Does anyone know if Musk's robotics/AI business is under Tesla? What prevents him from launching the robots under a new company? Is there any protection for Tesla investors against these kind of things?
Well, if you follow his adventures a bit, it's quite obvious that there is absolutely nothing preventing him from that.
2 years ago, while claiming that Tesla is the leader in AI, he launched a private ... AI company (xAI), for which he took Tesla GPU chips, and now he tries to make Tesla ... invest in said company, at a valuation (>B100$) that could only be compared to something like Dogecoin.
All of this, with your and my retirement money, since the stock is in the S&P.
>Tesla did not release new cars, except for Cybertruck, for how long ? 5 years ? 10 years ?
As stated earlier, this is extremely bad strategy advice.
Tesla is battery-limited, not demand-limited (delivery wave concern trolling from OP's headline aside). Adding models would only add complexity without meaningfully increasing revenue.
It helps to know basic fundamental facts about the company before commenting.
>Now there is a lot of competition and their lineup did not change at all.
More misinformation. Tesla continuously updates their cars unlike most manufacturers which are stuck in "waterfall" model year refreshes.
See Sandy Munro's excellent breakdowns on the phenomenal pace of innovation at Tesla compared to competitors.
Not demand limited ? Yeah sure, CEO once said that they have infinite demand (at the right price /s).
If they are not demand limited, can you explain why they slashed prices, are offering countless promotions which evaporated their margins, and are running the factories at 50% capacity ?
Aside from politics, their cars have a reputation for poor quality control. Peeling steering wheels, leaking seals, funky air conditioner smells, etc. Then when there are problems you may be waiting months while it sits in a service center. Or the stupid thing may shut off (due to errors or updates) right when you need it.
I would not want to buy one of them for any of those reasons, regardless.
Right now the electric car market sucks in the US. I'd honestly recommend people just go hybrid instead. Toyota has been doing it for 18 years now and hasn't had any reliability issues.
I don't really feel that's a fair analysis of either the brand or hybrids in general and paints in too broad of strokes.
But regardless, If someone really wants a sporty car, they can get a sporty car. The vast majority of car buyers don't really care. They care about things like space, comfort, features, and monthly payment.
It's not only sportiness. It's also absolutely spartan features / technology that's also got terrible usability, bare minimum comfort level, etc. Reliability is mixed bag too - hybrid batteries clap out pretty quickly and then you got all downsides of ICE maintenance.
The only niche I see remaining for hybrids/phev's is large cars in large countries with bad charging infrastructure (aka US, AU).
All the evidence I've seen says hybrid batteries can often outlive the whole car.
Im not sure how hybrid had anything to do with other features or comfort. Features like carplay/aa, heated wheel/seats, ventilated seats, automatic wipers/parking brake/high beams are all independent from drive train. I've never seen a manufacturer reserve them for ICE or electric-only.
And they don’t have CarPlay. I was considering one but then I started dating a girl who drives a Model Y. So many little things wrong. Like the vent fan rattles, leather peels, etc. And when you get even a minor ding in the exterior, good luck.
False premise. The company isn't demand limited, despite the (conspicuously implied and never actually stated) conclusion the headline desperately wanted you to reach.
I really wish people had any media literacy left. This brand of lying without lying is extremely common in modern media, and also extremely easy to spot once you know what to look for.
> KBA said Tesla sold 750 cars in Germany in October, down by 53.5% from a year earlier. The number of Teslas sold in the January-October period dropped 50.4% to 15,595 units, compared with the same period last year.
To be clear, you are suggesting that Tesla had no delivery "wave" between January and October? And that is the sign of a healthy company?
You fell for the "we didn't say it so technically we didn't lie" clickbait headline, I see.
This article is the same recycled misinformation that's been repeated for years. What's actually happening is that Tesla does regional delivery waves, which results in large month-to-month fluctuations. Nothing new here.
Yes Virginia, the media will distort information to sell eyeballs. Color me shocked!
You are absolutely right. I live in Germany. Me and many of my friends considered Tesla as a real alternative, but after his lunacy came to light, none of us will even think of driving one.
Why would you assume that's not the case? Knowing something has gone wrong is different to putting effort into ensuring the general public is aware that you know something has gone wrong.
I was all in on Tesla in 2019. Solar, powerwalls, model 3.
Traded the car in a couple months ago. It was ok, as a car, but I hated what it had become synonymous with so it was worth the financial hit to give up a paid off car. Turns out the new Mach-e which replaced it is better in every way.
Might be some fanboys left, but a bunch of folks who might have fallen into that category in the past have been driven away by Musk’s unconscionable activities.
You're right that most people don't want to buy an ideological badge. They want a quality vehicle. The problem is that Musk turned Tesla into an ideological badge.
Off the top of your head, can you think of a single political remark made by the owners of Audi, Toyota, or Hyundai?
I am a human, so that's entirely possible, but perhaps you'd like to expand on this point, otherwise, I risk remaining confused.
Let me be clear about my point though, Tesla's are _not_ quality vehicles, and given a choice, consumers with money will not select them. Politics do not enter into this equation outside of Hacker News.
The fanboys buy into the politics. They legitimately believe Musk made Twitter a place for free speech just because they can say racial slurs without repercussions. But happily ignore folks censored for saying such awful things as "cis". Musk fans are hypocrites first and foremost. Just like most right wingers. They demonstrate time and time again that they have zero real values or consistency.
He chose politics that we're opposite and upsetting to their primary consumer market. It's "wrong" not in the sense of morality (though I would argue he has some very morally objectionable politics), but "wrong" because he made a poor decision by dumping money into politics in multiple countries, supporting objectionable candidates (to tesla's consumer base) and hurt his businesses, as we see clearly in sales data
What question is there to answer? Do you legitimately not know about the controversies surrounding Elon Musk? Not thinking they’re a big deal is not the same as not knowing about them. If you are on HN you know his reputation and you know the things he’s done that have upset certain populations. There is no way you’re going to convince me this question is meant to be seriously answered.
in Germany in particular? Endorsed a far-right party that is strongly opposed to renewable energy and electric vehicles, which does not strike me as smart if you're trying to appeal to EV buyers in Germany.
We are not even in US, but 2 of my Tesla friends turned to support Trump and upgraded to new Model Y. I'd do the same, but I'm broke. I don't support Trump at all, but at least I don't suffer from TDS.
I feel there has been shift or perhaps we were cringe tech bros from the start.
I don't know who you're addressing. Lots of people, me included, don't like the conspiracy minded politicization of his fortune but still think the cars are pretty great. Seems like a boring opinion that wouldn't be controversial, but we still find ourselves subtweeted anyway.
(Edit: three downvotes and a Godwin's Law reply drop within seconds, as expected. Seriously folks there are 125k people who work for that company, must everything about it be judged entirely on the last twelve months of one guys mania?)
There is no apolitical, there never was. To say that you're apolitical is just an implicit endorsement of the status quo, coming from a place of privilege.
Yeah, but "the standard" in this case is basically "everyone's slightly racist drunk uncle". You or I might disagree with that politics but it's absolutely not "uncommon", at all. In fact there's nothing particularly notable about the guy's opinions at all absent the financial force behind them.
So... are we cancelling the guy for his opinions or engaging in praxis trying to eliminate his ideology's funding? Very different moral calculus, IMHO, and neither seems very well justified (or implemented[1]) by the attitude I'm seeing in these debates.
[1] I mean, downvoting your fellow lefty traveller in a tiff over the car he drives might feel good but it's clearly not having the desired effect of changing Musk's politics. I am not your enemy, basically. Why are you fighting with the guy who's already voting for your candidates?
Right, and I repeat: if this you arguing with drunk uncles, that's not me. If this is you doing praxis and trying to organize, you are aiming at the wrong target by trying to engage with your political allies here on HN.
Mostly, I suspect, you're just angry and wanting to blow off steam. Which is fine! But not likely to make either of us feel better.
Where do you see me making excuses for Musk? I'm saying I'm happy to drive, buy and recommend a Tesla even if the company is run by a drunk uncle because the other 100,000 of them seem like they worked hard to make a good product. You really think Telsa is the only company with drunk uncles at the helm?
Again, the collision of your personal politics with what you want to achieve seems really muddled here. What do you achieve by yelling at me on HN, exactly?
Only if you take as a prior that he's somehow more objectionable than the like 20% of the electorate that I'm painting as "drunk uncles". And he's... not. He's just rich. Musk doesn't say or do anything you can't see on Fox every day. He doesn't spout opinions you can't read expressed right here on HN in every politics thread (in fact he's a pretty pure distillation of the HN self-righteous libertarian jerk, honestly).
And you don't like that. And I don't like that either. But I'm not going to judge him any more severely than I do anyone here. And yeah, I think the cars are pretty great, and the people that make them (to first approximation, none of them are Musk!) deserve to have jobs making successful cars.
At the end of the day you need to share society with people you hate. And some of them make products you need or want. This isn't a winnable fight you're engaging in.
> Musk doesn't say or do anything you can't see on Fox every day. He doesn't spout opinions you can't read expressed right here on HN in every politics thread
again, he literally threw two Sieg Heils. I don't see that every day.
That's a pretty strained "literally". Even taking everything at the worst possible interpretation, it's edgelord fuckery. Not something I'd personally support, but absolutely in the "drunk uncle" category of misbehavior.
I think some of the problem is that people aren't exposed to enough drunk uncles to know how awful the electorate can be. Again, we're barely a half century removed from living in a literal[1] segregated society.
But the drunk uncles are out there, and you are doing business with them all the time. Picking fights over cars within your own community of like minded people is a shibboleth/proxy argument that does nothing but hurt your cause.
it's really not strained. did you watch the (many) videos? it is a literally literal Nazi salute, twice.
> taking everything at the worst possible interpretation
wouldn't the "worst possible interpretation" here also equal the simplest possible interpretation, which is that he did two Sieg Heils because he's a Nazi sympathizer?
> you are doing business with them all the time
I'm really not generally in the habit of supporting the business interests of Nazis, no.
just to be clear, if my uncle were a Nazi he would not be welcome in my life, in my home, nor near any of my family. I'm not sure why you're going to so much effort to excuse this behavior.
It is clearly not, though. It's arguably evocative of one. There is an actual form to the thing, it was a military gyration, and people taught it. You can even read the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_salute It is static at the end, being held with palm down and arm stretched forward. It does not begin at the heart, as Musk performed, nor swing sideways.
Obviously you don't care about this minutiae, but it's important if you want to hang your argument on "literally a Nazi salute".
What you and I both agree on is that this was intended to evoke the idea. Where we differ is how you want to interpret it. You, I guess, think it means signaling a desire to repeat the holocaust, or something maybe a little less horrifying.
I think it's pretty clear he's wanting to create exactly the argument we're having. To wit, this was a troll, and you fell for it, and now all us lefties look like Ivermectin snorting loons because real people OBVIOUSLY know that Musk isn't a nazi.
Just to extend the thread: nothing you say there engages with my point (which amounts to "Musk is just a routine reactionary right winger like we all deal with every day").
You're just saying you want to hate him because you want to hate him, and by extension I'm not allowed to (there is "no point in") trying to explain my contrary opinion because you disagree with it.
It's not a very HN comment. And I really don't think you're internal moral compass is consistent on this, again citing all the drunk uncles you do business with without shame.
You aren't making any points. You're emotionally trying to rationalize Musk's behaviour. It's not worth your time or effort.
In the end, Tesla is just a car company. You can buy an EV from a company that isn't run by a "drunk uncle". And if you're invested in Tesla, diversify your investments (that's just good financial sense).
Teslas aren't exactly cutting edge anymore. For example, Tesla's charge curve is quite weak compared to other EVs:
You replied directly to a comment where I tried to engage substantially and with external links in a discussion about whether or not he was "literally" doing a Nazi salute.
You ignored that part in favor of a "actions have consequences" quip. Then when I called you out you decided to change the subject to something that amounts to "Well Teslas aren't any good anyway!".
To be blunt: that's a taking-your-toys-and-going-home argument, and HN deserves better. The whole point of this interminable subthread is that I'm trying to challenge your assumptions. And it seems like I'm doing it pretty well, given the way you're deflecting. Maybe you'd find it more productive to do some introspection?
Not only that, Musk eagerly promoted Tucker Carlson's interview with a Nazi who said the murder of Jews in concentration camps was "humane", and that Winston Churchill was the "chief villain" of WW2.
The winds have shifted, politics has seeped into everything, consumers are voting with money, most people are rejecting contemporary right-wing policies and politics.
No longer are we going to tolerate the intolerant. If you are willing to look past the moral failings, you are seen as part of the problem and should expect consequences. Social dynamics are at work
> (Edit: three downvotes and a Godwin's Law reply drop within seconds, as expected. Seriously folks there are 125k people who work for that company, must everything about it be judged entirely on the last twelve months of one guys mania?)
It seems the answer is a definitive yes, reflect on why this is.
Also, it's far more than 12 months. He's been manic for far longer, if not his entire life. We just saw the unfiltered version for the last 12 months. Now we know
>most people are rejecting contemporary right-wing policies and politics.
Hmm...
>No longer are we going to tolerate the intolerant. If you are willing to look past the moral failings, you are seen as part of the problem and should expect consequences. Social dynamics are at work
The woke left forcing ideological conformity loses them a lot of support from the center-left, which turns out is not a winning electoral strategy. At which point one must wonder if the wokeness is just performative and virtue signaling, rather than an attempt to gain actual political power.
You’re totally right. Rampant government cuts, attacking healthcare subsidies, attacking LGBT Americans, threatening universities, ego-driven tariff policy, and just generally poor economic stewardship, should be the electoral strategy. It sure seems to be working out for republicans.
>Rampant government cuts, attacking healthcare subsidies, attacking LGBT Americans, threatening universities, ego-driven tariff policy, and just generally poor economic stewardship, should be the electoral strategy. It sure seems to be working out for republicans.
I agree with none of these policies. I also just disagree with the woke left's focus on identity politics, because I see it as a losing battle, electorally. I prefer the left to focus on labor and economic issues, which apply broadly to all, regardless of their identity.
I believe in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and insofar as it informs my political views, food shelter and jobs are far more important issues than identitarian issues. Solve the basic needs first, and when everyone has a fair piece of our wealthy country's economic pie, I suspect we will find the identity issues are easier to address, with broader support.
You keep saying “the woke left’s” identity politics as the Trump administration uses the government to enforce right wing identity politics and stifle free speech. Do you also find that objectionable? Or do you think this is purely a problem on the left?
My guess is the only difference is you agree with conservative identity politics and not liberal identity politics, so one is seen as “natural and normal” and the other seems “manufactured and forced on people.” I could be wrong, but that is generally my experience in these conversations.
>You keep saying “the woke left’s” identity politics as the Trump administration uses the government to enforce right wing identity politics and stifle free speech. Do you also find that objectionable?
Yes.
> Or do you think this is purely a problem on the left?
I am not a member of the right wing parties, so I have no pull with them. I also think they are less likely to change.
>My guess is the only difference is you agree with conservative identity politics and not liberal identity politics
Your guess is wrong. I think all identity politics are bad politics until we solve basic human needs stuff like feed and house everyone and jobs that pay a living wage for anyone who wants one.
I get it, I don't fit into your preconcieved box, but the boxes are designed by the oligarchy who wants to keep us in separate boxes, so we can't unite.
It’s not about a preconceived box. It’s that you keep saying “the woke left” and only “the woke left” despite the fact that it is Republicans controlling all three branches of government right now. It is republicans doing the thing you’re claiming you’re against. Yet (again) it’s all “the woke left, the woke left.” Omissions can be louder than words, and yours are screaming.
Also in my experience, most people who keep grinding their axe against “the woke left” are not as moderate/above party politics as they make themselves out to be.
It's not about forcing conformity, it's about having basic human decency. Right-wingers belittle and dehumanize so many groups and people it's hard to keep track
see also: Paradox of tolerance
> turns out is not a winning electoral strategy
umm, did you look at the election results from yesterday?
#1 economy (i.e. emotionally driven tariffs)
#2 people don't like seeing children and neighbors disappeared by masked thugs (i.e. due-process and rule-of-law)
