Elon Musk Is Finally Cracking Tesla’s Invincibility Shield
slate.com
Some drivers are expressing buyer’s remorse—if not by selling their Teslas, then at least with an apologetic bumper sticker.
  • li10 ( li10@feddit.uk ) English
    55·
    3 years ago

    I remember when Teslas used to be cool.

    Now I see them all the time, and they might as well swap the badge for one that says “cunt”, it would be less embarrassing.

    • Steeve ( Steeve@lemmy.ca ) 
      11·
      3 years ago

      Buy a Tesla because you’re trying to help the environment and it was regarded as the best EV at the time

      Tesla starts making their products shittier

      Tesla lied about range

      Tesla CEO loses his mind, buys a social media company, drives it into the ground

      Someone on the internet says you’re a cunt because you own a Tesla

  • grue ( grue@lemmy.ml ) 
    46·
    3 years ago

    Electric cars are still cars, and therefore do fuck-all to fix the real problem of excessive use of land for parking lots, low-density zoning, and lack of walkability.

    The only way to have communities that are healthy and sustainable (ecologically, financially, or otherwise) is to fix the zoning code so that folks don’t need to drive in the first place.

      • Gormadt ( Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) English
        17·
        3 years ago

        Oh man when almost everything was remote my commute was so nice. 12 miles in 15 - 17 minutes instead of almost double that everyday.

        Unfortunately I operate a forklift so I have to be there in person but damn was it super nice.

        Currently I’m trying to encourage and raise support for more bike infrastructure locally so it’s an actually viable option intead of it’s currently not so viable state.

      • grue ( grue@lemmy.ml ) 
        4·
        3 years ago

        Maximums aren’t necessarily the problem, since developers are incentivized by market forces not to build more parking than necessary.

        The problem is parking minimums, which are based on numbers pulled out of somebody’s ass 80 years ago and (to the extent they correlated with anything at all) tend to be closer to the maximum that could ever conceivably be needed (think “Black Friday at a shopping center”) more than anything else!

    • Dangeresque ( Dangeresque@infosec.pub ) 
      11·
      3 years ago

      As much as I think musk is an asshole he did put his money where his mouth is in Tesla which notably almost went bankrupt twice. The reality is that Elon distaste matters orders of magnitude less to buyers than value. I mean people hate Walmart and yet they make a ton of money. Other manufacturers cannot make profitable cars at the price point Tesla is offering. Tesla is going to end up the largest car manufacturer in the world. On Twitter yeah he is running it into the ground arguably on purpose but on Tesla and space x he is doing pretty good. I don’t understand what people taking this angle think the founder would have done better. The founder would have just gone bankrupt with Tesla or sold to someone else.

      I would also add that people don’t deal with Elon when buying a Tesla, but they do have to deal with shitty dealers when buying another brand.

      Most people are just going to buy the car that is the best value with the least effort.

      • NotYourSocialWorker ( NotYourSocialWorker@feddit.nu ) 
        1·
        3 years ago

        I mean people hate Walmart and yet they make a ton of money.

        The difference to Walmart is that there are alternatives, especially these days, to Tesla. Walmart on the other hand is known to push out smaller retailers in the town they settle into. The option for people can be really slim regardless if you like them or not.

        • Inevitable Waffles [Ohio] ( InevitableWaffles@midwest.social ) English
          2·
          3 years ago

          Not to mention you have to consider demographics. Walmart is a value brand. When it edges out the local businesses, they get de-facto monopoly. There’s no where else to go if you can’t shop the higher retailers. Tesla had first-mover advantage with the flashy claims and making an EV not look like a Dustbuster. They ran out the goodwill and runway and they will get eaten alive by the seasoned manufacturers. They will have their segment of the market but you’ll more likely see the same brands convert people from petrol to EV or H2 if white hydrogen is actually a thing.

  • stilgar [he/him]  ( stilgar@infosec.pub ) 
    35·
    3 years ago

    No one cares about the rich assholes who own other car companies, so why Tesla? For example Toyota were some of the biggest campaign donors to Trump.

    Also what does this have to do with Fuck Cars? This is about the minutiae of car culture… We should be talking about trains and bicycles here.

  • pkulak ( pkulak@beehaw.org ) English
    30·
    3 years ago

    Clicked through the first link and saw like half a dozen stickers with the only joke conservatives have ever been able to think of; “x identifies as y”. Imagine thinking that’s such a pinnacle of comedy that you reuse it for everything you can think of for years and years, never tiring of it.

    • Mossy Feathers (She/Her) ( MossyFeathers@pawb.social ) 
      21·
      3 years ago

      He had some credibility with nerds because Tesla transformed the electric car market* and was making contributions to renewable energy storage, SpaceX revived the idea of doing more in space than just launching the occasional satellite or probe, and Starlink was pitched with the idea that it’d bring about globally accessable, high-speed low-latency internet. The result is that, because he is the face of Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink, he received the major of the credit for them. Nerds were willing to overlook the fact that he was an asshole for the contributions that his companies were making to science and technology because either “he’s just shitposting” or “sometimes you have to take what you can get *shrug*”. It wasn’t until he bought Twitter that they realized that he’s not just shitposting, he really is just like that, and that maybe he was causing more harm than he was doing good.

      Source: My dad and I had a lot of respect for him up until he bought Twitter and started throwing a temper tantrum. My opinion of him was already waning when I saw the fit he threw about not being able to use his submarine and the bigoted shit he said on Twitter, but him buying Twitter broke any illusions that the either of us had about him being even a somewhat decent person. I’ve also seen others have similar experiences as well.

      * seriously, does no one remember how the major car manufacturers were trying to bury electric cars? Does no one remember that one of the big reasons why we have so many electric cars now is because Tesla voluntarily released all their patents to the public in 2014?

      • Dangeresque ( Dangeresque@infosec.pub ) 
        3·
        3 years ago

        Look I get it. Elon is an asshole. But the thing is he took his money and put it into two companies that people basically laughed out of the room as a joke. That is why he is worth so much now.

      • mreiner ( mreiner@beehaw.org ) English
        2·
        3 years ago

        I agree that Tesla did a TON to popularize electric vehicles when the closest thing from a major American auto manufacturer at the time was probably the plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt. That spark, largely ignited by Tesla, is likely a huge reason we have many of the options we do today.

        It’s a shame major manufacturers like Toyota and Honda still won’t get onboard (yes, Toyota technically has a single EV offering as of this year, but good luck finding it and most reviews seem to find it underwhelming at best), but I think that fact further bolsters your point. If those two major players still can’t be bothered to get involved, I think it does indicate that what Tesla did during the last decade or so helped inspire others to get into the market that may not have otherwise.

        That said, do we have any evidence that Tesla’s announcement of a plan to release their patents in 2014 really made any real difference? I am unaware of any of those patents being used by competitors anywhere, though it is entirely possible I am uninformed and I’d appreciate any sources you have.

        I think one of the most glaring examples that the patent release may have had little to no impact is that the now-presumptuously-renamed “NACS” connector still isn’t used by anyone other than Tesla almost a decade on. In fact, SAE only announced that they would standardize the thing at the end of June this year.

        Again, I freely admit that I agree Tesla deserves credit for finally creating a real, mainstream electric vehicle market. However, I am personally unaware of any benefits their 2014 “announcement of a plan to release their parents” has actually directly benefited the industry.

        • Mossy Feathers (She/Her) ( MossyFeathers@pawb.social ) 
          1·
          3 years ago

          Tbh I don’t actually have any sources for cars using the patent, it was my understanding however that a number of the patents were related to things like how the batteries were designed. As such, it makes logical sense to me that the explosion of electric cars with Tesla-like ranges would indicate that they were using Tesla’s tech to some extent. However, after your reply I did look to see if there was any concrete information about whether or not anyone is using them, and found this article from 2015 in which Musk claims there are/were multiple parties using their patents. That’s Musk’s claim though, and he didn’t provide any proof for it so take that with a grain of salt.

          Secondly, something to note is that the Chevy Volt (2010) didn’t launch until after the Tesla Roadster (2008) had already been released. What’s important, imo, is that the previous full-electric cars were cars like the GM EV-1, Ford Ranger EV, Chrysler TEVan, Chevy S-10 EV, Honda EV Plus, or the infamous G-Wiz. All of these cars have something in common, which is that they were very slow, had very short ranges, took a long time to charge, and were fairly expensive and/or had a very limited run (or you had to be entered into a lottery to buy one). Some, like the GM EV-1 were forcefully recalled and destroyed after their makers got bored of them and declared them a failure. Finally, I like this quote from the Wikipedia article on the history of electric cars:

          In an August 2009 edition of The New Yorker, GM vice-chairman Bob Lutz was quoted as saying, “All the geniuses here at General Motors kept saying lithium-ion technology is 10 years away, and Toyota agreed with us – and boom, along comes Tesla. So I said, ‘How come some tiny little California startup, run by guys who know nothing about the car business, can do this, and we can’t?’ That was the crowbar that helped break up the log jam.”

  • sabreW4K3 ( sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf ) English
    21·
    3 years ago

    I would prefer they drive a Tesla than a petrol car. But if they swap to another electric car, I’ll take it. I hope they advocate for better public transport links locally though.

    • Dangeresque ( Dangeresque@infosec.pub ) 
      3·
      3 years ago

      The resale value is plummeting because Tesla is cutting prices because their goal is to become a larger auto manufacturer. Tesla took advantage of COVID just like everyone else to extract money from suckers. Those suckers are crying that Tesla is hurting their resale when Tesla does not give a fuck about their resale. They have a history of lowering prices to drive volume That isn’t some secret plan. There are more new buyers to be had than satisfy the people who bought overpriced cars in an expanding market.

      Also what evs are people cross shopping for better range per dollar. It is well documented Teslas are still among the most efficient evs.

      That being said I own a Tesla because it drives itself.most places. I would rather live in a place with better public transit access to the service calls I have and not own a car at all.

    • donnachaidh ( donnachaidh@lemmy.dcmrobertson.com ) 
      3·
      3 years ago

      Eh, if you vote Republican, complain about things getting worse, then vote Democrat, that’s changing your mind. If I saw someone with that sticker, I’d assume they regret the decision and won’t be getting another one. Being able to change your opinion with new information really shouldn’t be discouraged.

      • Empricorn ( Empricorn@feddit.nl ) 
        1·
        3 years ago

        That’s a good point.

        Clarification: This is like voting for the incumbent Republican on your ballot, complaining how things are getting worse… then voting for the ‘R’ again.

  • Asymptote ( Asymptote@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 
    6·
    3 years ago

    “Ugh. A Ford, I know. I bought it before the nazi stuff”

    Who the fuck cares. It’s a tool. You don’t care if the multinational corporation behind Disney World is a reprehensible child rape factory either.