m not sure it can match a Tesla down to the split second, but I think it’s pretty close.
If I ever decided to abandon my obsession with the feel and sound of my ICE cars, I’d go with the iPace before a Tesla. But ‘refueling’ logistics would have to improve dramatically.