Can we get the LA Times clickbait title fixed (I suggest "Consumer Reports Recommends Model S Again Following Reliability Survey; Model X Didn't Fare Well")? And maybe point to the above direct CR source?
> "I think there was some hubris there with the X," [Musk] added, before reiterating that it was "the best car ever."
Musk sounds like Trump sometimes. Reminds me of this other line of his:
> Musk is a self-described American exceptionalist and nationalist, describing himself as "nauseatingly pro-American". According to Musk, the United States is "[inarguably] the greatest country that has ever existed on Earth", describing it as "the greatest force for good of any country that's ever been". Musk believes outright that there "would not be democracy in the world if not for the United States", arguing there were "three separate occasions in the 20th-century where democracy would have fallen with World War I, World War II and the Cold War, if not for the United States".
Maybe it's just me but I don't really find Consumers Reports useful or that reputable. Especially their vehicle reviews. Having several mechanics in the family and being a car enthusiast myself I find their past recommendations of Hyundai and Kia laughable.
The car reviews are awful. They like who they like.
I remember one Honda that had a transmission recall, defective radio and a tendency for body trim to fall off (according to the little blurb) and was rated awesome.
The equivalent Ford was dinged because the OEM tires were noisy.
> The [CR] car reviews are awful. They like who they like.
So do they like Tesla or dislike Tesla? Only a year ago or so they rated the Model S as the best car they had ever reviewed; then there were a few Autopilot failures and some troubles with the Model X -- now the honeymoon seems to be over.
It's not that I think CR does a wonderful job with cars -- or with any other product that I'm familiar with -- but I think that their biases are more complex than a simple "they like who they like".
Their ratings are comprised of two parts - CR's own driving tests as well as reader survey that goes into painful details of each car owned, number of malfunctions and costs of fixing those malfunctions over the previous year.
Model S was a fairly new vehicle, so in year one they only did the first part - there weren't many Tesla owners who were also CR subscribers who also have had the car for at least a year to generate a reliable corpus of reader ratings.
Things changed in year two when reader surveys started trickling in, with Model S owners reporting higher than average amount of issues, which impacted the overall ratings.
CR's own driving tests still earned Model S a "CR Recommended" badge, it just no longer came with a spotless 100-point score they've previously assigned.
Regardless of whether their ratings work out for you, in particular, they have an incredibly reliable method of rating a huge variety of consumer goods, and they do it in an open way that shows you that the advertisers aren't biasing the results.
That allows you to simply +/- their ratings in a certain area, depending on how well their rating lines up with your personal experience. It's hard to do that with similar types of organizations, where it really comes down to the person who reviewed it, and sometimes even how they felt that day.
Well, it shouldn't drive you nuts. That implies that the truth drives you nuts. WW2 didn't look great before the USA stepped in. World wide innovation has been driven by the USA in almost every frontier. And you cannot expect a CEO to regard his product as anything but the best.
The thing that drives me nuts is the lengths people such as yourself will go to in order to rationalize their dislike of him. Calling people who like him and the car 'disciples' is also pretty terrible.
Well we can split hairs over this all day, but Musk and Trump (Bernie Sanders too) fit the definition of demagogues IMO.
People like the cars because they view them as antiestablishment. e.g. better than what other car makers are building — because the establishment car makers are crooks with no regard for the world and would allow the destruction of nature for a dollar.
Meanwhile the data shows that cars are a minuscule contributor to global warming in comparison to burning coal. And that electric cars are not necessarily cleaner than gas cars when you consider what source they are charged from.
If you want to do something about global warming that will have an actual impacted you must turn China and India into rich countries that can afford be green (to use the common vernacular).
Musk's whole brand and "popularity [is based on] exploiting prejudice and ignorance among the common people" (from the Wikipedia article on demagogue).
This is not splitting hairs! These are basic facts. The whole idea behind Tesla and Solar City is to have solar power generation and electric cars. 100% clean and renewable, and that's the long term goal. You cannot criticize the means to get there -- powering Teslas with current electricity generation -- when that's so much better than Fossil Fuels already.
People like the cars because they are better than what the other car makers are making. Model S is the safest, fastest, and most efficient sedan on the market. That's a fact!
Cars are minuscule contributors? The EPA site says 14% Co2 is from cars, which is substantial. That's also a fact!
If Tesla keeps going, it will replace generation and consumption of fossil fuels with a fully renewable cycle. How is that not the best thing ever? That's fantastic! We might be cutting more than 30% of our CO2 emissions.
You need to re-evaluate your standpoint. Also, when you're struggling with cognitive dissonance after reading this, consider this: Your brain's attempts to discredit my argument, and paint Elon backers as mindless followers/disciples, is the real example of psychological trickery, not Elon exploiting some prejudice.
Personally I agree with Musk on the issue of American exceptionalism and nationalism. Not that the US is without faults, but on balance I absolutely agree that it is the greatest single force for good the world has ever seen. Now you can take that as an indictment of the world or an exaltation of America. In my opinion it's a little of both.
Yeah, you and Mr. Musk are both entitled to your opinions, but unless you're willing to expound in details about how one would measure exactly the "greatest single force for good the world has ever seen", apply these measures systematically to every major world entity history has seen, and show that the US comes out on top, this is just basically 1am THC fueled dorm school debate.
Of course it is. But if you want to paint him as a Trump-like demagogue using this sentiment of his, I think the burden of proof is on you to establish its absurdity.
Well we've had to save Europe twice now from destroying itself and possibly the rest of the world. So we've prevented a heck of a lot more bad than we've created IMO.
The impact on WW1 was rather small though. German forces were already at a low, especially because of the British sea blockade. The American entry into the war might have shortened it a bit, but it was not really the deciding factor.
By the time the US entered WW1, Europe had already destroyed itself, the major belligerents were exhausted (or had already dropped out), and the war was on the edge of ending anyway.
And, while the US contribution to the outcome in WWII was more significant globally than in WWI, we absolutely did not get involved to save Europe from anything, or anyone from Europe. It wasn't Europeans that attacked Pearl Harbor.
The Roosevelt administration Congress has approved the Lend-Lease act which meant active involvement in Europe with armaments, active naval combat in the North Atlantic, and ground troops in Iceland. The US had started building a 'two ocean' Navy almost two years before Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was a final gift to the Roosevelt administration's multi-year program of full mobilization.
This program of support and mobilization absolutely was in response to events in Europe and a desire to see the UK in particular not fall. Note that when the US did enter the war, the Pacific was designated the secondary theater of operations.
The US was the first to embrace and enforce the radical view that people have rights - and showed that it worked, resulting in an incredible explosion of prosperity reaching to all levels in society.
Propagation of these rights to other countries have resulted in their prosperity as well.
If you need statistics, start with longevity, infant mortality, and average height starting in 1800 to the present.
No, the UK embraced that idea before the US did (many of the specific rights and the legal language used to describe them are taken directly from their articulation in British predecessors); the formation of the US was largely a reaction by elites educated in British norms being unhappy that the ideas that were accepted in Britain were applied with less consistency in overseas territories with special legal status.
A practice, one might note, that the US has also continued.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? A written system of laws and punishments, duties and privileges, is not based on principles of inalienable rights of men, equality before the law, etc.
"Research by Victorian historians showed that the original 1215 charter had concerned the medieval relationship between the monarch and the barons, rather than the rights of ordinary people" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta
What other organization qualifies? There are 2billlion more people in the world directly because of the US. Many have longer legacy's but few have for example removed polio from the world. China and England both played major roles in Smallpox's demise, but you quickly find only major nationstates are in the running.
PS: US had a major role in the Green Revolution which does have downsides, but as saved more lives than all the 20th century was combined. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution the world population was 2.5 billion in 1950.
I really like this french article detailing how public opinion about "which nation contributed the most to victory in WW2" has changed dramatically over time in France.
In May 1945, 57% of the respondents claimed the USSR, 20% the USA, 12% the UK. By 2015, the figures are 23% USSR, 54% USA, 18% UK.
Wonder if American WWII movies have anything to do with it?
Back then people knew more about what happened. The generation that grew up afterwards was fed pro-American propaganda. I know because I grew up in the 80s and remember the school books. We got told lies about how e.g. the Soviets killed children in Afghanistan with bombs shaped like toys.
Because of the threat of communism most western democracies saw it as important to emphasize American contribution over the USSR.
What isn't open to interpretation however is that it was a joint effort to win WWII. Many nations contributed to that victory. I simply think it is arrogant and insulting for Americans to claim they saved everybody in WWII. It implies that America single handedly came in and did the job. Russia and Britain also saved America in that sense.
The implication of this line or reasoning is also that all of Europe and the USSR would have become Nazi Germany. That would have created an enormously powerful empire which together with Japan had been a serious threat to America. It is not like it would have been irrelevant to the US what the outcome would have been.
The soviets did kill children with bombs shaped like toys. Those bombs were called the PFM-1. They may not have done this intentionally, but they absolutely did do it.
> PFM-1 (Russian: ПФМ-1, short for противопехотная фугасная мина - anti-infantry high-explosive mine; NATO name: Green parrot, also known as butterfly mine) is a land mine of Soviet production, very similar to the BLU-43 US Army landmine. Both devices are very similar in shape and principles, although they use different explosives.
> BLU-43/B and BLU-44/B (Bomb Live Unit) "Dragontooth" were air-dropped cluster-type land mines used by the United States during the Vietnam War.
> The use of Dragontooth mines in Vietnam went largely unnoticed, likely as a product of its essentially classified usage primarily in Laos as part of Operation Igloo White. Production of the system had ceased by 1970, and it was predicted that existing stocks would be exhausted by the end of 1971.
> In stark contrast to the lack of public commentary on the Dragontooth system, the subsequent Soviet analogue, the PFM-1, spurred a lot of controversy after being used in Afghanistan during the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, being a key element leading to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
Sounds like the "killing children" line, used exclusively against the soviets, would be a bit loaded
1. The US also doing something does not invalidate my correction.
2. The USSR did this after the US had already done it. The first person who deploys weapons like these can claim ignorance of the issue of children picking them up - at least for a while. The second, much less so.
That being said, both sides hands are clearly dirty in this case.
There as cluster bombs that look slightly like dolls if you use a lot of imagination. But in no way as this deliberate as my 80s textbooks and teachers in Norway claimed. The Soviets had nothing to gain by such a policy.
This was propaganda served by the US that we swallowed up in Norway and retold to our kids. Ironically, the Soviets told the same kind of propaganda to their kids about US involvement in Nicaragua where they used similar types of cluster bombs.
Exactly. The U.S. is a pretty great place for innovation, liberal democratic values, and we haven't even committed genocide since at least the 1890s. We've had universal suffrage for nearly a century (some exclusions may apply, see states for black-out dates). And we promote civil rights around the world in all of the countries except the ones where we're propping up a dictator.
I guess my point is that America is a great thing with some serious problems. Not unlike some codebases I could mention. I don't know that blind nationalism is good for anything other than making you feel good, but patriotism isn't all bad. America is the best kludge ever.
Given all the various authoritarian regimes the US has enabled or installed [1], I must disagree strongly with your assertion. Certainly the arrogance you see in US nationalism is something not easily matched in history.
The idea set forth by the parent poster is that America's does a lot of good, more so than any other country---not that the good is outweighs the wrong.
I think it is reasonable. The US international involvement far surpasses any other countries, which gives it a lot more chances to do right (and wrong).
I don't think you can speak of the good without considering the bad. Nobody celebrates Adolph Hitler for the good he did, although he did get Germany out of a serious recession and got rid of a huge unemployment problem quickly. Of course that is an extreme example, but we often use extreme examples to make a point.
The problem with just speaking of good things is that many good things are intrinsically linked to bad things. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein was clearly a good thing viewed in isolation. But viewed in context with all the problems it caused it was probably a bad thing. Far more people have suffered due to the invasion of Iraq than people who have benefitted.
Opposing a socialists dictatorship in Afghanistan was in principle a good thing. But when the alternative becomes Taliban and bin Laden then clearly it was a bad thing.
Encouraging a capitalist democracy in Vietnam was also seen in isolation a good thing. In practice in turned into a horrible thing, causing huge amounts of suffering, not just in Vietnam but also triggering genocide in Cambodia.
This is a reoccurring thread with American foreign engagements. So much of what America does is theoretically good, but ends up being horrible in practice.
As long as Americans think they are mainly a force for good and don't acknowledge all the screwup properly, America will keep screwing up things. The best way for America to do good I think is to accept they are not exceptional, don't know all the answers and actually have to listen to others to find the best solutions.
I have no doubt that there is a tremendous will in America do to the good thing. The problem is that the will is not matched with the wisdom and humbleness needed to accomplish it.
No one is not acknowledging the screw ups. The point is that on balance America is a force for good in the world. At least, compared to every other country in the world.
Can you elaborate? I was looking up why US entered WWI the other day, and one such reason appeared to be an ongoing stalemate between the various powers, with a 100% correlation to the losing side occurring with America's entry and military expansion within 2 years.
I'm open to counterpoints, given the recurring theme of "we could have just not"
German troops and the resources were quite exhausted (malnutrition and bad equipment) and the Brits were effectively blocking the seaway. France was also able to encrypt the German communication, giving them an edge. The strategy of the Germans contained a lot of flaws as well, so their success at least of the Army was quite limited.
One might argue that the Germany Navy wins over Britain (which was one of the reasons the US entered) could've turned the war, but I'm sceptical.
When the Germans did the Spring Offensive 1918, with substantials reinforcements from the Eastern front after the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk, they found shops filled with all types of food in the areas they where advancing, when they at the same time severely lacked food supplies. This lead to looting and a break down in morale.
And by that time, the German civilian population had severe war fatigue by years of blockade.
US troops balanced the German reinforcements from the Eastern front, and thereby removed the German advantage, however it did not grant the victory.
Remember that when Armistice of 11 November 1918 was signed, Germany was not occupied by any forces of the entente. It was Germany that was on the offensive.
This was the motive for the Stab-in-the-back myth (Dolchstoßlegende), the army was not beaten, but the politicians made peace behind their backs.
I am a big fan of Elon Musk and I generally think he has very good analysis, but I'd like to have seen his analysis for this because this seems poorly reasoned.
I'd disagree with every case. Elon Musk could not possible have research this very thoroughly. Especially claiming WWI seems nuts. Back in those days France, Germany and other neighboring countries had had many wars, but it was seldom about complete dominion. They stole some land from each other. Germany only planned to take some chunks from France and take over Belgium. Secondly Germany was hardly some crazy fascist dictatorship. Thirdly if you read discussion of this Americans don't seem to have had that much direct effect on the battlefield. Its seems like the allies would have won eventually, just slower without American participation. They controlled the sea and was ramping up war production way beyond Germany. And finally none of the above might have matter at all since the real end was the German revolution which produced the Weimar republic. The new democratic leadership was not interested in any war of conquest.
The US had more influence on WWII, but 80% of German forces got destroyed on the east front. The Soviet Union was a formidable opponent and it seems unlikely that they could have ever held it even if they had had more success without US support of the USSR. Germany was poorly prepared for occupying such a large country. Without the US the war would likely have dragged on longer but I think Germany would have had to give in eventually. The alternative outcome would likely have been an undemocratic Germany, however Stalin would likely not have had the strength to occupy eastern Europe, and we might actually have ended up with more democracies. This is what I hate about the rose tinted description of WWII outcomes. WWII started because Britain had pledged to keep Poland free. At the end of the war Poland was a communist dictatorship. So was all the other east block countries. So WWII didn't result in a lot of democracy.
The US surely stopped Japan, but Japan wasn't spreading dictatorship in a free world. They were frequently replacing one colonial power for another. Who knows China controller by capitalist dictatorship in Japan might have been preferable over a communist dictatorship led by Mao.
Finally the last assertion is on even shakier ground. Quite the contrary I'd claim the US mostly did things worse in the cold war. The Vietnam war was a big waste of resources. Vietnam turned capitalist in the end just like China. US meddling in Afghanistan during the cold war screwed up the country more and laid the seeds for modern day jihad. In some cases like Cambodia, US meddling more likely caused communism to happen than prevented it. Communism got rotten from the inside. They started stagnating in the 70s and economic problems got worse through the 80s while those living behind the iron curtain increasingly became aware that they were falling far behind the western democracies. Groups like solidarity sprung up in Poland. Communism got destroyed from the inside. The US was hard on the communist rhetoric but ultimately I don't think that was what mattered.
We can't prove it would end one way or the other for sure. But I think it is dangerous to end up in this kind of hero worship of the US. I think a lot of failed American policies has happened precisely because of the idea of American exceptionalism. If America had less inflated ego, it might have accomplished more IMHO.
Every day the Germans held onto Treblinka 12,000 Jews died. How many days would you think is worth it to weaken Stalin enough? Or would you want them to start implementing their plans for the Slavs, which would have made the Shoah into a footnote in their crimes.
I'm generally a TSLA bear, I think they're a money pit and will run out of money, especially after that disasterous decision to buy SolarCity. I'm currently short TSLA via puts because I think the SCTY purchase is going to cripple both companies.
But there's something to be said about trying shoot for the moon, and trying to build "the best car ever." I, in fact, do admire that all-in, ballsy move, from a techie's perspective. And if it were limited in quantities, I'm sure he could accomplish it, because there are some very amazing features in all of Tesla's cars, however, I don't believe it's possible to mass produce reliably in the timeframe they need, given their track record.
I just don't think from the point of view of a business, it's the right thing to do.
Why actively trade against a moonshot -- Would you have done the same against NASA for the moon landings...?
My understanding is that short positions are not merely passive; they can have a detrimental effect (in aggregate) on a company's likelihood of success. Are you really interested in harming the company (even if fairly negligibly for you as an individual) in exchange for some modicum of personal financial gain?
Sorry, I just don't get it. Assuming NASA's $18.4B budget is split evenly among 300M Americans... I'm paying ~$60/yr for NASA. I would gladly pay that to TSLA even if it didn't have "good business prospects" as a way to push forward humanity -- that it continues to have financial upside is just a bonus.
In this world, we so rarely get a chance to "vote with our dollars" in a meaningful way. The fact that some people have grandeur plans and work tirelessly to progress humanity is amazing; that others just want to naysay and profit off their crashes & burns... it boggles my mind.
In moderation, short positions help markets function better by discouraging speculative bubbles. How those affects combine for TSLA I won't claim to know. But the popular notion that short positions are inherently harmful is incorrect.
Short positions are part of an efficient allocation of capital and efficient pricing. They also effectively bring down the price of this company - so you can buy more if you think it should be higher.
Some people think Tesla is a mess. Short sellers help keep bubblicious prices down and, if those people succeed, they'll invest in companies that have a better shot of actually succeeding.
Shorting is part of the spectrum: it goes from all of your money in a single stock to none to negative.
I think one could argue that by not buying more Tesla stock, you are also not merely passive. You also have a detrimental effect. ;)
Selling short can be harmful for a company, since brokers are allowed to lend up to 100% of a company's shares, effectively doubling available supply which can put downward pressure on cash raises through further raises through the creation of additional stock, but buying put options is just an advanced form of side bets which has almost no negative consequences to the company in question.
> has almost no negative consequences to the company in question.
The reality is, of course, not so simple, but the general idea is manifested differently on the strike price of course and I didn't want to get buried in detail. The fact remains that even if the stock was 100% short sold, buying additional puts can still tank the stock due to market dynamics, but it isn't wrong to say that buying puts has less impact than selling short.
People buying TSLA aren't required to take an ideological purity test, either. You can bet that some of them are in it for the money, too. Your comment is kinda like "you can vote, but only if I approve of it" which isn't really voting.
This strikes me as a strange wager, as Panasonic is providing capital through a partnership with Tesla for Solar City [1] [2]. Tesla is acquiring a long term bond revenue stream (while stripping away the expensive SCTY sales/marketing expenses, relying on Tesla's existing network instead), as well as a very expensive mostly-automated solar panel production facility [3], at a deep discount with a partner providing the financing.
Your TSLA puts seem like a poor way to burn up options premiums; I'll be thinking of this conversation while listening to the earnings call on Wednesday.
EDIT: I haven't even touched on the fact that Tesla has a buyer for every battery they produce, whether that's in a Tesla vehicle, in a consumer PowerWall, or in a utility scale PowerPack (which they've signed at least 3 deals for in the last 2 months, all to have installation completed before the end of the year). This signals, to me at least, that they are supply constrained (Gigafactory construction continues in stages), not demand constrained.
(@elonmusk: "Would also like to correct expectations that Tesla/SolarCity will need to raise equity or corp debt in Q4. Won't be necessary for either.")
Your view is pretty common -- lots of shorts like to post about why they're shorting Tesla all over the Internet -- and appears to have nothing to do with the article we're supposed to be discussing.
I said that it's common for shorts to post, and you're saying that I'm wrong and that it's not surprising that a short posted in this Tesla thread. Gotcha.
Most Tesla-related threads on HN, no matter what the original article is about, contain some combination of the following:
A stock short posting about why they're shorting Tesla, usually for reasons completely unrelated to the article.
Someone complaining that they live in an apartment and don't have a place to charge.
Someone complaining about the Tesla touchscreen controls being worse than physical controls, generally without indicating that they're aware that Teslas have the usual steering wheel controls.
Animats complaining that Autopilot is misnamed. (I suppose that's what his YouTube url list is about, I guess he missed that part about "don't post video links without explaining what's in them".)
A complaint that Tesla cars are only for rich people.
A complaint that since some places in the developing world don't have a reliable electric grid, that... well, I'm not sure what they're getting at.
A complaint that we can't all switch to electric cars tomorrow, because the Grid isn't big enough.
A complaint that electric cars aren't good because a lot of electricity comes from coal.
A complaint that electric cars aren't good because of the fairly modest environmental damage that comes from lithium mines.
A complaint that Tesla, SpaceX, and Solar City are more tied together than they should be.
A complaint about Elon's reality distortion field.
A complaint that there's a gang downvoting anti-Tesla comments.
A complaint that there's a gang downvoting pro-Tesla comments.
A complaint that all Tesla threads get flagged off of the front page.
A suggestion that we could use car batteries as grid storage.
Complaints that Teslas aren't luxurious enough. (Uh, isn't Tesla's #1 selling point performance?)
I can go on, but, you have probably already noticed that this thread is scoring pretty high against this list. And really, it's pretty boring. Which is probably why this story has been... wait for it... flagged off of the front page.
maybe I should have quoted the part that was wrong:
>>[someones comment] appears to have nothing to do with the article we're supposed to be discussing.
This is wrong because mentioning a short bet is on topic for an article about a negative news event.
Regarding your other point, I haven't researched it. I can only say my other comment on this thread (about what Musk knew about quality) had nothing to do with anything you mentioned.
That's a pretty terrible bet with a terrible payoff profile. Even if it sinks to like a quarter of it's current value you'd only make about 3x on your money at most of the strike prices.
The Economist's articles on Tesla this week are remarkable. SolarCity could bring down Tesla. Another SpaceX crash might too. It's all too much risk and the dubious financing strategies coming up with buy/buyback and whatnot look like financial engineering. Between that and depending on a growth rate like Apple or Google at their peak when they were financed it's all too much.
Honestly with how much simpler Tesla's cars should be their position on Consumer Reports' round ups has always troubled me. It's the main reason I'd lean away from buying one even if I could justify it financially.
As a side note. I switched from BMW to Lexus a year ago and have been a much happier car owner.
Edit: I'm going to retract this. Looking into Tesla guts a bit and some things I thought would be much simpler actually get more complex like the cooling system.
I was spending a lot of weekends fixing little things here and there. The only reason it wasn't costing an arm and a leg is because I was doing the work myself but the parts were crazy expensive.
Also, removing some components that should've been easy was painfully time consuming.
My extended family has a large percentage of Lexus cars. They have amazing reliability, fair resale values, cheap parts if something does break. Yes some BMW and Audi might be more fun to drive in some ways but I trust my Lexus to get around with rock steady dependability.
I love Lexus. My dad had one a few years back; a 2005 ES330. SUPER reliable luxury car. Very smooth. (That being said, it pretty much was a fully loaded Camry lol)
X is a fairly complex and evidently clunky beast. S, however, is a reliable workhorse at this point. Most of the problems reported on user forums nowadays are in regards to sunroof and difficulty finding proper tires in middle-of-nowhere places, so for ultimate reliability I'd suggest skipping sunroof and keeping a spare tire or two just in case.
My family has both Tesla S and Lexus RX, S has by far smoother ride and infotainment system. To be fair, Lexus doesn't require Bluetooth and is happy to play music via USB plug. RX is also a nicer option for all those dips combined with steep inclines California developers seem to build into every freaking shopping plaza out there.
"In retrospect, it would've been a better decision to do fewer things with the first version of Model X," Musk said in February. "I think there was some hubris there with the X,"
Says the guy that wants to fly a rocket to mars next? Musk is the news story that I can't stop watching. Thankfully he's using that power for better ends than Trump!
he stated he was camping the production line, if this is true then how could he not know. maybe they were counting on buyers of the X to be so enthralled they would over look the issues? I know reading the forums you do get some rabid sycophants who defend about anything, get off the forums into the wild and it can be sillier.
I was simply shocked someone actually defended having their axles replaced. The only X at work has misaligned door handles, front to passenger are so off its just odd looking.
I think we're seeing Elon Musk's strategy of hitting the market early play out here. Same thing is happening with "autopilot" - the aggressive marketing has clearly cost lives, but it helps Tesla in their future endeavors (for now, at least).
By contrast, Google's self-driving tech is years and years ahead of Tesla's. Google is not interested in going to market with this technology until it's 100% ready.
It's worth mentioning that Google lost most of their team working on self-driving cars this year. In fact, I think every person in charge (Thrun, Levandowski, Urmson, plus whoever else) has left.
It's an apples to oranges comparison; the two companies have quite different approaches, and it's totally unclear how it's going to turn out for either one.
You can find a ton of opinions about it, though, here and other places.
Tesla spun bad statistics to make that claim. They're comparing highway driving to all driving, and highway driving is statistically safer. They're also ignoring demographics, as Tesla owners tend to be affluent and older. If you take this into consideration, it actually suggests that it's less safe, however with such a tiny sample size it's too early to draw any conclusions from the data.
Considering Tesla's very generous warranty on the first 4 years or 50,000 miles https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/Model_S_New_V... it's hard to believe any sinister theories regarding shipping a flawed product under strong pressure from sales department. Any monetary gains would be short-term and go into negative quickly as consumers start bringing their vehicles for free repairs.
My friend got a loaner Model S while her X was in the shop for repairs, which on top of completely free repairs seems like a pretty expensive and undesirable process for Tesla Motors.
> Considering Tesla's very generous warranty on the first 4 years or 50,000 miles
It's not overly generous, considering that in the same North American market Kia offer 10 years / 100,000 miles on the powertrain versus eight years / 125,000 on the Tesla, and five years with various higher-than-Tesla mileage limits on other aspects.
"it's hard to believe any sinister theories regarding shipping a flawed product under strong pressure from sales"
But I think pressure could have come from the accounting department ("if we do not ship now, our shares will go down, making it too hard to get the money we need, bankrupting the company") or from Musk ("if we do not ship now, our shares will go down, an I would have to give up control of the company to get the money we need")
Yes, a flawed product costs more money, but even if that is only weeks away, it may be better than facing a slightly less bad situation _now_.
Elon seems to think that innovation means vastly over promising, and then expecting it all to work out via the triumph of his will, or something. It's an attitude that reeks more than a little of arrogance, as if he's started to believe his own bullshit a little too much.
This isn't quite what the article is talking about, but the Model S itself is decreasing in usability, too, in my opinion. One critical component of car design is that all of the functions intended for use by the driver should be operable with minimum distraction. On the Model S, most functionality is on the touch screen, and, with the latest firmware update, almost all the touchscreen controls auto-hide. So now, to access the controls, you have to tap the screen to brig the controls back, wait a second or two, and then use the (already fairly attentions intensive) controls.
Of course, Tesla seems to think that the driver doesn't actually need to pay attention to the road...
Frankly, I miss the experience of driving my old Lexus. It wasn't fancy, but you could control basically everything by feel without looking away from the road.
I find that almost everything I want to do is (still) on the steering wheel. If I want to use the touch screen, I tap it without looking to bring up the controls, wait a second, and then they're in basically in the same place they've always been.
> If I want to use the touch screen, I tap it without looking to bring up the controls, wait a second, and then they're in basically in the same place they've always been.
I've never sat in a Tesla but that sounds crazy. Why would they want to hide everything away? Aesthetics?
I'm mostly a Tesla fan, but between the 8.0 software usability issues and the ongoing (minor) fit and finish problems with my 2013 S, I'm reluctant to buy anything else from them until they can prove they've figured this stuff out.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 170 ms ] thread"The amount of issues we've addressed with Model X has fallen by 92% in the last 12 months..."
Does that mean their ability to fix existing issues has fallen by 92%? Or does it mean that the number of outstanding issues has fallen by 92%?
Words matter.
Can we get the LA Times clickbait title fixed (I suggest "Consumer Reports Recommends Model S Again Following Reliability Survey; Model X Didn't Fare Well")? And maybe point to the above direct CR source?
is a better link, since it has the actual table referenced by the article.
Musk sounds like Trump sometimes. Reminds me of this other line of his:
> Musk is a self-described American exceptionalist and nationalist, describing himself as "nauseatingly pro-American". According to Musk, the United States is "[inarguably] the greatest country that has ever existed on Earth", describing it as "the greatest force for good of any country that's ever been". Musk believes outright that there "would not be democracy in the world if not for the United States", arguing there were "three separate occasions in the 20th-century where democracy would have fallen with World War I, World War II and the Cold War, if not for the United States".
I remember one Honda that had a transmission recall, defective radio and a tendency for body trim to fall off (according to the little blurb) and was rated awesome.
The equivalent Ford was dinged because the OEM tires were noisy.
So do they like Tesla or dislike Tesla? Only a year ago or so they rated the Model S as the best car they had ever reviewed; then there were a few Autopilot failures and some troubles with the Model X -- now the honeymoon seems to be over.
It's not that I think CR does a wonderful job with cars -- or with any other product that I'm familiar with -- but I think that their biases are more complex than a simple "they like who they like".
Model S was a fairly new vehicle, so in year one they only did the first part - there weren't many Tesla owners who were also CR subscribers who also have had the car for at least a year to generate a reliable corpus of reader ratings.
Things changed in year two when reader surveys started trickling in, with Model S owners reporting higher than average amount of issues, which impacted the overall ratings.
CR's own driving tests still earned Model S a "CR Recommended" badge, it just no longer came with a spotless 100-point score they've previously assigned.
That allows you to simply +/- their ratings in a certain area, depending on how well their rating lines up with your personal experience. It's hard to do that with similar types of organizations, where it really comes down to the person who reviewed it, and sometimes even how they felt that day.
The thing that drives me nuts is the lengths people such as yourself will go to in order to rationalize their dislike of him. Calling people who like him and the car 'disciples' is also pretty terrible.
Wow, disregarding Soviet Union's role is a bit shortsighted.
People like the cars because they view them as antiestablishment. e.g. better than what other car makers are building — because the establishment car makers are crooks with no regard for the world and would allow the destruction of nature for a dollar.
Meanwhile the data shows that cars are a minuscule contributor to global warming in comparison to burning coal. And that electric cars are not necessarily cleaner than gas cars when you consider what source they are charged from.
If you want to do something about global warming that will have an actual impacted you must turn China and India into rich countries that can afford be green (to use the common vernacular).
Musk's whole brand and "popularity [is based on] exploiting prejudice and ignorance among the common people" (from the Wikipedia article on demagogue).
Again, this drives me nuts.
People like the cars because they are better than what the other car makers are making. Model S is the safest, fastest, and most efficient sedan on the market. That's a fact!
Cars are minuscule contributors? The EPA site says 14% Co2 is from cars, which is substantial. That's also a fact!
If Tesla keeps going, it will replace generation and consumption of fossil fuels with a fully renewable cycle. How is that not the best thing ever? That's fantastic! We might be cutting more than 30% of our CO2 emissions.
You need to re-evaluate your standpoint. Also, when you're struggling with cognitive dissonance after reading this, consider this: Your brain's attempts to discredit my argument, and paint Elon backers as mindless followers/disciples, is the real example of psychological trickery, not Elon exploiting some prejudice.
The impact on WW1 was rather small though. German forces were already at a low, especially because of the British sea blockade. The American entry into the war might have shortened it a bit, but it was not really the deciding factor.
Full disclosure: I'm German.
And, while the US contribution to the outcome in WWII was more significant globally than in WWI, we absolutely did not get involved to save Europe from anything, or anyone from Europe. It wasn't Europeans that attacked Pearl Harbor.
The Roosevelt administration Congress has approved the Lend-Lease act which meant active involvement in Europe with armaments, active naval combat in the North Atlantic, and ground troops in Iceland. The US had started building a 'two ocean' Navy almost two years before Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was a final gift to the Roosevelt administration's multi-year program of full mobilization.
This program of support and mobilization absolutely was in response to events in Europe and a desire to see the UK in particular not fall. Note that when the US did enter the war, the Pacific was designated the secondary theater of operations.
Propagation of these rights to other countries have resulted in their prosperity as well.
If you need statistics, start with longevity, infant mortality, and average height starting in 1800 to the present.
A practice, one might note, that the US has also continued.
"Research by Victorian historians showed that the original 1215 charter had concerned the medieval relationship between the monarch and the barons, rather than the rights of ordinary people" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta
It's hard to think of world issues on this scale, but we are making a lot of progress as a species. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_infectious_di...
PS: US had a major role in the Green Revolution which does have downsides, but as saved more lives than all the 20th century was combined. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution the world population was 2.5 billion in 1950.
In May 1945, 57% of the respondents claimed the USSR, 20% the USA, 12% the UK. By 2015, the figures are 23% USSR, 54% USA, 18% UK.
Wonder if American WWII movies have anything to do with it?
http://www.les-crises.fr/la-fabrique-du-cretin-defaite-nazis...
Because of the threat of communism most western democracies saw it as important to emphasize American contribution over the USSR.
The implication of this line or reasoning is also that all of Europe and the USSR would have become Nazi Germany. That would have created an enormously powerful empire which together with Japan had been a serious threat to America. It is not like it would have been irrelevant to the US what the outcome would have been.
> BLU-43/B and BLU-44/B (Bomb Live Unit) "Dragontooth" were air-dropped cluster-type land mines used by the United States during the Vietnam War.
> The use of Dragontooth mines in Vietnam went largely unnoticed, likely as a product of its essentially classified usage primarily in Laos as part of Operation Igloo White. Production of the system had ceased by 1970, and it was predicted that existing stocks would be exhausted by the end of 1971.
> In stark contrast to the lack of public commentary on the Dragontooth system, the subsequent Soviet analogue, the PFM-1, spurred a lot of controversy after being used in Afghanistan during the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, being a key element leading to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
Sounds like the "killing children" line, used exclusively against the soviets, would be a bit loaded
1. The US also doing something does not invalidate my correction.
2. The USSR did this after the US had already done it. The first person who deploys weapons like these can claim ignorance of the issue of children picking them up - at least for a while. The second, much less so.
That being said, both sides hands are clearly dirty in this case.
This was propaganda served by the US that we swallowed up in Norway and retold to our kids. Ironically, the Soviets told the same kind of propaganda to their kids about US involvement in Nicaragua where they used similar types of cluster bombs.
I guess my point is that America is a great thing with some serious problems. Not unlike some codebases I could mention. I don't know that blind nationalism is good for anything other than making you feel good, but patriotism isn't all bad. America is the best kludge ever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_authoritarian_regimes_...
I think it is reasonable. The US international involvement far surpasses any other countries, which gives it a lot more chances to do right (and wrong).
The problem with just speaking of good things is that many good things are intrinsically linked to bad things. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein was clearly a good thing viewed in isolation. But viewed in context with all the problems it caused it was probably a bad thing. Far more people have suffered due to the invasion of Iraq than people who have benefitted.
Opposing a socialists dictatorship in Afghanistan was in principle a good thing. But when the alternative becomes Taliban and bin Laden then clearly it was a bad thing.
Encouraging a capitalist democracy in Vietnam was also seen in isolation a good thing. In practice in turned into a horrible thing, causing huge amounts of suffering, not just in Vietnam but also triggering genocide in Cambodia.
This is a reoccurring thread with American foreign engagements. So much of what America does is theoretically good, but ends up being horrible in practice.
As long as Americans think they are mainly a force for good and don't acknowledge all the screwup properly, America will keep screwing up things. The best way for America to do good I think is to accept they are not exceptional, don't know all the answers and actually have to listen to others to find the best solutions.
I have no doubt that there is a tremendous will in America do to the good thing. The problem is that the will is not matched with the wisdom and humbleness needed to accomplish it.
I'm open to counterpoints, given the recurring theme of "we could have just not"
Not sure about the high impact of the US.
German troops and the resources were quite exhausted (malnutrition and bad equipment) and the Brits were effectively blocking the seaway. France was also able to encrypt the German communication, giving them an edge. The strategy of the Germans contained a lot of flaws as well, so their success at least of the Army was quite limited.
One might argue that the Germany Navy wins over Britain (which was one of the reasons the US entered) could've turned the war, but I'm sceptical.
When the Germans did the Spring Offensive 1918, with substantials reinforcements from the Eastern front after the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk, they found shops filled with all types of food in the areas they where advancing, when they at the same time severely lacked food supplies. This lead to looting and a break down in morale.
And by that time, the German civilian population had severe war fatigue by years of blockade.
US troops balanced the German reinforcements from the Eastern front, and thereby removed the German advantage, however it did not grant the victory.
Remember that when Armistice of 11 November 1918 was signed, Germany was not occupied by any forces of the entente. It was Germany that was on the offensive.
This was the motive for the Stab-in-the-back myth (Dolchstoßlegende), the army was not beaten, but the politicians made peace behind their backs.
In any case, lavish praise of America is kind of a common American thing... no one person or group really owns that.
I'd disagree with every case. Elon Musk could not possible have research this very thoroughly. Especially claiming WWI seems nuts. Back in those days France, Germany and other neighboring countries had had many wars, but it was seldom about complete dominion. They stole some land from each other. Germany only planned to take some chunks from France and take over Belgium. Secondly Germany was hardly some crazy fascist dictatorship. Thirdly if you read discussion of this Americans don't seem to have had that much direct effect on the battlefield. Its seems like the allies would have won eventually, just slower without American participation. They controlled the sea and was ramping up war production way beyond Germany. And finally none of the above might have matter at all since the real end was the German revolution which produced the Weimar republic. The new democratic leadership was not interested in any war of conquest.
The US had more influence on WWII, but 80% of German forces got destroyed on the east front. The Soviet Union was a formidable opponent and it seems unlikely that they could have ever held it even if they had had more success without US support of the USSR. Germany was poorly prepared for occupying such a large country. Without the US the war would likely have dragged on longer but I think Germany would have had to give in eventually. The alternative outcome would likely have been an undemocratic Germany, however Stalin would likely not have had the strength to occupy eastern Europe, and we might actually have ended up with more democracies. This is what I hate about the rose tinted description of WWII outcomes. WWII started because Britain had pledged to keep Poland free. At the end of the war Poland was a communist dictatorship. So was all the other east block countries. So WWII didn't result in a lot of democracy.
The US surely stopped Japan, but Japan wasn't spreading dictatorship in a free world. They were frequently replacing one colonial power for another. Who knows China controller by capitalist dictatorship in Japan might have been preferable over a communist dictatorship led by Mao.
Finally the last assertion is on even shakier ground. Quite the contrary I'd claim the US mostly did things worse in the cold war. The Vietnam war was a big waste of resources. Vietnam turned capitalist in the end just like China. US meddling in Afghanistan during the cold war screwed up the country more and laid the seeds for modern day jihad. In some cases like Cambodia, US meddling more likely caused communism to happen than prevented it. Communism got rotten from the inside. They started stagnating in the 70s and economic problems got worse through the 80s while those living behind the iron curtain increasingly became aware that they were falling far behind the western democracies. Groups like solidarity sprung up in Poland. Communism got destroyed from the inside. The US was hard on the communist rhetoric but ultimately I don't think that was what mattered.
We can't prove it would end one way or the other for sure. But I think it is dangerous to end up in this kind of hero worship of the US. I think a lot of failed American policies has happened precisely because of the idea of American exceptionalism. If America had less inflated ego, it might have accomplished more IMHO.
But there's something to be said about trying shoot for the moon, and trying to build "the best car ever." I, in fact, do admire that all-in, ballsy move, from a techie's perspective. And if it were limited in quantities, I'm sure he could accomplish it, because there are some very amazing features in all of Tesla's cars, however, I don't believe it's possible to mass produce reliably in the timeframe they need, given their track record.
I just don't think from the point of view of a business, it's the right thing to do.
My understanding is that short positions are not merely passive; they can have a detrimental effect (in aggregate) on a company's likelihood of success. Are you really interested in harming the company (even if fairly negligibly for you as an individual) in exchange for some modicum of personal financial gain?
Sorry, I just don't get it. Assuming NASA's $18.4B budget is split evenly among 300M Americans... I'm paying ~$60/yr for NASA. I would gladly pay that to TSLA even if it didn't have "good business prospects" as a way to push forward humanity -- that it continues to have financial upside is just a bonus.
In this world, we so rarely get a chance to "vote with our dollars" in a meaningful way. The fact that some people have grandeur plans and work tirelessly to progress humanity is amazing; that others just want to naysay and profit off their crashes & burns... it boggles my mind.
Some people think Tesla is a mess. Short sellers help keep bubblicious prices down and, if those people succeed, they'll invest in companies that have a better shot of actually succeeding.
Shorting is part of the spectrum: it goes from all of your money in a single stock to none to negative.
I think one could argue that by not buying more Tesla stock, you are also not merely passive. You also have a detrimental effect. ;)
Sources: http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/12/financia... http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/07/in-... http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2008/09/in_defense_of_shor...
Option dealers dynamically hedge. For each put sold they (a) buy a call and short the stock, (b) buy a put or (c) sell some fraction of the stock.
> has almost no negative consequences to the company in question.
The reality is, of course, not so simple, but the general idea is manifested differently on the strike price of course and I didn't want to get buried in detail. The fact remains that even if the stock was 100% short sold, buying additional puts can still tank the stock due to market dynamics, but it isn't wrong to say that buying puts has less impact than selling short.
Your TSLA puts seem like a poor way to burn up options premiums; I'll be thinking of this conversation while listening to the earnings call on Wednesday.
EDIT: I haven't even touched on the fact that Tesla has a buyer for every battery they produce, whether that's in a Tesla vehicle, in a consumer PowerWall, or in a utility scale PowerPack (which they've signed at least 3 deals for in the last 2 months, all to have installation completed before the end of the year). This signals, to me at least, that they are supply constrained (Gigafactory construction continues in stages), not demand constrained.
[1] https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-and-panasonic-collaborate
[2a] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/785139055793152000
(@elonmusk: "Would also like to correct expectations that Tesla/SolarCity will need to raise equity or corp debt in Q4. Won't be necessary for either.")
[2b] https://twitter.com/roger_kappler/status/785139908604207106 (asks Elon about 2017Q1, response is "Probably not then either")
[3] https://electrek.co/2016/06/01/musk-solarcity-robotic-solar-...
Usual disclaimer: Long TSLA.
Most Tesla-related threads on HN, no matter what the original article is about, contain some combination of the following:
A stock short posting about why they're shorting Tesla, usually for reasons completely unrelated to the article.
Someone complaining that they live in an apartment and don't have a place to charge.
Someone complaining about the Tesla touchscreen controls being worse than physical controls, generally without indicating that they're aware that Teslas have the usual steering wheel controls.
Animats complaining that Autopilot is misnamed. (I suppose that's what his YouTube url list is about, I guess he missed that part about "don't post video links without explaining what's in them".)
A complaint that Tesla cars are only for rich people.
A complaint that since some places in the developing world don't have a reliable electric grid, that... well, I'm not sure what they're getting at.
A complaint that we can't all switch to electric cars tomorrow, because the Grid isn't big enough.
A complaint that electric cars aren't good because a lot of electricity comes from coal.
A complaint that electric cars aren't good because of the fairly modest environmental damage that comes from lithium mines.
A complaint that Tesla, SpaceX, and Solar City are more tied together than they should be.
A complaint about Elon's reality distortion field.
A complaint that there's a gang downvoting anti-Tesla comments.
A complaint that there's a gang downvoting pro-Tesla comments.
A complaint that all Tesla threads get flagged off of the front page.
A suggestion that we could use car batteries as grid storage.
Complaints that Teslas aren't luxurious enough. (Uh, isn't Tesla's #1 selling point performance?)
I can go on, but, you have probably already noticed that this thread is scoring pretty high against this list. And really, it's pretty boring. Which is probably why this story has been... wait for it... flagged off of the front page.
>>[someones comment] appears to have nothing to do with the article we're supposed to be discussing.
This is wrong because mentioning a short bet is on topic for an article about a negative news event.
Regarding your other point, I haven't researched it. I can only say my other comment on this thread (about what Musk knew about quality) had nothing to do with anything you mentioned.
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21709061-entrepreneur...
Musk is incredible, but it looks like there will be a messy end. Tesla and SpaceX's technology will no doubt survive though.
As a side note. I switched from BMW to Lexus a year ago and have been a much happier car owner.
Edit: I'm going to retract this. Looking into Tesla guts a bit and some things I thought would be much simpler actually get more complex like the cooling system.
Also, removing some components that should've been easy was painfully time consuming.
My family has both Tesla S and Lexus RX, S has by far smoother ride and infotainment system. To be fair, Lexus doesn't require Bluetooth and is happy to play music via USB plug. RX is also a nicer option for all those dips combined with steep inclines California developers seem to build into every freaking shopping plaza out there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ7vqAUJdbE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoSNw_n1Xgk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQkx-4pFjus
Note that those are all the same design flaw.
Says the guy that wants to fly a rocket to mars next? Musk is the news story that I can't stop watching. Thankfully he's using that power for better ends than Trump!
Certainly it was known by many of the key engineers, possibly some in management, but the interesting question is did Musk himself know?
It's hard to believe he would knowingly tarnish the brand by delivering the least reliable SUV in America to customers.
On the other hand, it was already 18 months late - the pressure from all sides to deliver must have been enormous, with people on the edge of burnout.
As a purist, it's easy to say hold out as long as needed and don't compromise, but at some point it could have become a duke nukem forever scenario.
Pick your poison.
I was simply shocked someone actually defended having their axles replaced. The only X at work has misaligned door handles, front to passenger are so off its just odd looking.
By contrast, Google's self-driving tech is years and years ahead of Tesla's. Google is not interested in going to market with this technology until it's 100% ready.
Source?
You can find a ton of opinions about it, though, here and other places.
Tesla has suggested the opposite -- that the crash rate when the car is on autopilot is already lower than normal.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/10/0...
My friend got a loaner Model S while her X was in the shop for repairs, which on top of completely free repairs seems like a pretty expensive and undesirable process for Tesla Motors.
It's not overly generous, considering that in the same North American market Kia offer 10 years / 100,000 miles on the powertrain versus eight years / 125,000 on the Tesla, and five years with various higher-than-Tesla mileage limits on other aspects.
http://www.edmunds.com/kia/optima/2016/long-term-road-test/2...
And that's on a sub-$30k vehicle.
The 4/50,000 is bumper-to-bumper.
But I think pressure could have come from the accounting department ("if we do not ship now, our shares will go down, making it too hard to get the money we need, bankrupting the company") or from Musk ("if we do not ship now, our shares will go down, an I would have to give up control of the company to get the money we need")
Yes, a flawed product costs more money, but even if that is only weeks away, it may be better than facing a slightly less bad situation _now_.
Of course, Tesla seems to think that the driver doesn't actually need to pay attention to the road...
Frankly, I miss the experience of driving my old Lexus. It wasn't fancy, but you could control basically everything by feel without looking away from the road.
I've never sat in a Tesla but that sounds crazy. Why would they want to hide everything away? Aesthetics?
I'm mostly a Tesla fan, but between the 8.0 software usability issues and the ongoing (minor) fit and finish problems with my 2013 S, I'm reluctant to buy anything else from them until they can prove they've figured this stuff out.