Elon Musk

lol I do make a point of repeating the phrase "white South African billionaire" a lot. It helps to remember who we're dealing with.

emerald mine heir etc

Elon basically IS the villain demographic from movies and TV shows in the late Reagan/Poppy Bush era, when Russians got less fashionable as bad guys but everyone could agree rich white South Africans were terrible.

they have such gross accents too

california as a state has a lot of power here though since they're a huge market and are able to hold automakers to higher standards than federal through their state standards - if a car can be sold in california, it can be sold anywhere.

― 龜, Monday, December 12, 2022 2:22 PM (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

also 🇪🇺. lol at anything like the cybertruck ever being sold there.

Popular image of white South Africans in the 80s =

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9dmoT9AfoI

yeah feel like cali/eu tagteaming must be pretty common - like it was big news here when cali announced they were gonna ban ice engines by 2035 but really they were just aligning with the eu's decision to do the same a few months before xp

I rode in my first Tesla this week (Uber) and the interior looked like a 30 yo Star Trek: TNG set. All the controls and instruments are in what looks like an offbrand Surface Pro strapped to the very center of the dash. So many unnecessary changes to basic car controls/functions just for the sake of reinforcing that the car was special. Needed instructions to open the door from the outside and the inside. Interesting design choice to force the driver to take their hands off the wheel to scroll through several levels of screens for basic controls (radio, comfort, wipers?) that nearly every other car company now puts on the steering column or wheel.

Popular image of white South Africans in the 80s =

https://media.tenor.com/Xe2unUKcr0MAAAAC/diplomatic-immunity-diplomat.gif

"The demn blex"

xxp next gen will be dope though, octagonal wheels and “knights who say ni” when you honk the horn.

Does Tesla have any actual automotive engineers on staff? Who thought it was a good idea to put the driver in the center?

prob elon

he is a centrist, you know

The average Tesla driver could have their seatbelt break, get lodged in the windshield of their car, and will still go on Twitter while in the windshield and post

"hi Elon, love your cars, had a small issue with the belt today but it allowed me to have a once in a life time experience today"

yeah feel like cali/eu tagteaming must be pretty common - like it was big news here when cali announced they were gonna ban ice engines by 2035 but really they were just aligning with the eu's decision to do the same a few months before xp

― 龜, Monday, December 12, 2022 3:04 PM (thirty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

right also the CCPA is not a million miles from the GDPR IIUC.

Does Tesla have any actual automotive engineers on staff?

"tesla engineers poached" = About 862,000 results (0.69 seconds)

All through 2017-2020 Apple, Rivian, and Ford were hiring Tesla engineers. Alan Clarke (who was Tesla's manager of new programs engineering and had been there for 12 years) split for Ford in February.

my coworker has an older tesla (although maybe not old, because they never come out with new models!) and any time I ride in the back seat I have to be reminded of how to open the damn door

the design decision where holding the "door open" button rolls the window down a little bit so it can clear the frame, because the top of the window goes into the roof and not into a slot in the top of the door, is just weird

Does Tesla have any actual automotive engineers on staff? Who thought it was a good idea to put the driver in the center?

"It looked cool in the McLaren F1 so it will look cool here too."

It's the logic of a 12-year old drawing their ideal Ferrari-Lambo-Space Shuttle.

the design decision where holding the "door open" button rolls the window down a little bit so it can clear the frame, because the top of the window goes into the roof and not into a slot in the top of the door, is just weird

― mh, Monday, December 12, 2022 3:46 PM (twenty-nine seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

lmao had not heard about that, think saw something similar on a review of an old lamborghini back from when they were designed by literal insane people

everyone's first reaction is "oh, I must have hit the window button and not the door open button" because it's unintuitive and they're not labeled. and then you end up rolling down the window on your second try

"tesla engineers poached" = About 862,000 results (0.69 seconds)

All through 2017-2020 Apple, Rivian, and Ford were hiring Tesla engineers. Alan Clarke (who was Tesla's manager of new programs engineering and had been there for 12 years) split for Ford in February.

I was mostly being tongue in cheek, but honestly that design choice seems to be one made by someone who knows virtually nothing about automotive design . . . or driving, for that matter.

If your point is that Tesla's best engineers have been poached, that makes sense.

someone should tell them to check out door handles xp

for some reason i thought the car homer designed in the simpsons had the driver at the center, but even homer had the sense to keep the driver on the left hand side

https://media.wired.com/photos/593252a1edfced5820d0fa07/master/w_2560%2Cc_limit/the-homer-inline4.jpg

xpost I had the darndest time closing the door in my friends Tesla. I was sure it was still open a tiny little bit, not fully closed, but I cannot figure out how to do it without him pulling the car over and showing me.

that called innovation baby

Disruption

$TSLA hit a new 12-month low by a couple of pennies today, i think. the rally is over!

I do wonder how Tesla owners are currently feeling about the fact that they’re driving around automotive MAGA hats these days.

Anecdotally, I don't think they care. Though I bet it puts a dent in future purchases, especially once you factor in all the alternatives out there.

I am seeing a lot of the EV Kias and Mustangs lately, as well as a lot of Volvos and VWs.

yeah theres starting to be a shit ton of evs to choose from, at least model wise not sure if a shit ton of actual cars exist yet

glenn, thank you

The same worthless media liberals who never break stories, who never do any reporting, who just sit around mimicking each other every day - speaking only to and for one another in servitude to Dems - all write the same articles because they're all hive-minded empty herd animals. https://t.co/CK74mXWPJN

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 12, 2022

True

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 12, 2022

i don't think warzel claims he's a reporter?

when was the last time glem actually reported on anything

the lula-jailed-by-a-corrupt-judge story -- which he was largely fed but did amplify

when he was still at the intercept lol

I do wonder how Tesla owners are currently feeling about the fact that they’re driving around automotive MAGA hats these days.

I see a Tesla with CRYPTO vanity plates every so often. I assume he loves this direction.

xp then i guess he tried to report on hunter's laptop but the intercept nixed that lol lol

We need more of that substantial conservative reporting, like the big story about schools having litter boxes in classrooms for kids who identify as cats.

the two guys i know who own teslas are liberal guys who work in tech and were early adopters invested in musk as a tech genius. i see a ton of teslas around my area of chicago, which is mostly upper-middle-class but also generally liberal. my guess is a lot of tesla owners bought before he made his political leanings obvious and are now kind of embarrassed about it, or are oblivious of his right-wingery.

That's the vibe I get around here, more or less the same people that might otherwise (or previously) have been driving a luxury hybrid.

my little bro used to be a big Tesla guy and the thing that turned him off it (besides Elon becoming a garden variety chud) is them fucking around with the turn signals. he said he could never get used to it and sold the car. I'm glad he did because I fucking hated that thing. not only did it make me feel sick every time I rode in it, it's also incredibly uncomfortable. the entire interior is made out of the same shit you see at WG&R furniture when they're trying to stage a fake bedroom.

xp - same vibe in my (increasingly upper-middle class) neighborhood. the 'zero emissions / good for the climate' aspect is the initial motivator, but the 'look at me in my next-gen luxury car' vibe closes the deal.

the couple people I know who have had them are gadget nerds who also like futuristic junk

like, the idea of it not working quite right and being idiosyncratic is part of the appeal

this is not what normal people want from an automobile

max's Read Max newsletter had a gadget review that reminded me of that type of interest, and I think this kind of sums it up
https://maxread.substack.com/p/the-worlds-stupidest-smallest-smartphone

When you use this phone in public, people will want to talk to you about it. The most common question is “what is that” or “is that, like, a real phone” or, in the case of my immediate friends and family, “Dan … why.” But I’ve handed the Jelly 2 to people and after they mess with it a little, they’re also taken in by how charming and teensy it is. They’re sometimes impressed with it, too, though I don’t get the sense that very many would consider actually buying one.

This phone is shockingly non-shitty. It is clear when using this phone that Unihertz is a very, very powerful company, filled with engineers with powerful brains; I don’t know if Apple or Samsung or Google could have made this thing. What it also means is that Unihertz is absolutely capable of making an extremely good normal phone, and that they have chosen instead to make Stupid Phone. I admire this.

I think the newer ones are maybe better but the Tesla is the Stupid Car that does technologically interesting things. You're elated when it does something particularly cool. When the bumper falls off or you have to explain to a passenger for the fiftieth time how to open the doors, you shrug it off

Teslas are everywhere here, clearly the new BMW in terms of frequently being an easy signifier for the most despicable driver in close proximity. I don’t think a lot of not extremely online people care about what Elon musk says any more than they care the Nazis drove around in mercedes.