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Musk chronically over-promised and terminally under-delivered. There was no world where he didn't end up being a twit, just one where we aren't stupid enough to

Musk chronically over-promised and terminally under-delivered. There was no world where he didn't end up being a twit, just one where we aren't stupid enough to fall for his lies. Tesla, in particular, boils down to how Americans respond to marketing. We love the idea of buying organic, environmentally-friendly technology that makes us part of the solution. It doesn't matter if Congolese children are dying in the cobalt mines to make EV-grade lithium ion batteries, us Americans need to virtue signal with our wallet. Buy the latest iPhone, save up for a Tesla, it's all part of the new-age jewelry we wear to make ourselves feel worth something. It was damn good marketing.

embedding-shape 1y ago
> Musk chronically over-promised and terminally under-delivered To be fair, most CEOs does that, but I think his downfall was really everything that he did besides just over-promising and under-delivering. He could have continued as-is, without all the political stunts and activities, and I'm sure Europeans would still have bought Teslas sometimes. Now the brand is poisoned pretty much world-wide, which wouldn't have happened just because of "over-promise and under-deliver", it takes a lot more for stuff like that to happen.
- _aavaa_ 1y ago
  How many CEO promise full self driving, robo taxis, humanoid robots that are only 6 months away for 10+ years? The equivocation here is quiet something.
  - adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
    Toyota has been promising solid state batteries in 2-3 years for the last 15.
    - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
      They weren't promising they'd be in the car you already bought though.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    The CEO of fusion startups have always said fusion is 10 years away. While 10 years != 6 months, it's the same thing
seanmcdirmid 1y ago
I really like EVs, and the Congolese kids dying to make EV-grade lithium has always been FUD made up by the anti boomer crowd (77% of the world's lithium comes from Australia and Chile, and I know they aren't importing Congo kids to mine it, and then China, Argentina, and Bolivia, again, completely Congo kid free). You probably meant Cobolt, and they are transitioning to LFP chemistries because it is impossible to force the Congolese to use industrial mining rather than small holder artisanal mining (where parents are likely to make their kids mine without supervision). > us Americans need to virtue signal how much we love green energy and saving the planet. Again, more FUD made up by the anti-EV crowd. Most people who buy EVs buy them because they are just better cars. In China, EVs are more of a national security concern: they have to import oil, which exposes them to international conflict. Importing less oil = less exposure, which is a big win for the country. The US has a lot of oil-entrenched interests.
- ZeroGravitas 1y ago
  The cobalt goes in the NCM lithium batteries. It also goes in lots of other stuff, and is basically a byproduct of Congolese copper production. The kids are doing artisinal mining because when capitalism doesn't need you to make money, you are pretty fucked. The big mines can make plenty of money with very few workers, leaving no need to build a decent civil society. Something to bear in mind for when our glorious AI future arrives. Every chance that some countries become the Norway of AI and everyone is rich while others become the resource cursed Congo of AI and a tiny minority become rich and others are left to rot.
  - kazen44 1y ago
    congo is also a classical example of the resource curse. Congo is so resource rich, that the state can sustain itself easily with simple, low skilled extraction of resources, without the need to invest in its populace to increase economic output through other, more difficult means.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  That first paragraph would send the average liberal running for the bus stop. It's no wonder conservatives are the only one willing to chart out a path for the EV industry... As for the second paragraph, I mostly agree but nothing you said obviates the virtue signalling that people endlessly associated Tesla with pre-2015. I say this not because I think EVs are bad, but because so much of America's congestive dissonance is rooted in the "Tesla good" aphorism burned into their brain for no reason besides feel-good marketing.
triceratops 1y ago
> Americans need to virtue signal with our wallet The only realistic alternative - not "virtue signalling" and instead buying polluting ICE vehicles - is far worse. I'm ok with virtue signalling. It's not like America is going to get walkable cities and world-class public transit anytime before 2060.
- embedding-shape 1y ago
  > It's not like America is going to get walkable cities and world-class public transit anytime before 2060 I wouldn't be so pessimistic! The inevitable swing towards authoritarianism in the US happened much sooner than I expected, which also means it'll swing back again much sooner too, likely to be way before 2060. I'll throw out a prediction and say that the soon-to-be-authoritarian state that is under construction right now might fall as soon as 2035-2040, and it'll be a wild swing the other way once it happens.
  - nbngeorcjhe 1y ago
    what makes you so sure it'll fall? plenty of autocracies last for decades, or generations
    - DonnyV 1y ago
      Incompetence, our "leaders" are woefully incompetent. MAGA, GOP and the right are filled with idiots. The Liberal and Neoliberal Democrats at least were a little better at stealing everything from us and delaying progress. They would bury people in culture wars and keep their followers busy with DEI rules. They used legitimate racist issues and then said everything was caused by racism and not that the 1% was just stealing everything.
    - embedding-shape 1y ago
      > what makes you so sure it'll fall? plenty of autocracies last for decades, or generations Because you didn't end your sentence with "Plenty of autocracies last forever" but instead you gave them a duration. Maybe that duration sounds long, but it ends eventually, which is exactly my point.
jimbokun 1y ago
During Tesla’s ascent, who was delivering better all electric cars than them?
- baggachipz 1y ago
  Everything was lining up perfectly, then they lost the plot by creating the cybertruck, humanoid robots, and it's been all downhill since then. This jumping of the shark coincides with Musk's mental decline.
RandallBrown 1y ago
Musk's over promising and under delivering was fine when it was still above and beyond what anyone else was doing. It's all the other crazy stuff he started doing that was the problem.
mullingitover 1y ago
> We love the idea of buying organic, environmentally-friendly technology that makes us part of the solution Telsa sells a huge number of vehicles to Americans who couldn't care less about the environment but do care about buying a car that can rip through 0-60 in under 3 seconds. ICE vehicles are simply inferior for most use cases now. They're only holding on because a huge number of people would be out of work if we abandoned obsolete transportation technology. Continuing ICE mass production is an actual socialist make-work scheme at the end of the day.
- tbrownaw 1y ago
  I don't think people are deciding what car to buy based on how much labor market churn they'd feel responsible for.
  - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
    They do look at prices though. Notice you can't buy a cheap Chinese EV in the US. That's the government propping up the existing auto manufacturers.
mschuster91 1y ago
[flagged]
- noir_lord 1y ago
  Sodium ion doesn't require cobalt either (no nickel as well in the newer designs), CATL is pushing that and iirc they have energy densities to a point where low end EV's can use them. By bulk they use sodium, aluminium and iron - all of which are very abundant. China is dominating that field as well.
- churchill 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - mschuster91 1y ago
    > What does anyone care about the people who attacked Israel? I want to see theocracies gone. > The Arab Gulf has rivers of oil required for driving human economic progress forward. Solar energy is cheaper and it doesn't need to be trucked around on ships, threatening insanely expensive disasters. > they have been consistent about suppressing Islamists within their borders. ... and instead funding them in Western countries, yeah. Saudi funded madrasa schools or imams funded by oilsheik countries are a massive problem, although I admit a part of that is our fault as well for not running theology studies in our universities for Islam (unlike for Christian denominations). > Pinning Hamas on the Arab Gulf might advance your narrative, but it's provably false for anyone willing to actually probe that claim. Well, Hamas is strongly supported by Qatar and Iran. > LMAO. Imagine a (likely) Western European preaching about morals after ethnically cleansing three entire continents? Just because we did massive mistakes in the past, there's no reason we have to continue doing them now.
    - churchill 1y ago
      >I want to see theocracies gone. How they choose to organize their society is none of your business. Whenever any Arab society becomes democratic, it's almost guaranteed they'll vote in Muslim Brotherhood types that'll be joined at the hip with Islamist movements. So, you don't want rapidly liberalizing benevolent monarchies, but rather democratic Islamists? Wasn't it the Americans who nudged the Egyptian military to topple Morsi after the Arab Spring brough an Islamist to power? Democracy until whoever we dislike is elected by the people. It was the Western powers messing around with Mossadegh's democratically-elected regime in Iran that led to its fall and later down the line, the rise of the Shia-extremist Iran. You westerners are so full of hubris. You don't know how to leave well-enough alone. >Solar energy is cheaper and it doesn't need to be trucked around on ships, threatening insanely expensive disasters. That's none of your business either. No western country is accelerating the renewable transition. Stay out of the way of those doing it, and don't pontificate to those providing energy for civilization now. >... and instead funding them in Western countries, yeah. Saudi funded madrasa schools or imams funded by oilsheik countries are a massive problem, although I admit a part of that is our fault as well for not running theology studies in our universities for Islam (unlike for Christian denominations). That's a YOU problem! Western governments hold a monopoly of violence within their own borders. You can simply shut down Islamist mosques. If you refuse, you implicitly permit their activities. There's a reason why extreme preachers are imprisoned/executed in the Arab Gulf, but they find an audience in the West. You allowed it; it's a you problem. >Well, Hamas is strongly supported by Qatar and Iran. And Israel too, right? Are we going to gloss over that? That these fighters are mostly orphans, whose parents and grandparents where marched out of their homes at gunpoint and had their homes stolen? >Well, Hamas is strongly supported by Qatar and Iran. You're still making these mistakes now, like the ongoing genocide in Gaza. You don't get to pontificate or preach. You don't have the moral capital. No one takes the West's moral posturing serious. The only people who do are developing countries paying lip service so they can get aid handouts. No one cares. Pack it up.
kiba 1y ago
The car is pretty good to drive and it genuinely changes my life. No more gas stations unless I want to go there to buy snacks and drinks. However, I won't be buying a Tesla again. I would also not buy another car if I can help it, but I need a car to see family and do relatively long distance tasks.
thelastgallon 1y ago
> It doesn't matter if Congolese children are dying in the cobalt mines to make EV-grade lithium ion batteries, us Americans need to virtue signal with our wallet. Love how you were able to take Musk's missteps, layer marketing, and blend in the emotional heart wrenching, think of the (Congolese) children! Of course, fossil fuels are the ONLY solutions, otherwise you are a victim of marketing or a horrible person for not thinking of (Congolese) children! If you really care about children at all or any life, first thing would be get off fossil fuels. The right metric is Deaths/TWH: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...

embedding-shape 1y ago

> Musk chronically over-promised and terminally under-delivered To be fair, most CEOs does that, but I think his downfall was really everything that he did besides just over-promising and under-delivering. He could have continued as-is, without all the political stunts and activities, and I'm sure Europeans would still have bought Teslas sometimes. Now the brand is poisoned pretty much world-wide, which wouldn't have happened just because of "over-promise and under-deliver", it takes a lot more for stuff like that to happen.

_aavaa_ 1y ago
How many CEO promise full self driving, robo taxis, humanoid robots that are only 6 months away for 10+ years? The equivocation here is quiet something.
- adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
  Toyota has been promising solid state batteries in 2-3 years for the last 15.
  - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
    They weren't promising they'd be in the car you already bought though.
- dylan604 1y ago
  The CEO of fusion startups have always said fusion is 10 years away. While 10 years != 6 months, it's the same thing

seanmcdirmid 1y ago

I really like EVs, and the Congolese kids dying to make EV-grade lithium has always been FUD made up by the anti boomer crowd (77% of the world's lithium comes from Australia and Chile, and I know they aren't importing Congo kids to mine it, and then China, Argentina, and Bolivia, again, completely Congo kid free). You probably meant Cobolt, and they are transitioning to LFP chemistries because it is impossible to force the Congolese to use industrial mining rather than small holder artisanal mining (where parents are likely to make their kids mine without supervision). > us Americans need to virtue signal how much we love green energy and saving the planet. Again, more FUD made up by the anti-EV crowd. Most people who buy EVs buy them because they are just better cars. In China, EVs are more of a national security concern: they have to import oil, which exposes them to international conflict. Importing less oil = less exposure, which is a big win for the country. The US has a lot of oil-entrenched interests.

ZeroGravitas 1y ago
The cobalt goes in the NCM lithium batteries. It also goes in lots of other stuff, and is basically a byproduct of Congolese copper production. The kids are doing artisinal mining because when capitalism doesn't need you to make money, you are pretty fucked. The big mines can make plenty of money with very few workers, leaving no need to build a decent civil society. Something to bear in mind for when our glorious AI future arrives. Every chance that some countries become the Norway of AI and everyone is rich while others become the resource cursed Congo of AI and a tiny minority become rich and others are left to rot.
- kazen44 1y ago
  congo is also a classical example of the resource curse. Congo is so resource rich, that the state can sustain itself easily with simple, low skilled extraction of resources, without the need to invest in its populace to increase economic output through other, more difficult means.
bigyabai 1y ago
That first paragraph would send the average liberal running for the bus stop. It's no wonder conservatives are the only one willing to chart out a path for the EV industry... As for the second paragraph, I mostly agree but nothing you said obviates the virtue signalling that people endlessly associated Tesla with pre-2015. I say this not because I think EVs are bad, but because so much of America's congestive dissonance is rooted in the "Tesla good" aphorism burned into their brain for no reason besides feel-good marketing.

triceratops 1y ago

> Americans need to virtue signal with our wallet The only realistic alternative - not "virtue signalling" and instead buying polluting ICE vehicles - is far worse. I'm ok with virtue signalling. It's not like America is going to get walkable cities and world-class public transit anytime before 2060.

embedding-shape 1y ago
> It's not like America is going to get walkable cities and world-class public transit anytime before 2060 I wouldn't be so pessimistic! The inevitable swing towards authoritarianism in the US happened much sooner than I expected, which also means it'll swing back again much sooner too, likely to be way before 2060. I'll throw out a prediction and say that the soon-to-be-authoritarian state that is under construction right now might fall as soon as 2035-2040, and it'll be a wild swing the other way once it happens.
- nbngeorcjhe 1y ago
  what makes you so sure it'll fall? plenty of autocracies last for decades, or generations
  - DonnyV 1y ago
    Incompetence, our "leaders" are woefully incompetent. MAGA, GOP and the right are filled with idiots. The Liberal and Neoliberal Democrats at least were a little better at stealing everything from us and delaying progress. They would bury people in culture wars and keep their followers busy with DEI rules. They used legitimate racist issues and then said everything was caused by racism and not that the 1% was just stealing everything.
  - embedding-shape 1y ago
    > what makes you so sure it'll fall? plenty of autocracies last for decades, or generations Because you didn't end your sentence with "Plenty of autocracies last forever" but instead you gave them a duration. Maybe that duration sounds long, but it ends eventually, which is exactly my point.

jimbokun 1y ago

During Tesla’s ascent, who was delivering better all electric cars than them?

baggachipz 1y ago
Everything was lining up perfectly, then they lost the plot by creating the cybertruck, humanoid robots, and it's been all downhill since then. This jumping of the shark coincides with Musk's mental decline.

RandallBrown 1y ago

Musk's over promising and under delivering was fine when it was still above and beyond what anyone else was doing. It's all the other crazy stuff he started doing that was the problem.

mullingitover 1y ago

> We love the idea of buying organic, environmentally-friendly technology that makes us part of the solution Telsa sells a huge number of vehicles to Americans who couldn't care less about the environment but do care about buying a car that can rip through 0-60 in under 3 seconds. ICE vehicles are simply inferior for most use cases now. They're only holding on because a huge number of people would be out of work if we abandoned obsolete transportation technology. Continuing ICE mass production is an actual socialist make-work scheme at the end of the day.

tbrownaw 1y ago
I don't think people are deciding what car to buy based on how much labor market churn they'd feel responsible for.
- amanaplanacanal 1y ago
  They do look at prices though. Notice you can't buy a cheap Chinese EV in the US. That's the government propping up the existing auto manufacturers.

mschuster91 1y ago

[flagged]

noir_lord 1y ago
Sodium ion doesn't require cobalt either (no nickel as well in the newer designs), CATL is pushing that and iirc they have energy densities to a point where low end EV's can use them. By bulk they use sodium, aluminium and iron - all of which are very abundant. China is dominating that field as well.
churchill 1y ago
[flagged]
- mschuster91 1y ago
  > What does anyone care about the people who attacked Israel? I want to see theocracies gone. > The Arab Gulf has rivers of oil required for driving human economic progress forward. Solar energy is cheaper and it doesn't need to be trucked around on ships, threatening insanely expensive disasters. > they have been consistent about suppressing Islamists within their borders. ... and instead funding them in Western countries, yeah. Saudi funded madrasa schools or imams funded by oilsheik countries are a massive problem, although I admit a part of that is our fault as well for not running theology studies in our universities for Islam (unlike for Christian denominations). > Pinning Hamas on the Arab Gulf might advance your narrative, but it's provably false for anyone willing to actually probe that claim. Well, Hamas is strongly supported by Qatar and Iran. > LMAO. Imagine a (likely) Western European preaching about morals after ethnically cleansing three entire continents? Just because we did massive mistakes in the past, there's no reason we have to continue doing them now.
  - churchill 1y ago
    >I want to see theocracies gone. How they choose to organize their society is none of your business. Whenever any Arab society becomes democratic, it's almost guaranteed they'll vote in Muslim Brotherhood types that'll be joined at the hip with Islamist movements. So, you don't want rapidly liberalizing benevolent monarchies, but rather democratic Islamists? Wasn't it the Americans who nudged the Egyptian military to topple Morsi after the Arab Spring brough an Islamist to power? Democracy until whoever we dislike is elected by the people. It was the Western powers messing around with Mossadegh's democratically-elected regime in Iran that led to its fall and later down the line, the rise of the Shia-extremist Iran. You westerners are so full of hubris. You don't know how to leave well-enough alone. >Solar energy is cheaper and it doesn't need to be trucked around on ships, threatening insanely expensive disasters. That's none of your business either. No western country is accelerating the renewable transition. Stay out of the way of those doing it, and don't pontificate to those providing energy for civilization now. >... and instead funding them in Western countries, yeah. Saudi funded madrasa schools or imams funded by oilsheik countries are a massive problem, although I admit a part of that is our fault as well for not running theology studies in our universities for Islam (unlike for Christian denominations). That's a YOU problem! Western governments hold a monopoly of violence within their own borders. You can simply shut down Islamist mosques. If you refuse, you implicitly permit their activities. There's a reason why extreme preachers are imprisoned/executed in the Arab Gulf, but they find an audience in the West. You allowed it; it's a you problem. >Well, Hamas is strongly supported by Qatar and Iran. And Israel too, right? Are we going to gloss over that? That these fighters are mostly orphans, whose parents and grandparents where marched out of their homes at gunpoint and had their homes stolen? >Well, Hamas is strongly supported by Qatar and Iran. You're still making these mistakes now, like the ongoing genocide in Gaza. You don't get to pontificate or preach. You don't have the moral capital. No one takes the West's moral posturing serious. The only people who do are developing countries paying lip service so they can get aid handouts. No one cares. Pack it up.

kiba 1y ago

The car is pretty good to drive and it genuinely changes my life. No more gas stations unless I want to go there to buy snacks and drinks. However, I won't be buying a Tesla again. I would also not buy another car if I can help it, but I need a car to see family and do relatively long distance tasks.

thelastgallon 1y ago

> It doesn't matter if Congolese children are dying in the cobalt mines to make EV-grade lithium ion batteries, us Americans need to virtue signal with our wallet. Love how you were able to take Musk's missteps, layer marketing, and blend in the emotional heart wrenching, think of the (Congolese) children! Of course, fossil fuels are the ONLY solutions, otherwise you are a victim of marketing or a horrible person for not thinking of (Congolese) children! If you really care about children at all or any life, first thing would be get off fossil fuels. The right metric is Deaths/TWH: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...