Why Buying a Tesla Made Me Question Car Ownership [Raw Session]

00:00 — Finally buying the Tesla

Hey, welcome back to Slow Builds. So, this one is a little bit exciting for me, but I finally did it. I finally bought a Tesla. I've wanted one for a long time. It was really—because it has to be a family decision and my wife has to be on board.

It took some convincing... I stopped convincing her myself, but it came down to a friend of mine and how his wife had some interactions through basically avoiding accidents and almost saving her life. It really got my wife thinking about it and understanding and then doing a couple test drives where the self-driving and [unclear] and how the car interacts and moves and takes away a lot of... it just adds so much extra safety. So, like I said, I've wanted one for a long time and finally getting her on board really allowed it to happen.

01:05 — Loving the car, rethinking what comes next

But now that I actually have it, I don't think the part that's interesting to me the most is the fact that it is an electric car, it's a Tesla, it's an app on wheels. I think it's making me rethink what a car is going to be and maybe even whether eventually we're going to care that much about cars at all. And I've talked about this idea of cars becoming utilities in other videos and how transportation, how it's going to change and how kids may not even get licenses or even if they do, how limited they'll be and how a license may become a specialized thing type of thing.

And then cars will... collectors' items, vintage, almost like a horse, either for racing or for nostalgia or pleasure. So, and the more time I spend with this thing, the more I think we're moving faster in that direction. But we're in the really weird period right now where we're not there yet.

And you can feel it happening because I love this car, I wanted this car. When we finally decided to get one, I didn't want to cheap out and just get whatever one was available or the cheapest version because I knew I'd have this for a long time. Obviously, my other cars are like very old. This is not—I don't waste a lot of money and I've talked about it on the channels.

And like my other cars are 2010, 2011. The other one's a small little crappy car I hate that's used for getting around. So I'm not wasteful. So when we got this, I knew I'd have it for a long time.

And so in that situation, we got what we wanted. We got the white in and out. We got the bigger wheels because she wanted it. I wanted to feel like I finally got the Tesla I've been thinking about for many years.

And this one really does. And it feels good. It feels premium. It's very fast. It's very quiet. And I really like looking at it. And then last night we were driving, my wife's been on the edge about it.

She knows we had to get it. And last night we were driving, she goes, I really like this car. So it was very good. And there's still something about owning the car itself. But what's strange is that almost everything happening inside the car seems to be moving towards the future, where the actual car becomes less important. And I wasn't really expecting that.

03:30 — Why I chose electric over a hybrid

Originally, a lot of the reason I wanted electric was pretty simple. I'm tired of dealing with all the stuff that comes with gas vehicles, gas prices, oil changes, engines, transmission, exhaust systems, all the mechanical stuff that eventually needs attention. Even the brakes, they go way faster on the other car. Whereas this is regeneration and blah, blah, blah.

There's still tires. There's brakes less often, suspension. There's going to be like the HEPA filter, washer fluid, and just some basic things that could break here and there. But you're removing a lot of the mechanical complexity. And that made sense to me.

For a while, we went back and forth on whether we needed a Tesla. There are a lot more electric vehicles now available, even though the climate kind of changed and people pushed away from it and how it seems to be coming back more than ever with like the things that are going on in the world, basically. My wife liked the idea of a hybrid and I thought we were going to do that, get a hybrid.

And if we did, my idea was a plug-in hybrid because that made more sense to me on paper. And you get electric for short drives and round the city and you get gas for the longer ones plus that extra comfort feel. You get the best of both worlds. But the more I thought about it, I kept coming back to the opposite conclusion on a hybrid or a plug-in.

To me, it felt like I was getting both sets of complexity. I've still got the gas engine and everything that comes with that. Now I've got the electric system too. And if something goes wrong with either one of those, it's not like I could just go shrug it off and say, ah, well, I can drive just electric or I can drive just gas.

And the other part of the car can stop working while this part works. That's not the way it works. It's all or nothing type thing. So the car still needs to get fixed. So I eventually got to the point where I thought, if I'm going electric, I'm just going electric, go all in. And that's what we did.

05:34 — The surprise was the software and self-driving

But here's where this got strange for me. I thought electric was going to be the thing that changed the experience. It's not. At least not for me. The electric part is great. Plug it in, charge it, drive. But after actually owning a Tesla, it's FSD and the software and now Grok, literally a couple of days before is when that was released before we picked it up.

And that's messing with my head quite a bit because I'm starting to interact with the car differently. The day I picked this thing up is probably the easiest way to explain it. We had to drive about two or three hours to get it. My in-laws drove us there.

So I was driven there by my in-laws. I picked up the Tesla and then the Tesla basically drove me home. Now, I need to be clear because this is still supervised self-driving. I'm responsible for the car. I had to watch the road.

I was paying attention. I can take over at any point that I needed to or wanted to. But as far as actually operating a vehicle, I barely did it. I think I touched the wheel or the pedals twice from where I picked it up to bringing it right to my garage. And then this is the funny part I find.

06:43 — Back in my manual Jeep

When we got home and we needed groceries, I got into my Jeep and my Jeep is a manual. It's my oldest vehicle and I love my Jeep. I've had a Jeep since I was a kid and I didn't trade it in on this because I knew I'd probably never get one again. And it's nostalgia.

This is where nostalgia comes into the part of vehicles, I think. And suddenly, instead of being driven, I'm actually pushing in a clutch, changing the gears, working the gas and the brake and steering. I'm actually operating the mechanical part of the vehicle to make it move and get to the gears and speed I need it to be. Complete opposite.

And I remember thinking about how ridiculous, what a contrast it was. Within maybe an hour, I got from sitting in a car that was doing almost the entire trip for me. It was doing the entire trip for me—to changing my own gears. And I love my Jeep.

And this isn't me saying one is good and one is bad. It's just such a strange transition. So different between the two. Such a contrast. Because after only a short time with the Tesla, my wife and I are already starting to have this weird feeling where we don't really want to take over.

And I know how funny that sounds after driving for so many years and my entire life, like behind the wheel. But now the car is doing it. And I find myself thinking, why would I take over right now? It's doing fine.

It's going the fastest direction. It's changing gears at the right time. It's being safe. It's being aware. And I get to relax a little bit. I'm responsible for it. I'm not sleeping in the driver's seat, but mentally something has changed.

08:21 — Talking to AI inside the car

And then you have Grok. Grok in the car is still beta. So this is early. And I think that's important. I don't think that what we're seeing today is anywhere close to what is eventually coming. And even what it can do now kind of blows my mind.

I can just talk, ask it things, tell it where I want to go. Ask about something while I'm driving, control things in the vehicle. And it's not really any one of those features by itself that's blowing my mind. It's all of it together.

The car is driving. I'm talking to an AI. The AI is connected to the car. The car keeps changing and the entire experience starts becoming less about operating a vehicle and more about just going somewhere. It's low stress. It's easy.

09:05 — What does learning to drive become?

And that's when I started thinking about kids because I learned how to drive because that's what you did. Getting your driver's license was a pretty big deal and probably still is a big deal. And once you had it, you drove. You needed to.

But imagine being a kid growing up right now. Your parents get into the car. They put in a destination. The car does pretty much everything all the way there. And then eventually if this continues, maybe the car does.

Well, even now it does all of it. It can summon. It can come pick me up and it can drop me off. It can park. It can do everything. And what does learning to drive mean to that kid now all of a sudden?

Maybe they still get the license. Maybe they do the bare minimum because it's something you're supposed to have. They learn how to steer, learn the rules. They pass the test and then they barely touch the steering wheel again.

They basically had to get the license just in case they had to take over. And there may be a generation coming that technically knows how to drive, but almost never actually drives. And I don't know if that's amazing or scary. Honestly, I'm more on the scary part.

Because as amazing as it is, it's frightening, but I can see it now. Before owning this thing, that was more of a future technology conversation. I would have never, but I've never had one. I wouldn't say it was as good as it is. I'll tell you that. And now I'm sitting in it and that's different.

10:32 — Living in the middle of the transition

And that's why I keep thinking we're in this weird little heyday right now. Maybe, maybe heyday isn't the right word, but we're in this middle. Tesla is still figuring this stuff out. Grok is beta. FSD is still supervised.

Things change through software updates. So it's constantly getting smarter and better. They're learning what works, what doesn't work, what people actually use. And at the same time, we're still living in a world where cars are very much cars.

People are buying gas, hybrid, plug-ins, EVs, and they're all really good vehicles in every one of those categories. That's why when I was shopping, I honestly felt like everybody had started catching up. Visually, I still think they had caught up. There are beautiful electric vehicles from all kinds of companies now. Nice interiors, good range, great performance. If you're just looking at cars, there are lots of choices and we went through all of them.

11:31 — Comparing software, not just cars

But after owning the Tesla, I'm starting to wonder whether looking at the car is the wrong comparison because this is starting to feel more like a software race, an AI race, a self-driving race. And I don't know, no, I say I don't know who wins it, but I'm pretty sure I kind of know who's going to win it. And they've already won it. I don't know enough about what every other car company is developing internally to sit here and tell you Tesla has somehow, it's unbeatable basically.

They have the most advantages, which I think they do. Maybe somebody else has figured this out. Maybe Google does something. Maybe OpenAI or Anthropic ends up deeply integrated into some of these vehicles. Maybe traditional manufacturers move much faster than I'm expecting.

I don't know. There used to be rumors of an Apple car. I'd probably buy that, but I can see Siri. I'm not going to go there. So I don't know. But sitting inside this particular car right now, it feels like Tesla has embraced the idea that the car can become something different.

And I wonder if some of the traditional car industry is still trying to figure out how to make the new thing feel like the old thing. How do you make an electric car that still feels like the gas car people are comfortable with? How do you make the screen work like the buttons people already know? How do we transition slowly?

And maybe that's exactly the right way to do it. I don't know. But maybe at some point you have to stop recreating the old. You just build the new. You kind of tell people what they need.

13:09 — When transport becomes a utility

And if you take that thought far enough, eventually I think we end up right back at cars becoming utilities. Cybercab, Robotaxi is an obvious example of where that idea can go. You don't even need the traditional driving experience anymore. And once vehicles can truly go somewhere by themselves, why does everyone need to own one?

Maybe some people still do. I'm sure people will still love cars. People still own horses. I talked about that in the beginning and other videos. People collect watches even though their phone tells the time. And I have a friend who just spent some money on a watch and I get it to a point.

But it's a collector's item. And it's a nice watch. I wouldn't do it. I would go get a better Apple Watch or I would go get a Garmin. But I'm a little bit different. I used to have watches until now smartwatches and I use them for utility.

Anyway, old technology doesn't necessarily disappear just because something more convenient shows up. But for everyday transportation, maybe a city has thousands of autonomous cars. Maybe Tesla has them. Maybe taxi companies have them. Maybe they're owned by companies that don't even exist yet.

I should go buy a bunch and put them out there. Maybe I need to go somewhere. I asked for transportation. Something shows up. It takes me there. I get out. I don't care about the oil. There's no gas.

I don't care about maintenance. I don't care where it parks afterwards. Eventually, I might not even care what model came to get me. It's transportation. It's a utility. I do care if it's clean.

14:51 — I still care about owning this one

And that's the strange part about buying this Tesla right now because I'm on the completely opposite end of that. I care about this one. I love the white interior. My wife picked the wheels. She loves them. I like walking out and seeing it in the driveway.

I wanted this particular car because I'm going to own it for a long time. I waited for it and I saved for it. I spent a little bit more to get what we wanted because we knew we would take care of it and appreciate it. Now that I have it, the technology inside it is making me wonder whether eventually any of that is going to matter.

Maybe it's just the interior of the car, not the interior, but the mechanics, the AI, the self-driving, just the whole hands-off maintenance, hands-off. I don't even need to control it. I own it. And it's almost Jetsons. I just keep picturing the Jetsons.

We went from, I have, which is funny because I have the Jeep, which I consider the Flintstones. And now I'm into the era where now I have the Tesla, which I consider the Jetsons. So obviously you can tell I'm very excited with this.

16:00 — First impressions, novelty, and uncertainty

Maybe I'm reading way too much into the first few days. It's not even a week yet of having this car, but so far it's like, it's like, I'm loving it. It's new. It's exciting. So there's some novelty here too also, but I'm really, so I'm trying not to confuse that with knowing where the entire automobile industry is going.

And I don't, but something feels different. I went into this thinking electric cars are going to change cars. Now that I'm actually living with one, I'm starting to think electric might have just been the first part. Self-driving AI might be the things that change what a car actually is. And I don't know exactly where that ends up, but for the first time I can see it, I can see it from here.

16:46 — Who this technology could help

I can see, as sad as it is, I don't think—older people who have slower reflexes, maybe bad eyes, different issues like that, they should all have a Tesla. There should be government programs that if you're elderly based on certain criteria, there's rebates for you to have a Tesla. That's how much this thing works and drives so well. There should be discounts from insurance and the government for having—now I don't want to push Tesla that way, but just this technology, whether it's some sort of FSD, and that's where I feel Tesla has the advantage because it's shared amongst all these vehicles.

Where the other companies, and they have Grok involved, and I think Google can really get somewhere with this. Or like I said, other companies could do deep integrations with using OpenAI or Anthropic. And there could be ways to make this expand beyond what I'm seeing and allow competition and allow other iterations and exploration really. I'm very excited to see what happens to this and I love my car.

And I'm glad I got it. I'm glad my wife is coming around to the point that she's very happy with it also. Alright, thanks for watching. Bye.