A TikTok video of a woman crying after buying a Tesla went viral as company fans and haters flooded her account with opinions. Mariah Padilla, 18, says she had long dreamed of driving a Tesla and talked herself into financing a used one despite warning signs, and felt the regret begin on the drive home from the lot.
A dealership that, she says, wasn’t upfront about what she was getting.
Strong opinions around Tesla fueled the spread of the video and thousands of comments from users either supporting her or insulting her intelligence, with little in between. This may be the worst press for Tesla since someone allegedly attempted to use a Cybertruck as a car bomb.
Who is the crying Tesla woman?
The woman crying on camera after buying a Tesla is a young TikTok user with over 170,000 followers who works at Ulta in addition to making some money with her video content. On social media, she typically makes pretty standard TikTok fare including unboxing videos, hair and makeup reveals, outfit modeling, and entries about her daily life and job.
On Dec. 29, 2024, she posted a video of herself crying in her newly acquired Tesla. Through the tears, she explained how disappointed she was with the car and its features, and especially how quickly the electric charge ran out, forcing her to go to a charging station daily even though she only lives around 15 miles from work.
“[Expletive] the Tesla!” she says. “I miss my Camry. I don’t even have anywhere to put my freaking phone in this car!”
“If you went on TikTok talking about ‘oh my God, I love my Tesla, it’s the best car ever,’ you’re a liar.”
What’s wrong with the Tesla?
Padilla’s main complaint with the Tesla was how fast the electric charge declined and how she felt like the car was lying to her, saying it went through 40 miles of charge even though she only drives “20 miles max” to get to the Ulta store where she works. In a later video, she claimed that the distance is more like 10 to 15 miles.
Because she felt like it took too long for the car to charge at home, she kept taking it to supercharge stations, which can charge as much as or more than you would pay for gas. In Padilla’s case, she was paying at least $10 per day to keep her car going.
In follow-up videos, she also criticized the salespeople at the Toyota lot where she signed for the used Tesla, accusing them of misleading her about multiple aspects of the purchase.
“When I bought the car, I was told it only had 30,000 miles on it, come to find out it had 36,000 miles on it, which, 6,000 difference in miles is a lot to me,” she explains.
Further, she says that the salesperson told her it had one previous owner. That turned into two, but the second only had it for a day. Then that one day turned into eight months.
The final straw was when the Tesla started giving her all kinds of maintenance notifications. She returned to the Toyota lot and insisted that they take the car back, overcome their resistance, and ended up in a newer Camry than the one she had exchanged for the Tesla.
The Tesla commenter wars
Running on high emotions around Tesla and its billionaire owner Elon Musk, people rushed to comment that they loved the cars and how Padilla simply didn’t understand, or that they hated the cars and supported her efforts in getting a better car. Plenty of others scolded her for allegedly not doing enough research or letting the salespeople give her the runaround.
In multiple follow-up videos, Padilla told off the critical commenters and haughty advice-givers, saying that it’s her car, her money, her life, and all that matters is that she’s happy now. She would like the haters to know that she made her purchases with her own money and that they should leave her alone.
Haters rarely listen, but Padilla has moved on to making her usual content after posting her final update on Dec. 31.
The Daily Dot has reached out to @this.is.not_mariah and Tesla for comment.
@this.is.not_mariah literally can not stop crying. #fyp #tesla #newcar #gonewrong ♬ original sound – mariah
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