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Comment by whynotmaybe | Hacker News Reader

Outside of the personal opinions of Musk, what is the most annoying for me is the constant false promises.

They sell cars based on promises that a missing function will work in a few months/years and that your car will be compatible.

With the years of feedback we have now, we know that those were not promises but lies.

Other brands sell as-is cars, without empty promises. (outside the stupid "perfect outback trip" in every SUV/pickup ad)

I now see Musk as a con man, a very smart con man with a lot of money, not a visionary.

Yes there is dieselgate and yes, every car manufacturer tries to circumvent the system to improve profit. (Every includes also Tesla)

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Thanks for the thoughtful response. You know what, I do feel a bit conned by this vision only implementation. It wasn't obvious when we test drove it, and they didn't mention it. When we picked the car up, on the shop floor, before it had even moved we saw the "Park Assist Degraded" warning and questioned it. They assured us it just needed time to calibrate. It has never gone away. It will never go away.

As a consumer, I'm pissed off. I do feel conned.

But I'm fine explaining Musk's promises away as hubris. He made promises he should not have, and couldn't keep. He shouldn't have done it, but I do think he believed it. I don't think it was an intent to mislead. Incompetence before malice and so on.

He deserves credit where credit is due. He did push us into the EV era.

> He deserves credit where credit is due. He did push us into the EV era.

Nissan should get some credit, too. Tesla started production on the Roadster in 2008, which beat Nissan's Leaf which started in 2010, but the Leaf sold much better.

Tesla only made about 2500 before it was discontinued and the Model S was release.

Nissan sold 20 000 Leafs in its first year. It was the first mass produced EV.

It took until early 2020 for Tesla cumulative sales to pass Leaf cumulative sales.

>He did push us into the EV era.

Yes, definitely and a lot of people (me included) where eyeing Tesla cars until the cybertruck/politics debacle.

>Incompetence before malice and so on.

At first, maybe, the Tesla 3 was announced for 30k$ and had a starting price of 35K$, acceptable. But the cybertruck announced at 40K$ sold at 60K$, less so.

>As a consumer, I'm pissed off. I do feel conned.

I can easily imagine that, I'm not a costumer and I feel conned.

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