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Given all of Tesla's shady business practices, this doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Tesla has really made huge progress in modernizing cars (making them

Given all of Tesla's shady business practices, this doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Tesla has really made huge progress in modernizing cars (making them electric and not terrible, getting rid of middlemen, continuous/rolling product updates, infotainment that is not slow/terrible, etc) I just really wish they would have focused on the positive parts of the future and left the negatives behind (remote lockout of features, vendor lockin for service, and generally trying to screw your customers at every possible turn...)

notRobot 6y ago
A list of many such claims made by Elon Musk can be found here: https://elonmusk.today/ https://elonmusk.today/ Ctrl+F for "tesla".
- camjohnson26 6y ago
  Elon Musk is unethical and it’s amazing how he has gotten away with so much simply by associating himself with positive trends. People see him and they think about clean energy and space colonization, but they ignore his casual disregard for human life evidenced by misrepresenting autopilot’s current and future capabilities, leading to at least 5 deaths at this point. He has also promised to cure autism via Neuralink, a baseless claim. He claimed that a monkey has controlled a computer at Neuralink, almost certainly untrue. He has destroyed his skeptics through questionable tactics, Fossi, Martin Tripp, skabooshka, Vernon Unsworth. The man is a disgrace, but his fans defend him as if he was the Messiah. How people can rail against Trump while supporting Elon Musk is mind boggling.
  - cameronbrown 6y ago
    Most founders keep to themselves because they don't want to overpromise. Musk does the total opposite, by tweeting all the random thoughts in his brain and I suspect it mirrors his thinking and the thinking of other founders (Zuck, Page, etc..) closely. The latter are just much quieter. Anyone would look stupid with their unfiltered thoughts broadcast to millions, but it's one of the things that people like about the dude.
    - camjohnson26 6y ago
      People say the same thing about Trump. I say when you’re a billionaire and have millions of followers it’s important that you self-filter and choose your words carefully. Quite literally people may die if you don’t.
      - radu_floricica 6y ago
        > Quite literally people may die if you don’t. I never liked this argument. Partly because if you take it to its logical conclusion, any sufficiently successful individual would be paralized - which is an obviously wrong conclusion. The more successful you are, the freer you should be. The solution is to also look at gains, not just losses. Billionaires can kill people with a tweet, but they can also inspire and, yes, save lives with a tweet.
        camjohnson26 6y ago
        If you agree the words are powerful I would hope you agree they should be used carefully.
        CarbyAu 6y ago
        ?!? Your last sentence seems to demonstrate exactly why they should self-filter and choose their words carefully. You can be incredibly successful and not be famous. That's fine. But if your success includes fame then... I like my social leaders to be nice to their own social group and not kill them very much.
        D-Coder 6y ago
        > The solution is to also look at gains, not just losses. Billionaires can kill people with a tweet, but they can also inspire and, yes, save lives with a tweet. If I save six lives, I can then kill six people?
      - DaniloDias 6y ago
        I say that there are a lot of countries on the planet where you don’t have the option to speak your mind honestly. I’d rather live in the one that is rewarding Elon.
  - imglorp 6y ago
    Lets examine autopilot's 5 deaths compared to human drivers? There are roughly 3 billion autopilot miles driven [1] and we'll take your 5 deaths as a given [0]. That's 1.7 deaths per billion miles. Overall US deaths is around 15 per billion miles driven (in 2000, before Tesla) [2] ... around 8x worse than autopilot. Is autopilot saving lives? Expecting zero mishaps is not reasonable because all software has bugs and bugs can be reduced with effort while compute power improves with time. Humans on the other hand will not likely improve. 0. citation needed? 1. https://electrek.co/2020/04/22/tesla-autopilot-data-3-billion-miles/ https://electrek.co/2020/04/22/tesla-autopilot-data-3-billio... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...
    - llukas 6y ago
      Your reasoning is broken. Human miles include all conditions/situations. Autopilot disengages whenever it is convenient and human handles all harder situations. How about comparing same type of miles?
      - jcims 6y ago
        Most crashes aren't in difficult situations. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812115 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...
        close04 6y ago
        Current self driving stats in general are meaningless because all that driving is done under constant human supervision. But if the car drives itself for 20Km and then needs intervention to avoid a fatal crash it will still count as another 20Km of self driving with no incidents. The human saves don't make it into the publicized stats. There are 2 stats that could prove meaningful for this: some average of distance driven between human interventions, and percentage of driving conditions covered. Then compare this to human stats, I'd assume the average human driver might go 10000Km without incident while covering 90% of driving conditions (like everything except extreme weather or road conditions). A self driving car would have to match that. In other words AP only has 5 deaths because those were the only drivers who left it unsupervised. I'd guess that if every car in the world today would suddenly be driven by a computer we'd see worse numbers than with human drivers one way or another (efficiency, deaths, etc.). Self driving today is great as an assist, with the human still fully in control.
beambot 6y ago
You call it vendor lock-in, I call it avoiding dealships, eliminating shady warrantee programs, and eliminating the hassle of finding reputable 3rd party servicers
- tempsy 6y ago
  if you don’t live close to a Tesla service center it’s a massive hassle...and even then the backlog can be quite large and take much longer to service
  - jasonv 6y ago
    why would you own a tesla if you didn't leave near a tesla service center? anticipating the reasonable response to this question -- i'm guessing if you own a tesla and you don't live near a service center you know what you're getting yourself into. reno only recently got theirs, for instance, and they're just a few miles down the road from the gigafactory. but reno was full of tesla's even before the service center opened. EDIT, cause downvoting: my point is, i wouldn't lease a toyota, with its free/included oil changes, if i didn't live near enough to the toyota dealership to show up every 10K miles easily. i may, however, buy an older used toyota if i was happy enough going to jiffy lube (or similar). applying same criteria to tesla and proximity to their repair locations.
    - kortilla 6y ago
      Well because you want a Tesla and you assume it will be as reliable as other modern cars. I own a Mazda and the nearest Mazda dealer is about 170 miles away. I’ve only had to go there once for airbag recall (I change my own oil).
      - CydeWeys 6y ago
        And even if you didn't change your own oil, you wouldn't need to drive 170 miles to have someone do it for you.
justapassenger 6y ago
Tesla lost its way years ago with their wallstreet obsession. Their main product is stock.
bmitc 6y ago
They also have a history of reverting back to poor worker treatment. I forgot the statistics, but the accident rate for their workers is quite high. I recently read an article about the lead safety engineer being told that Elon Musk doesn't like the color yellow, so that's why they couldn't paint yellow safety lines on the ground. Just think about that.
- KKKKkkkk1 6y ago
  When a worker complained of being called the N-word at the Fremont factory, Elon sent out an email saying that people need to grow a thicker skin [0]. IMHO this is a stain on his reputation that he cannot erase even if he wanted to. [0] https://www.npr.org/2018/01/12/577565279/tesla-faces-complaints-over-harassment-and-racial-tensions https://www.npr.org/2018/01/12/577565279/tesla-faces-complai...
- shiftpgdn 6y ago
  Tesla injury rate is now lower than any other US auto manufacturer per their recent 2020 report.
  - bmitc 6y ago
    Are you going from their own blog post? I would be suspicious of any claims by Tesla. Also, it has been reported that they underreport injuries. Musk continually pulls the same tactics that Trump does, except that Musk is applauded for it. The methods are the same: lie, confuse, insult, make grand claims. https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-factory-injuries-incomplete-records-osha-california-2020-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-factory-injuries-incom... https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/03/07/tesl-m07.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/03/07/tesl-m07.html
    - shiftpgdn 6y ago
      Wouldn't it make sense that all manufacturers are doing the same thing then? Therefore it just becomes a case of who can juice their numbers best?
b-team 6y ago
Which shady business practices, specifically?

notRobot 6y ago

A list of many such claims made by Elon Musk can be found here: https://elonmusk.today/ https://elonmusk.today/ Ctrl+F for "tesla".

camjohnson26 6y ago
Elon Musk is unethical and it’s amazing how he has gotten away with so much simply by associating himself with positive trends. People see him and they think about clean energy and space colonization, but they ignore his casual disregard for human life evidenced by misrepresenting autopilot’s current and future capabilities, leading to at least 5 deaths at this point. He has also promised to cure autism via Neuralink, a baseless claim. He claimed that a monkey has controlled a computer at Neuralink, almost certainly untrue. He has destroyed his skeptics through questionable tactics, Fossi, Martin Tripp, skabooshka, Vernon Unsworth. The man is a disgrace, but his fans defend him as if he was the Messiah. How people can rail against Trump while supporting Elon Musk is mind boggling.
- cameronbrown 6y ago
  Most founders keep to themselves because they don't want to overpromise. Musk does the total opposite, by tweeting all the random thoughts in his brain and I suspect it mirrors his thinking and the thinking of other founders (Zuck, Page, etc..) closely. The latter are just much quieter. Anyone would look stupid with their unfiltered thoughts broadcast to millions, but it's one of the things that people like about the dude.
  - camjohnson26 6y ago
    People say the same thing about Trump. I say when you’re a billionaire and have millions of followers it’s important that you self-filter and choose your words carefully. Quite literally people may die if you don’t.
    - radu_floricica 6y ago
      > Quite literally people may die if you don’t. I never liked this argument. Partly because if you take it to its logical conclusion, any sufficiently successful individual would be paralized - which is an obviously wrong conclusion. The more successful you are, the freer you should be. The solution is to also look at gains, not just losses. Billionaires can kill people with a tweet, but they can also inspire and, yes, save lives with a tweet.
      - camjohnson26 6y ago
        If you agree the words are powerful I would hope you agree they should be used carefully.
      - CarbyAu 6y ago
        ?!? Your last sentence seems to demonstrate exactly why they should self-filter and choose their words carefully. You can be incredibly successful and not be famous. That's fine. But if your success includes fame then... I like my social leaders to be nice to their own social group and not kill them very much.
      - D-Coder 6y ago
        > The solution is to also look at gains, not just losses. Billionaires can kill people with a tweet, but they can also inspire and, yes, save lives with a tweet. If I save six lives, I can then kill six people?
    - DaniloDias 6y ago
      I say that there are a lot of countries on the planet where you don’t have the option to speak your mind honestly. I’d rather live in the one that is rewarding Elon.
- imglorp 6y ago
  Lets examine autopilot's 5 deaths compared to human drivers? There are roughly 3 billion autopilot miles driven [1] and we'll take your 5 deaths as a given [0]. That's 1.7 deaths per billion miles. Overall US deaths is around 15 per billion miles driven (in 2000, before Tesla) [2] ... around 8x worse than autopilot. Is autopilot saving lives? Expecting zero mishaps is not reasonable because all software has bugs and bugs can be reduced with effort while compute power improves with time. Humans on the other hand will not likely improve. 0. citation needed? 1. https://electrek.co/2020/04/22/tesla-autopilot-data-3-billion-miles/ https://electrek.co/2020/04/22/tesla-autopilot-data-3-billio... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...
  - llukas 6y ago
    Your reasoning is broken. Human miles include all conditions/situations. Autopilot disengages whenever it is convenient and human handles all harder situations. How about comparing same type of miles?
    - jcims 6y ago
      Most crashes aren't in difficult situations. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812115 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...
      - close04 6y ago
        Current self driving stats in general are meaningless because all that driving is done under constant human supervision. But if the car drives itself for 20Km and then needs intervention to avoid a fatal crash it will still count as another 20Km of self driving with no incidents. The human saves don't make it into the publicized stats. There are 2 stats that could prove meaningful for this: some average of distance driven between human interventions, and percentage of driving conditions covered. Then compare this to human stats, I'd assume the average human driver might go 10000Km without incident while covering 90% of driving conditions (like everything except extreme weather or road conditions). A self driving car would have to match that. In other words AP only has 5 deaths because those were the only drivers who left it unsupervised. I'd guess that if every car in the world today would suddenly be driven by a computer we'd see worse numbers than with human drivers one way or another (efficiency, deaths, etc.). Self driving today is great as an assist, with the human still fully in control.

beambot 6y ago

You call it vendor lock-in, I call it avoiding dealships, eliminating shady warrantee programs, and eliminating the hassle of finding reputable 3rd party servicers

tempsy 6y ago
if you don’t live close to a Tesla service center it’s a massive hassle...and even then the backlog can be quite large and take much longer to service
- jasonv 6y ago
  why would you own a tesla if you didn't leave near a tesla service center? anticipating the reasonable response to this question -- i'm guessing if you own a tesla and you don't live near a service center you know what you're getting yourself into. reno only recently got theirs, for instance, and they're just a few miles down the road from the gigafactory. but reno was full of tesla's even before the service center opened. EDIT, cause downvoting: my point is, i wouldn't lease a toyota, with its free/included oil changes, if i didn't live near enough to the toyota dealership to show up every 10K miles easily. i may, however, buy an older used toyota if i was happy enough going to jiffy lube (or similar). applying same criteria to tesla and proximity to their repair locations.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    Well because you want a Tesla and you assume it will be as reliable as other modern cars. I own a Mazda and the nearest Mazda dealer is about 170 miles away. I’ve only had to go there once for airbag recall (I change my own oil).
    - CydeWeys 6y ago
      And even if you didn't change your own oil, you wouldn't need to drive 170 miles to have someone do it for you.

justapassenger 6y ago

Tesla lost its way years ago with their wallstreet obsession. Their main product is stock.

bmitc 6y ago

They also have a history of reverting back to poor worker treatment. I forgot the statistics, but the accident rate for their workers is quite high. I recently read an article about the lead safety engineer being told that Elon Musk doesn't like the color yellow, so that's why they couldn't paint yellow safety lines on the ground. Just think about that.

KKKKkkkk1 6y ago
When a worker complained of being called the N-word at the Fremont factory, Elon sent out an email saying that people need to grow a thicker skin [0]. IMHO this is a stain on his reputation that he cannot erase even if he wanted to. [0] https://www.npr.org/2018/01/12/577565279/tesla-faces-complaints-over-harassment-and-racial-tensions https://www.npr.org/2018/01/12/577565279/tesla-faces-complai...
shiftpgdn 6y ago
Tesla injury rate is now lower than any other US auto manufacturer per their recent 2020 report.
- bmitc 6y ago
  Are you going from their own blog post? I would be suspicious of any claims by Tesla. Also, it has been reported that they underreport injuries. Musk continually pulls the same tactics that Trump does, except that Musk is applauded for it. The methods are the same: lie, confuse, insult, make grand claims. https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-factory-injuries-incomplete-records-osha-california-2020-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-factory-injuries-incom... https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/03/07/tesl-m07.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/03/07/tesl-m07.html
  - shiftpgdn 6y ago
    Wouldn't it make sense that all manufacturers are doing the same thing then? Therefore it just becomes a case of who can juice their numbers best?

b-team 6y ago

Which shady business practices, specifically?