Doesn't help. I know for a fact I won't buy one while he's still CEO.
But the delayed purchase has given me time to reflect.
I'm in a city and have simply moved beyond wanting a new car. I've embraced tuning and maintaining my current vehicle and using it very rarely. Lower insurance, more satisfaction.
I've just purchased (very cheaply) another classic car just fool around with and restore.
I'll bet my net carbon emissions and costs are an "order of magnitude" less than buying any damned Tesla. And I'm enjoying learning new skills and ... it becomes almost creating a new art piece.
So, I'll say, thanks Elon ... for ensuring you delayed my purchase enough for me to open my eyes to something better.
Also in a city and own a petrol car I don't drive much.
I have recently bought an e bike and they are great fun and pretty good for getting around. Fun facts.
- Lower CO2 emissions per mile than any other transport apparently including walking and pedal cycling - humans eating food to cycle emit more it seems. Not that it's necessarily more environmentally friendly as you have batteries to deal with but even so it's good.
- Probably the fastest way of getting around central London. On google maps bikes usually beat cars and tube and ebikes tend to go faster than regular ones.
I'm not sure how long it will last before been stolen but it cost me about the same as two tanks of gas for the car (second hand).
Now worries. I'd recommend checking the ebike version. On my regular bike I'd tend to arrive hot and sweaty but on an ebike you can turn up the assist for the last five mins say.
> I'll bet my net carbon emissions and costs are an "order of magnitude" less than buying any damned Tesla.
Ars did that analysis and concluded that "In two years, the EV will have caught up to the used car in terms of ecological footprint". After that, the EV is much better for the environment.
Interesting, but slightly different scenario. As said, I've mostly transitioned away from using cars completely. I keep a couple at home.
One to obsess over and restore. One if I absolutely need one.
No way any EV is catching up with that.
And as someone else said, the alternatives are compelling enough now for me not to have to choose Tesla should the time come. To me, the ioniq 5 looks better than any car Tesla ever produced. In the right colour combo, it's gorgeous. Anyway, that's moot at the moment ...
Environmentally conscious buyers buy the environmentally conscious car, but the most popular "car" in the US is the Ford F-150. What do you suppose you tweet to get them to buy a Cybertruck?
Cars like that are so much about image that I suspect you just can't; the Cybertruck is likely simply too stupid-looking for most F-150 buyers, no matter what the CEO says on Twitter.
Googling a bit the F-150 sells about 750,000 a year and "By the end of November 2023, there were approximately 2 million reservations for the Cybertruck" (estimate off Wikipedia).
Reservations are not the same as sales but there seem to be buyers out there who don't think it's too stupid looking.
If he made a steam powered car out of bronze and wood, I can't imagine him tweeting anything that would encourage sales, but I can easily imagine a variety of things he could tweet which could discourage sales — in my imagination, this would be things like "antiques are for losers".
The premise in both cases is that a) there is at least some demand for the thing and b) customers are paying attention to him.
If a) isn't true then it isn't possible to lose sales because there aren't any. This is the "any publicity is good publicity" scenario because your baseline sales are zero. If a) is true then it's about saying things your target customers approve, and then we're back to "target customers for trucks are typically not environmentally conscious libs, and like to see them criticized."
Which was the other problem with your analogy: If he's selling some steampunk thing then he'd be criticizing whatever the opposite of that is, not its expected customers. Then the risk is alienating some other customers for some other product, but in a politically polarized environment the only way to please everybody is to say nothing. And then nobody is paying attention to you and that doesn't drive sales either.
This is one of the few cases where I, a person who once dated a self-proclaimed "eat the rich" communist, think that Musk's politics is really useful.
Why? Lefty eco-conscious plant-based-diet types like me switching away from ICE cars is not sufficient to fix greenhouse emissions, and the only way to get everyone on board is for someone to make vehicles for the political tribe that wants to own and drive the exact sort of vehicle that people like me want kept off public roads, vehicles like Cybertruck.
So, if we're having a big fight left/right battle over "is Cybertruck bad" and that battles leads to all the Republicans in the USA buying one as a status symbol just to "own the libs", that's great, because now everyone is going electric.
The only problem is that there's absolutely nothing green about an 8,000 pound truck that will only last 10 years. It can't tow worth a shit, so it's absolutely not a truck for people that actually need trucks.
It's environmentally disastrous to manufacture, tears up roads, chews through tires, and gets abysmal mileage when compared to other electric vehicles.
It's just an emotional support truck for cyrpto bros.
> It's just an emotional support truck for cyrpto bros.
I was considering describing it as a "penis extension" in the original comment, but sure.
> It's environmentally disastrous to manufacture, tears up roads, chews through tires, and gets abysmal mileage when compared to other electric vehicles.
And compared to ICE trucks? Because that's what matters.
Not being a truck person, I'll have to just assume you're correct about it only lasting 10 years or not being able to tow, despite these being surprising claims.
"... the only way to get everyone on board is for someone to make vehicles for the political tribe that wants to own and drive the exact sort of vehicle that people like me want kept off public roads ..."
I cautiously, tentatively agree with you.
However, the cybertruck is not the correct aesthetic for achieving this and is, therefore, a huge missed opportunity.
I think hybrids are a good thing. 90% of the (environmental) benefit for 10% of the battery requirement.
This also applies to putting PV on the cars themselves: 80% of the mean daily milage is still really useful, even though it really isn't going to be enough for everyone.
Musk's approach is a complete fail, tho. He pissed off his existing customer base (eco-lefties and centrists) and the right-fringe he courted didn't buy.
But honestly it's not about politics. Musk sounds and acts unstable. He is a splitting his time among 4 companies and pushing a vanity project (Cybertruck) that really no one wants (those 2M signups were for a 40k or 50k vehicle).
He's a horrible CEO and politics aside, his departure will be a sign that Tesla is ready to move forward.
The problem is that the Cybertruck appeals mostly to people with an Elon Musk fetish. It doesn't actually appeal to "Republicans", just to silicon valley Libertarian Party techno-optimist types with more disposable income than sense. There aren't enough of them to make a difference. It doesn't appeal to your average Republican F150 driver in Ohio.
In addition I think you are making a false equivalence here. As a German citizen, I can only emphasize that grouping people along the "Jew" line and drawing hateful conclusions from it is a path to a dark place. I don't care what other scenarios might also be problematic, I can say without a doubt, the sentiment he endorsed is anti-semitic!
This is not whataboutism - I am not saying it's not wrong because others do it too, or that it's not antisemitism. I am not presenting any opinion or judgment. I am trying to understand whether it's considered to be the same or different.
BTW my grandfather was in a Nazi concentration camp. I guess that says enough about what I think. But my opinion is not the matter here.
> I am trying to understand whether it's considered to be the same or different.
Why does it matter in this conversation?
If you want an ethical discussion about a mildly related topic, please find someone else to have it with. I'm not interested in having that discussion with you here.
Our countries weren't conquered by foreign powers who set up occupation governments with blasphemy laws against the ruling classes. Please leave your German brainwashing on these topics at home.
Yes, NATO nations have marked Russia as the clear and designated enemy. So, any statements that that support Russia or Russians are very bad and wrong and will be down-voted. All statements that criticize Russia or Russians are very good and correct and will be up-voted. You are a Pro-Putin-bot if you disagree with this.
