Tesla's Elon Musk Swipes at Porsche-Buying Bill Gates | Hacker News Reader

Tesla's Elon Musk Swipes at Porsche-Buying Bill Gates

bbc.co.uk

16 pointscaution34 comments

A whole article written about this one single Tweet? https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1229568241552502784

> @elonmusk My conversations with Gates have been underwhelming tbh

Journalism dawg.

1. Copy something divisive that was posted publicly

2. Add unnecessary setting i.e. state the obvious: "posted on Twitter last night" when there is a timestamp on the tweet. Did you know that Bill Gates is a Microsoft founder? Elon likes to tweet Etc.

3. ??? aka run ads

4. Profit

My experience with this "article" has been underwhelming tbh.

We really need to call out this cheap journalism more often. Once upon a time such "news" only appeared in a small section of newspapers under the gossip column

It’s Bill Gates ... let the man have his Porsche.

Regardless, the Taycan is a hell of a machine and is going to have better fit and finish than a Tesla. It’s also the hot new thing, whereas the Model 3 is old news.

Assuming you can afford both, I can’t think of anyone who’d take the Tesla over the Taycan.

Tesla has world class fit and finish... even Bob Lutz agrees.

"But, when next to the car, I was stunned. Not only was the paint without any discernible flaw, but the various panels formed a body of precision that was beyond reproach. Gaps from hood to fenders, doors to frame, and all the others appeared to be perfectly even, equal side-to-side, and completely parallel. Gaps of 3.5 to 4.5mm are considered word-class. This Model 3 measured up."

https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/a28008116/tesla-model-...

> Tesla has world class fit and finish.

Anyone who genuinely believes this is lying to themselves.

How come you’ve copypasted this same comment 3 times in a row?

And anyway, the quoted bit is about panel gaps, that’s only a relatively minor part of fit and finish. Try sitting in a tesla and an actually nice car.

If you're in the market for the Taycan, you'd probably be in the market for the 2020 Roadster [0]. While it's still in pre-production, these two cars seem to me to be the real competitors (both electric sports cars, with very fast 0-60 and 1/4 mile times, etc.) over something like the Taycan vs. Model S.

[0]: https://www.tesla.com/roadster

One is a real car you can buy, the other isn't.

That's ignoring Tesla's historical issues with fit and finish/quality control.

cant wait for more competition in the EV space.

Porsche has said most of their Taycan customers are existing Porsche customers, so it's more likely someone already has a 911 or Cayman and wants to try an EV.

Taycan Turbo S is certainly priced in Roadster territory, but the 4S trim that just started delivery is right in line with Model S. There will be many people cross shopping Taycan 4S against Model S.

I’m sure lots of people would take a Model S over the Porsche in many scenarios considering the Model S has an epa estimated range of 390 miles whereas the Taycan has comparatively short 192 mile range. It doesn’t matter how nice the finish is if the car can’t get you to where you want to go.

Except in real world testing the Taycan dramatically exceeds it's EPA testing while the model S falls far short. In fact the two end up only a few tens of miles different and the Taycan charges faster to make up for it.

There are numerous articles and YouTube videos exploring this if you want further information.

Under ideal conditions the Taycan can charge to 80% in 22.5 minutes. That’s 160 miles, or 426 miles per hour. Third generation super chargers can charge at a rate of 1000 miles per hour, so your statement that the Taycan charges faster is false.

As far as range testing goes I’ve never heard of a Tesla not being able to meet its epa estimated range, and I find it hard to believe that Porsche would be advertising a low range if they’re capable of achieving something better.

Your math assumes the EPA range for taycan which has been demonstrated by a number of sources to not be a very accurate representation of Taycan real range. While the EPA range for many EVs has proven pretty accurate, for Taycan the methodology just doesn't fit.

Taycan will peak charge at 270 kW. Tesla Model 3 on a V3 supercharger peak at 250 kW. They are pretty close.

> I find it hard to believe that Porsche would be advertising a low range if they’re capable of achieving something better.

Heh, Porsche has been doing this with their combustion cars for ages.

I have driven all the Tesla models. They are really quite cool, however I cannot reconcile fit and finish vs price point. I reached a point in my life where I could buy MB, Porsche, etc. and I did. It sets the bar higher on what you like. The Tesla’s are not there. Most of price on the Tesla is because of the batteries, I understand that. This is why the Porsche properly equipped is ~180K. I will never buy another gas car so I am hoping the prices point on an electric from the luxury manufacture comes down rapidly. For me, I cannot rationalize paying 180K for the Porsche. That number is just over some line in my head, even if I can just write a check for it.

Tesla has world class fit and finish... even Bob Lutz agrees.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/a28008116/tesla-model-...

You can equip a Taycan 4S quite nicely for $130K US, but what you probably want is the electric Macan next year. Taycan is priced (and roughly sized) around Panamara, which sells for 90K to well north of 200K. Macan starts much lower at 50K. The BEV version will likely start higher than that, I'm betting even well equipped ones will be under 100K.

Thanks for sharing that! My wife has a Macan with 80K+ miles on it that we have started to think about a replacement for. I did not know this was in the works.

Bill has owned a lot of Porches. It was his first big purchase:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/20/the-first-big-purchase-bill-...

https://www.motor1.com/news/76136/driving-a-porsche-959-in-t...

I forget if that’s what he was driving when he was arrested:

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bill_Gates_mugshot...

Gates was arrested in his 911, back when Microsoft was still out of New Mexico.

As for Gates buying a Taycan, I'm pretty sure he's the most important customer of Porsche of Bellevue. Not just because he's Bill Gates, but that he's still regularly buying 911s.

Hasn't Gates been driving Porsche forever ?

Plus when you have Gates' level of money you probably don't give a fuck about autopilot (which is tesla's only advantage) since you can hire as many drivers in rolls royce as you want.

Yes, he also had a Porsche he purchased stuck in customs and got a law passed to allow him to import it. He is a huge Porsche fan.

the tesla hype machine must continue...... Bill's been a Porsche guy, does he still have the 959?

Afaik he still has it , making sure to keep the annual millage under 2500 for that special import law he and some motoring aficionado's got passed.

This special import law is called "Show or Diplay" and is a statuary amendment to the Unite States Federal Motor Vehicle Saftey Standards (FMVSS).

"Because of the expense and effort required to import a vehicle with this exemption, the approved vehicle list is mainly limited to high-value sports and touring cars."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show_or_Display

2500 is a good amount, can still take it on rally tours.

Once again, Elon Musk proving that no matter how smart you are, you can still choose to be a total asshole.

Top Gear recently reviewed the Taycan. It roasted the Tesla so there's one reason to pick that over the other.

Half the range and twice the price though... and I don't think the results indicate a "roasting".

Taycan Turbo S:

0-60: 2.61

0-100: 6.12

¼ mile: 10.69s @ 131.6mph

Tesla Model S Performance:

0-60: 2.83

0-100: 6.64

¼ mile: 11.23s @ 123.2mph

With those stats I'll take the cheaper, longer range option.

I don't know how the Taycan compares to a Tesla, but Top Gear has had an anti-Tesla bias for a very long time, going back to when they did a negative review of the Roadster that was entirely fake and staged. So take its reviews with (un)healthy doses of salt.

This is a totally totally different generation of top gear. The serious car reviews are now mainly done by Chris Harris who is a very respected automotive journalist.

Not only is Elon brilliant but he also has a great sense of humor.

If you're a misanthropic edgelord, yeah, he's the top of the heap.

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