As a French, I had previously no opinion on Tesla and I could have bought one. I saw it as a geeky, high-end stuff.
But those days I see owning a Tesla as activism (probably unconsciously). I would preferably buy any another brand rather than being flagged as an Elon-fan in my neighborhood.
Out of interest is it his role in American politics or his interference in European politics or other things that you find more annoying.
I and British. I do not really feel there is much political significance in what car you buy, but I am definitely annoyed by his attempts to influence British politics (offering a political party a huge donation if they allowed an extremist to join - they turned him down).
Well, to me, he used to represent technological ambition, impossible achievements made real. Now he represents foreign interference, social violence and neo fascism. And we, European (and especially French people), have a very very low tolerance for social violence and fascism.
As someone who lived in the sud-ouest during the yellow vests protests, "very very low tolerance for social violence" is...not my general impression of the French people.
(Low tolerance for fascism, yes, obviously. But "social violence" is pretty much what passes for entertainment on a Saturday morning)
Social violence describes the gutting of social security, healthcare systems etc to the detriment of primarily the most vulnerable. Not the fact that people protest, however violently. It's just not the right vocabulary.
It's the law of the land. Just like in "Islamic Republic of Iran" where you hail from, "it is the law of the land" of strictly secular France that students must adhere to a very strict dress code. So secularism vs theocracy. Horses for courses. Except of course the French will not shoot buckshot at the school girls violating the "dress code" and blind them.
National culture and character is not a "political" matter. It has nothing to do with "democracy". The national symbol of France is a woman leading a secular-masonic revolution with her tits hanging out, for God's sake.
I don't know if that's entirely fair. France is staunchly secular, more so than most of its European counterparts. I could be wrong, but I don't think you can wear a crucifix or other religious symbol in French schools either.
To be fair, whether you disagree with it or not, this is the spirit of the law: ostensible religious symbols are not allowed in public schools (and more generally in republican institutions). So yes, one symbol is more visible than others, and that makes it somewhat unfair, but the "visible" portion is realistic. You can't ask teachers to check under student's clothes for them.
I will agree though that France has also been very reactionary towards its Muslim population and laicity has been a convenient tool to bash them. But that doesn't invalidate the purpose of the original principle.
Are you kidding me? I moved three years ago, from the US, to France, and I am still to hear one single "god bless you", in a conversation or media, let alone the religious comments of all sorts, at work, in political speeches, among folks at home and in the neighborhood, at the daily rate I used to have to ingurgitate, in the land of the free [evangelists].
> Societies always have a taste for fascism/authoritarianism.
But so too can religious and parental belief systems, so a balance must be struck. Children belong to neither parents nor society, they are simply different guardians and stakeholders of them at different points in their lives.
I think this attitude is exactly why the birth rates are down so much. Humans are intelligent, and do things for a reason. Including having, or not having, children.
There used to be reasons for having children in the west. They were your pension, and they were the financial success of both you personally, your village, even your country.
Today such systems survive: certain factions expect to win through children, and see it both as a way to attack and an exploit "against the west" (an exploit against human rights regulations). The most egregious example of that is in Palestine. There, if you have a kid and they attack "the enemy", mostly their mother and father get money for life. The more "enemies" killed, the more money. Paid with UN money.
(note that the wikipedia article is not accurate. In the description of the fund on the PA website it does NOT say "violence against Israel". It does not even say "Violence against Israeli", although it does refer to persons. Another inaccuracy is that the fund was ended. It was not. It was renamed and the conditions changed, slightly, as discussed here:
I don't view political organization as violence, I view it as a healthy democracy - even if the country or people don't agree with the conclusions of that group of people. It is healthy that they feel comfortable expressing their wants and needs to the people with power to change it.
What Elon is doing in the US isn't organizing or demanding the system to be better; it's taking control of the system and saying he can do better.
To be clear, the french regularly engage in violence, of which the yellow vest riots are an excellent example. Damage to property and injury to persons is not “political organization”, it is definitionally violence.
The French are the European experts on social violence (and I am French)...
In fact OP's comment somewhat shows the often noxious atmosphere in France. Here in the UK I see Teslas everywhere and people don't say or do anything (maybe they comment on the neighbour's new Tesla at home but they are polite in public in a very British way, and criminal damage is a serious crime...) In France I can believe that a Tesla owner may fear that their car will be vandalised or that some random people might throw insults at them in the street if Tesla is labeled the wrong way...
Edit: TBH, I wouldn't even say that there is a low tolerance for fascism because historically and to this day, economic interventionism, strong state, strong leader, political violence, tendency towards authoritarism, social conservatism have been big part of the culture. That is balanced by a tendency towards anarchism at the same time...
People who hate nazi’s are putting swastikas everywhere. It’s on the level of gluing yourself somewhere or throwing paint on works of art when protesting.
Worst part (or best) the left will take an L on their beloved cars while selling them to right.
A car needs a working supply chain to stay on the road. If no one's buying new Teslas the longevity/viability of existing ones changes from owning a popular car to owning a Fisker. Get out while the resale value is still decent.
What's factory service going to look like when new sales are down even further in Europe and the stores are struggling? I definitely wouldn't be buying from a manufacturer where that has to be a consideration which then adds to a vicious cycle for Tesla. Is Tesla going to keep stores open that aren't selling any vehicles just to provide service?
At least in the UK the license plate lets you know when the car was registered, so it's simple to tell if they bought the Tesla before Elon went off the cliff fully. I'm not going to begrudge anyone who doesn't sell their car, my judgement is reserved for the people buying them now
It's harmless, it's a 6 month window. Number plate:
XX24 - registered between 1 Mar 2024 - 31 Aug 2024
XX74 - registered between 1 Sep 2024 - 28 Feb 2025
XX25 - registered between 1 Mar 2025 - 31 Aug 2025
etc
The first two letters of a number plate identifies the ___location where the vehicle was registered. For example, LA – LY covers London and MA – MY covers Manchester and Merseyside. Nothing personally identifying whatsoever.
If you're truly paranoid about such things you can always buy a car registered hundreds of miles from your residence, and in practice with an abundance of second-hand (used) cars in the marketplace from across all the UK, there's always a huge variety of registration letters driving about anyway!
This has been exactly my take on the situation. 2 years ago, I followed his exploits and his companies. Now I skim articles about him at best mostly shaking my head. He went from a fellow tech bro to to tech no.
Yep, freedoms of speech, of association, and to bear arms are seriously jeapordized by nearly every ruling European regime. It’s a shame America doesn’t stand up for our values and punish Europe until she quits oppressing her citizens.
German here. He directly and openly supported the far-right AfD party in the last election by publicly asking people to vote for them, and by holding a video-call audience with the party leadership.
I don't care who votes what, but I certainly do not like when people who do not live here and do not have to deal with any consequences of an election result try do to election interference.
Not the OP, but to me it's all of it. Just the nazi salutes would be enough for me not to buy Teslas (or StarLink), but at this point I would avoid any US car.
Well. the Wikipedia article on Henry Ford has a whole section entitled "Antisemitism" which starts "Ford was a conspiracy theorist" and details Nazi links.
So, what else is new in the world of Car Company tycoons?
See, the critical thing is, Henry Ford is, thankfully, very, very dead. Ford, the modern company, is not run by a 150 year old zombie bigot. It's a very different situation.
Yes, and as the other commenter noted, 75 years after Henry Ford's death, Ford's image is mostly rehabilitated. Mostly. People who avoid Ford vehicles for this reason (rather than avoiding the vehicles on their own merits) are rare but they do exist.
Perhaps 50 or more years after the end of Tesla's iconic leader, the same rehabilitation will happen to Tesla.
The guy is probably on some sort of spectrum and not well-composed at the best of times.
It would be monumentally stupid enough, beyond other stupid musk decisions, that I am convinced people who rage about it and boycott teslas or whatever are looking for a reason to hate rather than hating because of that.
Especially when there’s such a list of other legitimate complaints about the man, his politics, his companies, his words…
There's no such thing as a "genuine Musk heart goes out", there's only random shit people do in over-excited election result moments, in front of crowds. He's saying "thank you" while slapping his heart and mentioning his heart. It's on the level of cognitive malfunction not to understand this, or else, trolling.
A self-reflected sane person would see how that gesture in that context can be misinterpreted and would have avoided it in the first place. It's not like you can't express throwing your heart out only in this way.
So I guess it was deliberate. Deliberate to look like and walk like a sieg heil, only missing the quack. Maybe a provocation, but an unnecessary one and provoking with Nazi symbolism is completely unacceptable.
Surely you're having a laugh presenting that argument?
He's literally in the middle of saying "thank you"... that's what's coming out his mouth. Nobody in history has given nazi salutes while expressing elated smiling, laughing gratitude to cheering crowds, who in turn are not saluting back or even in the same universe as your nazi claim.
It’s odd how Musk never seems to have that awkwardness cause him to make other random gestures which don’t look like Nazi salutes.
Similarly, while it’s true that the ADL tried to excuse it, that’s the opinion of their controversial new president and is far from a consensus position. Many other people, including their former national director, did describe it as a fascist salute:
Most tellingly, of course, is that extremists all over the world recognized and celebrated rated it. The whole “Roman salute” excuse started as a claim by Musk’s connection to the Italian far-right, apparently hoping that American audiences didn’t know that was a fascist symbol:
> Musk himself mocked those accusing him, threatened to sue, and has made jokes about raising his arm the wrong way. Nazi saluters don't do that, they're proud to nazi salute that's the point. But I suppose if you hate Musk you'll cling to your story even with evidence supporting the contrary.
This is simply intellectual dishonesty: while they say they’re joking, that doesn’t mean that they’re being honest when they do so, that other people are not allowed to disagree with that excuse, that the only motivation for disagreement is some personal hatred for Musk, or that personal opinions constitute incontrovertible evidence which cannot be argued.
Clearly, if you want to buy a Tesla because of "Ecology" and "the Planet", there is no reason to do so anymore as your purchase directly funds the exact opposite of what you want to achieve. Same with superchargers.
Because he forwards political causes in the US and abroad that are vehemently anti-global warming and anti environmental protection in general (among other things...). This will likely more than undo any contributions he's theoretically made.
He's a co-president with Trump recently forbidding mentioning climate change in documents, destroying ecology research, pushing energy policy EO supporting fossil fuel producers, and dumping federal EVs and existing chargers in the buildings. It looks like he just cares about the profit from EVs and completely disregards the environment part.
The richer Elon Musk gets, the more he (appears) to use that wealth to skew politics towards anti-"eco" policies. By giving Trump an unprecedented $250 million during the 2024 election, he may have even been the deciding factor in funding some of the advertising that led people to decide to vote Trump, or to stay home instead of vote for Harris.
And needless to say, Trump's policies on the environment ("drill baby drill") don't exactly align with the hippie stereotype of electric car buyers ("no more oil").
He was literally and directly funding targeted advertising that told people in Muslim areas that Harris supported Israel and in Jewish dominated areas that she supported Hamas.
He was working with Stephen Miller, one of the crazier members of Trump's team (no easy achievement), on this.
fwiw microtargeting ads is extremely common, all presidential campaigns for the past 20 years at least have been doing this. If you're not cynical about ~everyone in politics you're probably drinking too much microtargeted kool-aid (your favorite flavor!):
A CNN investigation found that Vice President Kamala Harris is running contradictory ads about the war in Israel, depending on where you live.
If you live in Michigan, a state with a dense Muslim-American population, you will see ads about how she supports the relief efforts in Gaza, where she says she "will not be silent."
The Michigan ad states: "What has happened in Gaza in the past nine months in devastating, we cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering," Harris is quoted in the ad.
If you drive East to Pennsylvania and flip on a television, you'll see the vice president at a different podium in an ad saying: "Let me be clear, I will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel's ability to defend itself."
For the second ad, taken from her DNC speech, the part where she advocates for peace in Gaza was edited out. CNN reports it was taken out so her message could be more strongly accepted by Jewish voters in Pennsylvania.
> Which is odd as it directly goes against his own interests.
His recent interest is power. He can use that for profit later in many different ways - he's working on firing people who wanted to investigate his idea of using X as a payment network, for example.
Believe it or not, twelve figures can probably influence an election regardless of the first digit. Zeroing out tesla and taking him down to a paltry hundred-billion-and-change would still leave him handily able to cut another quarter-billion-dollar check come ‘28.
I mean, that hasn't changed in the last quarter so people buying Teslas before had already come to terms with the fact that they were buying an unreliable luxury vehicle they can't get rid of...
I know it’s a ceo playtoy but for me the cybertruck with its design quirks killed the brand for me. They are so many idiotic decisions on the truck that I just don’t trust the engineering and design teams anymore. I was driving with a colleague and we had to clean the headlights every 40 minutes because of snow…
> Tesla has consistently ranked low in CR's reliability surveys:
> In the 2021 Brand Report Card, Tesla ranked 16th out of 32 brands, down from 11th in 2020.
> In 2022, Tesla ranked 23rd out of 28 brands with a reliability score of 39 out of 100.
> J.D. Power:
> In the 2023 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study, Tesla had 242 issues per 100 vehicles, significantly above the industry average of 186, placing it 28th out of 32 brands.
> RepairPal:
> Tesla vehicles average 171 mechanical issues per 100 vehicles, compared to the industry average of around 120.
> 27th out of 28 brands in CR's reliability study (BusinessInsider.com and InsideEVs.com).
Elon vs Reform UK is extremely funny, because Reform is the wholly owned pet project of Richard Tice. A local real estate guy who's a mere millionaire and unimpressed at a foreign billionaire trying to run him over with superior money.
Nah, it's even funnier than that. It's majority owned by Farage the guy Elon wanted to oust, with Tice holding the rest, because as you say he's a money man whose pet project is giving Farage power.
Also, even Farage's most implacable opponents would concede that he's by far the most effective campaigning MP in the UK, as well as an avid Trump supporter, so dumping him would be a hilarious own goal if it was even possible especially when it's dumping him for not endorsing a football hooligan. It would also be history repeating itself since Farage's old party went from winning elections to being a complete irrelevance when Farage "retired" and the hooligans joined...
I thought he wanted Farage to let Tommy Robinson join reform in return for a large donation.
> It would also be history repeating itself since Farage's old party went from winning elections to being a complete irrelevance when Farage "retired" and the hooligans joined
IIRC the trigger for Farage to leave that party (he had already resigned as leader) was the new party leader wanted to form an alliance with Tommy Robinson's lot.
He wanted Farage to bend all the way over. Farage refused so Elon tried to oust him, completely misunderstanding that the Reform party is Farage. It'd be like if Elon had gotten in a spat with Trump during the election and tried to swap him out for Vivek as the head of MAGA.
It's remarkable how much both Trump and Farage are cults of personality. I don't think they could easily be replaced. I wonder if Brexit would have happened if Farage hadn't survived his plane crash? Or would the media elect another figurehead to put on all the talk shows?
> I wonder if Brexit would have happened if Farage hadn't survived his plane crash? Or would the media elect another figurehead to put on all the talk shows?
Seeing as the difference was 1.89%, even marginally less effective campaigning would've doubtless resulted in a vote to remain in the EU.
Farage is quite reasonable on many policy positions also and reflects the views of quite a lot of the British public who would prefer traditional values, less immigration and the like. While I don't think I'd vote for him personally he has a good chance of being the next PM.
I think its also that people greatly dislike the big parties, and have turned away from the Blair/Cameron "centrist" consensus.
AT the last election the parties that got the biggest increases in their share of the vote were Reform and Green. Two very different parties and they have little in common other than not being Labour or the Conservatives. I suspect they would have done even better without a FPTP system.
Reform support is too broad geographically and demographically that Farage has very little chance of being the next PM, unless the UK changes from FPTP. They take votes away from the Conservatives much more than they do Labour. This is why Cameron and Boris both buckled to UKIP/BrexitParty/Reform, but Starmer doesn't need to.
FPTP also benefits parties with strong regional hotspots, such as Labour in cities.
Yeah, they're quite _different_. I'd call Farage very good at what he does (lying, largely), but he doesn't have the same sort of cult of personality as Trump (or for that matter Musk).
I'm British and think Elon Musk does a lot of cool things. I don't really care about what he does in American politics, I actually think the idea that government needs to stop wasting money is a good thing.
But he tries to influence European/British politics without living here, often believing mistruths or things out of context. Americans moan (rightfully so) when Europeans try get involved in their politics, but are happy to do the reverse.
Regarding Tesla, the UK/EU is going to make zero effort to protect Tesla from Chinese imports that the US will. Musk has burned that bridge.
> I don't really care about what he does in American politics.
You should. Whether you like it or not, what he is doing in the US is going to affect you one way or another, irrespective of his meddling in UK politics. Even if he focused his attention solely on US, the world is connected and particularly the US/European relationship has been one of the defining features of geopolitics over the last 70 years. Musk and company are basically dismantling this relationship.
The current US administration will profoundly alter the relationships between countries and power blocks for the foreseeable future. The US will cease being a reliable partner for it's old allies the UK included.
Musk was doing many cool things, but currently his focus seems to be to dismantle democracy, and this should definitely worry you if you value freedom.
> I don't really care about what he does in American politics
Makes sense. Except that American politics can have a huge impact on Europe. Just look at Trumps shafting of Ukraine in favor of a relationship with Russia .
Not previous user, but as an Italian I am genuinely worried about how powerful and dangerous Elon is. The man effectively controls a good bunch of the telecom and space capabilities of the most powerful country in the world and its allies.
I want to have nothing to do with any of his businesses, socials, services and I'm extremely worried about doge and his presence in the US administration.
The person completely lacks any empathy, it's a full blown sociopath. His politics are just a reflection of his deep psychological malaise.
My neighbour made a point of telling me he bought his before when I said "good morning". Now he has a cheeky bumper sticker stating it a bit more clearly.
I have not driven the Mercedes but I have driven the Ioniq. It was a very nice vehicle. The showstopper for me was that it had no rear wiper. This seems like a minor thing, but I live in a part of New England where half of the roads are unpaved and during the winter the paved roads are heavily salted, so a wiper really is a necessity. The newest model now has this, but I already pulled the trigger on a new vehicle.
I ended up buying a Chevy Bolt during its final model year. This may be more of a reflection of my own history of buying inexpensive vehicles, but it is the best vehicle I have ever owned. I could not get over the price of the Ioniq. I just needed something that got me from point A to point B, and I wanted something that did so without gasoline. The Bolt far surpassed my requirements, and it was affordable. Honestly, I avoided American-made vehicles for a long time, having had bad experiences with the unreliability of a sequence of Dodges and Fords when I was younger. The Bolt changed my opinion about Chevrolet, although the CarPlay situation is pretty tragic…
FWIW, we bought an Ioniq 5 last spring, live in Michigan, and the lack of a rear wiper has been a non-issue completely. However, and this is a big caveat, I like the rearview camera and never use my rearview mirror as a mirror. Some people prefer the mirror, since the camera display requires you to shift your field of view in a weird way, and if you like the mirror, then the lack of a wiper would be a big deal. For me, I completely forget there is no rear wiper, and actually prefer it now as it makes cleaning snow off a tad bit easier!
I've had an Ioniq since last spring, and while I briefly looked at the Mercedes, it was never a serious contender for me given its cost. The ioniq is awesome, though. The only complaints I have are really minor. Now, part of my love for the car is that it is my first EV, and EVs are just way better than ICE cars - except for the range issue, and we just drive around town 99% of the time, so that's a non issue. It is just so much simpler, powerful, and fun than I expected.
The ioniq 5, specifically, is great, although I kind of wish we would've waited for the 2025 model. I like physical buttons (which is one of the reason I like the Ioniq) and the 2025 model added some more. Plus it has wireless Android Auto, and a few other nice improvements.
Oh, the only actual complaint, still minor, is that it's turning radius isn't the greatest. That's really the only thing that bugs me about it.
Have no hands-on experience with EQS, other than that it stands next to my door (neighbour's), but EQS is huge, costs 2x Ionic 5, has a 100 kWh battery, aerodynamics of a brick, presumably better suspension... a completely different segment.
I way looking at Ionic 5, but it was shortly before the facelift, so I could not even configure it anymore. Got a VW ID.7, very happy with it.
To me, people who ever said or believed 'vote with your wallet' or 'consumers made their choice' then complained about boycott or people not buying/threatening not to buy specific brands are hypocritical (and those unaware of how hypocritical they are are just idiots, because it's obvious).
Count how many things you bought Made in China over the years, purchases that have been directly funding the CCP to commit actual genocide and crimes against humanity for years, then apply your anti-Tesla-owner logic to that fact, then look at the clown you see in the mirror because that's what you are with that logic when you apply it to yourself.
And with that egg on your face, hypocrites like you dare lecture people for buying a car brand, just because the company's owner raised his right arm. Two-faced cherry-picking hypocrites. You have no logical arguments, just cheap appeals to emotional manipulation. It's best to be quiet and let people assume you're stupid than talk and remove all doubt.
BTW, did you know VW, BMW, Mercedes and Porsche used slave labor in WW2? What do you say about the owners of those brands? Why don't you all hate those users too using the same logic?
> You have no logical arguments, just cheap appeals to emotional manipulation
What? i mean, people who argue for "voting with their wallet" and then crying when people do just that are not hypocritical?
It seem very factual to me, where is the appeal to emotion? Is it on the "people who can't see how hypocritical it is are idiots" ? Where is the manipulation? I truly think that, i don't see a flaw in my logic there
> BTW, did you know VW, BMW, Mercedes and Porsche used slave labor in WW2? What do you say about the owners of those brands?
Yes, as did Renault, and i own one (well, i share the ownership of one). Honestly i don't care (like i don't care about people buying Tesla or not), i don't think people should vote with their wallet, i'd rather have people go out and protest or organize, because action is better than passivity. I was never in the "consumer made their choice"/"vote with your wallet" crowd, i always tought it was a discussion closer that people used to avoid thinking about issues. I'm quite happy however than a part of that crowd show how hypocritical they are, and i try to make them remember that.
My comment wasn't aimed at you, i couldn't have known you ever said "vote with your wallet", but i make it my duty to remind people who say that they should then shut up about boycotts.
But i guess you will probably avoid responding to that comment now that you understand how wrong you are (THIS is emotional manipulation, or a bad attempt at it :D)
That, or your incessant self-aggrandizing misantrophy rubs me the wrong way.
In a flagged thread where you refer to others you don't agree with as having mental illnesses, you try to defend yourself by suggesting that I might have a reading disability.
Here's what an impartial LLM has to say about your replies to my arguments using the reasoning deep thinking option:
>Please read these comments below. Is fredrikholm correct or did he misinterpret what FirmwareBurner was saying? Would you say fredrikholm was arguing in good or in bad faith towards FirmwareBurner ?
>Conclusion
Fredrikholm misinterpreted what FirmwareBurner was saying. FirmwareBurner’s criticism was specific to people who judge others’ buying choices, not a blanket dismissal of everyone who cares about purchases. Fredrikholm’s sarcastic reply exaggerates and distorts this into a broader attack, missing the clarification FirmwareBurner provided in response to palata. Thus, fredrikholm did not correctly interpret FirmwareBurner’s intended meaning.
Fredrikholm’s comment leans heavily toward bad faith. The sarcastic tone, misrepresentation of FirmwareBurner’s position, and reliance on a personal jab rather than substantive rebuttal indicate a lack of sincere engagement. While online miscommunication or emotional reactions could explain some of this, the overall approach—especially ignoring the clarification and contributing nothing constructive—suggests fredrikholm was not arguing in good faith toward FirmwareBurner.
In other words, you've been caught acting as what youngsters refer to as "a roach bitch" in the comments mate.
>And yes, "you must have a reading disability" is a personal attack.
How else would you address those who attack you in a way that doesn't break the rules, when they obviously are not reading your arguments and are instead pulling made up shit out of their ass to twist the narrative in their (malicious) direction? Now suddenly I'm the bad guy for calling them out?
Here's what an impartial LLM has to say about this thread using the deep reasoning option:
>Please read these comments below. Is fredrikholm correct or did he misinterpret what FirmwareBurner was saying? Would you say fredrikholm was arguing in good or in bad faith towards FirmwareBurner ?
>Conclusion
Fredrikholm misinterpreted what FirmwareBurner was saying. FirmwareBurner’s criticism was specific to people who judge others’ buying choices, not a blanket dismissal of everyone who cares about purchases. Fredrikholm’s sarcastic reply exaggerates and distorts this into a broader attack, missing the clarification FirmwareBurner provided in response to palata. Thus, fredrikholm did not correctly interpret FirmwareBurner’s intended meaning.
Fredrikholm’s comment leans heavily toward bad faith. The sarcastic tone, misrepresentation of FirmwareBurner’s position, and reliance on a personal jab rather than substantive rebuttal indicate a lack of sincere engagement. While online miscommunication or emotional reactions could explain some of this, the overall approach—especially ignoring the clarification and contributing nothing constructive—suggests fredrikholm was not arguing in good faith toward FirmwareBurner.
And yet I'm still the bad guy here for some reason.
You point out that they're not responding to what you actually said. You do it without saying that they have mental illnesses.
You even might say "this seems like trolling; I didn't say X at all..."
And, if it's clearly trolling, you flag it.
And you leave it there.
See, the conversation isn't just you and them. The conversation is you and them and all of us reading it. And if you go more over the top, more ad hominem than they do, then the rest of us reading it see you as the unhinged one.
Don't try to win the conversation with people who are in bad faith. You can't. (Don't even try to out-insult them. You aren't going to get them to go "Oh, hey, he used a better insult than me. Maybe he's right...") Instead, try to win the readers. You can't do that by being more insulting than the one you're arguing with.
>You even might say "this seems like trolling; I didn't say X at all..." And, if it's clearly trolling, you flag it.
This clearly doesn't work when you're the minority. Flag bombing is a real thing on HN. Just look at my original comments where I gave clear arguments why that logic is flawed due to double standards and cherry picking can of worms it opens up. Plenty of other examples on HN as well.
People will flag bomb you just because they don't like what you said, even though what you said is the truth (ask a LLM if my reasoning and arguments are sound) and doesn't break the rules, people just don't like being exposed as hypocrites when they see themselves as pillars of virtue (narcissistic main character/hero syndrome).
Hating Elon Musk at every corner is the current trend amongst this crowd, and if you fight the trend in any way, even with logical devil's advocate arguments, you will get flag bombed, because people are subject to mob behavior (been documented in psychology) and only want to hear comments that reinforce their beliefs not ones that tear down their beliefs. Basically the behavior is all emotional, not logical or rational.
I continued the discussion instead of flagging those who act in bad faith (the majority of replies I got) since I don't care about upvotes, I care about debating ideas and proving a point.
If it harms others or me, I will tell you about it. You can ignore it from a distance, but if you tend to purchase those things, the illness is not in my head.
> I do care about what I buy, I just don't care what others buy and what other people think about the things that I buy. Is that clear now? You need special flavor of mental illness to care and vocalize about the shit other people buy with their own money.
Are you fine with someone buying a human slave, then?
And yet you felt the need to inject that viewpoint into a thread where everyone is pointing out their own personal preferences and not telling others what to buy.
> You need special flavor of mental illness to ...
I did not downvote you before, because I believe it's your right not to care (even though I disagree).
But being so far away from understanding why people may care as to say that they "need special flavor of mental illness"... you are the one who seemingly needs to learn about the world.
Even if you see it as a white good and not as activism then surely the fact that the resale value will be much lower may assist your decision, unless you're being an activist and choosing the car specifically for what it stands for, no?
You're free to (legally) spend your money how you want, but other people are free to form an impression you and adjust their interactions with you as a result. The car you buy shouldn't subject you to physical violence, but it's perfectly acceptable for people to choose not to associate with you or do business with you as a result and that's a consequence of choices you make.
Do you really know that for sure? Have you asked them if they'd think less of you if you bought a Tesla now?
I judge people by their actions, not the sins of their parents. The companies you list aren't run by the same people, so your question is irrelevant. If Tesla were to toss out Musk and ensure he has no influence then people would likely stop judging Tesla owners the same way they do today.
I'm responding to your comment in a public forum - why would you specifically choose the chance of a low return on your money vs other cars unless you're specifically choosing to be an activist, that's not activism?
> To me, a car is a white good... As long as it fulfills my needs, getting me from A to B safely and cheaply, that's all I care.
Given that the resale value is the most significant factor of "cheaply" in a £40,000 asset, a negative brand image is an important factor here - even if you consider your fellow citizens to be NPCs.
What's wrong with making just one moral choice? Isn't it better than making zero moral choices?
People do what they can, based on what they believe is right (which you may well disagree with), their knowledge, skills, money and time available. That may not be all that much, they might be ill informed, but it is _something_. Perfect is the enemy of good.
Not giving a cent to Elon Musk seems like a reasonable cause if you believe he's gonna use that money for nefarious things. And at least for the things he's (very) publicly involved in, it's quite easy. Most people doing nefarious things do it in the shadows, and are funded in difficult to understand ways.
People judging each other for who they support by giving them money seems fair. You make some great points about what else they would probably see as problematic. This sounds like it could be a fruitful conversation without the name calling.
When you buy something, you do participate in the cash flow that makes the seller/builder company function.
If that company has other activities or influences that you do not agree on, boycotting is not virtue signalling, it's voting with your money.
And while protesting some system from a place built with it may not be perfect, it is still better than refraining from protesting at all, if one has reasons to.
Most people soon forget and really don't care about these things.
The Volkswagen company originated during the Third Reich in an attempt to create an affordable car for the German people. Volkswagen used both Jewish and non-Jewish forced labor, primarily from eastern Europe. The company operated four concentration camps and eight forced-labor camps on its property.
I'd argue that, as horrible as that was, it wasn't as centered in one person as famous and important as Musk. Like buying phones we know were perhaps made by people treated like slaves in China, versus buying something that is represented by one famous person that wants to bring back slavery.
Yeah the whole "people's car" was actually a Nazi memcoin rug-pull scam. They got millions of Germans to put down deposits and make payments for "future delivery" of their "people's car" but zero were ever delivered during the third reich.
People selling their Teslas afraid of associating with Musk is the topic here and the point I'm making is that the current political climate around this company will be a footnote in history that most people will care little about (if not already).
This too shall pass, frankly I think it's a form of cringe virtue signaling.
It's also a form of collective punishment, "I won't buy Tesla because I don't like Elon" is certainly a valid opinion, but what about all the workers who have nothing to do with his politics?
> but what about all the workers who have nothing to do with his politics?
This is a preposterous argument, I'm sorry. Should I feel sorry for people who enable Musk's antics? Why? They get paid very well to work for him I'm sure.
I disagree with Musk's antics and as such I'm not going to give him money. What's so difficult to understand about this?
I don't care that in 20 years time he'll be forgotten. We are here and now, and the best way to send him a message that what he is doing is not OK is by hurting his wallet.
You're sending a message to Elon about as much as sending a message to Mars Inc by not buying a Snickers bar.
Sending "real" messages is more than not buying things from companies or people you don't like and then virtue signaling about it online from the comfort of your armchair.
So you are saying I should instead happily give him my money even though I deeply disagree with what he's doing? Let's take your argument ad absurdum: you'd happily give money to a mass murder as long as he was making a product you like?
Yes and many people don't. What is your point? Many people are upset with what Elon is doing, that's what is being discussed. Like it or not, Tesla and Elon are the same thing. It's his choice. He wants to be the public face of a company, he can't then selectively choose to shield said company from his antics when they backfire.
Nothing stopped Elon from divesting himself of his commercial holdings and announce that he wants to enter politics. Then I, and many others, would have no qualms about buying Tesla cars.
Obviously, doing so would've required a degree of personal integrity and humility, which he seems to be lacking.
And now it's a public company with a CEO so obscure that he _does not even have a wikipedia page_. "Oh, well, Ford and VW used to be run by evil bastards most of a century ago so it's improper to point out that Tesla currently is" is a bizarre argument.
Apart from the political implications, it certainly doesn't help that European news are full of reports that Tesla cars place last in national reliability rankings for EVs.
I'm Spanish and I've seen many friends dismiss Tesla because of this notion of their cars being cheaply made and because most people here live in flats, and the shared garages don't have sockets for charging them. Many people are leaning towards hybrid vehicles with autonomous features like Hyundai. The suscription model for a car also plays a big role.
If you can't charge an electric car, you shouldn't take a hybrid either, it's the same problem. If you only charge the battery when braking the overall CO2 footprint over the lifecycle of the car is higher than if you had a thermal vehicle.
The reason is a combination of markedly higher CO2-equivalent emissions for manufacturing (two motors instead of one + big battery), increased weight for the same reason which causes an increase in fuel consumption + elevated tire/brakes degradation + decommissioning of the car causes more emissions. And this doesn't include the other negative externalities such as the ecological impact of the additional metal and rare earth extraction.
Hybrid cars only make sense from a CO2 perspective if you charge them and drive exclusively on electricity inside cities, with only an occasional fuel refill before long distance trips.
No, good hybrid drivetrains charge the battery during normal driving not just breaking. It saves gas by avoiding the least efficient RPM ranges of the engine.
~80%(battery & conversion losses) of 35% fuel efficiency easily beats 100% of 10% fuel efficiency. Using a 200HP engine to creep around a flat parking lot or run the AC while waiting etc is simply inherently inefficient so they turn the engine off. As a bonus you get that quick EV acceleration without an oversized engine that’s rarely operating efficiently.
As to emissions from car manufacturing, don’t ignore emissions from gasoline manufacturing. People get these comparisons wildly wrong by only looking at tailpipe emissions and ignoring upstream extraction, refining, and transportation emissions over the 25+ lifetime of an average car.
You're confusing hybrids with plugin-hybrids. In either case, these cars are far more efficient than standard ICE cars even if you never plug them in (e.g. your garden variety older Prius doesn't support plug-in but is far more efficient than e.g. a Camry).
> Hybrid cars only make sense from a CO2 perspective if you charge them and drive exclusively on electricity inside cities, with only an occasional fuel refill before long distance trips.
For many people the local fiscal perspective outweighs the CO2 perspective.
Hybrids are often financially speaking more interesting than thermal due to tax incentives.
> two motors instead of one + big battery ... elevated brakes degradation
You might be simplifying a bit too much here. The most successful hybrid powertrains are built from the ground up as hybrids and the "hybridized" parts actually replace ICE parts that aren't needed anymore. For example, the HSD system in a Toyota hybrid replaces the clutch, gearbox, starter and alternator, and the result is much more robust.
Also the brakes on a hybrid usually degrade slower, because of recuperation.
Yes, a bit tangential, but I feel hybrids were discarded too quickly (the 2030/35 ban on new petrol cars includes hybrids) when they should have probably been encouraged as a stepping stone and because indeed in many European areas charging at home is a challenge.
It's just that we don't see it in the geopolitical west, as it's all happening in China, which is currently by far the single largest passenger vehicle market in the world.
Personally I drive a hybrid because that was the most electrified car I could afford back in 2017.
Hybrids are just awful cars compared to EVs. Literally worst of both worlds - not performing, costing more and breaking more. Only Toyota can push something this stupid.
Just out of curiosity, wouldn't it be a no-brainer for the owner of the building to layer the roof with solar panels and fill the garage with chargers? Seems like free money in a country with lots of sunshine.
The usual problems with this approach are 1) the roof is not big enough for solar panels to power multiple chargers and 2) the power is generated when people are not at home (and probably using their car to go to work).
Then the obvious solution is to put solar panels over parking spots at work. Doesn't need to be that much power, 1-2kW is enough if the car sits there all day (for typical distances people commute with cars)
Tesla was always going to face a harder time at some point (leaving politics aside).
They had a good time because they had this 'cool' image and had no real competition for a time, although their quality and realiability issues (in addition to American cars' reputation) were known.
But now you have alternatives both on price and quality as all the European and Japanese incombents have an EV lineup and Chinese are pushing hard. So they are becoming one brand among many in a cut-throat market and don't really shine in any aspect.
And on top of that - there is a lot of good competent competition now, gone are the times were the Model 3 was pretty much undisputed king of cheap-ish EVs. The only thing they really still have going for them is the Supercharger network, but honestly fewer people seem to care than you'd think.
Yes there’s competition for basic cars. But they still lack so many features at same cost. I.e. heatpump, hepa filters, seat heating, power seats, power lift gate, app, autopilot, etc. you literally would pay double to get all same features and it would still suck in software.
Sure, maybe - but a LOT of car buyers don't look at it this way. They don't compare specs or value for money. They just go "I have £30k, what can I get for that money" - and more often than not, they decide on the looks or immediate availability or finance deals, not on things like heatpumps or hepa filters. I know a lot of people whose criteria are "my dad drives a KIA so I'm also buying a KIA" or "it has to be a volkswagen, I'm not interested in any other brand", or "I like how Alfas look, can you help me pick one". You can argue whatever you want about features or drivetrains, but they will go and pick their preferred thing anyway. When I bought my Volvo the guy there said maybe 1 out of 50 people actually read the specs, they just pick the model they like the look of and pick a spec they can afford. Maybe 1 in 10 actually test drives the car before buying.
All of that is shocking to me - but I guess for a lot of people cars are appliances, no different than a fridge(but then again I do a lot of research before buying a fridge too, but maybe that's just me).
But back to my original point - those people I describe above, few years ago if they were dead set on buying a Volkswagen and also wanted an EV for whatever reason....there really wasn't anything to pick from, if the eUp/eGolf didn't work for them. So someone dead set on an EV would eventually gravitate towards Tesla because that's what was available. Now the same buyer walks into a VW dealership and walks out with keys to an ID.3/4/5/6, never even looking at Tesla and whether it's a better deal or not.
I'm surprised they're still not much worse than other, long established companies. Modern EVs are newish tech, TESLA is a newish company and the Model 3 is built to be "cheap".
And the TÜV's HU is a very thorough checkup. Failing it is easily caused by neglecting regular maintenance or careless driving. If you absolutely need to pass your test, befriend your local DEKRA guy, let him have a short look, and get your HU done early.
agreed, I made money on tsla but even I would have avoided the product like the plague, it is tat, and now that Toyota no longer helps with the design it's likely even worse.
> It's as if all these news articles are useless...
But the news article linked in the post is based on the official ranking of TÜV in Germany. TÜV does a thorough inspection of each car registered in Germany, every 24 months. Roughly 20% of the cars fail that test, and the ranking is simply based on these numbers. Corresponding agencies in other countries had very similar rankings.
The 20% are over cars of all ages. 14.2% of 2-3-year old Tesla Model 3s failed the inspection. This is - by a considerable margin - worse than for any other EV of the same age. For the age group of 4-5 years, it was nearly 20%.
> What did they fail on is the next question?
From the article:
> [...] primarily due to problems with its lights, brakes and suspension. The TÜV notes that the last two are often a problem with EVs due to their weight compared with equivalent combustion-powered cars and the fact that much of the braking force is generated through energy recuperation, meaning the brakes don’t get enough of a workout to keep them in good order. “The high mileage cannot disguise the poor performance of the Model 3,” said Joachim Bühler, Managing Director of the TÜV Association. “In addition to defects in the brakes and axles, the Tesla also has a particularly high number of lighting defects. This indicates deficiencies in service and maintenance.”
Interesting stats. I notice cheaper cars start to dominate in later years.
One obvious conclusion is that they are cheaply made but I wonder how much is the possibly sensible decision of owners of low cost cars to skip expensive regular maintenance and wait for something to fail a legally required test before getting it fixed?
Now that I think about it, I think the last time these stats were shared there was some chatter about these faults being caught and fixed by service mechanics before the test in other brands. Can't quite remember the mechanism by which such fixes wouldn't be counted in these stats though. Possibly just Tesla fan copium, there's a lot of that about.
I dropped my car to dealership and asked them to do MOT for me as service. They will first check everything and likely call me for approval to fix it. Or if under warranty do the repairs under warranty without prompt. Thus clear visible issues will be handled even before car arrives in inspection. This covers things like tires, lights, but also suspension components or if OBH tells something is wrong.
In general the inspection is not even attempted if there is something to fix.
People who skip the regular maintenance either don't understand the outsized impact it will have on long term reliability and the eventual costs, or they do but they have more pressing matters to address with that money.
> In general the inspection is not even attempted if there is something to fix.
Where I live in Central/Western Europe the sheer number of cars which can't possibly drive in legal conditions (rolling chimney stack exhaust or stadium light headlights) astonishes me. They get the "all green" at the inspection regardless of what needs to be fixed.
Well because you can remove all of this for the inspection and then put it back on after, even if we ignore straight up bribery to pass the test, which still exists in places. It should be the job of the road enforcement teams to find these people, stop them and impound the car until it's brought back to a road worthy condition. And there are some European countries which are very good at this and if you drive with some wonky car that is clearly not compliant you will be stopped, and some where such enforcement is almost non existent.
> Well because you can remove all of this for the inspection and then put it back on after, even if we ignore straight up bribery to pass the test
I'm not talking (only) about after market modding, rolling coal, or xenon upgrades but about plain old unmaintained clunkers. This is deep in "bribery to pass the test" territory. and law enforcement isn't willing to do anything about it on the road even if spotting these cars is trivial. Look out for a smoke plume during the day, or for the rolling artificial sun at night.
And this is in the country which is the source of clunkers for everyone else, not the destination.
Many cars in the belt from Lithuania through Poland down to Romania are cars imported from Germany and USA with status "totaled". The reincarnation procedure includes deactivating and cutting off ad blue, DPF and other sorcery.
There should be no scheduled maintenance the first two or three years, other than maybe tires and oil change, but skipping those don't "cause defects".
Typical faults that cause failure are; uneven brake force, badly aligned headlights, uneven tire wear, play and wear in suspension components, and so on.
In addition, people are finding out that an EV is not a high-tech product (except for maybe the battery), and can be made just as well and cheaper in low-wage countries.
I think Elon saw the writing on the way a long time ago.
So he's in the process of trying to pivot Tesla to a self-driving taxi, humanoid, energy company. In addition, he's trying to buy as much time as possible by lobbying for huge Chinese tariffs in the US.
That's not it. He did that stuff to frame it as a tech company not as a car company. WeWork did the same thing. If you are seen as a tech company. Not just another normal company then you can justify the ludicrous evaluations you are getting. While dismissing questions about why your company is worth more than any of your competitor with saner financial statements.
Maybe I'm naive but I don't think you need to construct an argument of ill intent/deceit to explain Tesla's actions and marketing. Nothing Tesla has done is in conflict with the strategy laid out at the beginning which was to first sell expensive cars, and then selling increasingly cheaper cars.
FSD is not in the strategy to frame it as a tech company, but to make use of software margins. If you can sell a car that cost 30k to manufacture for 40k instead of 35k because it has software on it, that greatly improves your margins because the software doesn't have manufacturing cost beyond the initial R&D.
There's a lot about Elon to dislike, but his business ideas are sound. At the same time I fully believe his behavior is going to run Tesla into the ground which will be a real shame. He really took the incredible amount of goodwill they got for being the first to make a car that could be both cheaper and better for the environment in the face of both established car companies and the oil industry, and he just flushed all that goodwill down the shitter.
Tesla's saving grace would be to produce cars at a competitive price point, I think money always trumps politics, and with tariffs on Chinese imports that might be achieved, but they'd still be losing the European market and any extra margin they might have gotten from their previously good reputation.
>Maybe I'm naive but I don't think you need to construct an argument of ill intent/deceit to explain Tesla's actions and marketing.
Yes -- given who Musk is, it's naive to construct an argument of what Tesla is doing that doesn't include malicious intent.
> There's a lot about Elon to dislike, but his business ideas are sound.
If his ideas were sound, the valuations wouldn't be sky high. His ideas are anything but sound, so the valuations are sky high because he has such a small chance of pulling them off.
That strategy is just for raising money, as far as I know Tesla doesn't raise money from investors anymore. Although you do have to keep stockholders happy and framing as a tech company helps with that.
No it seems he really wants to pivot tesla away from cars to services like Apple. Sell the hardware but have the massive profits on services. Remains to be seen if the strategy will work out, it is a very risky bet.
And Canada, which has, as I recall, a one hundred percent tariff on something like a BYD or any other car made in China, even if they did submit them for federal road safety compliance testing.
Nope. There's no way to disguise or explain away his recent actions: Elon's actions are clearly those of a person who has grudges against certain segments of society and wants to use political power to fix them.
If he just wanted tariffs on China he could have just imitated Miriam Adelson: give the Trump campaign $200M & state your demands without mincing words. Or, split the amount between both parties and ride whichever horse that comes out on top.
EV doesn't have to be a high-tech product, although you need some fairly high tech stuff in the charger and BMS; the problem with modern cars is (1) protectionist questionable tech mandates like backup cameras and tyre pressure sensors and "phone home in event of crash" which inflate the BOM and (2) the need to add "features" to inflate the margin, like complicated dashboard computers and subscription heated seats.
This is why average Chinese drivers are picking up huge numbers of moderately priced EVs that the West is preventing from being sold.
I honestly and unironically think that our EV(a Volkswagen e-UP) is what most buyers actually want, but what manufacturers aren't making. It's simple, everything inside is using normal analogue dials including the one for battery level, it gets ~150-180 miles of range out of its 36kWh battery(even Tesla doesn't do those kinds of efficiency numbers), it doesn't have satnav just a factory holder for your phone.......that's all you need. You get in, turn(!!!) the key and go. It works day in and day out. No software updates, no phantom braking, no beeping at you because it read a sign wrong....it's what an EV(and I'd argue - any car) should be. Obviously package it in a larger body for people who need the space(eGolf exists and uses exact same EV drivetrain), but yeah stop cramming EVs with every gadget under the sun, most people don't want it and they certainly don't want to be paying for it.
Yes, yes it does. Why is it inconceivable that people don't want to give money to Musk? It's called voting with your wallet. I may like the car, but I deeply disagree with the business owner's views and deranged behavior over the last couple of years. The easiest thing I can do is to give my money to someone else instead.
Ultimately it doesn't matter whether Musk truly believes some of the lunacy he says, his actions speak for him. I disagree with his actions and don't want to support him. He could make the best car in the world for all I care.
If it was 1940, I'd avoid buying one. If you are aware of the Volkswagen profits going directly to a known nazi supporter, I'd love to know.
People can change, as can ownership of companies. If Musk divested himself completely of Tesla, I'd be happy to buy one. I have no bias against Tesla or it's employees, I have a bias against the owner currently hard at work trying to destroy democracy in the US and across the globe.
More to the point, are you deliberately trolling or you genuinely do not see the point being made?
> I have a bias against the owner currently hard at work trying to destroy democracy in the US and across the globe.
Slight deviation from the topic - i am very keen to know how the owner “trying to destroy democracy in US and across the globe”. Especially curious about the “across the globe” part.
It's not so simple with companies, if you view them as a single entity, because they are composed of many individuals and you interface with them at different layers.
In the case of Tesla, you have a very public figure embodying the figure of the company. If Tesla has the best EVs it's not really Tesla that has them but _Elon Musk's Tesla_ (whether that's true or not in terms of his stocks doesn't matter to the general public).
Same with SpaceX. It's not SpaceX's great engineering team launching rockets that people remember, it's "did you see Elon's latest rocket launch? amazing!"
The fact we don't remember who VW's CEO is speaks volumes about this (in the opposite way).
Absolutely it does. Not to mention, if the mood is right now "let's spray paint teslas because fuck elon", buying a tesla means that I can be the next car owner with a fuck elon spray paint. Who wants that, even if the TCO, reliability etc are all there.
The market will remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent. Stock price is not directly tied to a company's performance. It's tied to investor sentiment of a company's performance in the future.
I mean both. Investors tell themselves a stock price will go up due to company performance. Performance can mean a lot of things to different people and isn't necessarily tied to fiscal performance. No one is buying stock and thinking, "this company will tank, and that will cause the stock to shoot up" outside of very specific situations and events.
Exactly, which is why this stock is going to zero. ZERO.
In the US, cars are a huge part of people's identity, and brand is everything. It's a major purchase and a multi-year commitment.
Imagine you don't follow politics closely, but you're in the market for a car sometime in the next 12 months. All of a sudden when you go to the Tesla dealership, you have to fight your way past protesters. You start to see Teslas spray painted with swastikas for some reason. You hear the phrase "swasticar."
Tesla is destroying their most valuable asset (their brand), which takes years to build and usually can't be rebuilt. As sales begin to take a meaningful hit, institutional investors will start to get out, and it will be a feedback loop that will force the price down. They'll sell the assets to Ford for pennies.
I hope you make out. TSLA has been taking a beating over the last month. I think a lot of (tech) stocks are about to crash. I think the tariffs and government layoffs will finally burst the bubble that the FED has been trying to pop for a while.
Your prediction seems to be coming true! For my part, I’m still shorting TSLA, and needless to say, it’s going well. Thanks for the nudge to put my money where my mouth is.
OP, probably like me, isn't putting money against Tesla.
And at some point, reality comes crashing down.
Tesla will not dominate the autonomous taxi market. Basically every major car company has tech comparable with Tesla (Mercedes, GM, etc).
Tesla will not dominate the battery market. Heck, I think they still DON'T make their own batteries (it's all collaborations with LG Chemical and other chemical companies and they have shared licensing and stuff).
And you can fool some people all the time and all the people some time, but you can't fool all the people, all the time.
Once Tesla becomes a bit player in China (Chinese companies are ruthless), gets mauled in Europe (starting to happen), what could possibly justify their market cap? The US? It will be saturated at a certain point. India? Not growing fast enough to make up for it, the Indian economy is 1/7th the US one and Indian disposable incomes are probably 1/50th the US ones...
To be fair, in the US, Tesla has the best FSD, by far.
But in the EU the self-driving software they released sucks (even Mercedes has way better system, at least in Germany, and takes liability on their shoulders), other electric cars have better finish, and they have support for things like Stalks, that European users actually want, due to roundabouts.
Seeing 'the best FSD' in a sentence is odd - it makes it sound there are multiple FSDs out there, and Tesla's FSD is the best. At the same time, it is not actually self-driving, rather it is a supervised system that has been called FSD for marketing and false promise purposes.
It's crazy! They have a 149.04 PE ratio! Their humanoid robots are behind Chinese counterparts, in fact, they are catching up rather than leading. Tesla is losing ground to other EVs while being lower in quality, more expensive, and carrying a negative connotation due to Musk. Taxis? Look at Waymo or the self-driving system currently working in China, sold by Huawei (ADS v3.2). The only thing they have is their CEO, a charlatan, selling tales about future.
Yes but the stock has obviously not reflected reality for a while. Tesla as a car company never justified the stock valuation, which implied it would take over 100% of the entire US market.
As european and a driver of a model 3, I would also not consider buying a tesla again. It's not the car, it has some flaws, I never bought into the FSD bullshit and basically knew what I was going into. But now it more and more feels like driving a car with a huge swastika sticker on it, and I don't see that going away in the foreseeable future.
I got one recently (UK). Luckily my pals are nice people, so rather than give me a hard time about Elon, they instead complemented my car on how much luggage will fit in das boot.
We all thought that the 88 mph easter-egg was an easter-egg for Back to the future. But in reality, it might be the other 88 (see, "what means 88 in germany")
Also, the decimal ASCII code for capital letter X is 88, and Musk likes to quote the infamous “14 words” slightly paraphrased.
Damn strange coincidences.
I can’t believe I bought a car from this dude. Never again. (He also lied to me about FSD for years after I’d already paid for it, but now that fraud pales in comparison to all his latest insane bullshit.)
I guess he just doesn’t need us, his customers, anymore now that he’s captured an authoritarian government.
It was technically a Bellamy salute (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellamy_salute), which the Americans invented and used a lot before WW2. Not that this excuses anything, it is still out of style.
No need to get defensive! Lots of things that are causally unrelated to WW2 happened before it, and there are many people around trying to excuse Musk's Nazi salute as something that it is not, including as a "Bellamy Salute" or "Roman Salute"
I see several Teslas a day and have never thought to associate the personal property of an individual with with the political beliefs of a shareholder of the company that makes it.
I'm curious what you are compelled to do when you see a Volkswagen.
In 4+ years if we are 4 years into a global war, involving mass genocide, and 10s of million of dead, and your neighbor buys a Tesla, I would be fine if you defaced it with a sticker.
As a car enthusiast, I know that the history of VW is nuanced. And you should know that also.
Right now, with Tesla, there is no nuance. It's as clear day. A meme-lord douche is currently CEO and I absolutely detest what he currently stands for. When I see a Tesla, I see said douche sieg heiling.
Agreed. But it is history. For example, you'll know that it was the allies who effectively restarted VW as a practical solution after WW2 and who can be credited with its existence.
Tesla is here and now.
I wouldn't buy a VW before/during WW2. I wouldn't buy a Tesla now.
Not making the two equivalent - but who knows where history is going. We're talking about a US government with fascist tendencies, openly flirting with a mafia superpower.
Over 50% of Tesla's sales are model Y which is going through a version upgrade at the moment. The new version is widely publicised, much better than the old one, and will be available in the next few months. Why would you buy a model Y now?
A big dip was also observed during the model 3 upgrade in Q1 2024.
Everybody is obsessing so much over Elon's behaviour right now that they are glossing over important other factors.
99 times out of 100 I would say boycotts don’t matter that much, certainly not to 45% of sales.
An interesting counter to that though is that Elon Musk’s whole marketing strategy has been to be the lead marketer and do no advertising (until recently)
Elon is Tesla, and his popularity is declining rapidly. I don't think it's a boycott, it just avoiding guilty by association driving a vehicle that is strongly associated with someone who is currently the biggest clown in Washington, and not the funny type. the type that aims to hurt veterans, cut medicine to old folks, and decimate the future of social security, all to lower taxes and regulations on billionaires.
Also: Musk is in the headlines a lot right now with DOGE, but DOGE is officially a “temporary organization” which expires mid next year, plus Musk is employed by the White House using a status (special government employee) which only allows him to work for 130 days out of 365.
So, it seems plausible DOGE at some point might declare “mission accomplished” and be dissolved. Musk might step back from his White House role and spend more time on his companies. And then consumers may start to forget about all this… some new political controversy not involving Musk might take its place in the short attention span of the general public
Of course, maybe Musk will find the White House too addictive and find a way to sidestep all those time limits and become a permanent fixture in this administration (assuming also that Trump doesn’t tire of him at some point)-in which case this might be a longer-term weight around Tesla’s neck. We don’t know what’s going to happen
I'm wondering to what degree Elon's political activism would have affected his wealth if he owned a boring commodities business. That, I think, is the only niche that creates a loophole for Elon-style social activism. Whether your company sells bulk minerals, or exports millions of tons of wheat, iron ore, or coal, your customers are mostly faceless corporations and you can quietly funnel money to politics or even take a public stance without losing money.
That Koch model is hard to replicate when your main cash cow are high-end, $50k to $100k consumer devices that people spend months researching before making a decision.
"Best" part of that story is that the court protected Musk's "freedom to insult" and considered it was an insult and not defamatory, so there is really no justice on that planet.
I'm very annoyed by this; if Europe is serious about the EV transition and the ban on new ICE sales, it should not be putting trade barriers in front of cheap EVs!
They're to protect Europe's car manufacturing industry, which is a significant industry which directly and indirectly employs a lot of people and circulates a lot of money. Part of that industry is green technology, which is exactly what Europe needs to build up. Europe has a challenge in that it wants to keep local manufacturing industries but also make sure that they are environmentally and socially responsible, which costs a lot more than other countries without those concerns and cheaper costs. I'm no fan of the ridiculous trade wars but totally free trade hasn't proved to be an outright success. I know the playing fields aren't level but I don't know what the sensible middle ground solution is.
He's the got ear (and more) of the President of the United States at a time when the Executive Power in the US is the strongest it has ever been, if any "aspiring founder" sees that as a thing not to emulate then they should start thinking about doing something else with their lives.
He has his ear for now, but he can just as easily become his scapegoat. He burned his leftist supporters for good; I agree his position isn't a weak one but I think its best to reserve judgement on whether his moves (->right->X->DOGE) were a smart play or his downfall.
And considering a lot of them probably are aspiring to emulate it, everyone else should be figuring out how to avoid this sort of power consolidation and capture.
Well the US have been very clearly saying that NATO is pretty much dead.
And NATO-countries are very much considering the US an unreliable partner. Also it's interesting that you wrote "partner": 2 months ago people would have said "allies", now it's "unreliable partner".
The rest of the world turned right as well. In actuality, the entire world had a bad four years and voted out whoever was in power, regardless of the reasons or outcome. Also the US left ran an extremely bad candidate and they still had a strong showing; a real candidate might have pulled it off. We can only speculate though.
Well the rest of the world may have turned right, but their government did not threaten to invade less powerful allies (among many other threats) while staying really popular, did they?
Can you show me leaders of countries in the rest of the world who have been making nazi salutes while staying really popular, too?
Do you know that far right leaders from other countries have refused to appear next to far right leaders from the US after nazi salutes, because it seemed a bit too extreme to them?
Even if the insanity ends in four years (which is starting to seem increasingly unlikely tbh, does anyone still believe next elections will be smooth and fair?), the US will be considered an unreliable partner for much longer.
A reputation of reliability explicitly means not pulling tricks like these. If you do, it means you're unreliable.
NATO doesn’t have to rethink anything, NATO is an extension of EUCOM for all intents and purposes. That’s why the title of Supreme Allied Commander Europe goes to the same guy that runs EUCOM.
If people try to go back to the way things were in 4 years they're stupid. Trump threatens allies, nakidly goes after political enemies and makes 'jokes' about becoming a dictator and the people love it unless/even if it negatively impacts them.
Hell, Korea almost turned into a dictatorship in the last few months and Yoon still has a lot of support even after being found out and removed. Democracies are fragile and the only way I can see them surviving is if power isn't concentrated.
> If people try to go back to the way things were in 4 years they're stupid.
I don't know inside the US, but outside I'm pretty sure that it won't come back to the way things were 2 months ago. Not only Trump has broken stuff, but the US people too! The US people is still supporting Trump. The message sent to other countries is not "that was a mistake, we elected a crazy arse". The message is "we support that guy that threatens to invade our allies; if we had to vote right now we would elect him again".
Much as people want this to be political, I think it's just business. The European EV market has rapidly become very competitive and Tesla just aren't keeping up. They haven't launched a new model for several years, but there's a flood of new cars from European, Korean and Chinese brands that offer very compelling features and value.
The Model 3 was supposed to be a breakthrough in affordable EVs, but it's now twice as expensive as the cheapest EVs on the European market. It also isn't particularly small by European standards, which leaves Tesla with nothing to compete in the very popular city car and supermini segments.
Tesla's cars aren't particularly sexy or novel any more, they're just a bit weird. European brands are selling EVs that look and feel like normal cars, come with the backing of a trusted local dealer, and aren't very much more expensive than their internal combustion counterparts. The huge drop in Tesla sales was entirely predictable based on market fundamentals.
As I understand it, Musk's stake in Tesla is roughly half his net worth.
And while SpaceX currently has a monopoly on the affordable launch market, my understanding is that's about to go away. I wouldn't like to be SpaceX seeking new government contracts under the next Democratic administration.
> I wouldn't like to be SpaceX seeking new government contracts under the next Democratic administration.
I think the limits of government contracts are why they've diversified into Starlink. Even without political aspects (which Musk may not have planned correctly for), the global mobile broadband market is just bigger than the pot of money governments want to spend on spying and weather forecasts.
What may well mess him up that side is that even if he gets a monopoly in the USA satellite broadband industry, China has no reason to sit back and just allow US dominance over their geopolitical zones of influence, and will fund their own. Even aside from Kessler cascade risks (I have absolutely no idea how far away that really is), the competition risk is real.
They launched Starlink because the opportunity was there and vertical integration gave them better cost structure and speed of execution than putative competitors. Commercial demand for payload space is substantial and growing and lacking in quality competition so they're probably less beholden to govt than many other space contractors
But yeah, vibes are shifting from "well more realistic European launch options would be a nice thing to have but SpaceX's cost/kg and schedule is very good" to "actually it may be necessary for security for governments to back launch competitors and OneWeb"
Yep, and Japan, South Korea, Australia etc may take the same view. Heck, Canada might given they're getting treated like some kind of hostile state at the moment.
Shareholders like him enough to support an irrationally high price/earnings ratio of (currently) 165 or so — for comparison, "normal" is (from what I understand) 15-20, and BMW's is just under 5.
I won't be surprised if Tesla shares lose 90% of their current price, which is part of why I've sold all my shares and don't even feel too bad about having missed the exact timing of the peak.
Remember that... we don't have numbers yet from Tesla in Europe after Musk did the Sieg Heil.
I live in Europe and people absolutely went batshit crazy about it, not only in Germany. People really despise that gesture.
I'm willing to bet sales in Europe for Tesla FY2025 will be terrible.
I know many Tesla owners here that are considering selling the car because they are also afraid of the car dropping even further in price because too many people will want to sell it.
I'm in the Netherlands and the used market for Tesla has already dropped like a rock. It is flooded with cars from leasing companies who after 5 years now want to sell them on for deprecation and tax purposes.
On average, yes. But if you look on a voting map[0], you'll notice that the majority of those votes comes out of the former DDR. In many other areas, much less than 1 in 5 voted for the brownshirts.
If you look even deeper, at people's actual attitudes[1], you'll see that far-right positions are approx. equally distributed in Eastern and Western Germany - the kind of people voting AfD in Eastern Germany (currently) just vote CDU in Western Germany.
No, the point I am making is that it very much depends on their ___location if this "1 in 5"-average is even remotely true. And looking at overall population statistics and concentration of jobs, it's comparatively likely that somebody migrating to germany is _not_ in those areas.
>> This is comforting, as an Argentinian living in Germany. 1 out of 5 people here voted for the AFD...
My fundamental aim here was to show the poster, that it's likely not as bad where they are - and since they are a migrant, I assumed that they were likely not in those really bad areas. Intended as a positive message. Sadly, I apparently butchered the delivery of this message, as several people interpreted it completely differently.
You have 4 years to address the issue, but instead chose resignation. Rather than collaborating with the other three to help guide the fifth away from radical positions. Now is probably the easiest time to do something against it before it's 2 out of 5 or even worse. What did YOU do in the last 4 years?
paid my taxes and chose public health instead of private so oma und opa could get medical attention they deserve. And now planning on moving to Ireland.
I cannot address the issue because between family and work and interviewing, time is out. I don't speak German, I can't vote.
I'd like to understand if your comment is coming from a German or not.
You've done only the bare legal minimums required to stay in the country. As a non-resident, you would also face challenges obtaining private insurance that provides the same level of care as state insurance for the same price. When fighting fascism, that effort is insufficient. I hope you find time to take up the fight when you're in Ireland, before there are no countries left to escape to. Good riddance.
What to do you expect? You are crying about the society in a country you are residing in while not integrating into said society (at least learning the language) nor trying to mend it in any other way. Your first reaction is to leave it behind like you did with your own home country. I would take a sharp look at myself and my convictions before complaining about others if I were you.
You know what? You remind me of a middle aged woman who approached me screaming in January 2021 in a station in the U7 in Berlin.
I was lost, looking at a map when a woman approached me. I first thought she was looking to help me, but she came screaming in German WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT FACE MASK, THIS IS GERMANY, YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW THE LAW OR GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY.
Of course the woman did not have any idea about that. But instead of asking nicely, she started screaming at me.
You remind me of her alright!
edit: also, giving opinions about my person when you don't know how or why I emigrated from the country I was born and lived for 30 years is in bad taste and reeks of Euro privilege. check YOUR privilege.
The technology of the linked facemasks was novel at the time but they were never certified as medical masks (I used them myself before medical masks were mandatory.), neither in Argentina nor in the EU while also looking like simple cloth masks. At the time she was right to say that you were not following the law. She was not right to say that you should leave the country but I bet you are also not telling us the whole interaction of your anecdote.
Based solely on our discussion, there appears to be a strong sense of entitlement in your positions and a reluctance to acknowledge your own failings while quick to point out procedural errors by others.
> Based solely on our discussion, there appears to be a strong sense of entitlement in your positions and a reluctance to acknowledge your own failings while quick to point out procedural errors by others.
> reluctance to acknowledge your own failings
> I bet you are also not telling us the whole interaction of your anecdote
oh well...
The interaction was exactly that. She only said the words I quoted and left, while I stayed petrified after my first xenophobic encounter in Germany. Only when she was far away I reacted and yelled at her an argentinian insult that has no translation, out of frustration and fear. So typical for a lot of Germans and Argentinians to fake being demented when you tell them there is a racism or xenophobic problem. "surely you misremember", "surely that was not all the dialogue", "I never have seen a racist in my whole life" (ok that last one actually is hyperbolic).
Of course the mask itself was not FFP2 in an official manner, that is a fact today and at that time. That lady had no idea and should have explained to me how important it is for people in Germany to follow the law, no matter what. Instead, she reacted like that. Of course I was in the wrong, and quickly procured myself an FFP2 mask as soon as I could.
You know why I'm leaving Germany?
Because I could not adapt to the culture.
I could not learn the language.
Why Ireland? Because I have family there, because I speak their language, because people don't stare at me 24/7 on public transport, because the border police are not mini-dictators that when educated about their own laws scream at you WELCOME TO GERMANY while angrily smashing your Argentinian passport into the small table at the booth. (Now that I am a Polish citizen, I can avoid interacting with those mini dictators. Isn't that what I am supossed to do? Not stay in a country I could not adapt to? I gave it a few years, but family members dying 1000's of kilometers away from you take a toll.
What is YOUR problem, dude? Any more comments on how should I live my life?
Stop being like that, please... Engage in some empathy. Put yourself in someone else's shoes for once.
This seems to be your first sincere comment in this thread, and I'll leave it at that for everyone else to see.
> Any more comments on how should I live my life?
I would also suggest you stop demanding empathy when you demonstrate none yourself. Regarding your anecdote - do you know if that woman was clear minded? Do you know if she hadn't lost a family member to COVID the day before? This highlights the fundamental problem with anecdotal evidence: we can talk in circles, and none of it establishes a meaningful point.
> Stop being like that, please... Engage in some empathy. Put yourself in someone else's shoes for once.
You're right about one thing: I struggle to show empathy for someone who complains about racism while exhibiting racist behavior themselves.
In France, Tesla Model Y is -57% (compared to Jan '24) at 640 units in January, while other brands are growing at 2813 (Renault 5), 1548 (Citroen E C3), 1177 (Renault Scenic), 762 (Peugeot 3008), among others.
> I know many Tesla owners here that are considering selling the car because they are also afraid of the car dropping even further in price because too many people will want to sell it.
I know some who are considering selling the car because they are afraid of what other people will think knowing they drive a Tesla.
I would encourage you to watch the whole video of the incident, with sound, and then put your hand on your heart and honestly say you think that was a sieg heil. (but don't throw it to the crowd after)
It was not a coincidence that it looked like one. Nobody with knowledge of contemporary history would make a gesture that could be interpreted as "Sieg Heil" by mistake at an event that is watched worldwide.
Why do people keep saying that Elon is on ketamine? What news did I miss? Did he check himself in a rehab? Did he do something outrageous a a party? I am curious. Thanks!
> “Ketamine is helpful for getting one out of the negative frame of mind,” Elon Musk told an interviewer last year. The unelected man currently gutting US federal programs isn’t the only one who thinks so. Ketamine, approved decades ago as a surgical anesthetic and long used as a party drug, is the off-label mental-health treatment of the moment. It induces a “trancelike” state of “sensory isolation,” researchers say, and may temporarily boost the brain’s neuroplasticity—which, in theory, makes mental ruts easier to escape. At the same time, ketamine abuse can be deadly, and the drug remains illegal to use without a prescription. (Musk says he has one from “an actual, real doctor.”)
I've watched it, many people have, and have still firmly concluded it was a purposeful action. It's debatable whether it was a true "I'm a Nazi" move or a "I'm a troll" move but the smirk on the face, the long, long history of trolling and antagonizing opponents, the previous comments from Musk that the left was calling him a Nazi, etc... all indicate that he intentionally did something provoking.
This is even more true for the latest copycats from CPAC, which show that the Fascist salute is being normalised and becoming a MAGA symbol. Think about that. Whatever Elon's original intent, the American right is now knowingly doing the fascist salute, not as satire but as a open sign of their politics and provocation to their opponents.
I watched the video with sound quite a few times. It was totally heil hitler salute. (Not to bring up the statement Elon made about how Germans should stop apologizing for holocaust. At that point even the anti-defamation league gave upon him. Elon is fascist to the core)
I don't understand why modern day Germans would have to apologise for the holocaust either, maybe I'm out of touch.
I also don't know why HN keeps these Elon posts up because they're always a shit-show of reddit-ness and I believe most other similarly high-conflict subjects would have been nixed by now.
I would encourage anyone who thinks it was not a Nazi sieg heil to go into work and do the exact gesture in front of your boss, and then report back here on what happens.
Actually, I think they went "batshit sane", what other reaction could a sane person have after seeing that happening on live TV, during the POTUS investiture?
Beside the person of Elon himself, there is another thing too: Tesla cars are old. Yesterday's design with yesterday's features. There hasn't been a new Tesla since what... a decade? Sure, Cybertruck exists, but that's not really comparable to a Tesla 3 for example, in its function, target customers and price...
But that really isn't true either. The model 3, for example, has undergone 3 or 4 refreshes that change a lot. They have not dramatically changed the exterior of the car, which I know a lot of people think is absolutely critical, since an 8 year old model 3 looks almost identical to a new model 3.
Most car makers haven't released new models in a long time, they just update their current models, and make them visibly different from the outside.
Now… if you were talking about the lack of new feature _in_ the car, then I would be happy to agree. And if you want to talk about the _still_ lacking functionality of automatic wipers…
Yes - Tesla seem to make very big changes under the hood that aren't obvious from outside so you don't realise they're actually refreshing the models. For example at a refresh of the Y they changed it so that the whole floor was battery and the seats etc bolted to that. Massive castings come and go. Pretty huge updates.
What's the benefit to the customer? Usually the silent changes are for making the product cheaper and increasing profits. Did it provide more leg room or battery capacity, or something else?
Yeah not sure what they're talking about. I'm not gonna buy a tesla because their quality is usually crap and mediocre when you "get a good build". Now with his shenanigans and experimentation with fascism and ignorance of the constitution, I can confidently say I will never want to be associated with that. I am thinking on a hybrid small SUV now.
True. Norway is an EV leader and a few years ago the only real option for an affordable long range EV was a Tesla. The Nissan Leaf was next popular as it was a perfect city car but useless for the drive to the mountain cabin. Now there's a range of cars of all sizes and budgets in both the new and used car markets and Teslas are the "meh" brand.
Hard to believe anyone is still buying them at all. Surely the company is totally irredeemable in the eyes of the vast majority of their customer base.
Every single Tesla ad I've seen is for the cybertruck. Which you can't get in my country. I researched cars online when I bought a car last year and saw a lot of youtube and Facebook ads for Tesla ever since, and I basically viewed Tesla as "the cybertruck company". Is it like this in the EU?
Question for all the people who suddenly don't want to have anything to do with Musk or anything American really. Do you feel the same about Chinese manufactured goods or using oil and gas from the middle east or Russia?
On top of alienating the target audience, it doesn't help that Musk is going all in associating himself with people who will give up their fuel nozzles when they pry them from their cold dead hands.
I would not buy it anyway because it's too expensive and I don't want an EV but if I was looking for this kind of car, seeing the CEO acting so stupid would put me off
I have a Tesla, and up until Elon did a hitler salute, I was more then willing considering that my next car would be a Tesla too (my main annoyance being that windshield wipers was enabled/disabled on the screen on model 3s).
After the Hitler salute? Nope. No. Absolutely not. I want absolutely nothing to do with anything new that man ever comes up with again. Which hurts, given how much I've loved watching SpaceX launched, and how much I've loved watching Tesla get cooler and cooler.
What are you going to get instead? I think that Chinese EVs are flooding the market but it's absolutely not better to support China than supporting Tesla. Hyundai/Kia - maybe an option, primarily because people don't know that much about South Korea :)
I find it very sad that purchasing a car from a publicly traded company with tens of thousands of employees is somehow interpreted as supporting the politics of the CEO of said company. Life shouldn't be politicised that much
> it's absolutely not better to support China than supporting Tesla
I disagree. Right now, I wouldn't criticise anyone who buys a Chinese EV. But I would put stickers of Musk doing his nazi salute on Teslas I find in the streets.
> Life shouldn't be politicised that much
That's what one says about political topics that don't impact them. Go tell Ukrainians that they should buy Russian products because "life shouldn't be politicised that much".
> But I would put stickers of Musk doing his nazi salute on Teslas I find in the streets.
I know people who were so upset about the other side (in that case, Republican voters) that they said that they (the other side) should be deported from the US. I think this level of mania is too much and it is the real life manifestation of what people do on the Internet. I recommend that you put a sticker on the car when the owner is there, and look them in the eye.
> Go tell Ukrainians that they should buy Russian products because "life shouldn't be politicised that much".
I am likely much-much closer to this problem than you think (personally and physically), and I absolutely think that what's happening in Ukraine and what is happening in the US right now is incomparable.
You know, Ukrainians and Russians still live and work closely in many parts of the world because they can differentiate between Putin and the person who's in front of them. You're not beating Elon with your stickers, just screwing up a day of a random human person who has bought a car they liked.
Yes it is sad, but the stakes are too high to ignore. I don't know where you live but in Europe most people are very disappointed in recent actions by the US. Any decision, from small to large, now should factor in if it benefits Europe or the US. It is a matter of being reciprocal.
Musk is the one politicizing it that much, we're just responding to it. If he shut up and stopped his nonsense, it would quiet back down.
I almost never judge a work by it's creator, but sometimes the creator really goes out of their way to make me ignore that principle. Musk, Kanye, and a handful of others.
> I find it very sad that purchasing a car from a publicly traded company with tens of thousands of employees is somehow interpreted as supporting the politics of the CEO of said company.
I'm sure there were also good people in IG Farben who just wanted to get through their day during WW2, right?
Nobody would bat an eye if some random shmuck on the Tesla manufacturing floor held some silly ideas, but arguing that the extremely public facing CEO of a company gets a pass because he's just one of many at a large firm is a wrong take, I'm sorry.
The CEO is the company. If the janitor posts a silly youtube video doing a sieg heil, the janitor is in trouble. If the CEO of the company does a nazi salute, the company is in trouble.
The ethnic cleansing Uyghur concentration camps are probably the biggest one. Also threatening Taiwan, which is a lovely country I would hate to see destroyed. Besides that the social control the government exerts is pretty frightening to me (I've lived in China).
All that said I still see China as less of a direct threat right now.
Some good points, I was aware of them, but comparing to the current US it doesn't seem as bad.
I just don't know how bad the Uyghur was/is considering the propaganda that both sides would push, with China not letting independant investigators or reporters do anything in and the whole US manufacturing consent media and US government propaganda. Then them calling it a genocide while Palestine is not.
You do realize that most of this is US propaganda, right? Xinjiang is like a fully developed economy and Uyghurs are doing well. I visited Beijing last summer and asked some Uyghur workers who discussed their conditions openly.
The re-education camps were for a small part of the Uyghur populace that were involved in terrorism against other Uyghurs and Chinese.
>I find it very sad that purchasing a car from a publicly traded company with tens of thousands of employees is somehow interpreted as supporting the politics of the CEO of said company.
But this is the reality, parts of your money go to the CEO salary, and if the sales are good the CEO will get a giant bonus that he can use to buy a president/dictator and convince them to do super insane shit.
There was a news yesterday where twitter AI system prompt had a filter for Trump and Elon, they were caught and they reversed it, IMO that topic should have been a bigger thread here
Obviously it wasn't a Hitler Salute. Are you cross-trolling from reddit, or associated with a competitor EV brand? Both?
The whole point behind any salute is clear communication and intent. It wouldn't make sense to back-pedal a nazi salute.
Americans fought the Nazis and lost 400k young men. If you honestly think a leading American businessman or politician would align with Hitler ideology and try to pump up the crowd using a nazi salute, I would suggest taking a vacation because your judgement is seriously impaired.
There is a long string of veiled and plausably deniable nazi references from Musk now.
No the intention wasn't to make a crystal clear nazi salute. The intention was to make a veiled salute, gradually testing the waters and reducing society's defenses. Same as the long string of similar things on X.
And if YOU got half the worlds press to talk about your arm -- would you not issue some clarification or apology where you explicitly rejected nazism?
The motivation isn't to unequivocally support nazists as you assume.
It is to slowly rehabilitate the symbols and remove society's immune system. This year, it is seen by many Musk fans as just about for LOLs and joking around.
But already Bannon did the salute properly and now he is "only the 2nd one". See how Musk cleared the way for Bannon's more explicit salute?
In 2-3 years, people will as a consequence have less knee jerk reactions against the real nazi groups. In 4 years, Trump can openly use the symbol if he so wishes, as it now represents a new movement and not the "old", and so on.
Conspiracy alert. Amusing how you'll settle for a half-baked nazi salute in order to hold your argument.
What would be the end game? Self-sabotage every gain they made winning the election? Real nazi salutes are like fingers down a blackboard for the majority of people. They also look different to what he did, and are delivered not with elated gratitude, but with authoritative posture.
Giggling "let's go to Mars" super-nerds are not toying with actual Nazism. His choice of hand motion was clumsy, that's the crime.
> would you not issue some clarification or apology where you explicitly rejected nazism?
Not if I thought those making accusations were "woke morons." Why would Musk play your game of needing to apologise for something he never intended?
Straight from the cancel culture playbook: "He may not be racist, but has anyone actually heard him reject racism?"
Corner someone with accusations until they're forced to make a statement. It's an attempt to legitimise the complaint. Musk is not playing by those rules. As much as that might irritate you, surely you can respect someone for, dare I say it, following his heart.
With this interpretation at least I hope you agree the 14 US flags were intentional?
It can of course be read as "trolling the ones who think he is a nazi".
Problem is that kind of double-signalling and layers of irony is so widespread in white supremacist circles on the internet.
Musk's X/Twitter history has been steadily going in a direction, he wasn't a "going to Mars nerd", he was a "going to Mars nerd whose Twitter history showed someone clearly falling down a political rabbit hole" (and BTW working for someone who pardoned people who assaulted police officers as long as they did it for him -- an act that has nothing to do with left vs right politics or what people vote for, but is easily associated with authoritanism)
Curious what you think of Bannon's hand gesture...
> layers of irony is so widespread in white supremacist circles on the internet
Is it? I wouldn't know. I don't participate in white supremacist circles. Very few do, which is why it's joked about so easily. It's a damn shame though to hear "layers of irony" is blacklisted!
I had to google the 14 flags thing. Ridiculous! At worst it's inverted trolling; shitposting by a calculated provocateur - a term Grok coined about Musk.
Falling down conspiracy rabbit holes to construct allegations about hidden meanings of rants on X, is to fuel the fire Musk is toasting his marshmallows by.
The only time "clumsy" carries any weight or consequence, is when operating machinery or doing physical tasks. If he was driving a bus then did his arm gesture causing an accident, we could call him stupid.
When humans communicate with arms flapping in celebration and excitement, clumsy arm movements are not a safety issue or significant in any way.
I suppose you could always manufacture outrage about arm movements, then campaign and argue that others should adopt that outrage?
Whether you or I see a conspiracy or not the nazis out there have got the message. The support for the AFd, for which their leader thanked him publicly, has just accentuated it.
The suggestion Musk was trying to "signal the nazis out there" is absurd. It's on the level of "Hitler liked dogs. Who else has aligned with Hitler's like-ideology?"
Same salut as Hitler. It’s pretty obvious but also: Musk is not from the USA, and what about the KKK in the USA? You can get that vacation to read a few books.
Last but not least, he back-pedaled because he’s a fucking idiot full of drugs.
I mean I would be embarrassed in front of everyone I know if I got one independent even of my own feelings.
Here in Norway there is a ridiculous number of Teslas. I think just in the houses I can see on my street I count 5 of them.
So perhaps understandably many in Norway are still in denial about the nazi salute. Media talked about "strange arm gesture" at the time.
But the 14 US flag posts on X should remove any doubt.
Also the effect is clear: Bannon did a less veiled and undeniable salute, with much less attention since Musk had gone before.
Accidentally signalling that you are a nazi and being too stressed and embarassed to properly apologize about it? Perhaps. But twice in a month? Don't think so.
Actually, people are realizing EV are better than advertised. Batteries are lasting longer than the warranties. Also, Chinese EVs are very inexpensive so this indicates the price of EVs everywhere is going to drop a lot in the near future, even if Chinese EVs are banned or tariffed in some countries.
I feel somewhat vindicated seeing no pro-Elon comments here anymore (or very few). I've been saying since 2017 that he's crooked and full of sh*t, when he engaged in union-busting while describing himself as a "socialist". Now that he's overtly showing his incompetency, stupidity and rancid ideas to the world, people see him for what he always was. A failed father abandoning his children, a pathetic man cheating at video games to seek attention, a mediocre self-serving neonazi.
HN is extremely (American) left-leaning. Do you not remember the threads about the murderer of the health insurance CEO? Any thread about US politics? Or just the simple fact every thread about office politics or workplace relations is VERY pro-unionisation, VERY anti-manager. HN highly favours higher taxes, higher minimum wage, trade unionism, work from home, open borders, net zero etc. Of course it is an American leftism rather than European leftism or Commonwealth leftism which have different focuses.
They're probably in the minority here like they are in real life, but there's plenty of right wing extremists, just scroll through any politics trump/musk thread in the past few weeks and about Israel for the past year.
Even the current administrations project 2025 comes from right wing tech extremists (mixed with christian faschists) that believe that tech CEOs should be feudal kings in a broken up America, I don't think any website is closer to this than hackernews.
Honestly, until very recently, I haven't felt that at all. Just look at the thread on Trump winning the elections. You might be right in that the majority of users may be democrats, but that doesn't mean they are all pro-union, pro-redistribution, etc.
I wouldn't call management-bashing leftist, everyone engages in that, even if right-wingers refuse to go further than individual action.
If you post anything pro-Musk, or even anything questioning people posting deranged conspiracy theories about him without evidence, you just get flagged and downvoted and yelled at.
Why bother engaging? Lefties in America are mad they lost the election and lefties in Europe are mad that Americans are expressing their opinions about European politics. They are angry, and don't want to engage in good faith or have a real conversation. So why bother trying to engage with people that just want to rant.
It is like if your girlfriend comes to you and rants about her day. She doesn't want to debate the issue she is ranting about and if you tried to do so you'd be reading the room very wrong.
Your entire comment, by the way, is inaccurate. He is not incompetent or stupid, obviously. He isn't failing: the EU is putting tariffs on EVs made in China because it can't compete on price. The rest of the stuff is just pathetic. Nazi! REALLY? That is the level of discourse on HN now.
It is sad. Also, because people who do post something that can be construed to be "pro-Musk" on one issue can also post "anti-Musk" statements on other issues.
Apart from the leftists, the pro war lobby is also mad at peace talks. And they have many more organizations like USAID.
"USAID is pro-war", "Russia is pro-peace", "freedom is slavery", etc. It's impressive how you're able to completely disconnect your critical thinking. Fox News, Rogan and X really did a number on you, poor soul.
Musk is one of the largest beneficiaries of the "pro-war lobby", through government contracts. See how well DOGE will (not) go after those, you might be surprised. I won't.
The weirdest part about Europeans is they were totally cool with the U.S assisting im sabotaging the NordStream pipeline. They accept U.S imperialism whole heartedly and now that we're withdrawing from running an empire they're mad.
I've seen some weird meltdowns from people who were Ukraine boosters saying they should ally with China. Russia and China are allies though, so this doesn't make much sense. Europe is so ridiculously weak militarily and ideologically opposed to spending money on defense that all they can do is talk. They're just a minor player on the world stage now, like South America or something. At least South America decided war was a bad idea in the 19th century with the war of the Triple Alliance and smartly sat out all the 20th century's wars.
I'm a Mrs Thatcher fan in the UK and I'm angry about Musk supporting the Afd and saluting- and of course calling a hero cave diver a paedophile. I am very angry about his incredible behavior and statements about Ukraine.
I'm from Rhodesia - not far from where Musk was - and my dad was called up to fight the communist guerillas there that you Americans helped to get into power.
I'd be interested to know how do you spin that to make it about "lefties?"
Because the media repeatedly slanders them as extremist far-right nazis. They are just a normal right wing party. All their policy positions are bog standard right wing politics. Their leaders are milquetoast and the electoral system in Germany means they would need to compromise in coaliton anyway.
>and saluting-
He didn't do a Nazi salute but I am glad he waved his arm like that because it is a great diagnostic factor for MDS. If you look at that gesture in the proper context, with the sound on, and remember that these people go and talk in public every day, and remember he is literally a massive autist and we ALL know that aspies can be a bit prone to awkwardness in their movement, and you combine all of that data and conclude it was a Nazi salute, you have MDS. You are letting your hatred of the guy cloud your judgment.
>I am very angry about his incredible behavior and statements about Ukraine.
Ukraine is complicated though. It isn't black and white. Those regions in the east really are different from the rest of Ukraine. Do they have the right to self-determination? They weren't getting it from Ukraine.
On the other hand, Russia likely had some hand in formenting the rebelliousness of the region.
It goes without saying that invading countries is bad. But, no progress on the ground in Ukraine since what, November 2022? They aren't going to kick Russia out entirely, and Russia isn't going to take Ukraine.
It seems obvious to me that there will need to be a negotiated settlement, it will need to involve Donetsk and Luhansk being part of Russia. But that would have also been a solution years ago, or before the war even started (in 2022) given that the war actually started in 2014.
So obviously there is a tension between condemning Russia for its invasion and also recognising that Ukraine will probably come out of the war in the same position territorially it would have been in 10+ years ago if the Donbas regions had been allowed to break away.
With that context, the idea that Zelensky is somewhat responsible for the billions of wasted money and many wasted lives is a bit more palatable.
That all said, fuck Russia and fuck Putin.
>I'm from Rhodesia - not far from where Musk was - and my dad was called up to fight the communist guerillas there that you Americans helped to get into power.
What happened in Rhodesia during the decolonial period was one of the worst things the international community has done. A functioning and prosperous country that is now a dysfunctional racist hellhole.
> What happened in Rhodesia during the decolonial period was one of the worst things the international community has done. A functioning and prosperous country that is now a dysfunctional racist hellhole.
Well, you should listen to me then because I know the smell of the people who made it like that and they are the same smells coming from your pal and his handler. That's what you don't get.
The AFD might appear "bog standard" to your American eye, but it is absolutely far right in Germany, where the CDU occupies the role of the right wing. But anyway, why shouldn't Germans be angry at Musk, a foreign oligarch, using his wealth and influence to help the right-most party?
He has no place in European democracies, if Americans want to surrender their government to power drunk robber barons, they're free to do so. But stay the f away from our continent, we still care about "woke stuff" like human rights and basic empathy.
As for his nazi salute, at the very least that "akward gesture" was a dog whistle to actual neonazis. That's how they interpreted it anyway [1]. Musk didn't go out of his to deny it was. It's also not the first time he engaged with neonazis [2]. "If it looks like a nazi salute, serves the same purpose as a nazi salute, etc.".
Secondly, being right of the centrist party doesn't make them far right. The CDU have arguably moved from centre to centre-right but that just makes the AfD plain old normal right. Not hard or extreme or far. Not centre or soft or light. Just right-wing. Not a nasty, dirty, wet right, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy right with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat.
>But anyway, why shouldn't Germans be angry at Musk, a foreign oligarch, using his wealth and influence to help the right-most party?
I don't remember Americans kicking up a fuss over European leaders criticising Trump during his election campaigns. And if they did, they were wrong to do so. We are allowed to have an express opinions about what goes on in other countries including in their elections. It appears to have made almost no difference anyway. How many German people are really going to change their vote because of what an American thinks?
>if Americans want to surrender their government to power drunk robber barons, they're free to do so. But stay the f away from our continent, we still care about "woke stuff" like human rights and basic empathy.
Except you also demand they defend you, police the world's trade routes, buy your products, sell things to you, invest in your markets, act as the world's reserve currency so you can trade, etc. How many countries want to sell goods internationally for Euros? Not many. Most want US dollars.
The European idea of human rights has become so divorced from the original definition that it is a joke. It is a new and different concept masquerading as "human rights" because those words have some cultural cachet, although that is fading as it becomes clearer and clearer that is is just used as a cudgel to mean whatever policies the Greens and socialists want to pass.
Can't convince people that your energy policy is sensible? Don't worry, it is "environmental human rights". Climate rights and cultural rights and social rights and everything under the sun is now a human right. Privacy is the worst. It now means everything. Privacy is the right to control everything about how you are observed, perceived, remembered, and recorded. You have the right to control how information about you is sent and received. No longer can you do something as simple as ask the question "When he worked for you, how did he do?" No no no. That is collecting personal information about him without his consent! You can't google him, that is using the information for a purpose other than the purpose for which it was created! Human rights have become a way to control what you may think about other people and to justify any policy. If you have a human right to everything the term loses all its meaning. If you have a right to everything, you have a right to nothing.
>As for his nazi salute, at the very least that "akward gesture" was a dog whistle to actual neonazis.
No it wasn't. It didn't look anything at all like a Nazi salute. It is 100% confirmation bias because of people being primed by headlines.
You wouldn't see a truck if it hit you in the face. Musk already did nazi shit prior to that, like discussing the "jewish question" on X, and his salute was very well received by online neonazis, while still giving plausible deniability. That's a dog whistle. You probably didn't even open the links I gave you, so I won't waste more time trying to convince you, you seem like a lost cause.
I did open your links. I just disagree with you. I don't give a shit how neo-Nazis interpreted it. Their opinions are retarded, which is why they are neo-Nazis. Why would you give any weight to their interpretation of anything?
A dog whistle requires intent. A dog hearing a high pitched noise does not mean someone blew a dog whistle.
We don't care about Vance expressing his backwards views in public, we care about America allying with fascist Russia against Ukraine and Europe, then claiming insane shit like "Ukraine started the war", then having that slimey Heritage Fundation lackey come and tell us our "freedom of expression is threatened". At this point you're either a complete lunatic or appalled by Trump and his circus, there can't be another way.
Elon Musk is an idiot, he did abandon his child [1], he did do a nazi salute [2], he did have a neonazi background even before that [3], he did cheat at video game for attention [4]. The guy tweets an average of 800 times a week [5], how is he finding the time to work on his companies AND run a governement agency? He doesn't work, that's the answer.
Obviously you won't open these links, you won't change your mind. You won't document yourself on how Elon failed several ventures through his management, how he didn't build his succesful ones, etc. I'm starting to wonder what is would take for the likes of you to reconsider your position at this point. Have the guy yell "BLOOD AND SOIL" during a rally, maybe? Would that even be enough?
Good, now our (european) politicians should stop forcing companies like Volkswagen, with an incredible history and technological background, giving money to Musk for carbon credits. Use the same money to improve public transportation and the long term impact on CO2 will be better for sure. Not only civil cars are a trivial part of CO2 emissions, but there are many other effective ways to improve things: avoid trucks to move goods, in favor of trains (we have good trains on average) and boats, like 30/40 years ago. Public transportation, as I said. Warming systems... All changes that could have greater effects without destroying our car industry. For reference: Volkswagen has 650k employees. 300k in Germany, 350k outside.
What shocks me with European automakers is that all small EVs have disappeared from their offerings. Renault Zoe, Twingo, VW Up, etc. SUVs on the other hand are absolutely everywhere. Public transports are the ultimate solution of course, but we can't do without cars after decades of car-centric urban development.
I live in a city with one of the best public transport systems in the world. Anywhere I want to go, there's a bus/tram/trolleybus/subway that goes there and leaves in less than 15 minutes. It costs $150 a year. If that isn't luxury then I don't know what is.
Shouldn't that be 1% of emissions in the world? Btw, still more practical to address other stuff. Not that EV are a bad idea, but you can't force such change: the EU plans failed, because people don't have often a viable setup to switch to EV, so it should be made more incremental and together with other infrastructural changes.
Yeah, c/p mistake, thanks for noticing. ~1% it is.
> Not that EV are a bad idea
From an engineering point of view, if we were to solve the pollution problem, and if the numbers above are not terribly wrong, then the EVs are not an answer. There is a huge (operating) cost attached to rebuilding the whole industry with apparently a very small impact. And I'd say with a reasonably large negative impact since we see many automotive manufacturers folding under the EV pressure.
> because people don't have often a viable setup to switch to EV
I agree and I would also add that not that many people can afford buying a new car for ~40k EUR. For many people this is inaccessible.
> according to a report from the European Environment Agency
and I don't know how they got to their numbers. Don't have time to read it right now but do you see a mistake in my calculations? I think I used valid sources?
Can you please elaborate what do you mean more precisely? I am not sure I understand. If 5 bln tonnes is total CO2 emissions, how else would you calculate the contribution of petrol/diesel car industry?
(Depending on context we might include the car roads construction and maintenance as well, for example when considering the merits of different transportation modes)
Sure but that's the total manufacturing CO2 footprint and that's not what I was trying to deduce here. I was trying to understand how much of the problem are we trying to solve with the transition to the EVs. Manufacturing CO2 emissions of the EVs ≈ manufacturing emissions of ICEs.
The number of respondents isn't what is important. The important thing is that the people polled are representative, which typically means they are as diverse as the population as a whole. Do you have any reason to think they're not as diverse as the population as a whole?
I have worked for 7 years in market research running such surveys. You would always want to aim for many-fold higher coverage especially when balancing by traits.
Guess it'll depend on how things go. I imagine a lot of people are like the Robert McCabe guy:
>I thought that someone with his business acumen would have come in with a fine-tooth comb and actually found it instead of coming in with a wrecking ball and destroying people’s lives for no reason. https://www.nj.com/politics/2025/02/trump-voter-shocked-to-g...
We are very much shifting away from Tesla/Musk topic.
Here in Europe we've all seen what happens when you inflate the socialistic bubble, especially with government jobs. Greece have not yet fully recovered to this day.
>Just a reminder: People supporting Elon do not typically post here or on reddit.
There are subreddits where for sure Elon fans are posting, I can see them in the Tesla one, I have no idea where MAGAs and nazis are gathering but I bet Elon fans are tehre too
It is not about subreddits and their count per se, it’s about the fuzz around some topics. Algorithms detect boiling shit very well and apparently today there's no reason for Elon supporters to throw shit on the fan.
The drop didn't begin until Elon's salute on Jan 20th, so only the last 1/3 of the month. February is going to show a much larger drop, possibly around 90%. Tesla board members are already selling their stock because they know it's going to crash hard when the February numbers come out.
