The overall stats like "miles driven per accident" are probably the closest you'll get to this. Obviously Tesla bangs the drum every time figures come out in its favour. There is a level of incompleteness in the data and also some gray areas around the methodology that Tesla uses. But the overall figures do tend to indicate that Teslas using Autopilot and/or active safety features are safer than the average for cars (based on NHTSA and Tesla's reporting on Autopilot and/or active safety feature use).
If Tesla released more detailed data and its methodology it would be more helpful to see how significant this analysis is.
Although it also needs to look at when it decides to hand back control. Its all well and good saying its 'safer' because it makes less mistakes than a human driver would doing the same amount of miles but if it only is activatable in locations/conditions that are considerably easier to control then its somewhat incomparable.
> This is often quoted that tesla has a lower accident rate than other vehicles.
In general Teslas have higher accident rates than comparable cars, partly because EVs have higher accidents rates in general, but even among EVs Teslas have the highest. This goes back to data from an insurance company in Norway if I remember correctly. It's very hard to get reliable data though, as Tesla has no incentive to share this kind of data. Obviously you can't draw any conclusion from this to Autopilot-related accidents.
The reason, at least in the Norwegian article is "big fast car that Norwegians are not used to" and not auto pilot at least.
As a comparison my former car, a Toyota Avensis, was 175 cm wide. My model X is 220 wide or something. That's almost half a meter more. Have yet to crash it though :)
EVs in general have higher crash rate, most likely due to the instant torque.
You have to control for the demographics of typical Tesla owners (richer and older - less prone to accident if they weren't using Autopilot), as well as the type of driving that Autopilot is typically used for (tilt towards highway/freeway) when you make that comparison.
Why? Is it okay for the automated system to make objectively bad decisions until it reaches the magic threshold of however many incidents the non-automated system had? In a rewrite, do we not look at bugs until they exceed the number of the original system?
I don't get this radical zero-covid-like mentality. At unbounded cost we can diminish all risk. How do people get to this radical/dystopian point of view that no trade-off should exist?
The point is that you are deliberately misinterpreting the original article and then trying to turn that stupidity into silencing the problem entirely. The original article doesn't relate this to other statistics at all, that was a fabrication of the grandparent.
Of course NHTSA needs to investigate each and every one of these crashes. These are automated systems failing and so the issue could be systemic. It's the same reason every rail or airplane crash is investigated.
I think there’s enough Teslas on the road now that I’m willing to accept that each could be an independent and reasonable incident, unless routine investigation shows otherwise.
I'm curious mostly how Tesla "self driving" crashes compare to other carmakers "driver assist" crashes.
Because those two types of systems have mostly the same capabilities and same legal position, neither are self-driving in any way. But Tesla markets them more aggressively which could lead to a different attitude and behavior by some owners that think they have "self driving" and pay much less attention.
Tesla's driver assist tech is much better than most other cars. People are excited about that, making the media report a lot about mostly bad incidents. Nobody cares about your Peugeot 208 "Lane keep assist" crashing you into a cliff, because nobody cares about your Peugeot 208 in the first place.
Just for your reference none of the major auto companies do mid-range vehicle ADAS in-house (Higher-end vehicles and Halo product vehicles maybe sometimes).
There is no Peugeot LDW, there is just a bunch of OEM suppliers (Bosch, TRW, Mobileye, Continental, etc.) who do that for auto companies.
So raining on Peugeot because it is somehow second tier is misleading and misinformed because the electronics you find in a Peugeot ADAS sys, you will equally find in all other mid-range vehicles in the market.
So one of those failing would be a pretty big deal because it would apply to many models across many auto brands.
Tesla had something like 31 Billion in revenue in 2020 and as an example Bosch had about 71 Billion in revenue for the same period. If there was a case to sue lawyers would be jumping on it.
This number is not telling the full story, a Tesla crash with the assisted driving system often has catastrophic consequences.
Time to clip this mountebank swindler Elon a bit.
The lawmakers are to be blamed equally however. Try getting aftermarket wheels or exhaust system in most of Europe and you will find that requires homologation.
Meanwhile, Tesla OTA updates fly under the radar.
Nobody took it serious in the beginning because the sales numbers have been low and probably to not disrupt "the future".
But by now, there are plenty of Tesla's with naive conductors who are misled by the marketing and think they are in something like K.I.T.T ( or call it musk industries 420 ).
Does this come more from the manufacturers influencing the laws to keep control of the after market spares rather than a concern directly for your safety.
I suppose one advantage of the quick OTA updates is that once there is a weakness found in the system it can be fixed in all cars rather than waiting for a recall or extending driver training.
I don't think it comes from that. Every new model release for, let's say, BMW needs to pass all tests from anew, as it's considered a new vehicle. It makes sense to require homologation for aftermarket parts i would say.Same should be required for any companies OTA updates, just like one update can fix issues, a single update might also cause issues for every car in the fleet.
Yep, just look at the new Yoke steering wheel. I don't understand how that gets approval in Europe. Especially such a large touch screen with many important controls moved into sub menus. I get a fine for eating a hamburger while driving or operating my 3rd party nav but Tesla's UI is ok.
It's not surprising. Tesla marketing is basically a scam. The tech is great, but Tesla always overpromise, underdeliver, and lie.
The worst part is that few people seems to care or understand that it's BS. Take the latest launch as an example. The car is stated to do 0-60 in 1.99 seconds. Does it do that? No, not even close. It's also supposed to know if you want to go forward or back, and people are surprised when it doesn't do that.
And then comes the most dangerous part: Autopilot and full self driving. Tesla cars has over multiple years promised that you can rent out your car as a robotaxi soon if you get the self driving package. Has that happened? No. Will it any time soon? No.
Not only is people surprised when self driving doesn't work, but it also has fatal consequences.
Heck, even I who have no experience or insights into Tesla can much more accurately than Elon tell people what Tesla will and won't be able to do. And I do of course think Elon knows more, but he chooses to trick people to buy Tesla.
This is what's so strange about US. There are laws with very hefty fines about false advertising, especially when human life and health is involved, this is true for EU and most other locations. Try to remember how much VW paid for their diesel emission scam. It was almost 3 billion dollars. And Tesla...
Also remember that GM paid a fraction of that for the ignition switch scandal [0] where GM management intentionally hid the issue which directly lead to at least 120 deaths, and that was just the official count.
The US has little interest in hitting home companies in any way. Preventing the false advertising would impact the value of Tesla because the FSD claims were an integral part of Tesla's branding and success. Some countries in Europa, like Germany, blocked Tesla from using misleading claims in their advertising like suggesting anything about self driving [1]. Of course this is usually dismissed as Germany protecting its auto industry. But the reality is that the claims Tesla made consistently misleading and made to suggest the cars is able to self-drive and it's only regulations that prevent it from doing this.
I feel that there's almost 'Protect Tesla at any cost' order, even though there clearly isn't one. I have this heavy feeling that should Tesla crash and burn, this is going to be a major hit not only for Nasdaq or S&P, it can lead to major disillusionment with what tech sector really is and what it can and can not do for humanity in general and for US as a country specifically.
It's a very valuable company that's just taken off and for the first time in a long time gives the US an edge in the global auto industry. Shooting it in the wing now, even if it's the legal duty, gives everyone else an advantage. So blind eye it is.
Tesla has no reason to crash and burn but without a real or perceived edge over the competition it wouldn't thrive. And the self driving claim is a hefty part of that edge.
Yeah, but this is a very US-centric view. China is (arguably) far ahead of US both in EV technology in general and Tesla specifically. It's hard to separate personality cult of Elon Musk from Tesla, but for many outside US, there's absolutely nothing special about Tesla except for the valuation part.
I am completely oblivious as to how Tesla is seen in China. But plenty of the hype Tesla generated in Europe some years ago had FSD as a backbone (maybe a bit of ludicrous mode too), it was an easy way to cover generic EV drawbacks. I'm not saying that this is why people bought Teslas, rather that that's the reason people spoke about Teslas. If everywhere you look you see a discussion about how awesome one feature of a product is you're slowly and unconsciously going to start assuming the whole package must be awesome.
Tesla not only got "infinite" marketing and PR points by claiming "FSD", they even got money from people who are still waiting for that functionality. Those who expected driver assists are happy. Those who expected the claimed FSD are certainly not.
Today with competing companies like Volvo announcing L4 cars in 2022, the generic FSD claims are nowhere nearly as valuable as a few years ago.
> It's a very valuable company that's just taken off and for the first time in a long time gives the US an edge in the global auto industry. Shooting it in the wing now, even if it's the legal duty, gives everyone else an advantage. So blind eye it is.
Reminds me of Wirecard, which imploded one year ago. Everyone, from regulation agencies over banks to politics - including Chancellor Merkel and her advisors - wanted Wirecard to succeed at all costs. In the latest hours of Wirecard, after the "we're missing two billion euros" statement, there even was the idea to pump hundreds of millions of euros taxpayer money to prevent its collapse.
The principle of defending your superstars applies everywhere, albeit the US is doing it to a far greater degree compared to others simply because they're in a better position to do it.
But Tesla and Wirecard are in no way in the same league. Tesla is actually delivering cars, batteries, building factories, and developing tech. Wirecard on the other hand was a hot air balloon, at least after a point.
Having looked at a lot of the issues surrounding Tesla, I would strongly disagree with that statement. I think it's mostly informed by hindsight. While it remains speculative it is certainly possible that Tesla is in the same league as Wirecard, and maybe Enron.
People are easily thrown off by the fact that Tesla is successfully delivering a physical product and that the product is excellent in many aspects (driving UX, charger network, software integration, EV evangelism etc).
However once you look closer, a whole host of parallels emerge: 'Very aggressive accounting' (non-GAAP, 20% accounts receivables, junior CFO, warranty repairs as goodwill etc), business is not profitable (revenues stem from tax credits not cars), bail out/enrichment of Musk family (SolarCity), securities fraud (funding secured), retaliation against whistleblowers, silencing/threatening critics and journalists, legal record, occupational health violations (injured workers not being treated, Covid), workers at the factories not being allowed to speak to visitors, selling something that doesn't exist (FSD), environmental concerns at Fremont, ...
It's a different business than Wirecard for sure, and only time will tell, but the red flags are all there.
> retaliation against whistleblowers, silencing/threatening critics and journalists, legal record, occupational health violations (injured workers not being treated, Covid), workers at the factories not being allowed to speak to visitors, [...] environmental concerns at Fremont
Unfortunately, these issues - while perfectly legitimate to name them! - are extremely common throughout the entire US corporate and government culture. Exploitation of all kinds is pervasive.
Well... yes, simply because hindsight usually provides evidence while foresight provides guidance. So while I agree with your points, and as much as I dislike Musk (a criminal who's crimes are overlooked because of his status), your case pivots on the assumption that they're certainly faking it, just weren't caught yet. And you could be right. But so could Scientology.
The fact that Tesla is delivering what we can easily verify with our eyes at the very least puts them in a vastly different league from Wirecard. Tesla could be a unprofitable business like so many others. But Wirecard wasn't just a failing business, it was massive scale fraud and nothing it left behind still proves useful and can provide value now.
That is simply not true. The majority of Wirecard has been sold in the insolvency proceedings, e.g. the payments platform is still in use today! (Interestingly still using the domain wirecard.de!)
The liquidation price was nowhere near its market value and their technology was nowhere near as innovative - both points that are also true for Tesla.
Again, don't be led astray by the fact that Tesla is making physical products that you can see.
On a different note I don't think of corporate fraud as something that brings you from 0 to 1 - it's more akin to cheating in sports. It will give you a competitive edge, an unfair advantage.
If you are interested there is an interview with the CFO of Enron about legal fraud on Youtube - highly fascinating.
Tesla may be delivering cars and other physical properties but that doesn't make them immune to fraud, be it from customers or investors. This is a $500 billion company that has made some hefty promises toward both groups that it has repeatedly fallen short on.
The behavior of the investors in Tesla is extremely scary. Tesla bulls have organized some large intimidation campaigns against anyone whose tried to question why this company is worth $500 billion.
So Model S Plaid can do 0-60 in 1.98s provided sticky VHT substance on the track. Same stuff used for other drag racers, super- and hypercars to get the required road friction.
"Once ready and in its cheetah stance, the Model S Plaid's launch is drama-free, even without the added advantage of VHT. The electric car accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in just 2.07 seconds, more than 0.2 second quicker than our previous record holder."
Based on this, what NorwegianDude suggested that it doesn't come even near to that acceleration is just false.
Roll-out is standard my dude. So is testing at drag strips. Next you're going to point out that a tesla accelerating on the beach gets to 60mph in 11 seconds and therefore Elon is lying.
Many magazines use rollout and different surfaces. But pretty much every car manufacturer displays their acceleration numbers without excluding rollout or using a prepped surface. The dodge deamon is the exception here because it is designed for drag racing.
Tesla is interesting because they selectively include or exclude the rollout in their acceleration numbers. For their slower (but still very fast) models they include the rollout, and for their faster ones they exclude it, artificially increasing the gap between their models. Not sure why.
Engineering Explained did a good video on this, specifically mentioning rollout:
> […] No, Tesla's Model S Plaid won't hit 60 mph in under 2 seconds. In this video we'll discuss rollout, Tesla's actual 0-60 time, 0-60 theory, and what today's theoretical limit on 0-60 mph is. Watch to learn more!
>The car is stated to do 0-60 in 1.99 seconds. Does it do that? No, not even close
Can you explain this? If your only rebuttal is "muh 1 foot rollout" I'm pretty sure any reader is going to quickly throw you into the "for some reason, Elon Musk makes this person very butthurt" bin.
Well, rollout makes a big difference for rwd vehicles. The target here was to present a sub 2 second time.
Meanwhile, line it up from a dead stop vs an AWD and you will get this real world result.
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/10/26/porsche-taycan-turbo-s-...
Even few feet rollout makes 0.3 seconds difference.
Another thing is the us system 0-60mph, add another 0.2 seconds for the european 0-100kmh.
In conclusion, nope a Tesla will not do 0-60 mph from a standstill.
This is exactly what makes Tesla so weird. It's very unusual to see so much misleading marketing from someone who has technology lead.
> And I do of course think Elon knows more, but he chooses to trick people to buy Tesla.
Tesla has extremely weak board of directors. Innovator like Musk needs a board that provides constructive counterbalance. It seems that the board is just for the ride and they don't contribute anything.
Tesla executives say in official documents that Tesla Autopilot is just level 2. The sales and marketing hints, suggests, and gives an impression of something much better. Tesla must have lawyers that understand that being smartass and just avoiding being explicit does not give legal protection if there is consumer class action. The court will look at all the evidence and try to figure out what was the intended message.
But what has Musk innovated in Tesla? All Musk has done personally is talk big and then walk back on that once the engineers who actually need to do the innovation can't reach his pipe dreams.
In my opinion it's a company like any other, false advertising and all. Nothing out of the ordinary, it just presents itself as revolutionary.
"Revolutionary" tech companies are super common now. Uber is literally just a taxi service which doesn't give employee benefits, Tesla is literally just "what if car battery", a fairly mature technology. Hyperloop is a train, Loop and Lyft are just "public transport but not next to the poors", it's all so stupid.
None of these people are innovators in any way, they're just ordinary business owners who know that big promises pull in venture capital.
Most of them eventually get acquired by one of the large Silicon Valley corporations and then become a new bit of the market. Rarely they go on for longer than a few years before the jig is up.
Oh yes. People are still drinking the self driving kool aid. My father paid for self driving option in UK on a model S. three years ago. For three years it’s “any day now” he tells me regularly.
I’m not sure what he’s doing now but he was muttering something about having to pay for a hardware upgrade which will bring it closer.
He’s either going to drop dead or we will develop cold fusion reactors first.
Both "fusor" and "muon-catalyzed fusion" are 'cold' fusion techniques, and although the energy returns are 'abysmal' and 'bad' respectively, they are both real-life fusion techniques that do not rely on the conventional high-temperature high-pressure reactors.
Exactly. The fanatics are still in denial and continue to defend Tesla's FSD lies. Was supposed to be due last year and it is still admittedly 'Level 2'. They should at least called Tesla out for repeatedly misleading their customers (again), but won't because they are too busy worshipping Musk.
If it was anyone else, they would be immediately destroyed (or sued to hell).
> And I do of course think Elon knows more, but he chooses to trick people to buy Tesla.
They are sure clever at this marketing scam and they know it. Now they moved on to manipulate the cryptocurrency market.
As a Tesla owner I've grown pretty bitter with the car after 2 years. For $40k my auto wipers don't even work, Spotify playback is buggy, and I'm stuck with Tesla's shitty navigation instead of a sane alternative like Waze. I don't even have waypoints for planning trips, which are especially important for electric cars. In his hubris, Elon has outright rejected CarPlay - while doing absolutely nothing to improve the built in software.
Tesla's stated range on the website is basically a complete lie. I can only safely budget ~160 miles, even though my SR+ was sold advertising ~240 miles. The interior quality is pretty terrible for the price and I have to pay Tesla to enable rear seat heating which my $40k car already has installed.
I think Tesla will lose a not-insignificant amount of current owners when it's time to upgrade. A lot of us are sick of Tesla spending finances on adding worthless videogames when there are still serious shortcomings with the software. I am personally waiting for prices on the Audi e-tron GT to come down a bit, or for Porsche to release an electrified 718. The only issue is charging infrastructure, which Tesla absolutely dominates.
I mean I've heard the infotainment system on Teslas is closer to a cheap Android tablet glued to a car than a computer, kinda like a lot of smart TVs are. True or no? I've heard it has some performance issues.
The infotainment is the most responsive car industry - zero lag or stuttering, basically like an iPad. Unfortunately it is held back by buggy software and missing features.
This could be remedied by Tesla allowing CarPlay or Android Auto, but Elon has said that won't be happening.
Coming from a higher end Subaru… the Tesla system is a god send. I have complaints with my model Y, but that doesn’t even register (autopilot on the other hand, definitely tops the list).
If you watch the plaid launch they apparently finally added waypoints (and self joked about how that took so long) and a redesign of the UI. But unclear which models that will integrate back to or when.
A bunch of sunk cost fallacy together with the fact that many Tesla owners are painfully un-educated about the state of the car market.
For a large portion of owners, their Tesla is the first car they've ever bought in the price class, maybe even the first car they've ever bought new. If the sum of your experience with cars only covers years-old ~$20k cars, and not similarly priced new sport/luxury ICE cars, you will be absolutely thrilled by all the tech in your Tesla, thinking it's unique and fantastic and the best car on the market.
In its lifetime, I have had to replace the replace the main screen and dash twice due to yellowing and delamination. I am about to have to take it in for a third.
I have replaced the MCU once due to an unexplained malfunction, and am about to go in for a second replacement due to a recall.
On an average summer day, the car loses about 3-4 miles of charge parked in a garage. On exposed pavement, closer to 10 miles a day.
The interior (spartan and cheaply constructed as it is) has steadily developed a variety of squeaks and rattles and the road noise at 60mph+ is very loud.
The car can accelerate quickly but handling is not on par with even the most basic sports cars.
In my opinion, Tesla cars are best in the market for one thing and that's straight line acceleration. For everything else you might value in a luxury/performance car, Tesla is pretty subpar.
I watched a video of a German Tesla driver trying the auto pilot in a German city. If he hadn’t intervened it would’ve crashed into stationary cars parked on the side of the road, and on the second occasion it went straight ahead into a roundabout without slowing down at all. It’s insane how this is just treated as “Well, it’s a preview”. People are having almost-crashes because they rely on it in false belief that it is ready (because it’s always “close to public release”).
I wish HN would apply the same rules to discussions about Tesla as they recently have for Bitcoin. It's always the same predictable comments about how Elon's a liar, AP is a scam and Tesla is overvalued and overhyped. Gets so boring.
In the future every single car accident will be investigated, like it is done with airplanes, that is the advantage of autonomous cars, they log everything before the accident.
That is what made airplanes so safe that the last accidents have been basically suicidal pilots:
You investigate what creates accidents, you learn and take actions so accidents do not happen again. Rinse and repeat.
Lots of the "bugs" they are going to find are not in the cars, but in the roads, like perpendicular road crossings (too common in the US), instead of roundabouts, or concrete medians with sudden changes and no visual clues.
It’s pretty far from true that all airplane accidents are investigated. Airliner accidents are, but plenty of minor light aircraft accidents aren’t investigated any more deeply than minor traffic accidents are.
Not if there's no obvious fault anyway. Small planes go down often because they are usually flown VFR, by less trained pilots, or as training aircraft.
For an airliner to be able to go down at all is a problem. For a small propeller-driven plane it's pretty expected, they're manual as hell, less stable, and less massive.
The big choice NHTSA has to make is when to investigate and what counts as a fault of system design failure/operation failure and when that will result in a safe/unsafe recall situation. Case one car encounters situation it should be able to respond to and doesn't would need an in depth investigation whereas case 2 car encounters a new situation cant handle would need a more theoretical analysis on should car be able to handle that or is it safe to continue . i.e baby in road car should handle but they train model to ignore things like plastic cups/ plastic bags or any other "safe" road debris. but should it magically handle baby inside a plastic bag on the road. NHTSA will have to at some point make those calls on it will never be perfect but where is the line of good enough
Musk is really an engineer, and I mean a social engineer.
Going back to the early days of business, the owner of the company would try and sell people products and services directly.
Then it became lame and seen as a signal of a scam and "trying too hard".
Now fast forward nobody does it. But they don't understand that it's only lame and trying too hard when everybody does it.
If few people do it , then those people will be admired and elevated, bringing incredible advantages to the company and themselves.
Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Mike Lindell...they somehow managed understand this (whether reasoning about it or subconsciously) and they are reaping the rewards.
It is so sad to me that the best electric drivetrain in the world is in a car where they have made pretty much every decision with the goal of taking away from the drivers experience.
I don't want the car to drive for me. I don't want the car to shift for me. I don't want a yolk steering wheel, or to have the turn signals be a 1cm moving target, or to have to use the touch screen to change the headlights, turn on my seat heater, or open the glovebox. I just want a car that gives me the control, and has controls I can actually operate safely while driving, while still having the best drivetrain in the world.
Think the self-driving car is about lessening accident under the axiom of: computer response better than human
Personally, I don't like to drive and I think it is a waste of my time, time that can be better used. Which is why I always find my apartment that has good public transport to my work place. Some of my research ideas are found on a train ride to office.
84 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 178 ms ] threadI wonder if non-crashes - situations where the car took evasive action - may have been logged and could also be investigated?
On the other hand, evasive actions may be higher because drivers cede more control to the car.
If Tesla released more detailed data and its methodology it would be more helpful to see how significant this analysis is.
Thirty sounds a lot but then again, it might be a very tiny number compared to the mileage.
Comparatively, how often do those vehicles cause deaths while directly taking control of the vehicle.
In general Teslas have higher accident rates than comparable cars, partly because EVs have higher accidents rates in general, but even among EVs Teslas have the highest. This goes back to data from an insurance company in Norway if I remember correctly. It's very hard to get reliable data though, as Tesla has no incentive to share this kind of data. Obviously you can't draw any conclusion from this to Autopilot-related accidents.
Re Norwegian data: https://www.elbil24.no/nyheter/elbiler-bulker-mest/71498210
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/06/04/electric-car-insurance-...
Critical article re autopilot claims: https://jalopnik.com/feds-tesla-autosteer-safety-investigati...
As a comparison my former car, a Toyota Avensis, was 175 cm wide. My model X is 220 wide or something. That's almost half a meter more. Have yet to crash it though :)
EVs in general have higher crash rate, most likely due to the instant torque.
Is this looking accurate?
Of course NHTSA needs to investigate each and every one of these crashes. These are automated systems failing and so the issue could be systemic. It's the same reason every rail or airplane crash is investigated.
30 sounds tiny to me.
Because those two types of systems have mostly the same capabilities and same legal position, neither are self-driving in any way. But Tesla markets them more aggressively which could lead to a different attitude and behavior by some owners that think they have "self driving" and pay much less attention.
There is no Peugeot LDW, there is just a bunch of OEM suppliers (Bosch, TRW, Mobileye, Continental, etc.) who do that for auto companies.
So raining on Peugeot because it is somehow second tier is misleading and misinformed because the electronics you find in a Peugeot ADAS sys, you will equally find in all other mid-range vehicles in the market.
So one of those failing would be a pretty big deal because it would apply to many models across many auto brands.
Tesla had something like 31 Billion in revenue in 2020 and as an example Bosch had about 71 Billion in revenue for the same period. If there was a case to sue lawyers would be jumping on it.
Time to clip this mountebank swindler Elon a bit.
The lawmakers are to be blamed equally however. Try getting aftermarket wheels or exhaust system in most of Europe and you will find that requires homologation. Meanwhile, Tesla OTA updates fly under the radar.
Nobody took it serious in the beginning because the sales numbers have been low and probably to not disrupt "the future".
But by now, there are plenty of Tesla's with naive conductors who are misled by the marketing and think they are in something like K.I.T.T ( or call it musk industries 420 ).
The worst part is that few people seems to care or understand that it's BS. Take the latest launch as an example. The car is stated to do 0-60 in 1.99 seconds. Does it do that? No, not even close. It's also supposed to know if you want to go forward or back, and people are surprised when it doesn't do that.
And then comes the most dangerous part: Autopilot and full self driving. Tesla cars has over multiple years promised that you can rent out your car as a robotaxi soon if you get the self driving package. Has that happened? No. Will it any time soon? No.
Not only is people surprised when self driving doesn't work, but it also has fatal consequences.
Heck, even I who have no experience or insights into Tesla can much more accurately than Elon tell people what Tesla will and won't be able to do. And I do of course think Elon knows more, but he chooses to trick people to buy Tesla.
This needs to stop...
The US has little interest in hitting home companies in any way. Preventing the false advertising would impact the value of Tesla because the FSD claims were an integral part of Tesla's branding and success. Some countries in Europa, like Germany, blocked Tesla from using misleading claims in their advertising like suggesting anything about self driving [1]. Of course this is usually dismissed as Germany protecting its auto industry. But the reality is that the claims Tesla made consistently misleading and made to suggest the cars is able to self-drive and it's only regulations that prevent it from doing this.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/business/tesla-autopilot-...
Tesla has no reason to crash and burn but without a real or perceived edge over the competition it wouldn't thrive. And the self driving claim is a hefty part of that edge.
Tesla not only got "infinite" marketing and PR points by claiming "FSD", they even got money from people who are still waiting for that functionality. Those who expected driver assists are happy. Those who expected the claimed FSD are certainly not.
Today with competing companies like Volvo announcing L4 cars in 2022, the generic FSD claims are nowhere nearly as valuable as a few years ago.
Reminds me of Wirecard, which imploded one year ago. Everyone, from regulation agencies over banks to politics - including Chancellor Merkel and her advisors - wanted Wirecard to succeed at all costs. In the latest hours of Wirecard, after the "we're missing two billion euros" statement, there even was the idea to pump hundreds of millions of euros taxpayer money to prevent its collapse.
But Tesla and Wirecard are in no way in the same league. Tesla is actually delivering cars, batteries, building factories, and developing tech. Wirecard on the other hand was a hot air balloon, at least after a point.
People are easily thrown off by the fact that Tesla is successfully delivering a physical product and that the product is excellent in many aspects (driving UX, charger network, software integration, EV evangelism etc).
However once you look closer, a whole host of parallels emerge: 'Very aggressive accounting' (non-GAAP, 20% accounts receivables, junior CFO, warranty repairs as goodwill etc), business is not profitable (revenues stem from tax credits not cars), bail out/enrichment of Musk family (SolarCity), securities fraud (funding secured), retaliation against whistleblowers, silencing/threatening critics and journalists, legal record, occupational health violations (injured workers not being treated, Covid), workers at the factories not being allowed to speak to visitors, selling something that doesn't exist (FSD), environmental concerns at Fremont, ...
It's a different business than Wirecard for sure, and only time will tell, but the red flags are all there.
Unfortunately, these issues - while perfectly legitimate to name them! - are extremely common throughout the entire US corporate and government culture. Exploitation of all kinds is pervasive.
Well... yes, simply because hindsight usually provides evidence while foresight provides guidance. So while I agree with your points, and as much as I dislike Musk (a criminal who's crimes are overlooked because of his status), your case pivots on the assumption that they're certainly faking it, just weren't caught yet. And you could be right. But so could Scientology.
The fact that Tesla is delivering what we can easily verify with our eyes at the very least puts them in a vastly different league from Wirecard. Tesla could be a unprofitable business like so many others. But Wirecard wasn't just a failing business, it was massive scale fraud and nothing it left behind still proves useful and can provide value now.
The liquidation price was nowhere near its market value and their technology was nowhere near as innovative - both points that are also true for Tesla.
Again, don't be led astray by the fact that Tesla is making physical products that you can see.
On a different note I don't think of corporate fraud as something that brings you from 0 to 1 - it's more akin to cheating in sports. It will give you a competitive edge, an unfair advantage.
If you are interested there is an interview with the CFO of Enron about legal fraud on Youtube - highly fascinating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PJ1_TrackBite
Without VHT:
"Once ready and in its cheetah stance, the Model S Plaid's launch is drama-free, even without the added advantage of VHT. The electric car accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in just 2.07 seconds, more than 0.2 second quicker than our previous record holder."
Based on this, what NorwegianDude suggested that it doesn't come even near to that acceleration is just false.
"Plaid accelerates from 0-60 mph in 2.28 seconds"
So which one is it? Defenitly not 0-60 mph in 1.98.
0.29 seconds off is a huge amount. It's exponentially harder the lower you go, so I'd say that it's not even close.
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a30085446/acceleration...
https://www.motortrend.com/news/motor-trend-testing/
Tesla is interesting because they selectively include or exclude the rollout in their acceleration numbers. For their slower (but still very fast) models they include the rollout, and for their faster ones they exclude it, artificially increasing the gap between their models. Not sure why.
> […] No, Tesla's Model S Plaid won't hit 60 mph in under 2 seconds. In this video we'll discuss rollout, Tesla's actual 0-60 time, 0-60 theory, and what today's theoretical limit on 0-60 mph is. Watch to learn more!
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7yigpPSu_o
More on the topic:
> It's called a one-foot rollout and it's used in testing for all major car magazines. Here's what it is and why it's used.
* https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/videos/a32681/how-t...
* https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a18202575/the-importan...
Sometimes it is there and sometimes not, so it's important to know how test was done:
> Our results will now include the industry standard 1-foot rollout before the clock starts on acceleration runs.
* https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a30085446/acceleration...
The MotorTrend article suggest that it is actually quite close.
>The car is stated to do 0-60 in 1.99 seconds. Does it do that? No, not even close
Can you explain this? If your only rebuttal is "muh 1 foot rollout" I'm pretty sure any reader is going to quickly throw you into the "for some reason, Elon Musk makes this person very butthurt" bin.
Even few feet rollout makes 0.3 seconds difference.
Another thing is the us system 0-60mph, add another 0.2 seconds for the european 0-100kmh.
In conclusion, nope a Tesla will not do 0-60 mph from a standstill.
And it’s .2 seconds, so is 2.2 seconds make all those Tesla buyers idiots? What’s the nearest competitor at?
I'm more interested in stuff like 50mph -> 80 mph.
> And I do of course think Elon knows more, but he chooses to trick people to buy Tesla.
Tesla has extremely weak board of directors. Innovator like Musk needs a board that provides constructive counterbalance. It seems that the board is just for the ride and they don't contribute anything.
Tesla executives say in official documents that Tesla Autopilot is just level 2. The sales and marketing hints, suggests, and gives an impression of something much better. Tesla must have lawyers that understand that being smartass and just avoiding being explicit does not give legal protection if there is consumer class action. The court will look at all the evidence and try to figure out what was the intended message.
In my opinion it's a company like any other, false advertising and all. Nothing out of the ordinary, it just presents itself as revolutionary.
"Revolutionary" tech companies are super common now. Uber is literally just a taxi service which doesn't give employee benefits, Tesla is literally just "what if car battery", a fairly mature technology. Hyperloop is a train, Loop and Lyft are just "public transport but not next to the poors", it's all so stupid.
None of these people are innovators in any way, they're just ordinary business owners who know that big promises pull in venture capital.
Most of them eventually get acquired by one of the large Silicon Valley corporations and then become a new bit of the market. Rarely they go on for longer than a few years before the jig is up.
I’m not sure what he’s doing now but he was muttering something about having to pay for a hardware upgrade which will bring it closer.
He’s either going to drop dead or we will develop cold fusion reactors first.
Both "fusor" and "muon-catalyzed fusion" are 'cold' fusion techniques, and although the energy returns are 'abysmal' and 'bad' respectively, they are both real-life fusion techniques that do not rely on the conventional high-temperature high-pressure reactors.
If it was anyone else, they would be immediately destroyed (or sued to hell).
> And I do of course think Elon knows more, but he chooses to trick people to buy Tesla.
They are sure clever at this marketing scam and they know it. Now they moved on to manipulate the cryptocurrency market.
On the other hand, if it's a scam, Tesla owners should feel scammed.
But as far as I can tell, Tesla owners are absolutely loving the car, even with the many small defects.
Still seems that even though the car doesn't reach the marketing message, it still is one of the best on the market.
Tesla's stated range on the website is basically a complete lie. I can only safely budget ~160 miles, even though my SR+ was sold advertising ~240 miles. The interior quality is pretty terrible for the price and I have to pay Tesla to enable rear seat heating which my $40k car already has installed.
I think Tesla will lose a not-insignificant amount of current owners when it's time to upgrade. A lot of us are sick of Tesla spending finances on adding worthless videogames when there are still serious shortcomings with the software. I am personally waiting for prices on the Audi e-tron GT to come down a bit, or for Porsche to release an electrified 718. The only issue is charging infrastructure, which Tesla absolutely dominates.
This could be remedied by Tesla allowing CarPlay or Android Auto, but Elon has said that won't be happening.
For a large portion of owners, their Tesla is the first car they've ever bought in the price class, maybe even the first car they've ever bought new. If the sum of your experience with cars only covers years-old ~$20k cars, and not similarly priced new sport/luxury ICE cars, you will be absolutely thrilled by all the tech in your Tesla, thinking it's unique and fantastic and the best car on the market.
In its lifetime, I have had to replace the replace the main screen and dash twice due to yellowing and delamination. I am about to have to take it in for a third.
I have replaced the MCU once due to an unexplained malfunction, and am about to go in for a second replacement due to a recall.
On an average summer day, the car loses about 3-4 miles of charge parked in a garage. On exposed pavement, closer to 10 miles a day.
The interior (spartan and cheaply constructed as it is) has steadily developed a variety of squeaks and rattles and the road noise at 60mph+ is very loud.
The car can accelerate quickly but handling is not on par with even the most basic sports cars.
In my opinion, Tesla cars are best in the market for one thing and that's straight line acceleration. For everything else you might value in a luxury/performance car, Tesla is pretty subpar.
And yes, the repetition is exceedingly tedious and pretty much dominates all threads on these topics—kind of like one big ball of mud.
In the future every single car accident will be investigated, like it is done with airplanes, that is the advantage of autonomous cars, they log everything before the accident.
That is what made airplanes so safe that the last accidents have been basically suicidal pilots:
You investigate what creates accidents, you learn and take actions so accidents do not happen again. Rinse and repeat.
Lots of the "bugs" they are going to find are not in the cars, but in the roads, like perpendicular road crossings (too common in the US), instead of roundabouts, or concrete medians with sudden changes and no visual clues.
For an airliner to be able to go down at all is a problem. For a small propeller-driven plane it's pretty expected, they're manual as hell, less stable, and less massive.
Going back to the early days of business, the owner of the company would try and sell people products and services directly.
Then it became lame and seen as a signal of a scam and "trying too hard".
Now fast forward nobody does it. But they don't understand that it's only lame and trying too hard when everybody does it.
If few people do it , then those people will be admired and elevated, bringing incredible advantages to the company and themselves.
Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Mike Lindell...they somehow managed understand this (whether reasoning about it or subconsciously) and they are reaping the rewards.
Hacker News: This means they are universally guilty.
Even if data showed 0 accidents, I just cannot trust camera's and software with my and others lives.
I don't want the car to drive for me. I don't want the car to shift for me. I don't want a yolk steering wheel, or to have the turn signals be a 1cm moving target, or to have to use the touch screen to change the headlights, turn on my seat heater, or open the glovebox. I just want a car that gives me the control, and has controls I can actually operate safely while driving, while still having the best drivetrain in the world.
Personally, I don't like to drive and I think it is a waste of my time, time that can be better used. Which is why I always find my apartment that has good public transport to my work place. Some of my research ideas are found on a train ride to office.