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Tesla thinks a grabbing stick is a good replacement for right-hand drive in the UK.

Tesla thinks a grabbing stick is a good replacement for right-hand drive in the UK

https://www.arenaev.com/tesla_thinks_a_grabbing_stick_is_a_good_replacement_for_righthand_drive_in_the_uk-news-2042.php

Order a Model S or Model X in the UK and you'll receive a left-hand drive car and a bonus grabbing stick.

51 comments

Shialac

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Tesla is such a joke of a company lmao, cant understand why there are still people fanboying over it

Lucidlethargy

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I would have killed for one five years ago... Today, I have no interest.

While I don't buy that a great CEO can turn a whole company around, I DO think it's safe to say that a bad one can damage a good company.

aldamar

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BorkFart

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Are they popular in Italy?

Silviecat44

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And I see their chargers everywhere. Best infrastructure

dasprii

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I thought this was a link from the onion at first. What are they doing LMAO

kat

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I genuinely can't tell if the headlines are satire these days

Funwayguy

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That basically sums up everything that comes out of the emerald baby's fanciful brain farts. A walking joke that has gone on so long that the sad manchild has to do ever more expensive corporate stunts mixed with decade-old cringe humour to stay relevant. After all the shit he's pulled lately, I'm not even surprised any more.

someguy3

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Um is it legal to have the wrong side drive vehicle? I'm the us you have only have right side drive if it's a certain age, ie a collectible.

Btw the article doesn't say they think it's a good idea, it's more of a joke.

Robocopsicle

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I could be wrong, but I don't think the 25-year import rule in the US has anything to do with what side drive the car is. It was a law passed in the 80s to shut down gray market imported cars. Importers would buy cars from countries where they sold for much cheaper than the US and then resell them for way less than official dealerships.

The law would've been targeting left-hand-drive vehicles, so the right-hand-drive stuff is just a byproduct of it. I mean, the US government had all of its postal service trucks built to be right hand drive.

XeroxCool

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The issue was also heavily lobbied by Mercedes. It wasn't about profit loss, it was about people importing base and utilitarian Mercedes vehicles. Think cloth seat sedans and offroad unimogs. Mercedes fought this imports in order to uphold their prestige as a luxury manufactuer. They refused to import those things

Robocopsicle

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Ah, that's interesting — and makes a lot of sense.

Zanz

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The dot safety rule is 15 years. Assuming the emissions are the same you could import a right hand at 15 years. You can however order right hand drive cars like jeeps, commercial vans, and other cars used for deliveries.

someguy3

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Oh I don't know, but it's a good effect. But postal vehicles have a specific need for that.

SomeoneElse

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It’s legal. Before brexit it wasn’t uncommon to see French vehicles on British roads - most of Europe drive on the right after all.

omgnvq

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Even after Brexit you are of course allowed to travel to the UK with a European car. This is still not uncommon lol

jonne

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No, they bricked up the channel tunnel the day Brexit came through.

AngryAnusHornets

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Royal_Bitch_Pudding

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Most of the world too

SomeoneElse

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For sure. I just meant that as we’re part of Europe, had open borders, and are connected to the continent by the Eurostar, is wasn’t at all uncommon to see European cars/number plates on British roads, and the vast majority were right hand drive. I’ve never seen an American number plate however, just as I imagine an American wouldn’t be used to seeing a British or French number plate on a Renault Clio in America, regardless of whether it was LHD or RHD.

breadsmasher

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Completely legal

Is it illegal to drive a left-hand drive car in the UK? Not at all. As long as your car is legal in other ways, it’s fine to drive a left-hand drive car here.

ReadyUser31

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Cool, guess I'll buy a different EV then.

Miguel_Sanchez

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I can't imagine that at this point it would be a good idea to invest in anything this clown has his fingerprints on.

Confuzzeled

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Holy shit, I thought it was a parody article.

jk47

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It's not just things like reaching for ticket machines, anyone who's taken their car to a country on the other side of the road knows how disconcerting it is to drive. Oncoming traffic is now in the far side of your vehicle which just makes it less comfortable to drive. You get used to it of course, but it's never the same as driving on the correct side. No RHD is an absolute deal breaker for many UK drivers in sure

SonnyVabitch

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Try overtaking a bus on a country lane without being able to peek out from behind it.

PillowTalk420

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Hold up... Why are they not making them with the proper configuration though? I used to work at Tesla's Fremont plant and part of what I did required slightly different work depending on if the current thing on the line was supposed to be left or right-hand drive.

Kanzar

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Just not making them at all anymore. The few countries that are RHD aren't big enough markets for them to bother making the S and X for them anymore. We here in AUS are stuck with just the 3 and Y now, and any existing S and X models.

briongloid

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They're making them for Australia, which is the same side of the road as UK.

Kanzar

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We're not getting the S and X anymore. We're still getting the 3 and Y.

PillowTalk420

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It just doesn't make sense not to make them when it literally was the same process to make a RHD as a LHD vehicle. It doesn't cost extra money or use extra parts. It's just "oh this part goes on this side instead of this side."

If they stopped making them entirely, it's more than likely out of spite than any other reason.

Kanzar

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I dunno, there's retooling a factory as well as team training for QC, and surely some parts would differ as it would be mirrored.

dangt88

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Wow. I wonder if anyone will actually accept that. I guess other markets with right-hand-drive like Japan, Hong Kong will get the same deal.

MolvanianDentist

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They've stopped selling the Model X and S entirely in Australia, rather than providing the option of LHD vehicles like in the UK. Though if I was hypothetically in the market for these vehicles, I'd rather not buy one than have inconveniences that a grab stick is meant to help with...

BaldDude

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Well ... at least it's ..... well it's something

i guess thats better than nothing ..... apart from the negative press they are getting.

Well at least its cheaper than keeping an LHD option!

_haha_oh_wow_

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No finglonger? What is this? Amateur hour?

_rowdy_p_

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mystic

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Tesla has plans to start production in India soon. I wonder how they'll cope up in India which also predominantly has left hand drive.

pixelpusher220

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The long tail of global colonialism ;-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-_and_right-hand_traffic

Also, while not entirely accurate, an even older history, ahem, driving, the modern world http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html

Without India I suspect Driving on the Left would be relegated to history books by simple economics.

Though with EVs a lot of the production costs of doing both could be eliminated.

Silviecat44

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Auatralia drives on the left

pixelpusher220

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Yes that's true. Most of the Left Hand drive world is former British colonial. Except for the population size of India, the vast majority of the world drives on the Right. If a company wants to produce vehicles, do you incur the expense of an entirely separate build process for a small minority of the population? Some might but most would pick the majority and build for that.

jonne

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And doesn't make cars any more. If it became increasingly prohibitive to source LHD vehicles, I'm sure they'd decide to switch around.

ephemeral_gibbon

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Japan is where we get a lot of our cars from... And they're RHD. So even if companies like tesla stop producing them we'll still have others to buy from

Silviecat44

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I don’t think we would

betterdeadthanreddit

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Seems like it'd be awkward and uncomfortable to steer with that thing but I guess you get used to it.

Thorny_Thicket

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Ngl this is quite hilarious

flyaway1359

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ridicilous 🤦

Dad2DnA

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To be fair, that looks like a bitchen grabber

aldamar

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Love this

roomey

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How can this be legal in the EU? Will they just stop selling in Ireland? I know the insurance bumps up for left hand drive I know that.... This has to be a joke right?

tony

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Tesla bascailly pulled the S and X out of the UK market and from what I've seen on the forums people aren't interested in a left hand drive car. Not even sure why they even offered to sell them, unless they were worried about being sued by all the people with deposits.