Automotive brands have been trying to one-up their rivals for years, and there's never been a shortage of trolling and bad-talking competing brands. However, as Tesla has become more and more popular, it has become more of an "entire automotive market and media versus Tesla situation."
This is because almost all automakers are now following Tesla's lead and working toward electrifying their lineups. In order to compete with Tesla, brands like Volkswagen, Ford, and GM will need to prove to the world that their EVs are better. Rather than just working harder to provide a much better product than Tesla in many ways, some brands have chosen to simply point out Tesla's flaws.
Automakers and the media know that Tesla doesn't have a PR department, and the Silicon Valley electric brand rarely engages in trying to correct misinformation. Moreover, outspoken CEO Elon Musk has been saying whatever he wants on Twitter for years, and he's certainly done his fair share of trolling.
With that said, most of Musk's most recent comments related to other automakers have been congratulatory. He's not hanging out on Twitter for the purpose of disparaging rivals. at least not in the automotive space. He is, however, taking to social media on a regular basis to pump his brand. Thus, rival automakers are working to pump their products while showing the public why Tesla's vehicles are inferior.
A recent article in Teslarati highlights the following tweet from Ray4Tesla, which includes an interesting TikTok video. We obviously don't know what's being said since it's in Chinese, but Ray provides a translation.
Much like the recent situation in China related to Tesla, now VW is facing a fair share of upset customers who are being vocal about issues and concerns. One such problem revolves around VW's UI, which has been a gorwing issue ever since the brand started prepping for ID.3 and ID.4 deliveries.
Tesla may have learned its lesson in China, and the brand has ramped up its communications with government and local officials. In addition, it has expanded and improved its customer service situation. As legacy automakers continue to take ideas out of Tesla's playbook, all while criticizing the brand, they may want to pay close attention to what Tesla is going through in China so they don't end up in the same boat.
We fully admit that Tesla is far from perfect. Moreover, there are certain things other brands are just better at handling, implementing, etc. However, it has been interesting to see that almost every Tesla rival that's come to market has had some of the very same issues Tesla has had over the years. Think spontaneous fires, UI problems, production issues, delays, delays, delays, efficiency concerns, inability to offer adequate range, charging concerns, and the list goes on and on.
As we've said before, cars are hard, and EVs are arguably harder, at least at first. It's probably best not to poke fun at the world's EV leader unless you're pretty sure your EVs have all the bugs worked out.
Source: Teslarati
