What’s so special about Tesla today? The promised self driving isn’t here. There are better cars on the market today to show how rich you are. Yes, Tesla cars are more efficient than competition. But heck, who cares about 2 kWh more when buying cars in that price range.

A close friend of mine recently compared all EV offerings available for a family lifestyle, when buying a new car. He concluded that all but one of them was inferior to the Model Y, either in price, range, space, features, service cost. One of the BMWs was in some senses better, but he concluded "but it's 'just a car'; there's nothing magical about it" and got the Model Y anyway.

Notably, the BMW was also significantly more expensive to service.

Model Y was too expensive for me. Took Kia EV6. Trunk is smaller, but I will do just fine with that. BMW iX is super cool, but I can’t justify the price.

The people of the world drive cheap Renaults and Hyundais and Opels, not BMWs and Teslas.

This is a soundly middle-class Norwegian family. The one thing that distinguishes them from the rest of the world's middle class is the exemption of the 25% VAT for EVs.

1. A middle class Norwegian family is super rich at a global scale.

2. All cars in Norway are incredibly expensive.

Well, if we're talking about the median person on a global scale, no one can afford any car, so the subject is moot.

Not true.

1. If this is to be believed, then the median household income is about $10k: https://news.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median-househo...

That's enough to get cheap cars that cost $10k or less when new (something like this: https://www.dacia.de/modelle/sandero/konfigurator.html). There are even cheaper Indian and Chinese options.

2. We're 8 billion. At least 2-3 billion have enough income to get Renaults and the other brands I mentioned. Norway is the outlier (middle class Norwegians making $100k+), not this very large group of people probably making $10-15k per year (individually).

Median income in Norway is $55k/year before 32% tax and 25% sales tax on everything except the aforementioned EVs, plus various special-purpose taxes on e.g. transportation that brings car TCO for a typical family into the ~$10k/year range.

I'm not even sure what we're discussing anymore. But sure. If it's whether the majority of the world's population is currently in the market for BMW, Tesla or BYD's executive sedan, the answer is obviously no.

My point was rather that there is a very sizable developed-world middle class that is, and that this family is pretty representative among those. Think North America, UK, Germany, France, Scandinavia, Australia rather than India, Africa and China.

I see your point but your snark is annoying