We've had a lot of issues with the Model S over the years. While under warranty (and in part because they hadn't hit massive volume yet), Tesla's service was exemplary. I knew it'd have issues, since decided to be an early adopter, and honestly, it hasn't been worse than I expected. Or better. Now that the car's out of warranty, we've ended up replacing the dash screens (both of them), and had some water seal issues on the trunk that ended up being something that was a design change not long after we got the car. So it hasn't been hassle-free, but at the same time, even with the amount we've paid on various out-of-warranty repairs, this has been *by a lot* the cheapest car to maintain I've ever owned. Like, by an order of magnitude.

Their manufacturing issues with the 3 and the Y are absolutely real, though - scaling up to selling 100x the number of cars they were selling was a huge challenge, and there were some rough spots along the way. My friend bought a 3, and on the drive home from picking it up, the underfloor fell off. Like, 5 miles from the pickup. So - quality issues for sure. But for me, the difference between the Model S and every other car I've ever driven was pretty huge. I've really soured on Musk since 2015 - early on I was willing to forgive his assholishness because he was really pushing into new territory against a lot of people pushing back against Tesla, saying it'd never work, blah blah blah. But after 2015, I think he's not gotten enough sleep, and he's accumulated too much power, and it's less annoying and more ... frightening, in a way. But I'm still a huge fan of Tesla, as an endeavor. They drove ALL the progress on EVs over the last 10 years, and have so comprehensively beaten every established carmaker that it'll be another 10 years before anyone makes something that's competitive with them.

And I hope they do get competition. I think the VW group will bring the fight to them in a meaningful way. I think Ford *may*. I think Chevy has essentially failed, as has Fiat. But at the same time, right now almost every hypercar in production is either electric or hybrid, because they've realized that the performance gains they can make are significant. So like the initial plan for the Roadster/S/X/3, the adoption of high-end $$$$ tech will quickly make its way down to consumer cars that are affordable. Trickle-down that *actually works*. Who'd have thought.