I strayed from the Tesla cult and went to the dark side

My Tesla cult status goes deep, the cars are compelling, I have two, the first one for over 9 years now. The Tesla Supercharging network is miles in front of any other charging infrastructure.

The home batteries are good too, in fact in future years Teslas energy storage market will overshadow its vehicle sales. There’s one other aspect that makes Tesla stand head and shoulders above the rest; I’ll get to that later.

So, what about the Dark side? If the journalists from the ABC and other Australian media outlets are to be believed, the Chinese are attempting to sell electric cars to Australians so they can spy on us.

That’s interesting, as a matter of fact I have a cousin that knows a bloke who plays FIFA 2024 with President Xi, apparently the feedback from initial spying operations is this: Australians still watch Football while eating Meat Pies, there’s still plenty of Kangaroos but no one can buy a new Holden car.

Anyhow my youngest daughter was interested in the Chinese built MG4 EV to replace her ageing petrol vehicle, the MG4 has had a rapid drop in price over the past week, the base model is now $30,990 on-road with a WA state rebate of $3500 bring the price down to $27,490.

This brings the on-road cost below an equivalent new petrol vehicle. To top that off MG are now providing a 10 year/250,000km warranty on every part of the car except the tyres.

Is it as good as a Tesla model 3? No, not even close – but at less than half the on-road cost it’s far better value over its lifespan. If the MG4 turns to dust at 250,000kms it’s reduced the need to burn approximately $27,000 of petrol.

So over to the Dark side we went, or to be more precise a car dealership. The first point of contact was a friendly but not overbearing salesperson.

Not once did she attempt to upsell to a petrol vehicle or provide some friendly advice about the downsides of EVs, nope, just great customer service including a test drive, explanation of the delivery process and then the processing of the paperwork. Awesome, we should be back on the freeway and out of Perth before peak hour chaos.

Of course, the positive customer service was never going to last, everything went rapidly downhill from this point on. The deposit payment was in another department a 50 metre walk away.

Expecting to be in the office of a finance staff member my daughter got her first exposure to a Ming Mole, 10 minutes wasted knocking back overpriced paint protection and window tinting.

This particular staff member also proceeded to spruik how the 250,000km warranty covers everything including timing belts, starter motor and exhaust components.

If they’d bothered to check the paperwork sitting on the desk between us and realised the vehicle was electric that staff member could have tried to upsell a few overpriced charging cables or a $250 V2L adaptor.

So on to the staff member that’s tasked with receiving a $1000 deposit while trying to upsell finance to a customer who clearly doesn’t need or want it. I don’t have an issue with a polite inquiry but after the first NO from my daughter the subject should be closed, dealerships harassing customers is beyond reasonable.

The upside was a relaxed salesperson who sold my daughter a reasonably good EV at a very appealing price with a tremendous warranty.

A couple of nice features were rear wheel drive, more rear seat legroom than most cars this size and vehicle to load. The MG4 is not for everyone, but for driving from A to B in a cost-effective manner it’s a clear front runner.

The downside was the dealership experience, just as expected it was obnoxious and time-consuming, a 20th century tradition that only lonely people could enjoy, and the younger generation will be happy to avoid.

This brings me back to the other aspect of Tesla that puts it head and shoulders above the rest: Anyone buying a Tesla doesn’t have to endure the traditional dealership shakedown, it’s possible to go through the whole test drive, order and pick up process while crossing paths with only one Tesla staff member.

When the product is compelling it doesn’t need to be forced on the customer.