If I made my purchasing decisions according to the personal failings of the corporate executive teams of all of consumer and durable goods, I might as well live in a tent in the woods.
Used Tesla pricing going down is great, makes EV mobility affordable for the less well off. If you associate with someone who judges you for your vehicle purchase, find better people!
I don't see climate change in there but the other stuff and masks etc.
does 'exploiting African children for cobalt' feature in list of values.
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/drc-mining-industry-c...
How do you reconcile your 'buying things based on values' by supporting people who exploit children.
A. The parent has a smart phone.
B. The parents smart phone contains cobalt from the Congo.
C. That the parent isn't doing anything to minimise their purchase of new phones by using them longer, only buying second hand etc.
And that's all assuming that this is indeed a value they hold.
And even with all that, there's plenty of stuff wrong with the world. For a multi thousand dollar purchase I'd spend more time thing about the ethical implications than something that is smaller. We all have to pick and choose our battles, I don't think you can damn anyone for not being happy about the system but still engaging with it.
> We all have to pick and choose our battles
yes agreed why not choose the most egregious then if you are taking a moral stance. Children digging out cobalt with their bare hands for your EV should outrank whatever stupid stuff elon is doing. no?
But anyway, humans aren't perfectly rational beings. Elon being a nob on twitter is more immediate to many people than abstract children in the Congo. I'm not saying that's morally correct, but it's how people work.
>Last year, many took to social media using the hashtag #NoCongoNoPhone to fight against the cobalt supply
Sounds like a win/win to me. End the terrible scourge of child labor, and end the lesser (but far more prevalent) scourge of ubiquitous smart phones.
Its not one of your values because there was some hashtag?
Not sure if you are making a sarcastic joke about the hashtag but how are child miners 'winners'?
Above the poster said they would not buy a Tesla and you implied they would be supporting child miners by doing so? Where the article you linked associates Tesla with child labour in cobalt mining.
Here the poster said ending child labour was a 'win' and "how are child miners 'winners'" - aren't you in agreement that ending child labour is a 'win'?
I’m not obsessively political about my purchases, but I’m also not 100% amoral/apolitical. I’m curious if anyone really is.
Elon Musk's involvement with the companies he is associated with is not the usual involvement that an executive team would have. His personal brand is intermingled with the products he sells and cars are a way of signaling social status whether we like it or not. There are certainly people for whom buying a new Tesla would decrease their social capital which could have negative impacts in other areas of their life (relevant to HN, social capital converts to actual capital in many cases by opening up business opportunities).
We're in a grace period right now when it comes to driving a Tesla, where people who already owned one can't really be blamed for supporting Musk, but the day has already arrived when buying a new one will signal poor taste and lack of social acumen to much of the white collar class.
Vulgarity is relative so if your crowd isn't this crowd, fine. But you can't blame people for wanting to avoid putting stigma on themselves when there are other EVs on the market nearly as good as Teslas which don't have the same toxicity.
All you've told me here is that the people you personally associate would laugh at the idea that Tesla is a toxic brand. The world is not made up of a single social group with a single set of norms. In the groups I associate with, and no we are not blue haired SJWs I am married with a family in the suburbs and work a boring corporate job, Tesla is toxic.
Some things I try to keep in mind as much as possible:
- We are all operating from different frames of reference.
- Social networks are fundamental to our survival: people will go to great lengths to stay in the good graces of their families, friends and associates.
- "Society" is a huge tapestry of interlocking social networks, each with its own internal logic and reward systems.
- The logic and reward systems of the most powerful networks tend to leak into all the others over time to some degree.
Here's one being quoted [0]
[0] https://www.carscoops.com/2022/12/tesla-investors-and-custom...
Ironically pretending that we don't play social signaling games and critiquing others for playing them is itself a sort of social signaling game. These games can't be avoided because they are a fundamental part of human interaction, so much so that when we aren't good at playing those games for whatever reason we are unable to function properly in society and are pathologized as a result.
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>I’d like to associate with like minded folks
And how do you signal to like minded folks?
A car specifically might not be important to you as a signaller but if you do want to associate with like minded folks you are going to seek to emulate and fit in with those groups. That's kind of how society and humans work.
We'll see if that comes to pass. I'm guessing it won't, but if it does I'll adjust accordingly to the new reality as will we all.
For the same price, you can get a nicer ICE.
That is why Elon’s actions are so weird. I agree with you that a chicken sandwich or paper towel executive can do whatever, but EVs are a status and signaling thing…
That is your opinion, which you’re of course entitled to. My Teslas are, to me, the best cars I could buy. That’s value. I’m looking forward to my Cybertruck as well.
The point of EVs for the time being is minimizing inconveniences (charging) and maximizing intangible value (virtue signaling, being “the life of the party” with your built in cooler/outlets, having a futurist interior with a bad but polished infotainment panel, etc etc).
Elon is cratering one of those things rn and it does feel like a Howard Hughes moment. Hey maybe there’s something about launching satellites! Who knows!
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-making-excuses-for-no...
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/15/u-s-eyes-new-weapon...
Elon is a loud mouthed idiot, but the world is full of loud mouthed idiots.
What's lasting, however, is that reputation for making poorly built vehicles. Even today, people would rather buy Japanese, Korean, or German than to buy, say, a buick. All because the reputation for making poorly built vehicles was never shaken by some American auto makers. I think Tesla will suffer the same fate, because to date, they haven't even conceded that they may have an issue.
Considering the fact that he is the CEO of at least 3 huge companies, and that he has the same 24 hours/day as the rest of us, many of which he spends shitposting on Twitter, it’s clear CEO is at best a part time job (at least the way Musk does it).
The guy expects his workers to put in 80 hours a week at their jobs. At best completely foregoing sleep, he can do the same for 2 of his CEO roles, meaning that one is going completely neglected according to his own standards.
In any case, I have no hero worship to apologize for. Not with regard to Musk anyway.
However, for me it's because I've been blown away with the versatility and dependability of the model Y so I see no reason to get a new car for the next decade.
Would you tolerate a poor product experience if you agreed with the CEO's politics?
Which shenanigans are you referring to?
I'd like to think he's just being an edgelord to drive engagement on his platform, but considering he tweeted stupid stuff before he owned twitter (eg accusing his critics of being pedophiles), I have my doubts.
And let's not pretend Elon is sticking up for "free speech." He's censoring folks who don't agree with him. That isn't free speech, unless you subscribe to fascist definitions of "free speech."
I don't understand how people don't get this?
It's like saying "Trump's bad, but what about Thomas Jefferson and slavery!"
It just leaves people scratching their heads.
Really sad fall from grace for Elon. Could've just kept working.
In general, “past, extremely dead, person was awful; this excuses the current awful person” is _not_ a great argument. It also seems to be a fairly new invention; I’ve only really seen it in the last decade.
Not even going to address the free speech thing, except to say that you must be using a very 1984 “war is peace” sort of definition there…
He's running Twitter in a very erratic manner and demonstrating very poor judgement. It's completely reasonable not to trust someone like that with your family's safety.
What Elon has done however is put the spotlight on Twitter, almost every issue people have with it is a “preexisting condition”.
Musk revealed files implicating the FBI, CIA and Pentagon but oh my God he voted Republican so he’s evil!
Elon became a dick. Maybe he was always one, maybe he became one. Punching down makes you a dick and he has been doing it again and again.
Claiming autism will not save him.
I suspect the following have had bigger effects on their sales:
- Tesla being at the bottom of quality rankings (and lots of evidence of major quality issues)
- increasing numbers of fantastic EVs sold by other companies at all price points
- bad PR related to "FSD" and "Autopilot"
- higher interest rates preventing financially irresponsible people from buying cars for status
Of course, the writing was on the wall without Musk buying Twitter: Teslas are now ordinary, mass-produced cars and traditional car manufactures catch up on electric. At the same time, electric cars are still mostly for relatively wealthy people, which means it is appealing to buy an electric car that's not a Tesla in order to stand out more.
In America, car culture is strongly correlated with identity. Ford said "They can have any color as long as it's black." His competitors capitalized on this mistake - people wanted colored cars. Since the 1920's colored cars are the norm.
Large trucks are often seen as an ideological alignment to the point that people advertise affiliations (political or otherwise) with bumper stickers, window stickers, tailgate wrappers, bed flags, etc. When I was looking for a Honda Accord my own brother pushed me to get a truck instead because it aligned more with "who I was as a man." Needless to say I rolled my eyes out of my head and bought my Honda Accord.
And, with Tesla. Many EV adopters I know get satisfaction from not needing/burning gas - it's why you get an EV. Very often part of that satisfaction is that they're choosing a more environmentally sustainable option, and there's a correlation with climate politics there.
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In my anecdotal lived experience, and with my limited understanding of automotive history, I really think there's a correlation with what car you drive and what your ideologies are, political or otherwise.
I think that any prudent CEO (or hell any other employee) would publicly shut the hell up right now. Part of Tesla's success is people ideologically hitching themselves to the EV bandwagon (and subsequently Musk). And, I think Musk getting spicy in the public forum is a bad thing for this all around... and apparently so do the shareholders.
This was founded in a technical decision. Paint technology at the time was not great and could deteriorate in short order if not properly applied. The colored paints had to be painstakingly applied in multiple coats over many days. Which required having enormous lots devoted to nothing but watching paint dry. Black paint was more forgiving and a quick application still looked reasonable, allowing units to be produced more quickly.
"Truck or not truck" is plausibly a political identity matter, but "truck" is not a brand. Such people will like a truck from any truck company, if that truck is perceived to be big and manly enough.
The line "because people don't often act on their beliefs" is what I found most egregious in regards to the automotive industry because, yeah - I think lots of people do purchase vehicles based on their beliefs (ideals). I shared some learned history and lived experience around that topic to rebut.
Not looking to change anyone's world view with my comment here. I don't think I'm too far out-of-line with I'm saying: many people do buy cars based on their ideals (beliefs).
This is not to say that Tesla won't suffer for Musk-induced political reasons. But I don't think this is the primary mechanism behind Tesla's downfall. Rather, I think Musk's political flailing has punctured his reality distortion bubble, so Tesla is returning to the value it rationally should have been at the whole time. It has always been a fringe manufacturer, propped up by unrealistic fantasy about the near future.
Particularly, the FSD illusion is collapsing. People are starting to realize that "your car will earn passive income as a robotaxi" won't be happening and in no way justifies Tesla being worth more than car manufacturers who make orders of magnitude more cars.
Musk, as the face of Tesla, chose to align himself against a big chunk of customers and potential customers. At the same time as consumers finally have options for buying an electric car.
I think it would be more true to say most people dislike party politics and try to avoid it. However it can be hard to do so especially in the US.
One of Musks strengths is he used to be deliberately non political and focused on things like the environment without making it a left vs right thing.
It's a shame he seems to be losing that.
I like my cars boring and reliable.
From that perspective, people dig into anecdotes about repair costs, motor/battery replacement, electricity costs, cold weather, etc to self-justify.
I don't see a lot of ideology-based resistance or support for that matter.
Only when he threatened their censorship and their incomes, which are largely based on creating narratives and inventing new social justice causes, the "left" started to lash out.
I do think the TSLA related issues have little to do with the backlash and more with various economic fundamentals.
Not a snowball's chance in hell. The hangup most people have with EVs is the price and the uncertainty that the car would sustain their lifestyle (which is particularly a concern for people living outside of cities.) It was never "EV car execs are insufficiently conservative."
This comment sounds like a overreaction due to Musk taking over Twitter. Generally, people couldn't care less and are still buying and driving Teslas just like how many people still choose to drive Volkswagons despite the founder of the German Labour Front, Adolf Hitler being the founder.
Little to no one cares about the political stances other than the techies and bag-holders here as the cars are fine. Anything that is worth the criticism would be the safety of the FSD system which is a total scam that is rightfully under investigation and puts the lives of drivers on the road at risk.
Thankfully, at least it is a optional system.
Unlike most of us here, most people aren't up to date on whatever X individual tweeted or said.
Edit: Downvoted for giving my opinion, stay classy HN.
Their goal is to be the most popular brand. In that case, the hardcore user base becomes only a small percentage.
Fame cuts many ways. Steve Jobs played it pretty well but it's a hard game to win.
If the only thing I knew about him is what he called one of the Thai cave rescuers, that would be sufficient to not want to buy his car. I don't have to keep "up to date" on anything he says.
This may have been true last year, but Elon has been all over the news for the past six months, so it's difficult to argue that the average person "barely" knows who he is.
Can you clarify or should I just assume that I shall be downvoted into oblivion for asking?
If 'average people' won't buy a Tesla, then this line of reasoning is moot?
You're underestimating the average person.
Adults buy a vehicle based on specs, price, build quality, and style.
Elon’s personal brand has been a big part of Tesla’s appeal, it either falling overall or realigning to be most attractive to a group not otherwise inclined to prefer electric vehicles is going to have an impact on Tesla demand, whether or not it logically should, just as it (positively) impacted that demand, whether or not it should have, before.
> The people allowing that to shape their purchasing decisions are underdeveloped emotional children.
You calling people “underdeveloped emotional children” doesn’t reduce the actual number of them or the effect their preferences have on the market for the car.
> Adults buy a vehicle based on specs, price, build quality, and style.
Cars remain on the road typically for over a decade now, and Tesla takes unusual steps to force use of their own services for maintenance; purely tangential image issues (which nevertheless are real market forces) aside, this creates a rational reason for Tesla demand to be more than usually sensitive to ability to trust the company and its leadership into the future.
Even if you pursue style that's no guarantee you'll succeed. there's a reason there's a stereotype of balding middle aged men buying fancy cars to compensate for perceived inadequacy.
Therein lies the rub, style is not such a rational quantitative and empirical metric; it's "emotional". The brand has become less stylish because the man who owns it is becoming very unpopular.
Imagine if Trump sold cars.
And you continue your toxic language in virtually every musk related thread.
Rolling coal is the practice of modifying a diesel engine to emit large amounts of black or grey sooty exhaust fumes—diesel fuel that has not undergone complete combustion. It is a predominantly North American phenomenon (more specifically in the United States and Canada), despite being illegal.