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Comment by Lazare | Hacker News Reader

What you're not following, I think, is how little I care about cars and car companies. :) I don't care about Nissan, and I certainly don't care about a company a quarter their size. I care a little about Toyota because they're huge, but yes, small companies in industries that don't directly impact me are unimportant to me.

If I worked for a car company, I'd probably care, but I work for a tech company, so I don't.

> A Tesla may be a good car, a poor car, depending on who you ask. What it is definitely not is your average Volkswagen.

Okay, sure, it's twice that car a Volkswagen is, I trust you. But it's still a car.

Again, I think there is a significant faction of Tesla fans that don't see Tesla as a car company, and instead see it more like SpaceX. I don't.

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> Again, I think there is a significant faction of Tesla fans that don't see Tesla as a car company, and instead see it more like SpaceX. I don't.

I do, and I'd like to explain why. This is not about cars. The single most important challenge our generation faces is dealing with climate change. We absolutely need to curb CO2 emissions. We don't need to limit CO2 emissions, we need to cut them significantly.

There are two avenues for this goal. Either we cut energy consumption, significantly, or we switch energy sources away from fossil fuels.

I believe cutting energy consumption is impossible. It goes against a five thousand year trend of per-capita energy consumption growth, amplified by population growth. If you step back from the ecologist message a bit and look at the overarching trend, the picture is clear: Cutting global energy consumption is a no-go.

The other path is switching energy sources. We're advancing on that front. However, for renewable sources to have the needed impact, they must be applicable to transportation. Here, in this specific point, Tesla was and is key. It has already succeeded. The BMW CEO was fired because of lack of focus on EVs. It's a stark change from pre-Tesla, and it is a market change created by Tesla. Every automaker will go the EV route, and I'm completely convinced that, absent Tesla, they would sit on their hands for at least another decade.

If the saving the world stuff was actually Tesla's mission they wouldn't have their CEO bounce back from LA to the Bay Area on a private jet every other day. Each time he flies he offsets the carbon savings of pretty much every Tesla driven in CA that day.

The switch to EVs has more to do with Obama than Tesla. He pushed through many of the incentives that made Tesla possible.

> If the saving the world stuff was actually Tesla's mission they wouldn't have their CEO bounce back from LA to the Bay Area on a private jet every other day. Each time he flies he offsets the carbon savings of pretty much every Tesla driven in CA that day.

I don't follow the logic. The impact of a jet flying back and forth pales in comparison to the impact of switching vehicles away from fossils. You're comparing the incomparable. Many orders of magnitude of difference separate the two.

Fun fact: Planes are efficient for long trips. According to “sustainable energy without the hot air”, you need three people in a gas car to beat the efficiency of flying on a long trip. It seems like driving to LA with one or two people in the car is less carbon efficient than flying. With an EV you’re probably good though.

I think those numbers are for passenger flights carrying large amounts of people, not private jets carrying very few.

Good point, you're totally right! I don't think they covered that in the book. Here's the relevant chapter if calculations on flight: http://withouthotair.com/c5/page_35.shtml

I follow your argument and support what you say.

There are always going to be critics who parrot idiotic points which you're having to refute, even among the "tech literate".

Would the car industry be as far along as it is today in EVs without Tesla? hard to say, I would say probably not. Toyota has been actively shunning EVs (hybrids don't count) and now still insisting on most of its energy into hydrogen fuel cells and BMW just kicked out its CEO for, among other things, stalling on EV development for so long.

Do I prefer being in a world where we have a Tesla? hell yes.

Ah, I see. So we should all be lauding Toyota for it's role in launching the Prius when there was literally no existing demand for green cars, leading to the US and EU governments creating incentives for additional green car manufacturing, and creating the market that Tesla is now trying to cater to with poorly-made luxury vehicles.

So you fall into the "Tesla is saving the world" superfan category. The problem is that they aren't, and as someone else said, the fans are just really annoying.

I know you don't mean to come off that way, but even your defense of Elon and such in this thread comes off as a combination of "ends justify the means" and sheer sycophantry.

Nobody likes that. It's not as bad as some, mind you. Reading Teslarati makes me feel like these people need a cult deprogrammer, stat.

In no way I believe the ends justify the means. I also did not defend Elon in this thread. You are reading your own bias into my comments.

Criticize Tesla for worker security conditions and hiring practices all you want. It is deserved and should be corrected. The jump from criticism to rooting for failure is the step I don't understand (1). I also do not understand the annoyance caused by praising the fact that Tesla did push the automotive market towards EVs.

(1) I have an explanation, but it's almost insulting to critics: Any kind of venture, more so any kind of _risky_ venture, will attract doomsayers. Once held, personal beliefs are hard to change, so people root for validation of their first evaluation. I'd love to see Tesla criticism justified differently, but that's how I read most hard line critics.

I have a feeling that most critics used to be fans. Five years ago Elon was my favorite entrepreneur.

Today I think the limp wristed response to the $420 fraud is a black stain on the justice system.

I'd still prefer Tesla succeed of course, and there's an undeniable impact it's had. But any warm and fuzzy feeling I once had is very much over.

"In no way I believe the ends justify the means. I also did not defend Elon in this thread. You are reading your own bias into my comments. "

If you really really believe this, you need to take a long hard look at yourself and your comments again.

You literally defended him, for example:

"Every CEO is a salesman. Anyone who believes every word of a salesman is a fool. I'd not paint it as Trump-style, bona fide lying. It's just inflating promises, or being overly optimistic. Par for the course."

As for the rest:

Numerous people have tried to help you understand in this thread, and your response has not really been to try to understand their perspective, but instead tell them why they are wrong, and how it must be everyone else.

If you really want to understand, people have tried to help as best they can.

Maybe, rather than immediately react, take a while and process it?

Climate change climate change climate change.

Such a religion now.

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