Comment by sgjohnson

Comment by sgjohnson 3 days ago

20 replies

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> It's pure logic that Tesla has to pursue bets that would justify billion dollar valuations and being a car company isn't that.

But it's make-believe. Tesla is a car manufacturer. They haven't shipped anything else other than cars. And they even suck at making cars these days. Tesla Semi? All but dead. The new roadster? Also dead. Full Self Driving? Doesn't exist. Robotaxis? Even if they got them to work, at this point the brand is too toxic for widespread adoption of those.

They could have persisted at being a disruptive car manufacturer and still held a several hundred billion dollar valuation. Now they are a very mediocre car manufacturer, with their only actual success being conning everyone into believing that they are a bleeding-edge tech company so their $1.5Bn valuation seems justified.

usaphp 3 days ago

> And they even suck at making cars these days

Aren’t model Y and model 3 considered the best cars in their class by most motor journalists?

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  • Arainach 3 days ago

    No, not by a long shot, unless you define "class" so tightly as to only include those vehicles and no competitors.

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    • apublicfrog 3 days ago

      What would you define as better? I rent various EVs regularly, and I'm still yet to find something that beats it on performance, range and price. That's all before comfort and features, which again most seem to lack. There are a couple pretty close to Tesla, but nothing that clearly beats it that I've driven.

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      • Arainach 3 days ago

        In the US market, the Hyundai Ioniq 6 has better build quality, identical range in real world conditions, a ton of comfort, and no threat that their CEO will go off his meds and take away your driving assist features unless you pay a ~~ransom~~ subscription fee.

        Internationally, BYD destroys it.

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      • theshrike79 3 days ago

        As a car? Anything. Hyundai Ioniq 5 for example.

        As a computer? Not many to be honest. Dog Mode is an afternoon project for a junior programmer and still _ZERO_ car manufacturers have copied it.

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        • cogman10 3 days ago

          Tesla's greatest strength is/was that they did almost everything inhouse. The reason all the other manufacturers struggle to do basic things like dog mode is because they are almost all relying on the supply chain for everything. No infotainment/HVAC supplier has a dog mode so it doesn't exist.

          The obvious downside to that is that when Tesla cuts back on R&D, it becomes painfully obvious to the car owners. I'm not expecting anything like dog mode to show up ever again.

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  • bmitc 3 days ago

    No. They are consistently rated low, particularly in safety and reliability.

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testing22321 3 days ago

I know it’s popular to hate on Elon and therefore Tesla, but you need to be accurate when doing so. They’re still chipping away.

> Tesla Semi?All but dead.

They’ve been running a pilot all this time, and the factory in Nevada to mass produce them is on schedule. Production ramp is second half of this year. The factory is ginormous.

> The new roadster? Also dead.

Elon said yesterday the unveil is in April “hopefully”

> Full Self Driving? Doesn't exist. Robotaxis?

Cars are driving passengers around Austin now with nobody in either front seat.

It takes automakers almost a decade to bring a new vehicle online, Elon just does it all publicly while everyone else doesn’t take the wraps off until the final 6 months.

Obviously everything is way behind elons hype timelines, but I do still think it’s all coming.

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  • SR2Z 3 days ago

    > Cars are driving passengers around Austin now with nobody in either front seat.

    This is a good example of Tesla being sketchy: https://electrek.co/2026/01/28/teslas-unsupervised-robotaxis...

    Musk made the announcement before earnings, put a few cars on the road, and now has pulled them all back because the earnings report is out.

    This is a little more than doing it publicly - remember, Musk has been saying FSD will be functional every year for more than a decade.

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    • Zanni 3 days ago

      Fred Lambert at Electrek has become an unreliable reporter on Tesla. I don't know where his bias stems from, but it's unmistakeable.

      Lambert claims David Moss couldn't find a Robotaxi ride without a safety driver. True enough, there aren't a lot of them on the road. That doesn't mean they don't exist or were "pulled back."

      Here's Moss's latest tweet on the subject: "ANOTHER UNSUPERVISED:

      2 in a row now here in Austin, TX of Tesla Robotaxi’s completely autonomous without chase cars.

      You can see 2 cars in the clip with no one in it & anyone can book it!

      Ride 59 complete." https://x.com/DavidMoss/status/2016939137031381487

      Note also in that SAME ARTICLE, Lambert credits Moss with driving 10,000 miles on FSD v14 with zero interventions.

      To paraphrase William Gibson: full self-driving is here, it's just unevenly distributed.

      Reply View 1 reply
  • kjs3 3 days ago

    They’ve been running a pilot all this time

    So did Nikola.

    Elon said yesterday the unveil is in April “hopefully”

    Who could possibly argue with that.

    Obviously everything is way behind elons hype timelines, but I do still think it’s all coming.

    At least you've identified it for what it is.

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    • testing22321 2 days ago

      They have just finished a 1.7 million square foot factory to build the semi - aiming for 50k units a year.

      I think comparisons to Nikola are not very even.

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      • kjs3 2 days ago

        aiming for 50k units a year

        I'm aiming for being better looking and having more hair. Elon and I are even right now.

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  • alistairSH 3 days ago

    Cars are driving passengers around Austin now with nobody in either front seat.

    Unless the reporting was wrong, they've moved the supervisor to a chase car. The hobo-taxi still isn't operating on its own.

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