Sure looks like he’s doing his darnedest to make sure no other car companies get a chance at disrupting the internal combustion market.
Not to mention all the idiotic projects he keeps backing to replace efficient, reliable public transit with some variation on “hop in one of my individual electric vehicles!”
Sure.
Oh sure, but back in reality lots of people need cars. I personally don’t buy any car newer than 20 years old but if I were buying something new and pricey I can’t imagine it being anything other than a Tesla.
And @KathyPartdeux sure their cars get criticism, the dreaded “the panel gaps aren’t always consistent OMG!!!” being mentioned oddly often, but they’re literally called the best cars ever made pretty often.
The reviews go on and on. As importantly the customer satisfaction of Tesla owners remains as high as it gets.
Yes, because no one every went anywhere before we had cars…
Good for you. There are plenty of other great hybrid and electric cars that are better priced and better cars.
Reliability isn’t a “dreaded panel gap”.
It means it’s a shit car that needs tons of repairs. Near last in Consumer Reports is no way to go through the Holland Tunnel, Elon.
Musk doesn’t want tax assistance for private companies - okay then…
…how much money did he get from NASA to build the Falcon 9?
And is he prepared to walk away from all those taxpayer-funded DoD contracts and the flights to the ISS?
It’s kind of sad how many people seem to believe that putting private automobile ownership at the center of humanity’s transportation needs is some kind of inevitability dictated by the laws of nature rather than a choice we’ve made as a society… and a choice that we could collectively rethink, at that.
What? We can never change anything for the better!? That’s crazy talk!!! Also… adding more cars controlled by AI is the ONLY real solution to our traffic problems! Everyone knows that public transit is a failure! I’m sure that has nothing to do with oil companies and car companies!!! Just like you know… the laws of nature… /s
Try living in a rural area without a car or truck sometime…
The problem is that automakers and related businesses have seemingly convinced all of society, including urban planners, that everyone should depend on private automobiles (preferably a big honkin’ SUV) to address their transportation needs regardless of whether they live in a rural area or a densely-packed city.
Even people in rural areas used to regularly travel by train when they wanted to travel outside their local communities. “Everyone needs a car, all the time!” is a modern cultural construct.
Elon’s solution to traffic problems in densely packed urban areas is literally “let’s bore some tunnels to see if we can pack yet more roads in there for private automobiles, which I happen to be in the business of selling.”
Also by design… None of what exists now had to be this way nor needs to remain this way. Nor is Musk’s “solution” particularly helpful, novel, or unique. It’s exactly what every other car company is proposing - sell us more cars rather than highlight some public transit solutions to our transportation problems. Public transit can connect rural parts of the country too, it does not need to be just for urban environments.
Their recent problems don’t really matter when discussing the legacy and impact of Tesla. The fact remains that they took EV cars from being niche and ugly to mainstream. That’s both in terms of the cars themselves and their charging network and technology. I can’t think of any company, especially an automaker, who has done more to bring on the demise of the internal combustion engine. Can you?
Do you…really think the one of these answers the others? Of course rural areas need individual vehicles like that. Not everyone lives in them, and I would be hard-pressed to say humanity’s transportation centers on them.
Move those goal posts! Yes - it matters if your cars are badly made.
Dissembling that it doesn’t is just plain weird. Who tf wakes up and says - I’d just love to spend a ton of money on a crappy car that I’ll be paying off for years? Is that you?
Well
Additionally- GM made the first mass market ev with a useful range and beat Tesla to the punch by several years. They were the car of the year for that when Musk couldn’t deliver on it.
I’m not moving any goal posts, my point was and continues to be that Tesla has done more to advance the cause of the EV and kill the ICE than any other company. My first post above:
So go ahead, name a company that’s done more to kill the ICE than Tesla if you can.
I can’t imagine that accomplishment being overshadowed by the CEO being an asshole, but clearly some people disagree. I think that’s self evidently absurd, but alas.
Edited to add: Tesla has done far far far more than the EV1 (which was famously recalled against their owners wishes) to advance the cause of the EV and it’s not even close. The EV1 was at best niche, Tesla showed the mainstream possibilities.
Car companies exist to sell cars, not to save the planet. Looking to a car company for environmental salvation is the wrong approach from the start.
An electric car is incrementally better for the planet than a gasoline-fueled car, but that’s not really saying all that much. It’s not a panacea, and the guy who happens to own a company that manufactures them doesn’t necessarily deserve praise. Particularly when he’s advocating against the policies that allowed his company to get off the ground in the first place and is actively working against letting would-be competitors share those same advantages.
But companies and innovation certainly can have a positive impact on the environment. I’d say not giving credit where it’s due is the wrong approach, especially given that in the real world car companies (and the need for cars) are unlikely to go away. The impact of Tesla has been overwhelmingly good, compared to other car companies of course. By a wide margin. Obviously if you’re going to claim that all cars are bad and therefore all car companies are bad then you’ll disagree, but that’s like claiming that capitalism is bad and therefore all companies are bad. It’s not a realistic argument. But it is nominally better than claiming that Elon Musk is a “pedo guy” and therefore Tesla sucks.
Even when Tesla is actively working to keep other companies from getting competing electric vehicles to market and pushing against efficient public transit systems? To say nothing of the awful labor practices.
It’s hardly settled that any of their practices are worse than any other car manifactuer, or that the point of him wanting to end subsidies is for competitive advantage. But even if they’ve jumped the proverbial shark those first few seasons make Tesla the most effective opponent of the ICE in history.
But again it’s hardly settled that that’s the reason he’s advocating for an end to subsidies. His company benefitting from subsidies in the past doesn’t make it hypocritical for him to advocate against them. But it’s beside the point anyway.
…Um, I think it might be the whole point here.
