[lefrenchy]

It’s so funny to me when people still believe Elon when it comes to this or deadlines. I used to work for him and he always overpromises

Friendly reminder that in 2017 he was saying a car would drive autonomously from LA to NY in a year. It is now 2024 and that has not happened.

Friendly reminder that Tesla Semis are still not fully delivered and running.

Friendly reminder that the Roadster 2 is not rolling off the production line (people put down deposits too)!

[resters]

It's perplexing because Elon is effective at fundraising and pursuing challenging and ambitious goals.

However now Tesla cars are protected by a 100% tariff on competitors, and Elon is campaigning for Trump who is now promising 200% tariffs on imported goods.

The gigapress sounded like a good idea when I first heard about it bc it could reduce manufacturing costs, yet Tesla does not seem to have realized any significant improvements in 2024 from it, and needs massive protectionist policies to compete.

It's interesting to imagine the price and performance we'd be seeing (and all the new dealerships and service centers popping up) of Chinese engineered and manufactured EVs if it weren't for the tariffs. Surely there would be some very capable options in the $20K range that would eat the Model 3's lunch. But Elon has government protection to the rescue and so he doesn't have to actually win at engineering or manufacturing, only lobbying.

[nomel]

You’re simplifying things a bit here. The tariffs are to protect all US car manufacturers (who all have EV directives) from BYD, who was strategically subsidized by the government to crush EV companies, including Tesla [1]. Tesla would be able to compete much easier if we were to throw out the environmental regulations and better utilize slave labor [2].

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-10/byd-got-3...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/20/business/economy/forced-l...