![]() ![]() ![]() However what isn’t is that Mercedes-Benz, the Volkswagen Group, BMW, and many more besides wouldn’t be scrambling to go electric if it weren’t for Musk and what all started with an electrically-powered Elise. Whether Tesla can, or even wants to, sort these issues out is debatable. As the company tries desperately to meet demand (and to make money) the ‘finished’ cars are far from it, recreating the ownership experience of a 1970s British Leyland. Designs that use four times as many parts as they should (making repairs complicated, eye-wateringly expensive and slow), risible paint quality, panel gaps that you could drive another car through, and chronic unreliability plague Tesla’s range. Plus the Tesla Model 3 is the safest model ever tested by the Euro NCAP. And yet, would this TLCB writer buy one?…įor all Tesla’s technical innovation and engineering brilliance the company’s primary function is to build cars, and they’re shockingly bad at it. They’ve also brought a sense of fun to the often staid motor industry, with models that literally spell ‘S3XY’, a drive mode named ‘Ludicrous’, whoopie cushion seats, and host of other mischievous features. This is a simply astonishing achievement, particularly as it’s Tesla that have brought EVs to the mainstream, forcing the established car manufacturers to take EVs seriously. The raft of new EVs about to reach the market are in large part due to Tesla proving the business case. Tesla were not actually founded by the creator of Paypal back in 2003, but Musk has pretty much led the company ever since, from it’s first car (the Lotus Elise based Roadster) to its position today as the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer. If there’s one car company you cannot criticise on the internet due to frankly fanatical supporters it’s Elon Musk’s electric automotive brand. Until then grab some rocks and set sail to intercept the thieving English pig-dogs! Still, the UK and France have a long and noble tradition of antagonising each other so all we need now is for someone to build a mini-figure scale English scallop trawler to enable a fair representation of both sides. And that leads to people sometimes throwing rocks at each other. Except for when people aren’t really happy at all because generations of traditions and livelihoods have been sacrificed for a common objective. This one industry sums up both the greatness and folly of the EU Everyone is in one big happy family, where everyone has access to everything. This has caused some annoyance in France to put it mildly. However this rule works both ways, with English boats plundering the French coasts of their precious scallops all year, when the French are only allowed to fish for them during certain months. You see one of the reasons the English narrowly voted for Brexit was the EU allows anyone from within it to bid for fishing rights, which means there are parts of the UK where fisherman are not allowed to fish in their own waters because the quota has been given to boats from another country, despite generations of fishing families living and working off those waters for centuries. The detail is astonishing though, particularly as this is mini-figure scale, with a brilliant hull, a beautifully recreated deck, plentiful equipment, and some French fisherman stationed aboard ready to throw rocks at the English. OK, first the elephant in the room – yes this is a digital ‘build’ (boo), but it’s also so well rendered that it’s really hard to tell – only an error/glitch in the image below (see if you can spot it!) gives the game away. We’ll segway neatly to it today though, because a) something might actually happen this month (but probably not) and b) this lovely digital French fishing vessel by Flickr’s Edouard Clo provides a neat Brexit metaphor. Despite it being on the news every day in TLCB’s home nation for three years, this website has so far managed to avoid taking about Brexit. ![]()
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