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All this stuff about Elon Musk. Well, I hope you aren't gonna decide to buy a Ford (Henry Ford, who found time to distribute the world's largest antisemitic ne

All this stuff about Elon Musk. Well, I hope you aren't gonna decide to buy a Ford (Henry Ford, who found time to distribute the world's largest antisemitic newspaper between his auto magnate duties), or Volkwagen (pet project of Adolph Hitler, later leader in emissions testing fraud) or any of those other nice companies that have lent their support and wealth to racism or joined that emissions fraud thing. And as to social responsibility, if we're talking about buying a different car, let's not talk about this in a vacuum. I mean we're talking about companites who became wealthy by building all those cars that were "unsafe at any speed" while fighting safety regs, or that have been moving factories to low wage low worker protection locations while fighting labor laws, or have happily produced Humvees and their ilk while fighting environmental laws, all in cahoots with our oil industry as it spreads disinformation about climate change and political gifts to those who listen. As to subsidies from the government for car companies rather than people in need, well, if that bothers you, best not look into any recent factory location decision of a big manufacturing company pretty much anywhere in the world. So if you're taking the approach suggested in this article, you might want to consider it in context, at least before you feel better about buying on of those cars from one of those companies that hasn't gotten quite as much publicity recently about its leadership or way of doing business. Or you can buy an inexpensive used car made by Volkswagen and feel good about that.

pwinnski 6y ago
One might believe there is a difference between Ford, whose founder was icky but long dead, and Tesla, whose founder still currently benefitting from every sale of a product. Volkswagen can be faulted for the testing fraud, IMO, but not its German origin, since again, those people are long dead and therefore not benefitting from sales today.
- Booktrope 6y ago
  True, these founders are dead. But Ford's family still owns a huge share of the company and has never renounced the patriarch. It's not just testing fraud with Volkwagen, that's just a symptom. Check out, for example, recent reports of their use of forced Uighur labor, for example. These were only stark examples, but you're not really saying, management of any major auto company has a good role on climate change (well, except Musk) or profiteering from government subsidies, or labor relations (in the USA consider the move to low-wage anti-union jurisdictions by all of them). I'm not a fan of Musk's social or political views, much less his huckstering. But no way differentiate Musk from leadership of other auto companies on any vector other than the level of attention to Musk's flaws, other than, perhaps he's invited media attention by being so public about it.

pwinnski 6y ago

One might believe there is a difference between Ford, whose founder was icky but long dead, and Tesla, whose founder still currently benefitting from every sale of a product. Volkswagen can be faulted for the testing fraud, IMO, but not its German origin, since again, those people are long dead and therefore not benefitting from sales today.

Booktrope 6y ago
True, these founders are dead. But Ford's family still owns a huge share of the company and has never renounced the patriarch. It's not just testing fraud with Volkwagen, that's just a symptom. Check out, for example, recent reports of their use of forced Uighur labor, for example. These were only stark examples, but you're not really saying, management of any major auto company has a good role on climate change (well, except Musk) or profiteering from government subsidies, or labor relations (in the USA consider the move to low-wage anti-union jurisdictions by all of them). I'm not a fan of Musk's social or political views, much less his huckstering. But no way differentiate Musk from leadership of other auto companies on any vector other than the level of attention to Musk's flaws, other than, perhaps he's invited media attention by being so public about it.