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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

#121

Post by sph »

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…

> I'm more interested in why it's not illegal to intentionally sell brand new cars with the wrong handedness

I reckon because cars are a very popular hobby, especially if you're rich and you really want to have a car which is made for another market. I don't think there's anything wrong with that: it's more dangerous, but they make up such a small percentage of cars on the road that it's not worth spending legislative and political capital on.

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

#122

Post by sph »

bloqs wrote: post #95
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #6

I didn’t realize it was legal to drive left hand drive cars in the UK. Isn’t that generally less safe? I’m really surprised a company this large would end support for the right hand drive configuration.

Famous example in the UK in the last couple of years: the US spy Anne Sarcoolas killed a teenager on his motorcycle driving on the wrong side of the road and then fled the country.

Road accidents are plentiful, the vast majority from cars correctly configured driving on the correct side of the road.

The Sacoolas fiasco is famous because she was protected by the US government because she's a CIA asset, while they should have put her arse in jail.

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

#123

Post by dzhiurgis »

youngtaff wrote: post #68
pavlov wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Model S and Model X account for something like 4% of Tesla’s sales today. They are very niche models. With cost-cutting and margin improvement driving everything at Tesla now, it makes sense they’d discontinue the expensive special configurations of the niche models.

Yeh but the S is still the only good looking Tesla

"Good looking" isn't Tesla's goal. It's all about making more cheaper EVs.

There are many other amazing luxury EVs nowadays if you are into flexing.

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

#124

Post by darreninthenet »

bb123 wrote: post #118
darreninthenet wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right ok I misunderstood I thought you meant physically can't cross rather than not permitted, yes that is correct! However if you stand at the Albert Bridge (which is the one you meant with that width restrictions) you'll see tonnes of LR and RR going through which are wider than that as well as Sprinter vans which are about the same as the X... I can only assume the police take the view that if you fit through the…

Yeah I think that is true, I think the goal of the width restriction is really about weight - they don't want very heavy HGVs going back and forth over it all day so they probably don't care about SUVs

I think you must be right, wasn't it the Albert bridge that was closed for ages due to structural concerns..?

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

#125

Post by ppetty »

Nobody gets what they want with that guy. Right hand drive: nope. Tweets about Tesla’s with no right hand drive: nope. This is somewhat ironic that some people’s inclination will be to complain about a Tesla issue on Twitter, how long before the conspiracy theorists put this all together?

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

#126

Post by tivert »

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…

> I wouldn’t assume it’s a huge market for tesla

You should've read the article:

> The automaker decided to stop selling Model S and Model X vehicles altogether in some smaller left-hand-drive markets, like Australia, Singapore, and Thailand, and started offering right-hand-drive vehicles in bigger markets, like in the UK.

It's a "bigger market" for them, and not so small they could write it off completely.

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

#127

Post by tasuki »

simonblack wrote: post #58
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #6

I didn’t realize it was legal to drive left hand drive cars in the UK. Isn’t that generally less safe? I’m really surprised a company this large would end support for the right hand drive configuration.

It's legal , but no way would I drive a left-hand drive car on the left side of the road and vice-versa. Saw lots of UK right-hand-drive cars tootling around France, and even been driven in one there. But no way would I consider doing that myself, or the reverse in the UK. To pass anybody, you have to take the whole of the car out from behind the car in front of you to see whether it's safe enough to pass, instead of…

> To pass anybody, you have to take the whole of the car out from behind the car in front of you to see whether it's safe enough to pass

Well, you don't have to. I agree with you that taking the whole car out would be very dangerous.

But in many circumstances, you could take the car in (closer to the side of the road) and look ahead on the other side of the car you want to pass. Of course this requires either a long straight line stretch or a long and mild inside turn. And not much traffic.

Fwiw, I would also not drive a car with the wheel on the wrong side of it can be at all helped.

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