A long time ago in a galaxy far away, I would have bought a Tesla. I thought the model S was a nice looking car, (still do) the company ideology seemed very good. Musk came across as a shy, reluctant spokesperson, and I bought the marketing and altruistic motives they espoused back then. Fast forward to now. Musk is definitely not who I thought he was. The "pedo guy" moment was when I realised I'd been duped. Teslas are not as well built as I thought they were. I read the story about the model S breaking the car crusher during safety testing with awe. Now everything I read is about Teslas veering into oncoming traffic, having windscreen wipers you have to access through a touch screen menu and shit like that. Trimming away features like LIDAR etc and using only visual cameras. Etc etc. Tesla is definitely not a company that cares about things beyond money. I was naive to believe otherwise but I guess I wanted to believe there are companies that actually do want to use their position for good.

The way Tesla treats their employees shows in the build quality of the cars they produce. Unhappy workers care less about the product quality than happy ones.

A tow truck driver who was towing my car said to me, "it could be worse, you could have a tesla". He went on to tell me that of all electric cars he sees Teslas are the least reliable (in his experience).

There are now many reasons I would not buy a tesla. Musk himself is definitely on the list. I feel foolish for having fallen for an expertly executed marketing campaign not just around Tesla, but also Musk himself, and I kind of resent him for that too.