Is it moral/ethical to buy a Tesla?

I remember a conversation with one of my friend where I expressed my dislike for E. Musk and used it as a reason as to why I would never buy a Tesla ( if I could afford it, one can dream :) ). His answer was simply "Do you think the CEO of Ford, Renault, etc. is more likeable?" and I think it is a really good point. We see them less in the media and they probably don't go on strange Twitter rant, but CEO of other car manufacturer are probably not any better then E. Musk when it comes to worker right and all.

Now, I still consider Tesla to be a luxury car, and not a green car. And if you want to be green, buying a second-hand car is often gonna be better than a brand new one, even if electric.

All this stuff about Elon Musk. Well, I hope you aren't gonna decide to buy a Ford (Henry Ford, who found time to distribute the world's largest antisemitic newspaper between his auto magnate duties), or Volkwagen (pet project of Adolph Hitler, later leader in emissions testing fraud) or any of those other nice companies that have lent their support and wealth to racism or joined that emissions fraud thing.

And as to social responsibility, if we're talking about buying a different car, let's not talk about this in a vacuum. I mean we're talking about companites who became wealthy by building all those cars that were "unsafe at any speed" while fighting safety regs, or that have been moving factories to low wage low worker protection locations while fighting labor laws, or have happily produced Humvees and their ilk while fighting environmental laws, all in cahoots with our oil industry as it spreads disinformation about climate change and political gifts to those who listen.

As to subsidies from the government for car companies rather than people in need, well, if that bothers you, best not look into any recent factory location decision of a big manufacturing company pretty much anywhere in the world.

So if you're taking the approach suggested in this article, you might want to consider it in context, at least before you feel better about buying on of those cars from one of those companies that hasn't gotten quite as much publicity recently about its leadership or way of doing business.

Or you can buy an inexpensive used car made by Volkswagen and feel good about that.

Teslas don't benefit the environment. For every Tesla sold, they are given pollution credits which they sell to other auto manufacturers to let them pollute more. So, there's no climate advantage to buying Tesla vs. some other car. And given their profligate spending (which generates a lot of carbon) and inefficiencies of manufacturing (headcount/car ratio much higher than the industry average) there may even be a climate disadvantage.

I was secretly hoping the author would end up with an average second hand car of let’s say 10k and donate 70k to non profit orgs that would let’s say plant more trees.

This is so self elevating it makes me sick. Buy the car or don't but don't use it as an excuse to show how great you are

To me, there is also a problem of non-free software in their cars, which more and more look like the walled garden of Apple. Why do they have to close it?

If you believe that it's morally dubious to accept and repay a government loan, then I don't think you can buy a car from anybody.

the article does a decent job considering the higher order effects of a purchasing decision. I find it kind of funny that, after talking about trains, ebikes, etc., the "responsible" choice ended up being a $40k car, in large part because $80k was just too expensive.

There is no moral consumption under capitalism.

That being said, a car of any kind, even an electric one, ranks very highly on the list of least ethical purchases. Live somewhere with public transportation and/or ride a bicycle to save your soul.

Ah, a lightly-disguised ad hominem political article.

Just in case there are any sincere readers out there who regret buying a dual-motor performance Tesla, please respond to this note. I'll help you find a way to rid yourself of it.