Tesla faces strong oposition from unions in Sweden | Hacker News Reader

Tesla faces strong oposition from unions in Sweden

wired.com

35 pointsniemandhier33 comments

Good, I wish the US had unions like this. Our wages have been ever whittled away at by inflation and lack of raises.

You are poorly informed: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/great-news-about-american-weal...

The wealth and income gaps between Europe and the United States are growing: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-11-09/europe..., which strongly argues against great unionization.

The primary claim in your link is property prices have gone up, increasing the 'wealth' of the average family, which is not directly linked to wages.

US companies coming to Europe and immediately picking a fight with the local unions is basically a meme at this point. I wonder if Tesla will repeat every single mistake that Walmart made when they tried to come to Germany.

It's a good thing europe is a single market and the swedes can go next door if they want to buy one.

So what are they going to do if Tesla stops imports there, and promises to remotely auto-disable any Tesla imported in a black market manner? Resign themselves to only driving Chinese and shitty European electric cars? A rather stupid attempt to move against a power much stronger than yourself.

Why would that be an issue? The rights of workers trump the public's appetite for a particular brand of car. Furthermore, consumers have many rights in the EU as well, I would expect such behavior to be unfeasible.

Tesla has a market lead but not technological supremacy and it is arrogant to assume they'll maintain it in perpetuity. They're squandering it now in real-time with the cybertruck.

The only 'right' the workers should have to get a different job if they don't like the terms of their current one.

So if you're not happy with your underpaid and probably dangerous job you can get another one just like it?

Wild to see such unironic bootlicking. What, you want to advocate for slavery next?

I have a feeling a lot of people are okay with slavery. They are going to try to weasel themselves out of this question, denying it, though.

That is basically what the whole gig economy is all about, surviving from check to check, without any kind of state support, and forced to become homeless when not able to pay debt.

Hey, kids! Can you say "precariat" ?

That's it. I knew you could.

It is bizarre that you don't think safe workplaces are a right. The life situation that leads to this view is equally fascinating and concerning.

Thankfully we are socialists over here.

That’s kind of weird because it incentivizes collusion among employers for worsening workplaces. For example if sexual harassment was ubiquitous there’s nowhere for victims to go.

Thanks Ben Shapiro

Well, they are not invincible but only possible alternative are Chinese cars. That are a no-no in EU because of they are allowed, entire EU auto industry immediately goes bust with much much bigger labor and economic consequences.

What? They're already here. I don't see too many around yet but they're definitely on sale.

https://apnews.com/article/electric-vehicles-china-subsidies...

... I think you may be a little confused (or maybe assuming that the European market is like the US one, where Tesla really is very dominant).

Last month, the best-selling electric car in Sweden appears to have been a BYD (Chinese) one. Year to date, the single best-selling electric car was a Tesla Y, but VW Group was the biggest manufacturer overall, with BMW and Hyundai (Korean) also sizeable.

There are a lot of european car makers selling EVs nowadays. The fact you don't know about them is just ignorance.

Plus I see a lot of Kia and Hyundai EVs on the road, much more than Teslas that people seem to be happy with.

>Well, they are not invincible but only possible alternative are Chinese cars

Um, no? You seem very opinionaded for someone with seemingly little insight.

What are you talking about? Only possible alternative is Chinese? Sure, Teslas are cheap and more similar to cheap Chinese brands like Polestar, but there is a ton of options.

Jaguars, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, VW and a bunch of others are popular and european.

Sue them and seize their assets in Europe? Sweden is not a disconnected market. The sympathy strikes will spread to the other Nordic countries, the Nordic transport federation of unions have proclaimed their support now.

maybe vw is not tesla level, but their cars are good enough, imo not that big problem and let's be honest, if Tesla'd do this, big chances all European market will be affected

I'm not sure I understand your last sentence. Do you think that Tesla is a stronger power than the country of Sweden?

There's more locations you can refuel a Saab Gripen than a Tesla.

A power much stronger than a country? So what are they supposed to do, bend down to their "masters"? And shitty European electric cars? At least they don't forget the bolt which holds the steering wheel in place.

Tell me you are a Tesla fanboy without telling me you are a Tesla fanboy.

> and promises to remotely auto-disable any Tesla imported in a black market manner

This would likely get them banned within the Common Market, so, yeah, not gonna happen.

> Resign themselves to only driving Chinese and shitty European electric cars?

VW group electric cars, alone, outsell Teslas in Sweden, as far as I can see, so people are already choosing to do that.

> A rather stupid attempt to move against a power much stronger than yourself.

It's a consumer products company, not an evil empire. If it vanished tomorrow, well, there's an aspect of "meh, so what".

Tesla could just negotiate instead of being antagonistic.

Companies must learn they aren't above goverments.

Force Tesla to reimburse all customers, which Tesla can either do or start having their stuff seized. That includes their factory in Germany.

> shitty European electric cars

Incidentally the biggest organization for mandatory vehicle safety inspections in Germany, TÜV, released their annual statistics report yesterday:

Tesla 3 was covered the first time after having reached enough inspection volume to be statistically significant (1st inspection is after 3 years). It entered the list at the last rank with a failure rate of 14.7%. Long-term loser Dacia Logan moved up to next to last with 11.4%.

I did not buy the report, so I am not sure whether any European electric car is already included, but that much about Tesla quality.

Sources (in German):

* Press release / advertisement: https://www.tuvsud.com/de-de/publikationen/tuev-report

* News coverage: https://www.spiegel.de/auto/tuev-report-tesla-model-3-ist-da...

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