$4000 over the life cost of your vehicle? My vehicle is hopefully not approaching the end of its life, but I have spent over $4000 just servicing vehicle emissions components that presumably wouldn’t be needed in an electric car. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t stand Elon Musk.
i think the technology and design of Teslas are pretty good, but I’ve been waiting until a company who actually knows how to assemble cars properly (very much not Tesla) builds a vehicle that fits my needs (a midsize or large van like my current Mercedes Metris or the larger Sprinter) with at or above 200 miles range (which is all I need) without an absurd amount of horsepower (I don’t need a 0-60 time better than 10 seconds, and neither does anyone else) and hopefully without an infotainment system that is beyond my ability to use while actually driving (I won’t hold my breath on that one- I think the MCS unit in my Metris might be the last one sold in the US that qualifies). Fords electric Transit van is close but 120 miles of range is inadequate. As for the cost of them, actually electric cars will very likely end up cheaper than ICE cars in the long run. Especially when they start building models that aren’t excessively fast and over-ranged with related excessively expensive motors and batteries.
Elon Musk, with everything he does, strives for ‘sexy’ or perhaps rather S3XY. While the technology of electric cars is currently a little on the sexy side, what really matters is nuts and bolts of a practical car- proper construction, effective dealer network, easy parts service, repair ability, good interior packaging, universal fueling standards and frankly energy efficiency. Tesla stinks at every item I llusted above, which makes them ultimately bad cars. Musk can’t seem to focus on that practical stuff; he’s too busy trying to come up with another moonshot.
I would imagine that permeates to every one of his enterprises.