An overview of Tesla’s quirky nature.
To say that Tesla is an unorthodox company would be an understatement. Apart from taking the honors for making the electric car relevant, and busting nearly every myth about them, Tesla has caught the other big companies napping when it comes to electric powertrains. The advantage they have now in the electric car market is quite significant, and it would take a few years for other companies to catch up.
Converging tech & cars
Before Tesla started going bananas with their performance figures, they were very much known for their infotainment technology. Ahh yes, who can’t forget that 17-inch infotainment TV that took the centre stage in the otherwise plain interior. While other manufacturers have caught up in terms of responsiveness and smoothness, Tesla still does overall integration better. Tech like autopilot, summon, etc, plus a neat little app that tied everything together made owning a Tesla a tech nut’s dream more than a car enthusiast’s one.
This naturally means coverage not only from car journalists but also from tech journalists. That gives Tesla more coverage about their product than any other car company. A Tesla is more of a rolling Silicon Valley than a car at this point. Some love it, and the purists, not so much. But nevertheless, Tesla made smart use of the tech they had to integrate the electric car into people’s lifestyles. This culmination of bleeding-edge technology with cars has not only sparked the interest of one set of enthusiasts but two!
The unorthodox part
As said before, Tesla is an unorthodox company. For an organization, singlehandedly setting the EV race on fire, adding a whoopee cushion mode via a software update is certainly not, well, sophisticated. Just take their vocabulary for example, “Chill” acceleration mode, “No I want my mommy” for deactivating ludicrous mode are terminology one would not see in a Porsche or an Audi.
Improving 0-100 kmph records (even by 0.6s!), adding various easter eggs and an entire library of arcade games controlled by the steering wheel and pedals via OTA updates, make the ownership experience of a Tesla somewhat like owning a smartphone (only a lot more expensive).
