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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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?