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It's pretty obvious much of this article was written with AI, there's about 15 emdashes. This electrek site frequently comes up in my Firefox news feed and the

by dmix 6mo ago

It's pretty obvious much of this article was written with AI, there's about 15 emdashes. This electrek site frequently comes up in my Firefox news feed and they seem to have made a business of breathless reporting news about Tesla with a negative spin.

MarkusQ 6mo ago
Yeah. They seem to specialize in low-effort Musk bashing. (Not that there doesn't appear to be a evergreen market for that among the jealousinati.)
- Refreeze5224 6mo ago
  That's it, they're jealous of Musk. It's not the Nazi salute, they're just jealous they don't get to exploit people like he does.
  - mcmcmc 6mo ago
    His utter failure at DOGE is irrelevant too, slashing aid programs that will result in the deaths of millions while not making any discernible impact on the budget. No one cares about that.
- greenpizza13 6mo ago
  Musk-bashing doesn't require effort. Any reasonable person knows he's at best an opportunist dragon with no moral compass.
  - NewJazz 6mo ago
    Sure, which is why this publication has commoditized it.
LanceJones 6mo ago
I really used to enjoy Fred's writing on Electrek. But after the Roadster referral debacle, Fred's tune changed and has gotten more negative... so negative now that you cannot find any positive articles about Musk or Tesla (some articles you might classify as 'neutral'). If you look at comment counts, it's clear Fred is playing to the "I hate Musk" crowd now for clicks (comments and clicks have similar outcomes for Google Adsense). Electrek's other articles' comment counts pale in comparison. So the incentive is pretty obvious now. Too bad.
- Veserv 6mo ago
  I find it funny how stealing 500,000 $ from a fan is a "debacle". In most places that would be considered a felony instead of a justification to smear the victim and call them a whiner.
  - LanceJones 6mo ago
    You think $500K was stolen? Hmm, doesn't sound hyperbolic at all...
    - Veserv 6mo ago
      You are totally right. In accordance with the Tesla Referral Program contract a estimated ~250,000,000 $ in sales were referred to Tesla by major referrers earning those major referrers ~80 free Tesla Roadsters [1], announced as a 250,000 $ value and used a explicit contractual incentive to the program, in accordance with that legal contract. Having engaged in work on behalf of Tesla on the contractual guarantee of compensation and having earned that compensation in accordance with the contract, Tesla legally owes those fans ~20,000,000 $ in aggregate which it has so far rejected compensating for nearly 7 years. I am not sure what term you use for having people work on your behalf according to the terms of a contract and then not paying the agreed upon compensation, but "theft" or "steal" would be the colloquial term. Only the intentionally biased would claim a trillion dollar company not paying fans for their work in accordance with their own contract is not "stealing" in common parlance. I am sorry I was downplaying Tesla's bad behavior by just highlighting that individual fans were jilted out of hundreds of thousands of dollars of their work instead of pointing out how they screwed hundreds of their most loyal fans out of tens of millions of dollars of earned compensation. Anything other than praise for such a upstanding company is unwarranted and smearing their victims is the only unbiased move. [1] https://electrek.co/2019/01/17/tesla-roadster-free-killed-referral-program/ https://electrek.co/2019/01/17/tesla-roadster-free-killed-re...
  - fragmede 6mo ago
    Can you explain the $500k being stolen? All I could find was something about the roadster and some rebate program, but not actual cash being stolen.
WarmWash 6mo ago
Anyone with sense sees the negativity around Tesla. It trades at a 360 p/e with annually shrinking finances. None of it's blockbuster promises have come to fruition, and it keeps on faux chasing hype products to keep shares buoyant. Nevermind all the shady accounting and and notorious opaque data sharing that has cropped up in the last few years. It has had three success stories which are all pretty banal (model S, model 3, model Y), and has a litany of perpetually "just around the corner" products that will fill those massive 360 p/e shoes and then way more. FSD, roadster, semi, model 2, robotaxi, optimus robot, and now terafab. All vaporware that is indefinitely pending, and seem perfectly crafted to tickle the mind of "the internet IQ test said I'm a genius" type investors. It then has it's meh business of battery production and storage, which does alright for what it is, but even still is now borderline noncompetitive with Chinese offerings. So if electrek is going hard against Tesla...it kind of makes sense?
- RankingMember 6mo ago
  Yeah, to me it's not bashing or negative to call a spade a spade.
  - scottyah 6mo ago
    What if you were just reporting on electric cars then dropped most reporting on electric cars from the foremost electric car company unless there was a way to include ceo-bashing for half the article? I get being fair or even a decent amount of hatred for whatever reason, but Fred really changed his tune and became quite spiteful. It was sad to watch, and many people tried to help in online comments, but seems like the negativity mostly won out.
    - RankingMember 6mo ago
      In my view, the negativity was commensurate with the company CEO's increasingly erratic behavior and choices.
    - Ferdinandpferd 6mo ago
      There are plenty of CEOs who have had this result on trade publications and/or market analysts. The only difference I see is that Musk can be neither thrown out like the majority nor pressured to listen to PR experts who normally spend as many hours as it takes to convince a schmuck like him with a majority stake that being a silent partner shows strength and confidence.
RankingMember 6mo ago
It was an early booster of Tesla, but I think it rightly went negative when the unkept promises and CEO antics started piling up.
signatoremo 6mo ago
I loved Electrek early on. It was a fresh air reporting on everything renewable and EV. Now I consider it the whore of the news. Tesla could do no wrong five years ago. Now everything they touch is a disaster. That especially sucks because their cause is noble. HN’s sentiment toward Tesla has turned sour so Elektrek’s articles get upvoted more. Objectivity is overrated.
- WarmWash 6mo ago
  >Now everything they touch is a disaster. Care to give counter examples? Tesla (and Elon) are responsible for bringing on the EV age, and forcing the trend on legacy manufacturers. Anyone who says otherwise is uninformed or dishonest. That being said, their (one trick) pony has done it's trick, and now it's just promises that the pony will do progressively more crazy tricks if you just give it a little more time.
  - Dig1t 6mo ago
    Just look at any headline they put out about Tesla. They phrase every article in the most negative light possible and mostly seem to report only negative events about the company. >Tesla’s ‘Robotaxi’ expansion looks like another stock pump before earnings >Tesla’s California sales crash 24% as state’s EV market plunges to lowest since 2021 >Tesla’s head of customer experience leaves for Coinbase as talent exodus grows Even benign announcements are phrased in a negative light: >Tesla launches ‘Robotaxi’ in Houston and Dallas with tiny geofences Going out of their way to say the initial area for Dallas is “tiny”. You can imagine that a few years ago when they still liked Tesla they would have reported this story much differently. These are headlines with Fox News level of bias.
    - mylies43 6mo ago
      Most of those are pretty fair thou. >Tesla’s ‘Robotaxi’ expansion looks like another stock pump before earnings - I believe thats fair, they love doing this but Im willing to concede its negative. >Tesla’s California sales crash 24% as state’s EV market plunges to lowest since 2021 -> Thats just a fact, it also mentions in the headline that the entire EV industry is down a lot in Cali so of course Tesla is heavily affected. If they wanted to just bash tesla it would have been trival to cut that out instead they provide context. >Tesla’s head of customer experience leaves for Coinbase as talent exodus grows -> Both statements( head of customer experince leaves && talent exodus ). I guess you could make a argument that "talent exodus" is negative but is it not warranted? Its not a good look when a bunch of people leave your company at the same time. >Tesla launches ‘Robotaxi’ in Houston and Dallas with tiny geofences - The initial area IS tiny it would not be a fair article if that was not highlighted, its just a few neighbors in some of the most sprawling cities in the US. The total area they are operating is in not even 10% of the city, its 30-35sq miles out of 340. The entire metro is ~9,000. That IS tiny especially if we compare it to its competitors that operate throughout entire cities. What has Tesla done positively lately? Optimus is hardware that exist in many other companies paired with remote people controlling it, the cybertruck is a disaster, the semi has had no news of note, the robotaxi currently does not exist and requires software that has been promised for years and years without actually being delivered so its only fair to be skeptical of it.
bicepjai 6mo ago
I’ve grown to love em dashes — I try to use them in places where I’d usually use commas. But I quickly get wary that someone might think it’s AI-written. So I give them the benefit of the doubt. (Admittedly, I didn’t read the article fully.)

by dmix 6mo ago

MarkusQ 6mo ago

Yeah. They seem to specialize in low-effort Musk bashing. (Not that there doesn't appear to be a evergreen market for that among the jealousinati.)

Refreeze5224 6mo ago
That's it, they're jealous of Musk. It's not the Nazi salute, they're just jealous they don't get to exploit people like he does.
- mcmcmc 6mo ago
  His utter failure at DOGE is irrelevant too, slashing aid programs that will result in the deaths of millions while not making any discernible impact on the budget. No one cares about that.
greenpizza13 6mo ago
Musk-bashing doesn't require effort. Any reasonable person knows he's at best an opportunist dragon with no moral compass.
- NewJazz 6mo ago
  Sure, which is why this publication has commoditized it.

LanceJones 6mo ago

I really used to enjoy Fred's writing on Electrek. But after the Roadster referral debacle, Fred's tune changed and has gotten more negative... so negative now that you cannot find any positive articles about Musk or Tesla (some articles you might classify as 'neutral'). If you look at comment counts, it's clear Fred is playing to the "I hate Musk" crowd now for clicks (comments and clicks have similar outcomes for Google Adsense). Electrek's other articles' comment counts pale in comparison. So the incentive is pretty obvious now. Too bad.

Veserv 6mo ago
I find it funny how stealing 500,000 $ from a fan is a "debacle". In most places that would be considered a felony instead of a justification to smear the victim and call them a whiner.
- LanceJones 6mo ago
  You think $500K was stolen? Hmm, doesn't sound hyperbolic at all...
  - Veserv 6mo ago
    You are totally right. In accordance with the Tesla Referral Program contract a estimated ~250,000,000 $ in sales were referred to Tesla by major referrers earning those major referrers ~80 free Tesla Roadsters [1], announced as a 250,000 $ value and used a explicit contractual incentive to the program, in accordance with that legal contract. Having engaged in work on behalf of Tesla on the contractual guarantee of compensation and having earned that compensation in accordance with the contract, Tesla legally owes those fans ~20,000,000 $ in aggregate which it has so far rejected compensating for nearly 7 years. I am not sure what term you use for having people work on your behalf according to the terms of a contract and then not paying the agreed upon compensation, but "theft" or "steal" would be the colloquial term. Only the intentionally biased would claim a trillion dollar company not paying fans for their work in accordance with their own contract is not "stealing" in common parlance. I am sorry I was downplaying Tesla's bad behavior by just highlighting that individual fans were jilted out of hundreds of thousands of dollars of their work instead of pointing out how they screwed hundreds of their most loyal fans out of tens of millions of dollars of earned compensation. Anything other than praise for such a upstanding company is unwarranted and smearing their victims is the only unbiased move. [1] https://electrek.co/2019/01/17/tesla-roadster-free-killed-referral-program/ https://electrek.co/2019/01/17/tesla-roadster-free-killed-re...
- fragmede 6mo ago
  Can you explain the $500k being stolen? All I could find was something about the roadster and some rebate program, but not actual cash being stolen.

WarmWash 6mo ago

Anyone with sense sees the negativity around Tesla. It trades at a 360 p/e with annually shrinking finances. None of it's blockbuster promises have come to fruition, and it keeps on faux chasing hype products to keep shares buoyant. Nevermind all the shady accounting and and notorious opaque data sharing that has cropped up in the last few years. It has had three success stories which are all pretty banal (model S, model 3, model Y), and has a litany of perpetually "just around the corner" products that will fill those massive 360 p/e shoes and then way more. FSD, roadster, semi, model 2, robotaxi, optimus robot, and now terafab. All vaporware that is indefinitely pending, and seem perfectly crafted to tickle the mind of "the internet IQ test said I'm a genius" type investors. It then has it's meh business of battery production and storage, which does alright for what it is, but even still is now borderline noncompetitive with Chinese offerings. So if electrek is going hard against Tesla...it kind of makes sense?

RankingMember 6mo ago
Yeah, to me it's not bashing or negative to call a spade a spade.
- scottyah 6mo ago
  What if you were just reporting on electric cars then dropped most reporting on electric cars from the foremost electric car company unless there was a way to include ceo-bashing for half the article? I get being fair or even a decent amount of hatred for whatever reason, but Fred really changed his tune and became quite spiteful. It was sad to watch, and many people tried to help in online comments, but seems like the negativity mostly won out.
  - RankingMember 6mo ago
    In my view, the negativity was commensurate with the company CEO's increasingly erratic behavior and choices.
  - Ferdinandpferd 6mo ago
    There are plenty of CEOs who have had this result on trade publications and/or market analysts. The only difference I see is that Musk can be neither thrown out like the majority nor pressured to listen to PR experts who normally spend as many hours as it takes to convince a schmuck like him with a majority stake that being a silent partner shows strength and confidence.

RankingMember 6mo ago

It was an early booster of Tesla, but I think it rightly went negative when the unkept promises and CEO antics started piling up.

signatoremo 6mo ago

I loved Electrek early on. It was a fresh air reporting on everything renewable and EV. Now I consider it the whore of the news. Tesla could do no wrong five years ago. Now everything they touch is a disaster. That especially sucks because their cause is noble. HN’s sentiment toward Tesla has turned sour so Elektrek’s articles get upvoted more. Objectivity is overrated.

WarmWash 6mo ago
>Now everything they touch is a disaster. Care to give counter examples? Tesla (and Elon) are responsible for bringing on the EV age, and forcing the trend on legacy manufacturers. Anyone who says otherwise is uninformed or dishonest. That being said, their (one trick) pony has done it's trick, and now it's just promises that the pony will do progressively more crazy tricks if you just give it a little more time.
- Dig1t 6mo ago
  Just look at any headline they put out about Tesla. They phrase every article in the most negative light possible and mostly seem to report only negative events about the company. >Tesla’s ‘Robotaxi’ expansion looks like another stock pump before earnings >Tesla’s California sales crash 24% as state’s EV market plunges to lowest since 2021 >Tesla’s head of customer experience leaves for Coinbase as talent exodus grows Even benign announcements are phrased in a negative light: >Tesla launches ‘Robotaxi’ in Houston and Dallas with tiny geofences Going out of their way to say the initial area for Dallas is “tiny”. You can imagine that a few years ago when they still liked Tesla they would have reported this story much differently. These are headlines with Fox News level of bias.
  - mylies43 6mo ago
    Most of those are pretty fair thou. >Tesla’s ‘Robotaxi’ expansion looks like another stock pump before earnings - I believe thats fair, they love doing this but Im willing to concede its negative. >Tesla’s California sales crash 24% as state’s EV market plunges to lowest since 2021 -> Thats just a fact, it also mentions in the headline that the entire EV industry is down a lot in Cali so of course Tesla is heavily affected. If they wanted to just bash tesla it would have been trival to cut that out instead they provide context. >Tesla’s head of customer experience leaves for Coinbase as talent exodus grows -> Both statements( head of customer experince leaves && talent exodus ). I guess you could make a argument that "talent exodus" is negative but is it not warranted? Its not a good look when a bunch of people leave your company at the same time. >Tesla launches ‘Robotaxi’ in Houston and Dallas with tiny geofences - The initial area IS tiny it would not be a fair article if that was not highlighted, its just a few neighbors in some of the most sprawling cities in the US. The total area they are operating is in not even 10% of the city, its 30-35sq miles out of 340. The entire metro is ~9,000. That IS tiny especially if we compare it to its competitors that operate throughout entire cities. What has Tesla done positively lately? Optimus is hardware that exist in many other companies paired with remote people controlling it, the cybertruck is a disaster, the semi has had no news of note, the robotaxi currently does not exist and requires software that has been promised for years and years without actually being delivered so its only fair to be skeptical of it.

bicepjai 6mo ago

I’ve grown to love em dashes — I try to use them in places where I’d usually use commas. But I quickly get wary that someone might think it’s AI-written. So I give them the benefit of the doubt. (Admittedly, I didn’t read the article fully.)