Kevin Westerlaken

I bought my first Tesla in September 2018. Purely because of autopilot. It allowed me to supercommute 150 miles a day after a night shift and not have to worry about falling asleep and running off the road. I bought FSD in 2019 after experiencing autopilot and being blown away. FSD was a natural extension of autopilot that would allow me the freedom to sit back and recapture all my time on the road. I bring up freedom because I feel like I've always seen Teslas as the best EV for hitting the road, never having to worry about charging, and letting the car do most of the driving. I drove other EVs before Tesla, but Teslas at that point (and still are) in a league of their own. As our family got bigger, we moved up to Model Ys, then eventually decided we wanted something even bigger and more useful. In came the Cybertruck. The same great Tesla package of easy charging, ease of use, the added utility of a pickup truck, and that same great self driving. I think that the Cybertruck's impending sunset hit home because after the Model S, X, and now the Cybertruck, it really hits home that Tesla doesn't seem to want to continue innovating in the customer car segment. I get the benefits of autonomous driving (we have two Teslas with FSD purchased!) and it changed from being a party trick in the early years to an absolute requirement in any car - my wife will not let me buy a new car that doesn't drive itself! We use it every. single. day. in both of our Teslas. It's made roadtrips a breeze. Commutes no longer are stressful. But what I don't understand through all of this is the absolute notion from Tesla that we need to delete the steering wheel, the pedals, the ownership, the freedom of having a vehicle. With a young child, non-consumer owned vehicles like Robotaxi are a non-starter for us. We'd be taking car seats in and out at every stop. Waiting for a ride to show up with an inpatient kid crying next to us. We go camping, drive off the beaten path, and need the ability to drive manually at some points. And we absolutely need to own a vehicle so that we're not at the whim of waiting for a robotaxi to show up. I also see Tesla as being one of the few companies that allowed us to take almost all of our energy consumption and vertically integrate it ourselves. Become completely energy independent. We make the electricity on our roof, it powers our house, it charges our cars, and fills our Powerwalls and Cybertruck so we can both save money and protect ourselves from outages. Their product lines as a whole have allowed us a freedom no other company has given us. And they all work perfectly together. I can't fathom a future where we don't own our own vehicle. And it's hard to fathom us not driving Teslas either. It just doesn't make sense. Vehicles since they were invented were a symbol of personal freedom and being able to hit the road and go on your own adventure. Tesla's products let us do that. And kept us safe on the road and at home. Watching the decisions Tesla is making recently has just left me puzzled as a consumer. We went from having lots of choices in vehicles. To those being whittled down. And now being force fed the notion we'll subscribe to a vehicle, and won't own that freedom. I'm all for autonomous driving, don't get me wrong. I just want it on my own terms. I hope Tesla reverses course as of late. I think that's whats been the hardest - seeing what could have been enabled by their products to seeing that all being taken away and being offered yet another subscription. I get their path has changed, but I want to see Tesla change back to being the consumer focused company they once were. Let us have a choice - let's all enjoy that abundance they've shown us we can have.