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Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive

electrek.co

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Re: Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive

#71

Post by rob74 »

I have to say I am really disappointed - from Tesla I would have expected more, like a robotic arm that can not only grab parking tickets, but also grab heavy take-out food bags, hand out cash, pay by card (incl. entering your PIN if needed), insert a key into a lock and turn it (in case your garage door isn't remote controlled) etc. etc.

... but I guess that would have negated the slim savings from throwing out the right hand drive option.

... and I fully expect there will be TikTok/Youtube videos appearing over the next weeks of people trying to do all of the above (and more) with this grabbing stick.

Re: Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive

#72

Post by seanmcdirmid »

alias_neo wrote: post #46
sph wrote: post #8

How is it worth to lose the UK, AU and Japanese market with this move? I'm seeing a lot of Teslas in London, I don't see how eliminating the right-hand configuration is justifiable economically. Yeah it might be a ball ache to design a car that supports both driving styles, but all brands with global reach have to deal with it. The grabbing stick is equivalent to being told "fuck you for living in one of those countr…

The stick really is a "fuck you", that Tesla fan boys will think is funny; I think it's funny someone spending so much money would accept that, maybe they've never driven a wrong-handed car in the UK before and just don't realise how much of a hazard it is. That said, I'm more interested in why it's not illegal to intentionally sell brand new cars with the wrong handedness, in any country. There are several manoeuvre…

Tesla is basically not selling the S and X in the UK anymore. But they are still allowed to buy a LHD version for some reason, that must have more to do with UK’s own laws on fancier cars that they already import from Italy and Germany?

Re: Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive

#74

Post by pmx »

As much as I think this is a dick move from Tesla, I find the term "force" here to be misused. Customers were given the option to cancel their order or accept the left hand drive version. If I had been given this choice i would, of course, have cancelled my order and vowed never to buy another musk product again. I can't understand why someone would go through with the purchase after having such a anti-customer trick played on them by Tesla.

Re: Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive

#75

Post by BasedAnon »

Denvercoder9 wrote: post #20
Mashimo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I didn’t realize it was legal to drive left hand drive cars in the UK. There is a tunnel from UK to France, would be weird if only British cars would be allowed to use it :P

That's a train tunnel.

it's a car train, like a normal train but with cars instead of people and a very loud scary alarm, at least that's how i conceptualized it when i was 8

Re: Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive

#76

Post by seanmcdirmid »

masklinn wrote: post #55
sph wrote: post #8

How is it worth to lose the UK, AU and Japanese market with this move? I'm seeing a lot of Teslas in London, I don't see how eliminating the right-hand configuration is justifiable economically. Yeah it might be a ball ache to design a car that supports both driving styles, but all brands with global reach have to deal with it. The grabbing stick is equivalent to being told "fuck you for living in one of those countr…

1. Is it really a surprise coming from Musk? 2. Teslas are not built in the UK, between the import duties from brexit and the extra strong recession from brexit, I wouldn’t assume it’s a huge market for tesla 3. Same as japan, where teslas are status symbols for people with a lot of money, they sell low-mid thousands a year, which is less than they sell in Norway (a country with 1/20th the population) in a month. Tha…

This only applies to the S and X we are talking about, which aren’t huge sellers to begin with unlike the 3 and Y (that still have RHD versions and are the vast majority of UK, JP, and AU sales).

Re: Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive

#77

Post by BasedAnon »

someweirdperson wrote: post #65
kleiba wrote: post #19

Good luck paying and receiving change at your local drive-through.

Is cash still used a lot in GB? Or more specific, do Tesla drivers use cash?

London is mostly cashless now, but cash is still widely used outside London.

Re: Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive

#78

Post by bb123 »

masklinn wrote: post #55
sph wrote: post #8

How is it worth to lose the UK, AU and Japanese market with this move? I'm seeing a lot of Teslas in London, I don't see how eliminating the right-hand configuration is justifiable economically. Yeah it might be a ball ache to design a car that supports both driving styles, but all brands with global reach have to deal with it. The grabbing stick is equivalent to being told "fuck you for living in one of those countr…

1. Is it really a surprise coming from Musk? 2. Teslas are not built in the UK, between the import duties from brexit and the extra strong recession from brexit, I wouldn’t assume it’s a huge market for tesla 3. Same as japan, where teslas are status symbols for people with a lot of money, they sell low-mid thousands a year, which is less than they sell in Norway (a country with 1/20th the population) in a month. Tha…

This is just plain wrong. Last year Tesla sold 56,000 cars in the UK. That makes it about the same size market as the next three largest European countries combined. Given the doom mongering in the news you’d assume everyone in the UK is foraging in bins for their food, but the reality is there is plenty of people with money.

Re: Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive

#79

Post by ablation »

nly wrote: post #47

Good. Fewer of these ugly, oversized cars (the model X) on British roads. The damn things have fat arses and I hate driving behind them - they fall in to some kind of uncanny valley size wise. https://d.ibtimes.co.uk/en/full/1605256/tesla-model-x-model-...

Sadly nearly every manufacturer has an equivalently-sized (or bigger) model. For example: Audi Q7s, Volvo XC90s, Mercedes GLSes, new Landrover Defender etc. All monstrously oversized for British roads. All nearly impossible to see past in a "normal" sized vehicle.

Re: Tesla gives UK owners grabbing stick after forcing them to get left-hand-drive

#80

Post by alibarber »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #72
alias_neo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stick really is a "fuck you", that Tesla fan boys will think is funny; I think it's funny someone spending so much money would accept that, maybe they've never driven a wrong-handed car in the UK before and just don't realise how much of a hazard it is. That said, I'm more interested in why it's not illegal to intentionally sell brand new cars with the wrong handedness, in any country. There are several manoeuvre…

Tesla is basically not selling the S and X in the UK anymore. But they are still allowed to buy a LHD version for some reason, that must have more to do with UK’s own laws on fancier cars that they already import from Italy and Germany?

It's not illegal to sell or register a 'wrong-handed' car in the UK and most (all?) of Europe.
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