Tesla's new Model S P85D, so good it drives conservatives crazy!
Last week,
Consumer Reports declared the new $120,000 Tesla Model P85D the best car it has ever reviewed, so good in fact, that it broke its rating system, scoring 103 out of 100. Of course, few us can afford such a car, but that's not the point, as
Consumer Reports clearly stated:
“Let’s be clear about something,” he told me. “We don’t test $120,000 cars. We’re not doing this because we want people to go out and find the best $120,000 car. This is really a glimpse into the future of what we can see in cars.” Consumer Reports could test high-performance cars, he said, but they all come with compromises, like poor fuel economy or harsher rides. “This is the first time that a car increases performance with all-wheel-drive and energy efficiency. It’s unprecedented,” he said. “It’s pushing the envelope in so many benchmarks that it really scored off the charts.”
In other words, today's Tesla supercar is tomorrow's mid-range commuter. Tesla is building out technology for well-heeled early adopters that will (in three years, if anyone believes Tesla timetables anymore) soon be available in more affordable mass-market cars. For those of us hoping for a transition to clean transportation, this is pretty exciting stuff, and Tesla is proving that electric cars aren't golf-cart equivalents. Rather, they are better than the gas-powered supercars of today.
Which is all great news! Well, unless you are conservative and have a bug up your ass about clean air and renewable fuels that would eliminate dependence on petroleum from regressive regimes and lessen the need for wars. For those people, Consumer Reports now has a liberal agenda to destroy freedom. If you don't believe me, head below the fold and see for yourself.
Let's go to the Wall Street Journal's op-ed pages, where peak conservative is in action:
Consumer Reports Spends Its Juice, Badly
The product reviewer raves that a new Tesla ‘broke’ its rating system, but the real culprit is in the mirror.
Consumer Reports broke its ratings system and is totally like, "Wasn't me, it was ...
that guy!"
If, with their own money, Tesla and its customers want to revel in electric cars, that’s wonderful. Nobody should object. But why should taxpayers subsidize their hobby as if some vital public purpose is being served?
Pshaw, clean air and energy independence, that shit is only a HOBBY! Unlike
tax breaks to oil companies which serve vital purposes to our friends in the oil biz.
And why should Consumer Reports prostitute itself in its latest review of the Tesla Model S P85D, calling it basically the best car ever, with a higher-than-possible rating of 103?
Yeah, those guys are fucking whores for liking a car that isn't a Ford Expedition!
Prostitute is not too strong a word. Consumer Reports does not give away its content for free.
Fucking whores, charging for shit. Unlike the
Wall Street Journal, which charges for shit, but isn't a whore.
The reason became instantly apparent to any visitor who found himself waylaid on almost every page by a full-screen pop-up invitation: “Tesla’s innovation shows we don’t have to compromise. Stand with Consumer Reports as we fight for better cars.”
Consumer Reports is advocating for policies that get better cars to consumers, and they cite Tesla's success in building a great car as proof that we don't need to surrender to a gas-powered future. Why doesn't this infuriate normal Americans like it does conservatives?
CR is shilling not only for the car but the government policies that subsidize it. Or as CR’s auto testing chief Jake Fisher says in an accompanying video, “At Consumer Reports, we believe improving fuel efficiency is a vital initiative.”
Holy shit, they really said THAT? That they think better fuel efficiency is better? Why would a magazine focused on the consumer want to save consumers money by encouraging technology that allows for cheaper, cleaner transportation? Shit, they really are whores, whoring for the "spend less money" and "breathe cleaner air" lobbies.
But it looks more like CR broke its own rating system. Hard to reconcile is a perfect score in a review where the words “glaring omission at this price” or some variation are commonplace in reference to everything from sun visors to cup holders to malfunctioning door handles. Plus the car gets only an “average” rating on reliability, which already seems generous in light of complaints from Tesla owners on enthusiast message boards.
Yeah, a lack of sufficient Big Gulp-sized cup holders is definitely reason to overlook the quantum-leap advances in efficiency, speed, and acceleration that the
Consumer Reports system rewards. Priorities people! Cup holders, then everything else!
Fact is, this guy has no idea how the CR rating system works. They didn't say the car was "perfect," they said it was their best reviewed ever. Their rating system issues points for a wide variety of categories. Perhaps, if the car had more cup holders, it would've scored a 105 instead of a 103. That's how their scoring works.
So once again, they're not claiming it's a perfect car. They've just never had a car rate this high, so they had to adjust their rating system so it wouldn't go above 100.
As for maintenance complaints, there's nothing more scientific than cherrypicking from internet message boards.
Let’s postulate something else: A traditionally scrupulous CR review—even while praising the car’s features—might well give any Tesla vehicle an “unacceptable” rating simply because it takes at least five hours to recharge except at one of Tesla’s own supercharger stations (where it still takes 30 minutes).
Why do you need faster charging times than five hours? You pull in at night to your driveway, you plug it in, and you go to sleep. This guy sleeps, right? Then you wake up, hopefully more than five hours later, and your car is completely filled up and you have about 280 miles to play with that day! No need for finding a stinky gas station and wasting time dealing with that hassle. That shit is worth EXTRA points!
And if you aren't near your home for a nightly top-off, then you have the supercharger network to provide FREE fuel. So while it's laudable that this guy is standing up for the gas station industry (and the oil conglomerates that supply it), really, that's not CR's job.
(And we can all postulate that if you're normal daily driving needs are longer than 280 miles (and your job isn't "long-haul truck driver"), then perhaps an EV is still not for you.)
But most bizarre is its reviewers’ obsession with acceleration, as if 0-to-60 times are the most important consideration in CR’s auto ratings.
When a chief argument against electric vehicles is that they don't have the power to keep up with gas-powered vehicles, then yes, it's quite relevant to note that EVs are just as capable of providing power. So much so, in fact, that one is now faster than supercars costing more than $1 million.
Of course, that wasn't the biggest factor in CR's rating, but the fact they gushed about it was because yes, it was a technological breakthrough and genuinely amazing.
To which we might add: Buy a 10-year old 600cc sport bike on Craigslist for 1/50th the price. You will experience even faster acceleration and then you can put it away and still have plenty of money left over for a car (or three) that better serves the functions of a car, namely to transport people and their gear conveniently around town and around the country.
Or, you can get a Tesla which accomplishes all that just as well, but doesn't trash the environment. But hey,
Consumer Reports isn't putting a gun to anyone's head and demanding he or she buy this expensive car! Again, the point is that technology is progressing at a point that will soon deliver much of this performance at an affordable mass-market price. That's why CR is so excited, and that's why this scares the shit out of Big Oil and the traditional automakers.
But why is CR gushing over acceleration at all? A Tesla’s battery must be recharged with either fossil fuels or renewable energy that otherwise would be displacing fossil fuels elsewhere in the economy.
My future EV will be powered by the solar panels already on my roof. But even if you are using fossil fuels to power your Tesla, you're getting the equivalent of 87 MPG.
But what's this nonsense about "displacing fossil fuels elsewhere in the economy" as if that's a bad thing? That's the ENTIRE POINT of this! Sure, Texas and North Dakota don't want to hear that, but our future won't be fossil-fuel based. We're evolving technologically to the point where renewable resources are increasingly becoming viable options, and soon will become the preferred option.
Of course, there's nothing stopping incumbent energy companies from jumping on this bandwagon, but if they cling to their dirty model, let them get displaced.
It took Google 0.55 seconds to establish that Mercedes E-Class and S-Class and the BMW 5 and 7 series each sell more cars than Tesla does.
Everyone knows that a car can't be good if it is outsold by other cars. The best cars in the world are the Honda Civic and Toyota Camry after all.
In any case, Tesla is production restrained. The waiting list to receive your Tesla is months long. If you want a forthcoming Model X SUV, the waiting list is over a year. Tesla is spending billions to upgrade its production lines and to build a battery factory in the Nevada desert.
As the first successful automotive startup in generations, it'll take time to ramp up production. How much it sells vis-a-vis other car makers is irrelevant.
All vehicles come with trade-offs.
And
CR is happy to talk about those trade-offs. Even this asshole talks about those trade-offs above, quoted straight from
CR's review! Remember? Cup holders, the most important thing in a car ever?
Some of the vehicles we love most come with quirks that would likely earn them a low rating in a traditionally scrupulous CR review.
Yes, this Tesla got dinged for insufficient cup holders. Without those "quirks," maybe this car would've scored 130 points in
CR's traditional scoring system.
It’s the taxpayer subsidies that are unjustified, as is CR’s decision to throw away its reputation to propagandize for a public policy that it doesn’t subject to any serious analysis.
Rich for a guy to complain about a lack of "serious analysis" when he can't even figure out how
CR's rating system works, or doesn't seem to understand that "taxpayer subsidies" are rampant in the incumbent energy industry. On the other hand, the lack of appreciation for things like "energy independence" and "clean air" are merely conservative flaws. For some reason they're really into dirty air and wars. (It's not their kids fighting them, after all ...)
But as ridiculous as this piece was, it has gotten a great deal of appreciative linkage in the conservative world. Tesla is fast replacing Solyandra as the conservative "clean-tech" boogeyman. And why? Because they're now making the best cars in the world.
And if anyone points that out? Well, that's just part of the vast liberal agenda to, uh, breathe clean air and stop wars and drive kick-ass cars. And that shit needs to be stopped at all costs!