"General Motors knew about a defect in its ignition switches eight years ago and changed the design of an internal part, but never told federal regulators or the drivers of its cars, according to evidence from a recent lawsuit filed by the parents of a Georgia woman who died in a 2010 GM car crash"
This is a very different kind of problem than leaving out a brake pad. It’d be like delivering a vehicle without a seat belt or airbag.
At any rate, nobody is saying that other car manufacturers don’t screw up. They just typically screw up in non-obvious ways today instead of patently simple ones.
Finally, “what about this other company/person” arguments aren’t HN-caliber. They’re not logically sound, and are best left at the door.
The difference is that Tesla didn't have a near-perfect history of shipping reliable vehicles for decades before screwing up like this the way Toyota did. Tesla's reputation is slowly being formed by failures such as these. I already know several people who have elected to get a Mach-E instead of a Tesla because of concerns about quality. If they don't improve they're going to be seen (rather aptly) like the Lotus of electric cars in a few years: beautiful, powerful shitboxes that nobody wants to have to rely on as a daily driver.
> General Motors is recalling some 4300 units of its 2012 Chevrolet Sonic after finding that some of the Sonics were missing front brake pads.
First line of this story:
> Tesla is oftentimes accused of presenting a shiny veneer to the public and its shareholders, only to show its ugly side to employees and customers.
The GM story is dry, factual. There's no indignation. It's less than a quarter of the length of the Tesla story. Nobody's going to get worked up and spread it around social media.
That's not just about who the companies are, it's about how the media reports the stories.