Potatos_are_not_friendsBuyers Are Avoiding Teslas Because Elon Musk Has Become So Toxic
troedNo shit. My lease on the Model 3 I got in 2020 is up in a few months and the requirements we had for the replacement was "anything but Tesla".
(which turned out to be a VW ID.7)
“No shit” we’re the first words in my head too. Will be buying electric and the list starts with anything-but-Tesla.
tr0xywere and we’re aren’t even pronouned the same?
Ah yes, typos are famously based on how things are pronounced.
were and we’re aren’t even pronouned the same?
The fuckin irony lmao
Absolutely correct. ‘Were’ isn’t even a pronoun.
Flying SquidI’m hoping my next car (might be a while, my Prius is only 8 years old and I will continue to drive it until it becomes necessary to replace it) will be an EV or a PHEV, but it will not come from Elon’s company.
I had the same hope, then got rear ended and my 12 year old Lancer got written off. My plan had always been to keep it as long as possible, maintain it, and drive it into the ground, but I hadn’t banked on someone else doing that for me.
Have a PHEV now, charging infrastructure where I live is pretty asstastic, and I do just enough longer range driving to make a full EV annoying under those circumstances.
Thankfully, I don’t need a huge range, so that isn’t a big deal to me. I’m in the U.S., in Indiana, in coal country, so yeah, electricity is not clean, but I’m also not under any illusions that me driving an EV or PHEV will help save the planet, either. The savings in gas is a bigger issue to me and I would be happy if I never had to go to a gas station in the middle of winter again.
Savings in gas, oil, transmission maintenance, brake pads adds up nicely. However be prepared to lose some of those savings in higher taxes because you aren’t contributing to the roads via gas tax (which is stupid because by and large the ones tearing up the roads are truckers). And of course battery replacement is expensive but I think that’s less of a problem than most people expect.
Caveat: I own a Volt, not a full EV, but I’ve been watching for quite a while.
I don’t know that it would even out with taxes, I think I’d still come out ahead, but I’m not sure I admit. Never having to go to a gas station again as long as I live unless I wanted coffee or something would be worth it alone. I absolutely loathe pumping gas. Everything about it. Especially the smell.
I’m not concerned about the battery issue. My Prius is from 2016 and the battery is still in great condition.
I’m stuck at hybrid, as I work from home and live in an apartment complex that has only one level 1 charger for some 300 units near the front office where the property manager parks her stupid Tesla.
I’d go full electric if I had a place to reliably charge it.
I think the biggest hurdle for PHEV and EV adoption is going to be people like you living in apartments. Landlords have no incentive to spend money on chargers. It should be subsidized.
Absolutely. And the real kicker is apartments tend to be the exact demographic that could use a midrange electric vehicle to commute daily with the most.
Boomer Humor Doomergodmy Prius is only 8 years old and I will continue to drive it until it becomes necessary to replace it
That might be a while. My parents had one of the first hundred Priuses imported into the US in 2001, and it barely needed maintenance and hit 200,000 miles before my niece totaled it in an minor accident. When they bought it she still needed a car seat.
That’s fine with me and great to hear! I have no interest in regularly getting a car upgrade. Every car I have ever owned, I have driven until it was either too expensive to keep driving it or it got totaled in a crash (never something that was my fault, thankfully).
I mean I would love an EV or a PHEV, but not enough to do anything about it unless I have to. If I’m lucky, by the time I need a new car, they’ll actually be self-driving and I won’t have to worry about that either.
Thirding the no shit
I feel this. I own a OG body style model S. I still have unlimited supercharging. The battery is starting to show its age and i’m sort of starting to look around. The Rivian R3X is my current front runner.
The RX3 looks fantastic and is the car that got be actually thinking about a full EV, and not a hybrid. If it comes in at 45k or so I think it could be a killer car.
Buddy of mine was in market for model S price range. Only because of this moron’s fascist shenanigans, my friend ended up getting BMW iX. Much better vehicle sans the fascism.
Tesla would do well to distance themselves from Musk, for a lot of reasons. But it may be too late - the damage to their reputation may already be fatal.
They could definitely bounce back if the board fired him and the new head of the company made changes that actually made the cars better, rather than make the model numbers spell S3XY or have the horn make a fart noise for a premium or make and sell whatever the fuck the Powell Motors Homer Cybertruck is.
They need to fix the myriad of issues that plague the Cybertruck, from its reduced range from its pre-released advertised figures, to its inability to handle cold weather, to its difficulty in off-road terrain, to its stainless steel panels now rusting only months after its release.
Cybertruck Range: Losing the Story
On reveal night, four years ago, it was the 500 mile range of the Tri-Motor trim that stuck in my mind more than anything else. We don’t know what we don’t know, though. And sometimes something that seems imminently clear… turns out anything but. Fast forward those four years. Cybertrucks are...
Do they? Or could they just junk them all and move past them like the complete mistake they are?
Don’t forget to fix the eyesore and the stupid name.
It’s 👏 not 👏 a 👏 truck 👏 it’s 👏 a 👏 fugly 👏 car. 👏
WWSJD? Cancel the cybertruck. Clean house.
WWSJD? What Would Super Josh Do?
Steve Jackson, noted TTRPG publisher.
Clearly, he’d create a Generic, Universal, Roleplaying Truck, or GURT.
ChrisLichtNone of that matters. I just like riding around town in one of Lara Croft’s breasts.
Jerry, what’s the sticker on this thing?
Maybe. But they’re not the only game in town when it comes to electric cars anymore. There are real auto manufacturers with good reputations making them now.
I agree. I was just speaking in the abstract about Tesla in specific and how they could potentially save themselves.
I doubt they will though.
The problem is that Elons con man routine is the only reason Tesla is so overvalued. I’m sure they are afraid that if they let him go the stock price would readjust to a reasonable market price.
No matter what you think of him, he is brilliant at conning a tech enthusiast’s money out of their wallets.
That just comes with the territory of being wealthy, which he lucked into thanks to Peter Thiel taking a liking to him (probably because he wanted to fuck him). People confused the companies he invested in which happened to be successful despite him, and would probably more successful if he weren’t involved- see SpaceX when Shotwell took over day-to-day operations.
Lots of people, otherwise smart people, smell someone with money and say, “I want to go to there” because they think wealth can be transmitted through close contact.
I call it the Biggest Asshole in the Room strategy. Capitalists can be extremely successful by simply being the biggest asshole in the room. Smarter, more talented, better comnected people will cater to the biggest asshole in the room simply because it makes life easier to appease them. See also: Trump, Jobs, Bezos, Gates, anybody on Shark Tank, Ortega, Murdoch, Koch Bros, etc. It’s a personality type that aligns perfectly with the free market where inertia and friction generate profit from the work of creation and productivity.
Oh, it’s not the only reason, and the other may actually be worse. They sold $1.8 billion of carbon credits to other auto manufacturers last year. Which is pretty much free free money to them. And hastens climate change, but, you know, free money.
Nah this iant true at all. I covered this in another xomment so Im gonna copypasta it here…
Tesla has the following:
Custom AI silicon designed by the designer of Apple’s M1 chip. It’s designed for training. They are about to scale it massively to create the Dojo supercomputer. They look to be on par with NVidia on performance/$. No small feat, and means they arent reliant on NVidia
They have custom inferrence chips used in all of their cars and their android robot. It gets fantastic performance per watt. My 5 year old car has first-gen inferrence chips and it’s still getting better with software… meaning it hasnt reached its potential. The latest chip design is probably much better, but I dont know much about it
They have possibly the best humanoid hands and arms that will work with this AI goodness.
Their walking and navigation is looking to be top notch… We’ll see
FSD really is incredible. I drive with it and it improves every year. Just got 12.3 and it’s pretty bomb.
Tesla solar is still a thing. The model 3 kinda derailed development a while back and it never really recovered. I think competitors are doing well and Tesla sees better returns on their other projects. Tesla needs to bring down their Solar prices which they just dont seem to be doing. Im guessing they dont want to scale manufacturing yet.
They have some of the largest casting machines on the planet and press out the frames of their cars for far cheaper than their competition can stamp and weld theirs. Stellantis and Toyota are adopting this manufactiring strategy as fast as they can, but they are a year or maybe 2 behind. I suspect Ford, VW and GM are adopting this too.
Tesla factory floors are much more efficient at iterating and improving. Their in-house software for managing workers and workflow development are unique to Tesla. Just look at the efficient packaging of their HVAC system after dozens of iterations every year for a couple years. It’s by far the best HVAC in the car world.
They have developed a lithium clay extraction process that vastly reduces chemical waste and water usage. They’re still 5 or so years out from implementing this in even a small capacity and clay extraction isnt guaranteed to be superior to spodumene. I expect the efforts they’re putting to this will pay off in 15 years.
They own lithium clay rights in Nevada where some of the richest Lithium clay deposits are. I think theyre doing permitting for mining, which will probably take to the end of the decade. Mining’s crazy
They offer the best price for grid-scale batteries and are growing that business faster than their cars grew. Hawaii just replaced their last coal peaker plant with Tesla batteries. California and Australia are saving a lot of money with them. The batteries pay for themselves when used to replace peaker plants and stuff to maintain frequency.
They are growing so-called virtual power plants and have been doing extremely well in a few test locations in Texas, Australia and Puerto Rico. I think the UK too?
After funding and working with the inventor of the lithium battery’s team they’ve been getting first looks at new battery chemistry. The thick walls of their 4680 are designed with adding silicon in mind. I suspect theyre testing this out at Kato road production facility.
They’ve collected a bunch of battery manufacturing patents over the years and their dry-electrode process is providing very good economics. Getting them to scale has been excruciatingly slow, but they’re about to triple capacity this year in Texas and I think are starting development of another iteration of their 4680 battery production process at their Kato road facility right now.
They are on track for becoming a top-three battery manufacturer by the end of the decade.
GM and Ford’s battery packs are like 5 years behind tesla’s. Tesla packs more battery in less volume using less weight with better thermals and ridgidity. Their packs are a lot cheaper to produce too.
Tesla claims they have a ferro magnet motor in development. We’ll see. If so, watch out for very cheap electric cars with no rare-earths or cobalt
They just signed deals with BP and an another conglomerate to sell chargers for the other business’ charging infrastructure. More volume means cheaper manufacturing for their own charging stations too.
All cars will soon have the NACS plug so everyone will be able to charge at a Tesla station… Which is the largest and most reliable charging network in the world.
Battery prices keep falling. Gas cars are going to have to compete with cheaper electric by the end of the decade. Tesla isnt competing with other electric car makers so much as it’s competing with fossil fuels. Electric will win this. The faster the better
Elon has contributed to these only in a “we’re gonna fund these wild ideas!” Way. Like Edison. He’s smart and avoided bad projects and embraced fast failing to great success… Things are maturing and I dont think there’s much value to get from Elon…
Tesla will be fine without Elon. I’d argue better.
The only fear of Elon leaving would be big oil investors buying control and derailing things… I dont think that’ll happen though. I think enough investors are in it specifically to eliminate fossil fuel dependency.
The fear of Elon staying is he drags Tesla into his edgelord bullshit and uses it to dick over the world as hard as he and some dictator/billionaire friends can… Which seems more likely
After he derailed the CA bullet train with his hyperloop hyperbole and joked on twitter abould the Bolivian coup, I dont trust his ass one bit.
I think the problem with these claims is that they’re all being made by Musk. Who has proven time and time again that he over-promises and under delivers literally every project he associates himself with.
If we actually look at where they are actually making their money it’s primarily just in their vehicle sales/leasing. They aren’t a silicon valley start up, they are a vehicle manufacturer, and when we analyze them as such, there is no real way to equate them with having 10x the market cap of ford.
I dont trust his ass one bit.
I don’t know how you could not trust him one bit, yet trust that what he claims Tesla is doing is what Tesla is actually doing. Custom ai chip, dojo super computer, android robot with the best hands…all of these seem like marketing scams. How does this improve the sale of cars to a significant degree? Seems like he’s just like every tech bro in the country scrambling for the new block chain, or VR type marketing gimmick.
They’re all fields of study that already have huge companies that have already invested significant amounts of capital and research on. What makes us assume that Tesla is going to be able to profit from these ventures when they haven’t even figured out how to make a truck?
I’m not claiming that Tesla is a worthless company, I just don’t think they’re worth 10x more than the most popular vehicle manufacturer in America.
I only have one question about the Cyber truck. Why haven’t I ever seen a rusty DeLorean, especially considering I have seen DeLoreans that lived in KY, GA, MS, AL, and LA
(Louisiana, not the city in California, not to be confused with Canada. Why TF do we reuse so many two-four letter abbreviations?)
The general theory is that they used a cheaper grade of stainless, specifically one that is still magnetic because it makes material handling easier during manufacture, meaning higher iron content, meaning more prone to rust if you don’t pay extra for the clear vinyl wrap. People will say the “real” name of the material is “stain less” steel, which is not true – “stainless steel” is just 1910’s marketing wank – but it is accurate enough as a description.
There’s a reason “Stainless Steel” is referred to as CRES (Corrosion Resistant Steel) more commonly in industry.
You won’t see rusting DeLoreans because there wasn’t very many made and they have always been something special. If you’re seeing one, it’s been cared for. But find one in a junkyard, they might not have that shine
the damage to their reputation may already be fatal
Definitely. Tesla = Musk in my mind and always has been ever since it blew up with promises of a greater tomorrow that never materialized. All it did was up the EV competition, imo.
Yeah there was a time I thought they were enviable. Now it would just be such an embarrassment.
OderusI’m someone who’s buying an EV and due to Elon alone, I won’t buy a Tesla. I’ve wanted one for so long but waited for the data to show how well they hold up after years of use and now that the data is out, I’m buying a non-Tesla. Thanks Elon, you moron.
I have a datapoint of 1, but I’ve also heard from my wife that when she’s traveling outside the US, so many cab companies and rideshare drivers have started using Teslas that the brand prestige is taking a hit, regardless of quality (which is also low).
Interesting… where I’m from most cabs are Mercedes limousines. I never heard about people thinking less of Mercedes because they are popular with taxi drivers.
🇸🇵🇪🇨🇺🇱🇦🇹🇪🇷I literally sold mine because I was embarrassed to drive one after Musk called that cave diver a pedophile.
Ugh… I almost forgot about that. What an insufferable jerk he turned out to be.
And that was just the tip of the shitberg.
Sure, be repelled by the dork, but stay away because of the unsafe lack of tactile dashboard controls.
The fact that they removed the stalks on the steering column so all functions are on the screen is reason enough. Do I really want to slide my finger up/down to change from D to R? I know they have wipers on the steering wheel, as well as turn signals but the changing of gears? Hard pass.
The damage to their design certainly could be reversed though.
no bananaRemember when he removed the Disney+ app from Teslas because he was angry over twitter ads? That kind of unreliable behaviour might have something to do with it.
DojanI had no idea he did that but I’m also not surprised. That’s so funny.
It is hilarious, but it’s also very seriously something that would make most people reconsider their choice of vehicle.
Oh absolutely. Though with all the EVs on the market right now, Tesla isn’t a good choice, Elon or no. There are better EVs out there.
I think that this is the part that people miss. When it was new and unique, they had the market cornered. Now the big automakers have caught up and they have far more experience with this.