Comment by SR2Z
11 hours ago
Nobody with any knowledge at all is claiming that Elon Musk invented electric cars.
The simple truth is that he made electric cars viable competitors to gas-powered cars. His genius is not that he invented them, it's that he profitably manufactured decently reliable cars for a price that lots of people found attractive.
You can try and dismiss it as "marketing," but things like the Gigapress and FSD/Autopilot are impressive technical achievements in their own right. Even more impressive is that he built up a new car company that didn't fold and has had the best selling car in the US for significant chunks of time.
I don't like the guy, I think that FSD is dangerous, and I will never buy a Tesla for as long as he's in charge, but it's crazy that so many people feel the need to discredit his achievements. Sure, he benefited from selling carbon credits and EV subsidies, but if it were such an easy thing to do why did it take so long for anyone else to sell a good EV?
Gigapress has almost nothing to do with Tesla. It is just the name given by Tesla to a process they purchase from a third party vendor(Idra Group). Tesla was the first to use this product for large scale automotive production though.
You say that like they bought something off the shelf which just worked the first time they used it. They did not - it was a collaboration and Tesla spent a lot of money and time to get it to work.
I'm not gonna link the articles, but there are photos of the mountains of defective parts and plenty of people complaining about how terrible the first cars produced that way were. Tesla persevered and now other car manufacturers are trying to duplicate their results.
Musk's behaviors should be separated into before drugs and after drugs. Since the day he smoked pot on camera, it's been all downhill.
That's very silly. Weed doesn't turn people into habitual liars. Secondly, he was abusing drugs before that interview. Thirdly, he was telling absurd lies before that interview too. The hand wringing about him smoking a blunt is absurd, he doesn't have "reefer madness".
It's not the weed that fried his brain, it's the ketamine. That moment where he smoked up on camera seems to coincide pretty well with him losing his mind, though.
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Well reasoned.
Before he smoked that reefer, his space company was catching the largest booster ever made with metal chopsticks, all paid for by global satellite internet revenue.
His electric crossover/SUV was the best selling car in America.
Now that he’s gotten distracted by politics I dislike, he’s not doing any of that. Definitely no longer the world’s greatest builder.
/s
> all paid for by global satellite internet revenue.
Huh? You think starlink is funding space-x? If they lost all government and private launch business tomorrow and had to rely on Stalink revenues to stay in business they wouldn’t last through next month.
> His electric crossover/SUV was the best selling car in America.
It was, and then he fried his brain and decided to support fascists across the globe and can’t understand why people no longer want to support him or his businesses.
He apparently watched handmaid’s tale and thought “man those Gilead guys are really onto something”.
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The irony of the biggest welfare queen in the world being worshipped by libertarian tech bros is too much sometimes.
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> it's that he profitably manufactured decently reliable cars for a price that lots of people found attractive.
Huh? Nearly all of his profit was government subsidies designed to push EV adoption. And now he’s trying to pull the ladder up behind him.
Tesla has not been profitable for the vast majority of its existence when it comes to selling a car for more money than it takes to produce.
> Nearly all of his profit was government subsidies designed to push EV adoption
The government subsidies were available to his competitors at the time. Its not like that gave him a competitive advantage. Everyone else was on the same playing field.
[I hate that im defending that guy]