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Maybe petty and I know it will hurt Musk as much as slingshot against Godzilla. But we’re looking at an EV purchase next year and my wife and I have ruled out

Maybe petty and I know it will hurt Musk as much as slingshot against Godzilla. But we’re looking at an EV purchase next year and my wife and I have ruled out Teslas. We also want to liquidate our Tesla stock position as soon as possible. Perhaps we should have done so when Elon himself did at its peak early this year, but that’s bridge under the water. Really want nothing to do with this guy anymore.

concordDance 4y ago
I'd wait to change opinions based on recent stories, those tend to be heavily distorted. Instead look up events that happened months ago and judge based on those (eg calling Thai diver a pedo). Might give you the same result in this case, but it's a good rule to follow.
- mc32 4y ago
  It wasn’t a Thai diver it was a Briton.
  - dekhn 4y ago
    and he wasn't just a diver- he was the recognized expert on the cave, having mapped it. He was also in close communication with the people organizing the rescue and was one of the few people who could say to Musk: "Thanks, but you're not helping"
    - concordDance 4y ago
      I wonder why Richard Stanton, leader of the international rescue diving team, urged Musk to facilitate the construction of the vehicle as a back-up, in case flooding worsened. (Quoting from wiki here)
      - dekhn 4y ago
        Because in an emergency, you sometimes don't have time, so you solicit options from many people, have them all work on their solutions in parallel, then choose the best one? If you go back and look at Musk's tweets, it's pretty clear he didn't know what he was talking about it in terms of what would work.
      - moistly 4y ago
        Because it got Elon off his back.
- decafninja 4y ago
  Oh I agree. The Twitter fiasco is just the final nail in the coffin after cringing at his antics and generally being disgusted with him for some time now.
anothernewdude 4y ago
I like the Nissan Leaf and the Kia EV6, I do think Tesla make some questionable decisions for some real world needs where actual car makers know better.
- TexanFeller 4y ago
  Nissan(in recent years after quietly selling the company) and Kia are crap tier auto makers, nothing like Toyota and Honda. As someone who has two Nissans right now, both of them with CVTs prone to break in under 100k miles, it pains me to hear them called actual auto makers that know better.
  - commoner 4y ago
    Consumer Reports recommends the 2023 Kia EV6 with an overall score of 91, a road test score of 90, a predicted reliability rating of Excellent (5/5), and a predicted consumer satisfaction rating of Excellent (5/5).[1] The top-rated 2023 Tesla vehicle is the Model 3, which has an overall score of 78, a road test score of 82, a predicted reliability rating of Average (3/5), and a predicted owner satisfaction rating of Very Good (4/5).[2] The 2023 Tesla Models Y, S, and X have overall scores of 73, 62, and 52, respectively. [1] https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/kia/ev6/2023/overview https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/kia/ev6/2023/overview [2] https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/tesla/model-3/2023/overview https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/tesla/model-3/2023/over...
    - TexanFeller 4y ago
      Consumer reports and similar really doesn't and can't give you a good sense of long term reliability. Nissan and Kia have longstanding reputations for cheaping out on things that matter to reliability that no "predicted reliability score" should ever be able to counter. The word predicted is them admitting they have no idea yet.
      - commoner 4y ago
        Then we can look at the reliability of this year's models. The 2022 Kia EV6 has a reliability rating of Excellent (5/5). The 2022 Tesla Models 3, S, X, and Y have reliability ratings of Very Good (4/5), Good (3/5), N/A (not enough data), and Good (3/5), respectively. Consumer Reports does tend to rate Toyota vehicles higher than models from most other makes in general, but the Kia EV6 in particular has been evaluated to be an excellent vehicle.
wittycardio 4y ago
Elon's great strength is his personality cult. I think that being shattered in the eyes of normal people is a great thing.
- fhd2 4y ago
  My first instinct was: Is it being shattered in the eyes of normal people though? But I think you may be right. 200 MM users is not enough to truly matter I suppose, but who _really_ cares about Twitter? Journalists. They're spreading this stuff that's going on in a bubble they're in way beyond it.
  - wittycardio 4y ago
    Well I think the association with very online right wing trolls is affecting his perception amongst normal people. But cannot say for sure
  - krapp 4y ago
    A lot of people really care about Twitter. It's the nexus of communication for a lot of marginalized groups. Game development, art and a lot of other independent, entrepreneurial and hobbyist communities network through Twitter. A lot of interesting feeds show content there that isn't centralized anywhere else on the web. I get being cynical about social media but let's actually maybe care about the baby getting thrown out with the bathwater. Twitter is more than just journalists and political shitposting.
    - TexanFeller 4y ago
      < It's the nexus of communication for a lot of marginalized groups. Huh, my impression is that it was used mostly by the ultra privileged elites. Celebrities, wannabe celebrities, politicians, authors, "journalists", marketing executives, and such. I've never met a regular person that touches Twitter.
      - bildung 4y ago
        Twitter had a bunch of people employed to sell Twitter to exactly these cohorts, including the journalists (or their publications)
fhd2 4y ago
I do the same. Hate to be that guy, but I had a strong dislike for him when he first got hyped up years ago, this is just reaffirming an old decision. Does my boycott matter in any way? Yes, to me. That's sufficient.
- someguy212 4y ago
  I am in the same boat as you. I would hate to know that I spent thousands to help enshrine this petty guy's fortune and lower the bar for tech worker treatment.
etiennemarcel 4y ago
I think Musk's mistake was to openly embrace conservative opinions and fringe conspiracy theories (his since deleted tweet about Paul Pelosi for instance). I already know of people in more liberal circles that would never buy one of his cars, just like they don't buy "my pillows" or go to Hobby Lobby. It's a big target demographic for EVs and doesn't bode too well for Tesla in the current political climate.
- akolbe 4y ago
  That's a good point. Teslas might be significantly less "cool" this time next year. Might bring some solace to competitors who badly underestimated Tesla four or five years ago.
- hn2017 4y ago
  He's become a right winger who spreads extreme conspiracy theories. So sad
ea550ff70a 4y ago
I recently liquidated all my Tesla positions. I also plan to sell my Tesla next year. Was originally planning on a new Tesla but I have ruled them out completely too. The company has gone from being my favorite to the one I dislike the most in the span of a year.
- q1w2 4y ago
  Teslas being charged nightly on a power grid that's still largely powered by gas/coal is really just a status symbol. ...and with the limited range and limited lifespan, it was never a good financial investment either.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - matthewdgreen 4y ago
    No, this isn’t really true. Even on a coal grid EVs are much more efficient than ICE cars. Tesla also kicked the major manufacturers into gear (finally) so in most ways it was a good investment. I think Musk is a fool and I’m disappointed in what he’s done to Twitter, but I won’t take that away from him. This does not, however, mean Tesla is essential or properly-valued going forward. The actual question is: why was he able to walk into that area and do so much better than experienced traditional automakers. I’m starting to think that the answer is not Musk’s personal competence.
    - sethd 4y ago
      > why was he able to walk into that area and do so much better than experienced traditional automakers. $8 billion in government subsidies? That critical DOE loan, for example, wasn’t even available to anyone else.
      - ajross 4y ago
        This kind of argument is always a cesspool, but this argument is just outrageously spun, and frankly you should be deeply ashamed to have made it. You're taking a technically true fact about one loan and using it to imply that other competing manufacturers didn't receive comparable government assistance in the same time period, which is beyond laughably wrong. I mean, come on, GM was literally insolvent in 2009 and exists today only because of a government bailout!
keepselling777 4y ago
I was a consultant at Twitter. The engineers there love complexity. They created layers and layers just to justify their positions so they can have fuel to burn to climb up the ladder. Most of the stuff they built is unnecessary and that effort could have been spent elsewhere. The managers enabled this because they needed the efforts to climb up as well. There was an in-group bias there that kept opposing voices away which creates deep valleys of blindness that crack the company eventually. Which is what happened, Twitter was dead weight for a long time. Glad Elon is there to shake things up. Jack was not effective anymore. Actually the culture he enabled is what brought Twitter to the point it was. This happens everywhere so nothing new here. Especially when tech investment has been free for such a long time. Maybe even this economic downturn wont disrupt the tech investment machine. We will see next year. If Twitter goes public again. I will be the first to buy shares. Since it will actually be a good play going forward.
- dangue_fever 4y ago
  - danaris 4y ago
    "Some people at Twitter were dead weight" does not logically lead to "therefore all Musk's firings at Twitter are A Good Thing, Actually." Anyone going into nearly any company and firing 3/4 of the staff is practically guaranteed to result in some nontrivial number of people being fired who were not pulling their weight. People aren't hating on Musk specifically for firing people. We're hating on him for firing people indiscriminately, treating the remainder like shit (demanding people work long hours constantly is unjustifiable, no matter what you think of the personalities of those workers), and making himself the center and focus of Twitter.
    - _djo_ 4y ago
      Also interesting that both of those comments were from brand-new users.
- salad-fan 4y ago
orsenthil 4y ago
I took that stance with my Tesla stocks when he ridiculed the person who saved boys from Thailand Cave. He put technology ahead of humans, something that I am not comfortable with. My view has changed back and forth, his values being incompatible with mine, and his risk taking abilities which are sometimes good.
- concordDance 4y ago
  The cave is a bad example of putting technology ahead of humans. He actually tried to do something that would help some humans (the head diver of the rescue operation told him it was worth working on) in that case. You could say he put his ego above harm to someone's reputation, but I don't think you could sat he put technology above people there.
  - orsenthil 4y ago
    He was interested in building a submarine than saving the boys - as I recollect forming the opinion. What else is good example of putting technology ahead of humans? I am sure there should be a few.
  - snoopy_telex 4y ago
    The head diver that he called a pedo wanted the sub? Why the conflict then?
    - concordDance 4y ago
      Wasn't the head diver he called a pedo, was one of the organisers.
      - snoopy_telex 4y ago
        Who do you consider the head diver then? I figured the guy that lead the mapping of the caves and the rescues the head diver personally, but I'm open to understand other people's opinions.
nunez 4y ago
Same! I was planning on buying a new Tesla next year before Elon literally turned into Scrooge McDuck
- jaybrendansmith 4y ago
  Exactly! I might have expected him to be an anti-humanist because he made such a point of loving humanity. Perhaps he does but he dislikes people intently based on his actions. I think all of these things are true simultaneously: - There were many engineers at Twitter building overly complex things. Twitter was overdue for a classic re-org. - There are many individuals on the Twitter platform that were enabling the cancel culture and impacting free speech. - There are many trolls on the platform, enabled by many bots, impacting narratives and in some cases influencing politics. - Elon's narrative of Twitter's content moderation skewing liberal is false. Facts consistently have a liberal bias, despite a few notable exceptions. - Twitter content moderation was not wrong. In order to have a free society and free speech, we must be intolerant of intolerance (Karl Popper). - Elon seems personally oligopolistic, anti-democracy, and a throwback to the gilded age. He reminds me of Henry Ford, there is a clear lack of empathy here. - While I will watch SpaceX with great enthusiasm, I will not be buying a Tesla.
LightG 4y ago
Same. I made this decision 18 months ago when I was thinking about an EV. The good thing is there are decent alternatives now that, in many ways, are superior. I've delayed my decision anyway as I happen not to really need one right now and so I hope my delay results in better technology. Note: for those who cannot wait, Hyundai ioniq 5 is the one. I was so close to pulling the trigger on that beauty. Test drove it. Loved it. Excellent all around package with the added bonus that it looks far better than the model 3 (which looks horribly dated every time I see it now).
ajross 4y ago
I guess. Lord knows I'm not happy with what's happening at Twitter either. But... Tesla is a mature manufacturer with 100k employees now, and they all feel they're doing good work and making great products. And they're right, frankly. One of the things you'll discover if you start looking seriously at your EV purchase is that the other manufacturers just aren't measuring up, both in specifics (performance, range, seat count, cargo capacity, etc...) and in qualitative stuff (fart noises, navigation experience, watch it drive itself, frankly just supercharging alone would be a decisionmaker vs. the CCS network in North America).

concordDance 4y ago

I'd wait to change opinions based on recent stories, those tend to be heavily distorted. Instead look up events that happened months ago and judge based on those (eg calling Thai diver a pedo). Might give you the same result in this case, but it's a good rule to follow.

mc32 4y ago
It wasn’t a Thai diver it was a Briton.
- dekhn 4y ago
  and he wasn't just a diver- he was the recognized expert on the cave, having mapped it. He was also in close communication with the people organizing the rescue and was one of the few people who could say to Musk: "Thanks, but you're not helping"
  - concordDance 4y ago
    I wonder why Richard Stanton, leader of the international rescue diving team, urged Musk to facilitate the construction of the vehicle as a back-up, in case flooding worsened. (Quoting from wiki here)
    - dekhn 4y ago
      Because in an emergency, you sometimes don't have time, so you solicit options from many people, have them all work on their solutions in parallel, then choose the best one? If you go back and look at Musk's tweets, it's pretty clear he didn't know what he was talking about it in terms of what would work.
    - moistly 4y ago
      Because it got Elon off his back.
decafninja 4y ago
Oh I agree. The Twitter fiasco is just the final nail in the coffin after cringing at his antics and generally being disgusted with him for some time now.

anothernewdude 4y ago

I like the Nissan Leaf and the Kia EV6, I do think Tesla make some questionable decisions for some real world needs where actual car makers know better.

TexanFeller 4y ago
Nissan(in recent years after quietly selling the company) and Kia are crap tier auto makers, nothing like Toyota and Honda. As someone who has two Nissans right now, both of them with CVTs prone to break in under 100k miles, it pains me to hear them called actual auto makers that know better.
- commoner 4y ago
  Consumer Reports recommends the 2023 Kia EV6 with an overall score of 91, a road test score of 90, a predicted reliability rating of Excellent (5/5), and a predicted consumer satisfaction rating of Excellent (5/5).[1] The top-rated 2023 Tesla vehicle is the Model 3, which has an overall score of 78, a road test score of 82, a predicted reliability rating of Average (3/5), and a predicted owner satisfaction rating of Very Good (4/5).[2] The 2023 Tesla Models Y, S, and X have overall scores of 73, 62, and 52, respectively. [1] https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/kia/ev6/2023/overview https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/kia/ev6/2023/overview [2] https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/tesla/model-3/2023/overview https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/tesla/model-3/2023/over...
  - TexanFeller 4y ago
    Consumer reports and similar really doesn't and can't give you a good sense of long term reliability. Nissan and Kia have longstanding reputations for cheaping out on things that matter to reliability that no "predicted reliability score" should ever be able to counter. The word predicted is them admitting they have no idea yet.
    - commoner 4y ago
      Then we can look at the reliability of this year's models. The 2022 Kia EV6 has a reliability rating of Excellent (5/5). The 2022 Tesla Models 3, S, X, and Y have reliability ratings of Very Good (4/5), Good (3/5), N/A (not enough data), and Good (3/5), respectively. Consumer Reports does tend to rate Toyota vehicles higher than models from most other makes in general, but the Kia EV6 in particular has been evaluated to be an excellent vehicle.

wittycardio 4y ago

Elon's great strength is his personality cult. I think that being shattered in the eyes of normal people is a great thing.

fhd2 4y ago
My first instinct was: Is it being shattered in the eyes of normal people though? But I think you may be right. 200 MM users is not enough to truly matter I suppose, but who _really_ cares about Twitter? Journalists. They're spreading this stuff that's going on in a bubble they're in way beyond it.
- wittycardio 4y ago
  Well I think the association with very online right wing trolls is affecting his perception amongst normal people. But cannot say for sure
- krapp 4y ago
  A lot of people really care about Twitter. It's the nexus of communication for a lot of marginalized groups. Game development, art and a lot of other independent, entrepreneurial and hobbyist communities network through Twitter. A lot of interesting feeds show content there that isn't centralized anywhere else on the web. I get being cynical about social media but let's actually maybe care about the baby getting thrown out with the bathwater. Twitter is more than just journalists and political shitposting.
  - TexanFeller 4y ago
    < It's the nexus of communication for a lot of marginalized groups. Huh, my impression is that it was used mostly by the ultra privileged elites. Celebrities, wannabe celebrities, politicians, authors, "journalists", marketing executives, and such. I've never met a regular person that touches Twitter.
    - bildung 4y ago
      Twitter had a bunch of people employed to sell Twitter to exactly these cohorts, including the journalists (or their publications)

fhd2 4y ago

I do the same. Hate to be that guy, but I had a strong dislike for him when he first got hyped up years ago, this is just reaffirming an old decision. Does my boycott matter in any way? Yes, to me. That's sufficient.

someguy212 4y ago
I am in the same boat as you. I would hate to know that I spent thousands to help enshrine this petty guy's fortune and lower the bar for tech worker treatment.

etiennemarcel 4y ago

I think Musk's mistake was to openly embrace conservative opinions and fringe conspiracy theories (his since deleted tweet about Paul Pelosi for instance). I already know of people in more liberal circles that would never buy one of his cars, just like they don't buy "my pillows" or go to Hobby Lobby. It's a big target demographic for EVs and doesn't bode too well for Tesla in the current political climate.

akolbe 4y ago
That's a good point. Teslas might be significantly less "cool" this time next year. Might bring some solace to competitors who badly underestimated Tesla four or five years ago.
hn2017 4y ago
He's become a right winger who spreads extreme conspiracy theories. So sad

ea550ff70a 4y ago

I recently liquidated all my Tesla positions. I also plan to sell my Tesla next year. Was originally planning on a new Tesla but I have ruled them out completely too. The company has gone from being my favorite to the one I dislike the most in the span of a year.

q1w2 4y ago
Teslas being charged nightly on a power grid that's still largely powered by gas/coal is really just a status symbol. ...and with the limited range and limited lifespan, it was never a good financial investment either.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  No, this isn’t really true. Even on a coal grid EVs are much more efficient than ICE cars. Tesla also kicked the major manufacturers into gear (finally) so in most ways it was a good investment. I think Musk is a fool and I’m disappointed in what he’s done to Twitter, but I won’t take that away from him. This does not, however, mean Tesla is essential or properly-valued going forward. The actual question is: why was he able to walk into that area and do so much better than experienced traditional automakers. I’m starting to think that the answer is not Musk’s personal competence.
  - sethd 4y ago
    > why was he able to walk into that area and do so much better than experienced traditional automakers. $8 billion in government subsidies? That critical DOE loan, for example, wasn’t even available to anyone else.
    - ajross 4y ago
      This kind of argument is always a cesspool, but this argument is just outrageously spun, and frankly you should be deeply ashamed to have made it. You're taking a technically true fact about one loan and using it to imply that other competing manufacturers didn't receive comparable government assistance in the same time period, which is beyond laughably wrong. I mean, come on, GM was literally insolvent in 2009 and exists today only because of a government bailout!

keepselling777 4y ago

I was a consultant at Twitter. The engineers there love complexity. They created layers and layers just to justify their positions so they can have fuel to burn to climb up the ladder. Most of the stuff they built is unnecessary and that effort could have been spent elsewhere. The managers enabled this because they needed the efforts to climb up as well. There was an in-group bias there that kept opposing voices away which creates deep valleys of blindness that crack the company eventually. Which is what happened, Twitter was dead weight for a long time. Glad Elon is there to shake things up. Jack was not effective anymore. Actually the culture he enabled is what brought Twitter to the point it was. This happens everywhere so nothing new here. Especially when tech investment has been free for such a long time. Maybe even this economic downturn wont disrupt the tech investment machine. We will see next year. If Twitter goes public again. I will be the first to buy shares. Since it will actually be a good play going forward.

dangue_fever 4y ago
- danaris 4y ago
  "Some people at Twitter were dead weight" does not logically lead to "therefore all Musk's firings at Twitter are A Good Thing, Actually." Anyone going into nearly any company and firing 3/4 of the staff is practically guaranteed to result in some nontrivial number of people being fired who were not pulling their weight. People aren't hating on Musk specifically for firing people. We're hating on him for firing people indiscriminately, treating the remainder like shit (demanding people work long hours constantly is unjustifiable, no matter what you think of the personalities of those workers), and making himself the center and focus of Twitter.
  - _djo_ 4y ago
    Also interesting that both of those comments were from brand-new users.
salad-fan 4y ago

orsenthil 4y ago

I took that stance with my Tesla stocks when he ridiculed the person who saved boys from Thailand Cave. He put technology ahead of humans, something that I am not comfortable with. My view has changed back and forth, his values being incompatible with mine, and his risk taking abilities which are sometimes good.

concordDance 4y ago
The cave is a bad example of putting technology ahead of humans. He actually tried to do something that would help some humans (the head diver of the rescue operation told him it was worth working on) in that case. You could say he put his ego above harm to someone's reputation, but I don't think you could sat he put technology above people there.
- orsenthil 4y ago
  He was interested in building a submarine than saving the boys - as I recollect forming the opinion. What else is good example of putting technology ahead of humans? I am sure there should be a few.
- snoopy_telex 4y ago
  The head diver that he called a pedo wanted the sub? Why the conflict then?
  - concordDance 4y ago
    Wasn't the head diver he called a pedo, was one of the organisers.
    - snoopy_telex 4y ago
      Who do you consider the head diver then? I figured the guy that lead the mapping of the caves and the rescues the head diver personally, but I'm open to understand other people's opinions.

nunez 4y ago

Same! I was planning on buying a new Tesla next year before Elon literally turned into Scrooge McDuck

jaybrendansmith 4y ago
Exactly! I might have expected him to be an anti-humanist because he made such a point of loving humanity. Perhaps he does but he dislikes people intently based on his actions. I think all of these things are true simultaneously: - There were many engineers at Twitter building overly complex things. Twitter was overdue for a classic re-org. - There are many individuals on the Twitter platform that were enabling the cancel culture and impacting free speech. - There are many trolls on the platform, enabled by many bots, impacting narratives and in some cases influencing politics. - Elon's narrative of Twitter's content moderation skewing liberal is false. Facts consistently have a liberal bias, despite a few notable exceptions. - Twitter content moderation was not wrong. In order to have a free society and free speech, we must be intolerant of intolerance (Karl Popper). - Elon seems personally oligopolistic, anti-democracy, and a throwback to the gilded age. He reminds me of Henry Ford, there is a clear lack of empathy here. - While I will watch SpaceX with great enthusiasm, I will not be buying a Tesla.

LightG 4y ago

Same. I made this decision 18 months ago when I was thinking about an EV. The good thing is there are decent alternatives now that, in many ways, are superior. I've delayed my decision anyway as I happen not to really need one right now and so I hope my delay results in better technology. Note: for those who cannot wait, Hyundai ioniq 5 is the one. I was so close to pulling the trigger on that beauty. Test drove it. Loved it. Excellent all around package with the added bonus that it looks far better than the model 3 (which looks horribly dated every time I see it now).

ajross 4y ago

I guess. Lord knows I'm not happy with what's happening at Twitter either. But... Tesla is a mature manufacturer with 100k employees now, and they all feel they're doing good work and making great products. And they're right, frankly. One of the things you'll discover if you start looking seriously at your EV purchase is that the other manufacturers just aren't measuring up, both in specifics (performance, range, seat count, cargo capacity, etc...) and in qualitative stuff (fart noises, navigation experience, watch it drive itself, frankly just supercharging alone would be a decisionmaker vs. the CCS network in North America).