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Elon Musk: Officially a fraud and piece of shit. Official or unofficial war criminal?


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5 hours ago, Guadaloopy said:

That’s not how “tu quoque” works.  If I was saying “other automakers do this, so it’s OK that Tesla does it”, then you would have a point.  
 

The general tone and theme re: Tesla in this thread is that Tesla has uniquely bad products and processes.  My only argument is that this is simply not the case.  

My personal experience is my Tesla had seemingly little sound deadening material and had a lot of road noise compared to my wife's A6. It tried to kill me twice on the highway by slamming on the brakes because the car read that the barrier wall through the chicane was in front of it. After about 25k the window would leak at the carwash in the rinse cycle when the sprayer hit it. Didn't leak when it rained though. Hot as shit this last summer with the glass roof. Got rid of it. Ultimately it was a fun car for a bit but a shit product once you got some miles on it, and the programming in it seemed dangerous. I turned everything I could off. Probably won't buy another.

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19 hours ago, troph said:

Good to know thanks! Mercedes ICE was my last and it was my fav ICE for driving around town all things considered. 

I’ve never been much of a car guy, I just want something that can get me from A to B and at least not look like an incel dork (sorry Tesla). But got damn, I love my Mercedes. First car I ever really enjoy driving. 

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On 12/24/2023 at 7:59 AM, Captainant said:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/twitter-violated-contract-pay-millions-bonuses-us-judge-rules-rcna131034

WASHINGTON — Twitter violated contracts by failing to pay millions of dollars in bonuses that the social media company, now called X Corp, had promised its employees, a federal judge ruled on Friday.

Mark Schobinger, who was Twitter’s senior director of compensation before leaving Elon Musk’s company in May, sued Twitter in June, claiming breach of contract.

 

Schobinger’s suit alleged that before and after billionaire Musk bought Twitter last year, it promised employees 50% of their 2022 target bonuses but never made those payments.

Quote

Twitter’s lawyers argued that the company made only an oral promise that was not a contract

Think about this argument. Twitter is not denying that the employees were promised a bonus. Instead they're arguing that their owner verbally lied to employees and that shouldn't constitute a contract. 

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31 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Think about this argument. Twitter is not denying that the employees were promised a bonus. Instead they're arguing that their owner verbally lied to employees and that shouldn't constitute a contract. 

Actually this argument is saying: “yeah we entered into, legally binding but very difficult to prove, oral contracts, and we’re admitting we actually said them!!”

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On 12/24/2023 at 8:01 AM, Guadaloopy said:

Improper use of the driver assist functions in Tesla’s caused deadly accidents.  

Improper use of driver assist functions (cruise control and lane-keeping) has caused automobile accidents for decades.

People misuse technology    Reel at 11.


 
 

 

Improper use of driver assist functions has caused accidents in many types of vehicles.

The issue with Tesla is that their driver assist functions are improperly marketed to make people believe the car is autonomous.

The term “Autopilot” instead of lane-assistant or cruise control makes people believe the car is capable of doing shit by itself because that’s how the term autopilot has been used in the aviation industry. Tesla absolves itself of any responsibility by saying the car isn’t fully autonomous with some fine print.

You think your car and it’s $8000 “Full Self Driving” system means the car can drive itself. In reality, FSD is just the name of another driver-assist function that goes one step beyond Autopilot by reading light signals and making turns, but this doesn’t mean it’s autonomous.

There’s no way people would be paying thousands more for FSD if it was called what it really is. “Car-initiated Navigation with Street Sign and Signal Recognition for Pedestrian and Auto Accident Avoidance Requiring the Necessary Supervision of a Human Driver at All Times.” But Full-Self Driving it is, now take my money.

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EXCLUSIVETesla robot ATTACKS an engineer at company's Texas factory during violent malfunction - leaving 'trail of blood' and forcing workers to hit emergency shutdown button

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12869629/Tesla-robot-ATTACKS-engineer-companys-Texas-factory-violent-malfunction-leaving-trail-blood-forcing-workers-hit-emergency-shutdown-button.html

One in every 21 Giga Texas workers was injured on the job in 2022

Quote

A Tesla engineer was attacked by a robot during a brutal and bloody malfunction at the company's Giga Texas factory near Austin.

Two witnesses watched in horror as their fellow employee was attacked by the machine designed to grab and move freshly cast aluminum car parts. 

The robot had pinned the man, who was then programming software for two disabled Tesla robots nearby, before sinking its metal claws into the worker's back and arm, leaving a 'trail of blood' along the factory surface.

Continue watchingThe terrifying sounds that hinted Iceland's volcano was ready to blowafter the ad

The incident - which left the victim with an 'open wound' on his left hand - was revealed in a 2021 injury report filed to Travis county and federal regulators, which has been reviewed by DailyMail.com.

While no other robot-related injures were reported to regulators by Tesla at the Texas factory in either 2021 or 2022, the incident comes amid years of heightened concerns over the risks of automated robots in the workplace.

Reports of increased injuries due to robotic coworkers at Amazon shipment centers, killer droid-surgeons, self-driving cars, and even violence from robotic chess instructors, have led some to question speedy integration of the new tech.  

The injury report, which Tesla must submit to authorities by law to maintain its lucrative tax breaks in Texas, claimed the engineer did not require time off of work.

But one attorney who represents Tesla's Giga Texas contract workers has told DailyMail.com she believes, based on her conversations with workers there, that the amount of injuries suffered at the factory is going underreported. 

This underreporting, the attorney said, even included the September 28, 2021 death of a construction worker, who had been contracted to help build the factory itself.

'My advice would be to read that report with a grain of salt,' the attorney, Hannah Alexander of the nonprofit Workers Defense Project, told DailyMail.com. 

'We've had multiple workers who were injured,' Alexander said, 'and one worker who died, whose injuries or death are not in these reports that Tesla is supposed to be accurately completing and submitting to the county in order to get tax incentives.' 

That construction worker, a contractor named Antelmo Ramírez, died of heat stroke while helping build Tesla's over 2,000-acre long Giga Texas factory, according to a report from the Travis County medical examiner. 

Last year, Workers Defense Project filed a complaint on behalf of workers at the Giga Texas factory (above) with the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), alleging Tesla's contractors and subcontractors gave some hires false safety certificates

Last year, Workers Defense Project filed a complaint on behalf of workers at Giga Texas with the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), alleging Tesla's contractors and subcontractors gave some hires false safety certificates.

'Workers report that when they needed training, they were simply sent PDF files or images of certificates through text or WhatsApp in a matter of days,' Alexander told local NBC affiliate KXAN. 'There's no conceivable way workers could have even taken the training required.' 

Alexander's allegations on underreported workplace injuries at the Tesla site, if accurate, would follow a trend of similar findings by state regulators and investigative journalism nonprofits over the years.

A report by the Center for Investigative Reporting's Reveal team found that the company had misclassified a number of on-the-job accidents and injuries as 'personal medical' cases to evade state regulators

California OSHA investigators, for example, found that Tesla had left out 36 injuries in its required government filings in 2018 alone — confirming a prior report by the Center for Investigative Reporting's Reveal team, which found that the company had misclassified a number of on-the-job accidents and injuries as 'personal medical' cases to evade California regulators.

Prior to California OSHA's findings, Tesla had stated that Reveal's claims were 'completely false,' and accused the group of secretly collaborating with laborers who were then attempting to unionize the automaker's California plant. 

A copy of Tesla's 2021 Annual Compliance Report for Giga Texas, however, does at least document the software engineer's bloody robot attack, albeit in slim detail. 

The scant November 10, 2021, entry describes how a 'laceration, cut, open wound' was inflicted on an 'engineer' for which the 'cause object' was a 'robot.' 

According to Tesla, the engineer's wounds, which were inflicted on his left hand, required 'zero' days off from work for recovery. 

The two eyewitnesses to the event — which occurred in the section of the Texas factory floor where vehicle chassis are first assembled — told reporters for The Information a more harrowing story, however.

As the bleeding Tesla engineer attempted to wrestle free from the assembly robot's grasp, another worker hit an emergency 'stop' button to end the attack.

Once free, the engineer fell 'a couple of feet down a chute designed to collect scrap aluminum, leaving a trail of blood behind him,' according to The Information, a subscription-based tech news site.

The incident highlights a larger trend told in Tesla's self-reported data on injuries to government authorities: Tesla's Giga Texas plant outpaces the rest of the auto industry both in total accidents and accidents serious enough to require time off.

A ratio of nearly one out of every 21 workers at Tesla's Giga Texas factory was injured on the job in 2022, according to a review by The Information, compared to an industry median rate of one in every 30 workers. 

Based on Tesla's own reporting to OSHA, Giga Texas outpaces the rest of the auto industry both in total accidents and accidents serious enough to require time off

For more severe on-the-job injuries, that ratio came out to roughly one in every 26 workers at Tesla's Texas factory, per 2022 filing data on injuries that led to either missed days of work or transfers to other job duties.

For comparison, the median rate at which such injuries occur at other large US auto factories amounted to one in every 38 workers. 

To correct and compensate for scale, only US auto plants with 250 workers or more were compared to Tesla's massive Giga Texas plant for the news site's analysis of this data — which had been delivered by Tesla itself to OSHA via mandatory Form 300 reports. 

According to sources who spoke to The Information, the rapid two-year construction of the Giga Texas facility added to the lax safety and increased injuries. 

Tesla fan or 'insight' blogs, like Tesmanian, called it 'Elon Speed' at the time, boasting that 'Tesla has approved three crew shifts to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.' 

'Now the construction is actually going on without interruption,' the site explained, 'and will be completed much faster than expected.' 

Tesla's self-reported worker injuries run the gamut from blunt force trauma to chemical exposures to machine accidents that left some laborers recuperating for months at a time.

Tesla's OSHA reports include sprains, cuts and fractures from workers getting caught on machines, as well as sicknesses stemming from contact with toxins like ammonia.

One production associate was unable to work for 127 days (over four months) after their ankle was caught by a moving cart in August 2022. 

Soon after, a material handler was struck in the head by a metal object, leaving an injury that took 85 days to recuperate from, according to OSHA's records.

While news coverage and Tesla's own press materials frequently describe the factory as being based in Austin, the Giga factory is more accurately located in a nearby 'unincorporated' area known as Del Valle. Tesla scored over $60 million in tax breaks for choosing the location

While news coverage and Tesla's own press materials frequently describe the factory as being based in Austin, the Giga factory is more accurately located in a nearby 'unincorporated' area known as Del Valle in that same county.

According to Bloomberg, Tesla scored over $60 million in tax breaks from Travis County and the Del Valle Independent School District for choosing the location. 

But those tax incentives were intended to come with strict requirements that Musk's company might not be following, according to Alexander, the attorney with the Workers Defense Project. 

'There is this requirement that Tesla compile a compliance report every year for the purposes of this 'economic development' incentive agreement,' Alexander told DailyMail.com via phone.

'What I've found — with a lot of the construction workers I've talked to, who've had injuries — is that their injuries haven't been in the report,' Alexander said.

'Like the worker who died, Antelmo Ramírez, his death was not recorded,' the Austin-based attorney continued, 'and the agreement between the county [Travis County] and Tesla — or with, you know, the Colorado River Project, LLC, the entity that Tesla was 'doing business as' here — was very clear.'

'They're supposed to report every construction worker injury or death, and not just the injuries and deaths of people directly employed by Tesla, but any construction worker that was operating on the site.'

Tesla is recalling nearly all of the vehicles it sold in the U.S, more than 2 million across its model lineup, to fix a defective system that's supposed to ensure drivers are paying attention when they use Autopilot. 

The exact language on this issue appears on page 12 of the July 14th, 2020 agreement now available to the public on the Tavis County website. 

'Company [Tesla] shall provide a report to the County on an annual basis by March 31 [2021] specifying the number of injuries and deaths, if any, that may have occurred in the performance of the construction of the Colorado River Project [Tesla's Giga factory],' the agreement reads.

But, while Tesla might be an outlier in terms of injuries within the automotive industry, the company is right at home in the Lone Star state, which ranks as the most deadly place to be a construction worker in the US.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, construction workers in Texas were 22-percent more likely to die on the job in Texas than anywhere else in the country.

'A construction worker dies every three days in Texas,' Alexander told DailyMail.com.

'The impetus for Tesla coming to Texas, based on other reporting, was that the company was not pleased with having the health and safety protections that California had at the time,' she said.

Those reports, including coverage in the Dallas Morning News, suggested that Musk moved Tesla's headquarters and manufacturing 'after becoming frustrated with restrictions in California during the COVID-19 pandemic.' 

Due, in part, to the Giga Texas's sprawling size — over 10 million square-feet of floor space or nearly 100 football fields in total area — the company decided to put portions of the factory into operation while the rest was still being built. 

'They continued to construct other parts of it as it was starting to operate,' according to Alexander, 'as early as April 2022, that's whenever Mr. Musk put on the cowboy hat and had the Cyber Rodeo there.'  

This, the attorney argues, may have contributed to the factory workers' above-average injury rates.

DailyMail.com has reached out for comment to Tesla, which dissolved its US media relations team in October 2020. 

This article will be amended if the company responds.

 

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On 12/25/2023 at 3:29 AM, Fudge Nuggets said:

I’ve never been much of a car guy, I just want something that can get me from A to B and at least not look like an incel dork (sorry Tesla). But got damn, I love my Mercedes. First car I ever really enjoy driving. 

More MBZ love.  Our 2014 ML350 has just under 50k miles.  It will surely go another 10 years.   EV selection should be easy then.

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10 minutes ago, C-Man said:

EXCLUSIVETesla robot ATTACKS an engineer at company's Texas factory during violent malfunction - leaving 'trail of blood' and forcing workers to hit emergency shutdown button

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12869629/Tesla-robot-ATTACKS-engineer-companys-Texas-factory-violent-malfunction-leaving-trail-blood-forcing-workers-hit-emergency-shutdown-button.html

One in every 21 Giga Texas workers was injured on the job in 2022

 

5% injury rate?  Several multiples of the public rate, and way higher than industry standards, orders of magnitude.   This is clear evidence of a poorly run manufacturing enterprise 

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29 minutes ago, C-Man said:

EXCLUSIVETesla robot ATTACKS an engineer at company's Texas factory during violent malfunction - leaving 'trail of blood' and forcing workers to hit emergency shutdown button

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12869629/Tesla-robot-ATTACKS-engineer-companys-Texas-factory-violent-malfunction-leaving-trail-blood-forcing-workers-hit-emergency-shutdown-button.html

One in every 21 Giga Texas workers was injured on the job in 2022

 

image.thumb.png.0f937f7bd383db62ddc4daa499e0be67.png

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2 hours ago, nbmishoid said:

5% injury rate?  Several multiples of the public rate, and way higher than industry standards, orders of magnitude.   This is clear evidence of a poorly run manufacturing enterprise 

Next you will tell us that Eon does not believe in building proper rocket launch pads unless forced to. 

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3 hours ago, C-Man said:

EXCLUSIVETesla robot ATTACKS an engineer at company's Texas factory during violent malfunction - leaving 'trail of blood' and forcing workers to hit emergency shutdown button

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12869629/Tesla-robot-ATTACKS-engineer-companys-Texas-factory-violent-malfunction-leaving-trail-blood-forcing-workers-hit-emergency-shutdown-button.html

One in every 21 Giga Texas workers was injured on the job in 2022

 

image.jpeg.11b2d87cecaca5674aa7ef185e5bd02a.jpeg

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It seems Reuters can't get enough Tesla/Musk negative stories lately with the number of articles they have ran:

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/austin-we-have-problem-tesla-descends-into-battery-hell-2023-12-21/

 

Quote

Elon Musk says prototypes are easy, production is hell. And when it comes to the long-awaited Cybertruck, Tesla's hell is its pioneering 4680 battery.

Tesla delivered the first of its futuristic stainless steel-plated electric pickups last month and CEO Musk said in October that it would probably hit an annual production rate of a quarter of a million vehicles at some point during 2025.

But Tesla is still a long way off that kind of production pace, and one of the main bottlenecks is the speed it can make the 4680 batteries used in the Cybertruck with its new dry-coating technology, nine people familiar with the matter said.

 

Quote

Tesla's Giga Texas factory is currently churning out 4680 battery cells at rate only sufficient to power about 24,000 Cybertrucks a year, or about a 10th of the required output, according to Reuters calculations based on a combination of public data and unpublished figures provided by sources.

Being able to ramp up battery output massively by dry-coating electrodes - rather than using the slower, more costly wet-coating - was a key factor behind Tesla's forecasts in 2020 that it would more than halve battery costs, cut investment significantly, and create smaller, greener factories.

 

 

Quote

The nine people, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said Tesla had yet to crack dry-coating at the industrial scale needed to make 4680 batteries fast enough to hit its production targets.

The people said dry-coating the anode in the 4680 cells was not problematic but Tesla was struggling with the same technique for the cathode - the most expensive component in a battery.

Dry-coating anodes and cathodes is proven in the laboratory, as well as for smaller energy storage devices such as super capacitors, and even some small batteries, according to Yuan Gao, a battery technology consultant.

"But no one has done it so far for large EV batteries at a mass scale and at a high enough speed. Tesla is the first one to try to commercialize this," said Gao, who has worked in the industry for three decades.

"The challenge is that not only does Tesla have to scale it up and speed up the process, it also must develop its own equipment and tools. It's daunting to say the least," he said.

Tesla did not respond to detailed questions from Reuters for this story.

 

Spoiler

CRACKING THE CODE

According to three of the sources, the 4680 batteries in Cybertrucks include an estimated 1,360 individual cells.

That means Tesla would need to make 340 million cells a year, or almost a million a day, to supply 250,000 of the electric pickups, which are entering a hot market with rivals such as Ford's (F.N) F-150 Lightning, Rivian's (RIVN.O) R1T and an electric Hummer from General Motors (GM.N).

At the moment, Tesla's Austin factory takes about 16 weeks to make 10 million 4680 cells, according to Reuters calculations based on figures from Tesla, verified by the three sources.

That translates to 32.5 million cells a year, or enough for just under 24,000 pickups - and that's only for the Cybertruck.

Tesla also wants to use 4680 batteries to power other vehicles, most notably the $25,000 small car the company is scrambling to launch by the mid-2020s.

Tesla has some limited production capacity for 4680 cells in Fremont, California but its plant there is mainly for pilot production. Panasonic (6752.T), one of Tesla's long-standing battery suppliers, is planning to build at least two plants in the United States but has only just broken ground on the first.

Two of the nine people familiar with the matter believe Tesla's progress with scaling up 4680 production will likely gain steam, especially once it achieves stability with the production know-how on one production line.

They said Tesla had been focusing on establishing robust know-how to produce batteries without flaws first time round. It's a time-consuming process but, "once you crack the code and establish stability, it is like exponential", one of them said.

"Speed would pick up. There is already a lot of traction in dry coating," the person said.

Tesla's battery tsar Drew Baglino said in October that the company was now producing 4680 cells on two production lines in Austin and plans to install a total of eight lines there in two phases, with the last four due to be running in late 2024.

Still, one of the two people said replicating established know-how from one production line to the next is no cakewalk.

The source said only about 5% of cells made on profitable production lines are ditched but scrap rates could shoot up to 30%-50% and hover there for several months as each new line gets going.

One of the sources said Tesla's dry-coating method for cathodes was not proving to be any faster than the old wet process, though scrap rates had dropped to as low as 10% to 20%.

Baglino did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

'GOOEY MESS'

The sources said Tesla was struggling to mix the cathode materials, which include lithium, manganese and nickel, with a binder and stick them to a metallic foil to produce a cathode - without using moisture.

Two of the people said the process worked for small amounts but when Tesla tried to scale it up, a lot of heat was generated and this melted the binder, which one of the sources believed was polytetrafluoroethylene, more commonly known as Teflon.

"If you melt the glue, pretty soon everything will become one big chunk of gooey mess," another of the sources said.

Equally problematic for Tesla are the machines used to coat the metallic foil to produce battery electrodes - equipment which is akin to huge magazine and newspaper printing machines with large rollers, the sources said.

To accelerate cell production, Tesla is trying to coat multiple strips of magnetic foil with active battery materials at the same time, and at high speeds.

That calls for large, wide rollers, as well as applying tremendous force to press the materials onto the foil. But because the rollers are large and wide, applying pressure evenly is proving to be a challenge, the sources said.

And when pressure is not applied evenly, Tesla gets electrodes with uneven surfaces and thickness, which are no use for its battery cells and need to be scrapped, the sources said.

Perhaps more problematic, Tesla's Baglino told a fireside chat at a battery conference in March that Tesla was still building a completely new quality verification system so they could weed out cells with flaws in coating.

One of the sources with knowledge of the matter, said specifically it was about building data infrastructure around Tesla's battery development, manufacturing and in-field use because in some cases the flaws were hidden in the coating and did not show up for a few months down the road.

In other words, Tesla doesn't quite know yet which dry cells are good, and which ones need to be junked, the source said.

 

 

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oh no, anyway.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-12-27/elon-musk-s-tesla-is-losing-ev-race-to-china-s-byd

note who isn't on this chart:

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Spoiler

TSLA delivered 1.82 million vehicles globally in 2023 shy of the 2 million goal Musk set at the start of the year

also the article includes this sick burn from the late Charlie Munger

Quote

“BYD was a miracle,” Munger told the podcast Acquired in an episode that aired in October. He called Wang a genius, saying he kept the company from going broke by working 70-hour weeks, and described him as a fanatical engineer. “The guy at BYD is better at actually making things than Elon is,” he said.

christ, the sales number for BYD is incredible

Quote

For now, Tesla still has BYD beat on key metrics including revenue, income and market capitalization. Analysts at Bernstein expect some of those gaps to close considerably next year — they’re projecting Tesla will generate $114 billion in sales to BYD’s $112 billion.

 

 

Chinese Carmaker Overtakes Tesla as World’s Most Popular EV Maker

this is a long article

Spoiler

China’s BYD Co. bills itself as the biggest car brand you’ve never heard of. It might need a different tagline soon.

The automaker is poised to surpass Tesla Inc. as the new worldwide leader in fully electric vehicle sales. When it does — likely in the current quarter — it will be both a symbolic turning point for the EV market and further confirmation of China’s growing clout in the global automotive industry.

 

In a sector still dominated by more familiar names like Toyota Motor Corp., Volkswagen AG and General Motors Co., Chinese manufacturers including BYD and SAIC Motor Corp. are making serious inroads. After leapfrogging the US, South Korea and Germany over the past few years, China now rivals Japan for the global lead in passenger car exports. Some 1.3 million of the 3.6 million vehicles shipped from the mainland as of October this year were electric.

“The competitive landscape of the auto industry has changed,” said Bridget McCarthy, head of China operations for Shenzhen-based hedge fund Snow Bull Capital, which has invested in both BYD and Tesla. “It’s no longer about the size and legacy of auto companies; it’s about the speed at which they can innovate and iterate. BYD began preparing long ago to be able to do this faster than anyone thought possible, and now the rest of the industry has to race to catch up.”

The passing of the EV sales crown also reflects the shift in competitive dynamics between Tesla’s Elon Musk, the world’s richest executive, and BYD’s billionaire founder Wang Chuanfu.

Whereas Musk has been warning that not enough consumers can afford his EVs with such high interest rates, Wang is firmly on the offensive. His company offers half a dozen higher-volume models that cost much less than what Tesla charges for its cheapest Model 3 sedan in China.

When a Tesla owners’ club shared a clip in May of Musk snickering at BYD’s cars during a 2011 appearance on Bloomberg Television, Musk wrote back that BYD’s vehicles are “highly competitive these days.”

The likely change in the global EV pecking order marks the realization of a goal that Wang, 57, set back when China was just starting to foster its now world-beating electric car industry. While BYD continues to pull away from Tesla and all other auto brands at home, replicating its runaway success abroad is proving tricky.

image.png.47fa3243f727a0bc4385ad1026b5249c.png

Europe looks poised to join the US in slapping Chinese car imports with higher tariffs to shield thousands of manufacturing jobs. Other countries’ EV markets are still in their infancy and aren’t nearly as lucrative. Management views the US as virtually off-limits due to the escalating trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.

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Wang is no Musk — he eschews social media and largely steers clear of the limelight. But in an uncharacteristically brash address delivered weeks before the European Union opened an investigation into how China has subsidized its EV industry, Wang declared the time had come for Chinese brands to “demolish the old legends” of the auto world.

 

While many car buyers outside of China are still only dimly aware of BYD, Warren Buffett surely isn’t. In 2008, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. invested about $230 million for an almost 10% stake in the Chinese automaker. When Berkshire started paring its holding last year — BYD shares were trading near their all-time high — the value of its stake had soared roughly 35-fold to around $8 billion.

The late Berkshire Vice Chairman Charlie Munger saw BYD primarily as a battery play. On Bloomberg TV in May 2009, he said

the company was working on “one of the most important subjects affecting the technological future of man.” Munger’s family had invested in the company years ahead of Berkshire, and he told an interviewer weeks before his death in November that he had tried to dissuade Wang from getting into the car business.

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BYD acquired a failing state-owned automaker in 2003 and introduced its first plug-in hybrid — called the F3DM — in 2008. A New York Times reviewer panned its exterior design, calling the compact “about as trendy as a Y2K-era Toyota Corolla.” The company sold all of 48 units

in the first year.

Around that time, China started subsidizing plug-in car purchases. Support from the government extended from cities and provinces to the national level, spanning tax breaks for consumers, production incentives for manufacturers, help with research and development, and cheap land and loans.

As a rare automaker that also made its own batteries, BYD was uniquely positioned to benefit. Before entering the car business, it was the first Chinese lithium-ion supplier to Motorola and Nokia in the early 2000s. To scale up output before consumers were embracing EVs, the company targeted automotive segments that would need lots of cells. Its first electric bus launched soon after the F3DM.

“BYD was a miracle,” Munger told the podcast Acquired in an episode that aired in October. He called Wang a genius, saying he kept the company from going broke by working 70-hour weeks, and described him as a fanatical engineer. “The guy at BYD is better at actually making things than Elon is,” he said.

 

Roughly a decade and a half into making cars, BYD had mustered the smarts to bring plug-in car prices down to levels comparable with combustion engine vehicles. But its lineup still lacked good looks.

In 2016, the company hired Wolfgang Egger as design chief, a role he previously played for Audi and Alfa Romeo. It also lured away other international executives, including Ferrari’s head of exterior design and a top interior designer for Mercedes-Benz.

By the time China invited Tesla to build the country’s first car plant fully owned by a foreign entity, BYD was no longer resigned to making no-frills econoboxes. Now, its most expensive model — the Yangwang U8 sport utility vehicle — costs 1.09 million yuan ($152,600).

While the level of government subsidies has played a role in China’s tremendous EV growth, Paul Gong, UBS Group AG’s head of China autos research, believes the bigger factor is the level of competition that this support spawned.

“They have to work on the innovation, they have to try and find what consumers really want, and they have to optimize their costs to make sure their EVs are competitive in this highly competitive market,” Gong said. After tearing down a BYD Seal sedan and finding a 25% cost advantage over legacy competitors, his team concluded that Chinese manufacturers are likely to own a third of the global car market by the end of the decade.

 

For now, Tesla still has BYD beat on key metrics including revenue, income and market capitalization. Analysts at Bernstein expect some of those gaps to close considerably next year — they’re projecting Tesla will generate $114 billion in sales to BYD’s $112 billion.

Wang grew up the second youngest of eight children in the impoverished village of Wuwei in eastern China’s Anhui province. His parents died when he was a teenager, and his older siblings supported him through his high school and university education.

Through the early years of his working life, Wang was based in Beijing, working as a mid-level government researcher on rare-earth metals critical to batteries and consumer electronics. He founded BYD in 1995 in Shenzhen with the help of an almost $300,000 loan from a friend. He’s now worth $14.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

image.png.9fc1ae2269ea0e0c65ff504666f5bcde.png

 

Wang has racked up the air miles in 2023, crisscrossing the globe between auto shows, new market launches and meetings with heads of states. He’s touched down in countries including Japan, Germany, Vietnam, Brazil, Mexico and Chile — a travel schedule befitting the leader of a company that’s set up shop in some 60 countries and territories in just the last two years.

Analysts expect BYD to launch its third-generation EVs next year offering more technology, such as automated-driving capabilities. That’s one area where BYD falls short with its more affordable products versus upstarts like Nio Inc. and Xpeng Inc. Even as the number of auto rivals in China has shrunk from over 500 to around 100, new entrants continue to emerge, including well-funded tech giant Huawei Technologies Co.

image.png.7eb116e77951b55d1e12cd717fd415fc.png

When Bloomberg News asked Wang in March whether BYD had aspirations to be as big as Toyota, which in 2023 will be the world’s top-selling overall carmaker for a fourth straight year, he said the development of the EV industry will lead to an industry reshuffle.

“How a car company performs will depend on its tech and response,” he said. “BYD in China’s electrification is the winner for now, but how it will go tomorrow, we can’t say for sure. But we will lean into our advantages and keep making good products.”

 

But staying at the top will require a different mindset than getting there, said HSBC Qianhai Securities Ltd. head of China autos Yuqian Ding.

“When you become the No. 1, the mandate suddenly changes,” she said. “You’re going to redefine yourself — you’re going to have to find a way to beat yourself.”

 

 

 

Edited by NoName
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On 12/25/2023 at 5:29 AM, Fudge Nuggets said:

I’ve never been much of a car guy, I just want something that can get me from A to B and at least not look like an incel dork (sorry Tesla). But got damn, I love my Mercedes. First car I ever really enjoy driving. 

Driving any ICE, including a Mercedes, is just different from driving an EV. I happen to prefer the EV feel - and it doesn't hurt the one I drive has 835 HP and goes 0-60 in 3 seconds. 

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On 12/26/2023 at 11:51 AM, Captain Ron said:

Actually this argument is saying: “yeah we entered into, legally binding but very difficult to prove, oral contracts, and we’re admitting we actually said them!!”

Known by aggy as a gentleman's agreement. 

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On 12/26/2023 at 2:12 PM, C-Man said:

EXCLUSIVETesla robot ATTACKS an engineer at company's Texas factory during violent malfunction - leaving 'trail of blood' and forcing workers to hit emergency shutdown button

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12869629/Tesla-robot-ATTACKS-engineer-companys-Texas-factory-violent-malfunction-leaving-trail-blood-forcing-workers-hit-emergency-shutdown-button.html

One in every 21 Giga Texas workers was injured on the job in 2022

 

It was from 2021 and it was a common industrial robot found in multiple factories. I'm certainly no Tesla fanboy but my pet peeve is shitty reporting and targeted releases of information because the news media has an axe to grind with certain individuals but then again, I went to school when they actually taught journalism.

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49 minutes ago, Newdoc said:

It was from 2021 and it was a common industrial robot found in multiple factories. I'm certainly no Tesla fanboy but my pet peeve is shitty reporting and targeted releases of information because the news media has an axe to grind with certain individuals but then again, I went to school when they actually taught journalism.

Ahh yes, the old maxim of "it's been awhile so we shouldn't report on it."

Curious: where do you place the statute of limitations for just sweeping stuff under the rug? Looks like it's no more than 2 years.

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5 hours ago, Newdoc said:

my pet peeve is shitty reporting and targeted releases of information because the news media has an axe to grind with certain individuals

So much to unpack here. Do you believe Elon Musk is just an ordinary individual?
 

or perhaps, and I’m just spitballing, that given his outsized control over several industries (including our national security) that extra scrutiny is warranted? Don’t worry, we don’t have to engage in defining “the news media” or why you apparently think Elon’s companies are being unfairly “targeted”

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3 hours ago, Pig Bellmont said:

So much to unpack here. Do you believe Elon Musk is just an ordinary individual?
 

or perhaps, and I’m just spitballing, that given his outsized control over several industries (including our national security) that extra scrutiny is warranted? Don’t worry, we don’t have to engage in defining “the news media” or why you apparently think Elon’s companies are being unfairly “targeted”

No, it means that regardless of the individual, the news media has a responsibility for actual journalism. This was a Necro story that was brought up for a specific reason. Then grabbed by several sources for rehash as it makes for great Clickbait. Please tell me that you are aware of the inherent biases and manipulation of the media. And yes cliche, this includes most of the media that swings to either side.

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On 12/27/2023 at 11:01 AM, NoName said:

oh no, anyway.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-12-27/elon-musk-s-tesla-is-losing-ev-race-to-china-s-byd

note who isn't on this chart:

image.png.0128af50d1294a9ad46b95e31eff7c6c.png+

  Reveal hidden contents

TSLA delivered 1.82 million vehicles globally in 2023 shy of the 2 million goal Musk set at the start of the year

also the article includes this sick burn from the late Charlie Munger

christ, the sales number for BYD is incredible

 

 

Chinese Carmaker Overtakes Tesla as World’s Most Popular EV Maker

this is a long article

  Reveal hidden contents

China’s BYD Co. bills itself as the biggest car brand you’ve never heard of. It might need a different tagline soon.

The automaker is poised to surpass Tesla Inc. as the new worldwide leader in fully electric vehicle sales. When it does — likely in the current quarter — it will be both a symbolic turning point for the EV market and further confirmation of China’s growing clout in the global automotive industry.

 

In a sector still dominated by more familiar names like Toyota Motor Corp., Volkswagen AG and General Motors Co., Chinese manufacturers including BYD and SAIC Motor Corp. are making serious inroads. After leapfrogging the US, South Korea and Germany over the past few years, China now rivals Japan for the global lead in passenger car exports. Some 1.3 million of the 3.6 million vehicles shipped from the mainland as of October this year were electric.

“The competitive landscape of the auto industry has changed,” said Bridget McCarthy, head of China operations for Shenzhen-based hedge fund Snow Bull Capital, which has invested in both BYD and Tesla. “It’s no longer about the size and legacy of auto companies; it’s about the speed at which they can innovate and iterate. BYD began preparing long ago to be able to do this faster than anyone thought possible, and now the rest of the industry has to race to catch up.”

The passing of the EV sales crown also reflects the shift in competitive dynamics between Tesla’s Elon Musk, the world’s richest executive, and BYD’s billionaire founder Wang Chuanfu.

Whereas Musk has been warning that not enough consumers can afford his EVs with such high interest rates, Wang is firmly on the offensive. His company offers half a dozen higher-volume models that cost much less than what Tesla charges for its cheapest Model 3 sedan in China.

When a Tesla owners’ club shared a clip in May of Musk snickering at BYD’s cars during a 2011 appearance on Bloomberg Television, Musk wrote back that BYD’s vehicles are “highly competitive these days.”

The likely change in the global EV pecking order marks the realization of a goal that Wang, 57, set back when China was just starting to foster its now world-beating electric car industry. While BYD continues to pull away from Tesla and all other auto brands at home, replicating its runaway success abroad is proving tricky.

image.png.47fa3243f727a0bc4385ad1026b5249c.png

Europe looks poised to join the US in slapping Chinese car imports with higher tariffs to shield thousands of manufacturing jobs. Other countries’ EV markets are still in their infancy and aren’t nearly as lucrative. Management views the US as virtually off-limits due to the escalating trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.

image.png.c3686df124c31d30754c132fdb5ba46c.png

Wang is no Musk — he eschews social media and largely steers clear of the limelight. But in an uncharacteristically brash address delivered weeks before the European Union opened an investigation into how China has subsidized its EV industry, Wang declared the time had come for Chinese brands to “demolish the old legends” of the auto world.

 

While many car buyers outside of China are still only dimly aware of BYD, Warren Buffett surely isn’t. In 2008, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. invested about $230 million for an almost 10% stake in the Chinese automaker. When Berkshire started paring its holding last year — BYD shares were trading near their all-time high — the value of its stake had soared roughly 35-fold to around $8 billion.

The late Berkshire Vice Chairman Charlie Munger saw BYD primarily as a battery play. On Bloomberg TV in May 2009, he said

the company was working on “one of the most important subjects affecting the technological future of man.” Munger’s family had invested in the company years ahead of Berkshire, and he told an interviewer weeks before his death in November that he had tried to dissuade Wang from getting into the car business.

image.png.e6fc86007a8232bbd6c965ae14bd4a9c.png

BYD acquired a failing state-owned automaker in 2003 and introduced its first plug-in hybrid — called the F3DM — in 2008. A New York Times reviewer panned its exterior design, calling the compact “about as trendy as a Y2K-era Toyota Corolla.” The company sold all of 48 units

in the first year.

Around that time, China started subsidizing plug-in car purchases. Support from the government extended from cities and provinces to the national level, spanning tax breaks for consumers, production incentives for manufacturers, help with research and development, and cheap land and loans.

As a rare automaker that also made its own batteries, BYD was uniquely positioned to benefit. Before entering the car business, it was the first Chinese lithium-ion supplier to Motorola and Nokia in the early 2000s. To scale up output before consumers were embracing EVs, the company targeted automotive segments that would need lots of cells. Its first electric bus launched soon after the F3DM.

“BYD was a miracle,” Munger told the podcast Acquired in an episode that aired in October. He called Wang a genius, saying he kept the company from going broke by working 70-hour weeks, and described him as a fanatical engineer. “The guy at BYD is better at actually making things than Elon is,” he said.

 

Roughly a decade and a half into making cars, BYD had mustered the smarts to bring plug-in car prices down to levels comparable with combustion engine vehicles. But its lineup still lacked good looks.

In 2016, the company hired Wolfgang Egger as design chief, a role he previously played for Audi and Alfa Romeo. It also lured away other international executives, including Ferrari’s head of exterior design and a top interior designer for Mercedes-Benz.

By the time China invited Tesla to build the country’s first car plant fully owned by a foreign entity, BYD was no longer resigned to making no-frills econoboxes. Now, its most expensive model — the Yangwang U8 sport utility vehicle — costs 1.09 million yuan ($152,600).

While the level of government subsidies has played a role in China’s tremendous EV growth, Paul Gong, UBS Group AG’s head of China autos research, believes the bigger factor is the level of competition that this support spawned.

“They have to work on the innovation, they have to try and find what consumers really want, and they have to optimize their costs to make sure their EVs are competitive in this highly competitive market,” Gong said. After tearing down a BYD Seal sedan and finding a 25% cost advantage over legacy competitors, his team concluded that Chinese manufacturers are likely to own a third of the global car market by the end of the decade.

 

For now, Tesla still has BYD beat on key metrics including revenue, income and market capitalization. Analysts at Bernstein expect some of those gaps to close considerably next year — they’re projecting Tesla will generate $114 billion in sales to BYD’s $112 billion.

Wang grew up the second youngest of eight children in the impoverished village of Wuwei in eastern China’s Anhui province. His parents died when he was a teenager, and his older siblings supported him through his high school and university education.

Through the early years of his working life, Wang was based in Beijing, working as a mid-level government researcher on rare-earth metals critical to batteries and consumer electronics. He founded BYD in 1995 in Shenzhen with the help of an almost $300,000 loan from a friend. He’s now worth $14.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

image.png.9fc1ae2269ea0e0c65ff504666f5bcde.png

 

Wang has racked up the air miles in 2023, crisscrossing the globe between auto shows, new market launches and meetings with heads of states. He’s touched down in countries including Japan, Germany, Vietnam, Brazil, Mexico and Chile — a travel schedule befitting the leader of a company that’s set up shop in some 60 countries and territories in just the last two years.

Analysts expect BYD to launch its third-generation EVs next year offering more technology, such as automated-driving capabilities. That’s one area where BYD falls short with its more affordable products versus upstarts like Nio Inc. and Xpeng Inc. Even as the number of auto rivals in China has shrunk from over 500 to around 100, new entrants continue to emerge, including well-funded tech giant Huawei Technologies Co.

image.png.7eb116e77951b55d1e12cd717fd415fc.png

When Bloomberg News asked Wang in March whether BYD had aspirations to be as big as Toyota, which in 2023 will be the world’s top-selling overall carmaker for a fourth straight year, he said the development of the EV industry will lead to an industry reshuffle.

“How a car company performs will depend on its tech and response,” he said. “BYD in China’s electrification is the winner for now, but how it will go tomorrow, we can’t say for sure. But we will lean into our advantages and keep making good products.”

 

But staying at the top will require a different mindset than getting there, said HSBC Qianhai Securities Ltd. head of China autos Yuqian Ding.

“When you become the No. 1, the mandate suddenly changes,” she said. “You’re going to redefine yourself — you’re going to have to find a way to beat yourself.”

 

 

 

image.thumb.jpeg.011d67d80996c2723d749dcbf0fd10bb.jpeg

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On 12/27/2023 at 2:30 PM, hornian said:

Driving any ICE, including a Mercedes, is just different from driving an EV. I happen to prefer the EV feel - and it doesn't hurt the one I drive has 835 HP and goes 0-60 in 3 seconds. 

 

On 12/27/2023 at 2:43 PM, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:

That comes in handy.

Not as much as you might think.  Killer Tesla assembly robots have 900 HP and go 0-60 in 2.4 seconds.  While towing a Porche 911.

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On 12/24/2023 at 6:01 AM, Guadaloopy said:

Improper use of the driver assist functions in Tesla’s caused deadly accidents. 

FALSE. This is an issue in current litigation and it's not looking good except for when he OBFUSCATES and skates by on a technicality.

On 12/24/2023 at 6:05 AM, Guadaloopy said:

I am not doing a “both sides” bit here.   Just pointing out that when it comes to vehicle recalls, Tesla is not some egregious outlier.

BULLSHIT

On 12/24/2023 at 6:22 AM, Guadaloopy said:

How old are you guys?  If I had time right now, I could link at least a half dozen stories of major auto manufacturers denying and obfuscating ahead of recalls over the decades.  

Whatabout/bullshit/Lie Link me to an article about a recall where every single vehicle made by a single manufacturer was recalled.

Do you have a paid gig from Tesla? If not, why in the fuck do you come here to lie, deny and obfuscate?

NPR

image.thumb.png.ff4914f98bba636a4fb205b77125c70e.png

https://www.npr.org/2023/11/23/1214966530/judge-says-evidence-shows-tesla-and-elon-musk-knew-about-flawed-autopilot-system

There's plenty of other lawsuits as well as a class action over the exact matter you just totally denied because it's inconvenient to your propaganda. Feel free to use you web search function.

Are you personally troubled by the fact that Elmo posted a completely fake video on the tesla website seeking to show autopilot as a miraculous invention in order to con people to believe it was actually useful?
 

Quote

 

A Florida judge says a lawsuit against Tesla and its autopilot driving car can go to trial, adding to the company's legal woes over the technology.

Palm Beach County Judge Reid Scott ruled that there was "reasonable evidence" to conclude that Tesla owner and CEO, Elon Musk, and other company executives knew that the vehicle's autopilot system was defective. But they continued to tout its capabilities and sell it anyway.

The suit stems from a deadly crash in 2019, in which Jeremy Banner switched on the autopilot function on his Tesla Model 3 about 10 seconds before it drove under the trailer of a semi-truck. The collision sheared off the top of the car, killing Banner.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from NPR. Musk eliminated the company's media and public relations department four years ago.

Court documents in the case were intended to remain sealed but became temporarily available on Wednesday on the Palm Beach County Court's website, The Associated Press reported. They have since been removed.

The suit was filed by Banner's wife, Kim Banner, who has accused Tesla of gross negligence and intentional misconduct.

In the ruling, Scott said Banner's accident is "eerily similar" to Tesla's first autopilot-related death in 2016. In that case, a Model S also smashed into a semi-truck, chopping off the top of the vehicle and killing the driver.

At the time, Tesla addressed the fatal accident in a blog post, writing: "Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied. The high ride height of the trailer combined with its positioning across the road and the extremely rare circumstances of the impact caused the Model S to pass under the trailer, with the bottom of the trailer impacting the windshield of the Model S."

According to Reuters, Scott said the company "made strong public statements and engaged in a marketing strategy that painted the products as autonomous" despite evidence that it was flawed.

The decision out of Florida comes on the heels of a legal victory for Tesla in California. In October, a judge there said Tesla's driver-assistance software was not to blame in a car crash that killed a driver and seriously injured two passengers.

No new trial date has been set for the Palm Beach case.

 

 

Edited by Chopper
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Elmo, real quote: "Tesla cars could drive autonomously with greater safety than a person. Right now.”

Tesla, real summary: We accept no legal liability for our statements. All drivers and buyers should carefully read the fine print before driving a Tesla vehicle."

Rolling Stone article from 2 weeks ago https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/elon-musk-big-lie-tesla-140000282.html

Quote

 

In the tiny victory of forcing a recall based on human factors, NHTSA has contributed in its small way to the growing understanding that Tesla’s claims about their technology are untrue and unsafe. Musk has been arguing since 2019 that Tesla’s self-driving technology was progressing so fast that adding driver monitoring wouldn’t make sense, and any human input would only introduce error into the system. After giving him four years worth of the benefit of the doubt, NHTSA is at long last calling the bluff.

Though hardly a heroic effort to protect the public roads, this recall does open the door for broader action. The Department of Justice has had investigations into Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” for some time now, and the tacit admission that humans are still the safety critical factor in Tesla’s automated driving system may be a prelude to more muscular enforcement. More importantly, it provides ammunition for an army of hungry personal injury lawyers to tear into Tesla’s cashpile in a feeding frenzy of civil litigation.

 

 

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On 12/28/2023 at 4:51 AM, Newdoc said:

It was from 2021 and it was a common industrial robot found in multiple factories. I'm certainly no Tesla fanboy but my pet peeve is shitty reporting and targeted releases of information because the news media has an axe to grind with certain individuals but then again, I went to school when they actually taught journalism.

I'm wondering about your level of reading comprehension. Can you take a look at these few words from the article and tell me how they jibe with your wholly regarded nonsensical statement?

It appears you seriously lack education about journalism, statistics and research.

image.thumb.png.c8438251dfa6532742289e73aab5afa9.png

 

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50 minutes ago, TonyTexas said:

The latest fuckup leading to the unusability of X is that they’re allowing bots to generate ads for the same damn thing. It does no good to ignore because  the ads are all coming from different bot accounts. 

Yep. I saw an ad for a weight loss pill scam ("as seen on Shark Tank!") at least ten times today even after trying to block it. Ridiculous. 

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45 minutes ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

Yep. I saw an ad for a weight loss pill scam ("as seen on Shark Tank!") at least ten times today even after trying to block it. Ridiculous. 

I used to block random media sites on my news feed forcefeeding me Elon stories only to see the same verbatim story pop up under a new media banner. 

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3 hours ago, TonyTexas said:

The latest fuckup leading to the unusability of X is that they’re allowing bots to generate ads for the same damn thing. It does no good to ignore because  the ads are all coming from different bot accounts. 

 

I remember when Elon swore he would get rid of the bots.  

 

 

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On 12/28/2023 at 3:46 PM, Brisketexan said:

Or....maybe...and work with me here....the narrative for a long-ass time was that Elon was some sort of super-innovative disruptor, and a force for good.  And because of that, people - including the media - looked the other way when factual events demonstrating his shitbaggery took place.  But now that Elon has outed himself as a shitbag, the ACTUAL events of shitbaggery that were previous swept under the rug by an adoring public are now coming to light.

In other words, it's not some sinister media agenda or bias.  Rather, it's human nature, and one that applied to society as a whole.

Bill Cosby was a hero: a beloved comedian, America's dad.  This was true for DECADES.  A handful of people, including his victims and a few powerful hollywood types, knew that he had a penchant for drugging and raping women.

Bill Cosby is now a villain: a piece of shit rapist who drugged and raped multiple women.

The facts didn't change, they are what they always were.  What changed was a critical mass of awareness of those facts that overcame the pre-existing broad belief in society (that Bill was a great guy).  One enough facts come out where it's apparent that gee, maybe Bill isn't such a great guy, then those stories of OLD facts become relevant.

The media (at least old-school, legacy type media) isn't sinister, it's lazy.  It reports the popular narrative.  Bill Cosby, America's Dad!  Elon, a tech innovator - will he take us all to Mars???  But when enough facts about the shitty truth comes out, the popular narrative changes....and the media follows along.  The popular narrative changes when the facts force it to.  Bill Cosby is a rapist POS.  Elon is a sociopathic narcissist POS.  Those things are true.  The media didn't make it so.

Or maybe...the wrong guy bought twitter.  This 2018 thread was 12 pages long in April 2022, when Musk's interest in twitter became public.  305 pages since. 

 

On 11/30/2022 at 7:19 PM, Brisketexan said:


Yep. Occam’s razor.

 

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