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I love electric vehicles, however Electrek is a very pro-Tesla "news" source. The owner is a massive fan and finds the most positive spin for Tesla on essential

I love electric vehicles, however Electrek is a very pro-Tesla "news" source. The owner is a massive fan and finds the most positive spin for Tesla on essentially every story. It's sort of sad that it's one of the main electric vehicle news sources on the web now, since it's basically Fred's I Love Tesla blog.

pooya13 8y ago
I actually read most of their stories and have not yet seen a story that has turned out to be false. Mean while almost every story / comment posted on Hacker News will receive up votes if it has a negative spin and down vote if it has a positive spin, no matter the content. Yes Elekrek is filled with Tesla fanboys but HN is also filled with Tesla haters. See my comment for example of down voted positive comments with no counter argument offered.
- prklmn 8y ago
  Just because something isn’t false doesn’t mean it’s not highly biased.
  - baq 8y ago
    Biased and true is better than biased and false. Unbiased doesn't exist so I'm ignoring it.
    - Someone1234 8y ago
      "Perfect doesn't exist so I'm going to ignore better."
      - eganist 8y ago
        > Unbiased doesn't exist so I'm ignoring it. and > Perfect doesn't exist so I'm going to ignore better. are not analogous. Now if the line were instead something like > Unbiased doesn't exist so I'm ignoring less-biased (or efforts to reduce bias). then you'd be onto something, but as it stands, what you've got there is a false equivalence.
- pc86 8y ago
  I'm willing bet many people (like me!) only downvoted you because you're complaining about downvotes, in violation of the HN community guidelines.
  - pooya13 8y ago
    No I am explaining a phenomenon and that was the evidence I provided. Be my guest and downvote to your hearts content I could not care less.
- danso 8y ago
  You can do a search for "tesla" submissions ranked by popularity for all time: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=tesla&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=tesla&sort=byPopularity&prefix... You'll see that Tesla's press events have gotten plenty of extremely positive discussion/upvotes on HN. "All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware" has 1,493 upvotes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12748863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12748863
  - pooya13 8y ago
    I should clarify that I meant the current state of HN. (I thought that was obvious)
    - danso 8y ago
      No, it wasn't obvious. But it is obvious you didn't do the search I recommended. Or else you would've seen how recent the most popular Tesla posts are. The second most popular Tesla story was posted just 2 months ago.
tokipin 8y ago
Aside from making it easier to get clicks, I think that's just the enthusiasm and the fact that Tesla is the only game in town right now. From what I've seen, when Electrek criticizes other automakers it's because they're not doing enough for electrification. There are many different reasons why automakers themselves are not eager for EVs, but that's what Electrek is judging them on. It's no surprise that Tesla is the standout.
- semi-extrinsic 8y ago
  > Tesla is the only game in town right now Well, if you get your news from sources like Electrek, you'd think so. Yet here we are with both Jaguar and very soon Audi selling fully electric SUVs that are competitive with the Model X on both features and price. And in the second month after launch (March 2018), Nissan sold 11 400 units of the new (150 mile EPA range) Leaf; next year they have a 230 mile range model coming out. It may not be a Model 3 killer based on range, but they sold 300 000 of the old model, so it's no compliance car. Nissan also currently has a monopoly on fully electric MPVs (e-NV200). These may not all be sexy cars with ridiculous modes, but if they help save our planet, I'm all for it.
  - ZeroGravitas 8y ago
    Tesla is the only one that has "burned their boats" and fully aligned their corporate future with electrification. On that spectrum there's Tesla, a bunch of Chinese firms like BYD then a big gap before firms like Jaguar, Audi, Volkswagen all of whom are selling products that Tesla can rightly attack as being the past, not the future of transport. I think every bit helps, including efficiency, smaller cars, public transport, city cars and non plugin hybrids like Nissan's eNote range but Tesla is setting the pace to a large degree at the moment.
  - tokipin 8y ago
    I think what you'll see with a lot of competing EVs is the same thing that happened with GM's Bolt. Decent enough car. But that's about it. The problem is that it's not enough to just make an EV. Wait until lower-priced variants of the Model 3 are being produced to see how outclassed the Bolt is, and wait until Jaguar and Audi's SUVs are out to see how they really compare. Chances are it won't be favorable for Jaguar or Audi, but I'm open to being surprised. The first genuinely serious EV from another automaker in my opinion will be Porsche's Mission E, but take note of how well it can match the characteristics of a Model S, a family sedan, you can already buy today. Still, just the idea of an all-electric Porsche is badass. > These may not all be sexy cars with ridiculous modes, but if they help save our planet, I'm all for it. We're in agreement that any measure of EVing is good. Many of the challenges facing automakers are systemic, so they are in a tough spot even if they genuinely believe EVs are the future.

pooya13 8y ago

I actually read most of their stories and have not yet seen a story that has turned out to be false. Mean while almost every story / comment posted on Hacker News will receive up votes if it has a negative spin and down vote if it has a positive spin, no matter the content. Yes Elekrek is filled with Tesla fanboys but HN is also filled with Tesla haters. See my comment for example of down voted positive comments with no counter argument offered.

prklmn 8y ago
Just because something isn’t false doesn’t mean it’s not highly biased.
- baq 8y ago
  Biased and true is better than biased and false. Unbiased doesn't exist so I'm ignoring it.
  - Someone1234 8y ago
    "Perfect doesn't exist so I'm going to ignore better."
    - eganist 8y ago
      > Unbiased doesn't exist so I'm ignoring it. and > Perfect doesn't exist so I'm going to ignore better. are not analogous. Now if the line were instead something like > Unbiased doesn't exist so I'm ignoring less-biased (or efforts to reduce bias). then you'd be onto something, but as it stands, what you've got there is a false equivalence.
pc86 8y ago
I'm willing bet many people (like me!) only downvoted you because you're complaining about downvotes, in violation of the HN community guidelines.
- pooya13 8y ago
  No I am explaining a phenomenon and that was the evidence I provided. Be my guest and downvote to your hearts content I could not care less.
danso 8y ago
You can do a search for "tesla" submissions ranked by popularity for all time: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=tesla&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=tesla&sort=byPopularity&prefix... You'll see that Tesla's press events have gotten plenty of extremely positive discussion/upvotes on HN. "All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware" has 1,493 upvotes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12748863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12748863
- pooya13 8y ago
  I should clarify that I meant the current state of HN. (I thought that was obvious)
  - danso 8y ago
    No, it wasn't obvious. But it is obvious you didn't do the search I recommended. Or else you would've seen how recent the most popular Tesla posts are. The second most popular Tesla story was posted just 2 months ago.

tokipin 8y ago

Aside from making it easier to get clicks, I think that's just the enthusiasm and the fact that Tesla is the only game in town right now. From what I've seen, when Electrek criticizes other automakers it's because they're not doing enough for electrification. There are many different reasons why automakers themselves are not eager for EVs, but that's what Electrek is judging them on. It's no surprise that Tesla is the standout.

semi-extrinsic 8y ago
> Tesla is the only game in town right now Well, if you get your news from sources like Electrek, you'd think so. Yet here we are with both Jaguar and very soon Audi selling fully electric SUVs that are competitive with the Model X on both features and price. And in the second month after launch (March 2018), Nissan sold 11 400 units of the new (150 mile EPA range) Leaf; next year they have a 230 mile range model coming out. It may not be a Model 3 killer based on range, but they sold 300 000 of the old model, so it's no compliance car. Nissan also currently has a monopoly on fully electric MPVs (e-NV200). These may not all be sexy cars with ridiculous modes, but if they help save our planet, I'm all for it.
- ZeroGravitas 8y ago
  Tesla is the only one that has "burned their boats" and fully aligned their corporate future with electrification. On that spectrum there's Tesla, a bunch of Chinese firms like BYD then a big gap before firms like Jaguar, Audi, Volkswagen all of whom are selling products that Tesla can rightly attack as being the past, not the future of transport. I think every bit helps, including efficiency, smaller cars, public transport, city cars and non plugin hybrids like Nissan's eNote range but Tesla is setting the pace to a large degree at the moment.
- tokipin 8y ago
  I think what you'll see with a lot of competing EVs is the same thing that happened with GM's Bolt. Decent enough car. But that's about it. The problem is that it's not enough to just make an EV. Wait until lower-priced variants of the Model 3 are being produced to see how outclassed the Bolt is, and wait until Jaguar and Audi's SUVs are out to see how they really compare. Chances are it won't be favorable for Jaguar or Audi, but I'm open to being surprised. The first genuinely serious EV from another automaker in my opinion will be Porsche's Mission E, but take note of how well it can match the characteristics of a Model S, a family sedan, you can already buy today. Still, just the idea of an all-electric Porsche is badass. > These may not all be sexy cars with ridiculous modes, but if they help save our planet, I'm all for it. We're in agreement that any measure of EVing is good. Many of the challenges facing automakers are systemic, so they are in a tough spot even if they genuinely believe EVs are the future.