I sympathize, but getting things done sometimes requires holding your nose. No man / country is an island. The key questions are how much bad behaviour is tolerable to reach a good end, and are your justifications primarily self-serving, or public-serving?

I'm uneasy with Saudi Arabia having a large interest in Tesla. It seems like a national security issue. On the other hand, Tesla's stated goal is to transition the world to sustainable energy. Getting Saudi Arabia out of the oil business would be a big step.

I say all this as a Canadian in the middle of our un-diplomatic spat with Saudi Arabia.

As a Model S and Model 3 owner, I agree with this sentiment. Sometimes you need to make friends with enemies.

What are the biggest differences you've noticed as an owner between the Model S and the Model 3? Obviously they're different cars in terms of expense, but are there any things in the Model 3 that you wish your Model S had? Just curious to hear the opinions of someone who owns both.

Model 3 is more nimble, not quite a Subaru WRX but gets close. Also the Model 3 display and interior are more minimalistic. My 75D Model S having less range than my Model 3 would be the only thing that sticks out.

I don’t prefer one over the other, they each have their pros and cons.

Some people call that corruption.

Greater good? For all the advantages and potential success of TSLA, it is in a precarious financial position and could fail. If the Saudis want to dump money into it and accelerate the world's transition to solar and electric cars, seems like a net win to me.

If Tesla collapsed tomorrow, I don't see that that'd make a huge difference to adoption of electric cars in the long-term. Arguably, Nissan collapsing would be worse. The Leaf is a much better model for widespread adoption than Tesla's stuff.

I was going to say GM's Bolt/Volt since it was one of those 'best cars of the year'. If that fails + is electric, thats a bad indicator for the future.

Tesla gets a pat on the back for trying to be new/different. The quality of Tesla is nothing like established companies. You cant even blame Tesla, they dont have data like a company thats been around for decades.

> I was going to say GM's Bolt/Volt since it was one of those 'best cars of the year'.

Barely available outside the US. There's the Opel Ampera, which is mostly a GM Volt, but it's weirdly expensive so no-one buys it. The Leaf is the world's best-selling electric car, for now (especially if you include its very close relatives like the Renault Zoe; I don't think that's precisely the same platform, but it's close).

GM doesn't get California credits for selling Bolts outside of California and the other states that follow the California standard.

Isn't the Leaf about to stop being the world's best-selling electric car?

It's possibly been replaced by the BAIC EC, at least for the first part of this year. That's unlikely to last, though; the Chinese market is too fragmented for that. The BAIC EC is also of very limited relevance worldwide.

>but it's weirdly expensive so no-one buys it.

But isnt that the same problem with the Tesla?

Is the Model 3 not already massivly outselling Leaf month by month? Can you show some date on that?

Hard to come by proper figures for the 2018 Leaf currently, but Nissan has said they're selling one every 10 minutes in Europe. That'd be a little over 4000 a month. They're presumably also selling some in Japan and the US (looks like 1-2000 in the US), so all in all they pretty much have to be outselling the Model 3.

It's also worth noting for Nissan those are people buying the car at a dealership (not preordered) and driving away with it presumably that day. A lot of Tesla's numbers are filling all the preorders of people who have been waiting months to a year. What will happen when they finally complete all those orders of people waiting? That isn't to say sales will stop but certainly there has to be some consideration there.

Tesla is also able to sustain the S/X without lots of pre-orders. Tesla has also said that they can see a sustained growth in orders in addition to the backlog. At some point they will reach some steady state number.

Model 3 US sales were 14,250 last month (July). That's what I was getting at when I asked you about the Leaf getting dethroned.

https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/

The Bolt is cheap and quck compliance car. Its sales have alread dropped like a stone, the Model 3 is outselling it 12:1 and that will increase month over month.

Claiming Tesla quality is not as good as established players is wrong in most regards. Maybe GM built a better frame and maybe the fit and finish is a bit better but thats about it. In terms of battery, electronics, electrical, interial design, software integration, suspention, safty, surounding infrastructure and most other things Tesla is lightyears ahead of the Bolt.

Literllay every single Bolt produced loses about 7000$-10000$. It will not be produced in large not be produced in large numbers for many years at best.

The phrase "compliance car" is generally used to refer only to low-range, lower-priced cars sold only because California forced them to. The Bolt has a much longer range and is higher priced than GM's previous compliance cars.

Its a compliance car because the way the fuel efficiency regulation works requires companies to have a balance of cars. I'm not from the US so I don't really understand it.

The Bolt is probably better then other compliance cars because they can see the future as well. Also who would buy those even lower range cars now that there is more competition.

Careful speaking about things you are unfamiliar with.

This does more harm than good.

What are you talking about? The regulations are real, even if I don't fully understand how exactly the work.

Just because the current 'compliance car' and the Bolt are not the same does not mean its not for many of the same reasons.

They did built the Bolt to be able to comply with regulation EVEN while the Bolt itself is losing money per car.

I think Tesla cars are the big reason for the halo effect that is taking hold of electric cars being luxury item muscle cars rather than the popular perception that cars like the Prius and Leaf are "wimpy" weak cars. Pickup trucks and SUVs are very popular in the US, and people are not going to easily switch to cars like the Leaf. Without Tesla I think the process is going to set back at least several years.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/06/the-steadily-disappearing-am...

Saudis accelerating the world's transition to solar? That might not be in their best interests or they're extremely forward thinking.

They are trying to be very forward thinking.

They are in the process of diversifying their investments, investing more in infrastructure and education, etc. Basically, they are betting against oil within 10-20 years.

What they are doing if feably deversifing their investment fund because all their other initiatives have stalled horribly and they have a huge deficit so this strategy will not save them.

or just hedging : If we continue with oil, they will be ok. If we go solar or wind, they win also.

By any means necessary I guess.

Luckily morals and beliefs are only skin deep in tech or all those people might be conflicted supporting a company funded by a country who still stones women to death for being raped.

It's not like the suicide nets and 14hour days at foxconn did stop anyone from praising Apple.

> a country who still stones women to death for being raped.

Sounds like FUD. Citation needed.

not sure if /s - but here we are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia#C...

Not defending their actions, but the page says that this happened in the 2000s, and the details are not clear. Do we know if this is still happening?

This is just the opening bid of an auction among China, Abu Dhabi, Norway, Saudi Arabia and other strategic buyers.

I doubt Wall Street or private equity firms will be interested because the big payoff won't come as fast as they want.

But nation states that need to diversify away from fossil fuels have deep pools of patient capital and different reward functions than Wall Street.

How is this different than buying gasoline some of which presumably come from Saudi Arabia?

the whole point of driving a Tesla is not to rely on the Saudis

Unfortunately the Saudis have both oil and sunshine. We may be beholden to them indefinitely

So does Texas.

Do you know how much Saudi money is invested in Texas? Welcome to the wheel.

I hope you don't fly on any airline that uses Boeing or Airbus planes - both firms routinely dump inventory on the Saudis.

I hope you don't fill your car with gasoline - chances are, even in 2018, it came from Saudi Arabia.

I hope your security is not supported by American military technology - once again surpluses of which are commonly sold to Saudi Arabia.

HN really needs to follow through with action behind the pompous grandstanding. Start your finger wagging with the man in the mirror.

My individual purchase of an arline ticket and filling my car with gas - or choosing not to - are completely invisible signals to the huge markets at play here.

"Activism" in the form of posting a comment to HN or sending a tweet to Elon is hugely more likely to have real-world effects. And actual activism - driving a car around and talking to people, perhaps - is still more effective than a 0.000000014% drop (1 in 7 billion) in their budget sheets.

You make a good and useful argument, but it would be much better without the last bit.

Why? Does it make you uncomfortable to know that you must be the change you demand in others?

HN has become a constant barrage of tirades against Google, China, Facebook, Tesla...any government not Canada or Norway etc etc. Yet following-through is always left to everyone-else. HN is children. Thirty year-old children.

> Why?

Because it is more convincing, and will have a wider reach. By stating your initial points, you already make people think, but without triggering their emotional defences.

Arguing "A, B, C, and by the way you're a bad person" is less effective than arguing "A, B, C, think about it." If you want to "be the change", you should see the benefit of effective communication, no?

While in some cases I can agree I do see progress in their government coming of age. We must understand that such governments in the region and others cannot change over night or at a pace we like.

We can only continue to engage them and prod them in the right direction. Part of that involves doing business with them and with companies they invest in.

On a personal note, where do we draw the line? China for some is reprehensible as well. Do we just try to lock these people out of world trade to they uphold "our" values. We cannot reasonably expect every country to hold all our values equally. This is not to say some values are negotiable on a world stage but we must set our expectations properly as for the pace of which positive change occurs.

Tesla will still be Tesla regardless of who owns them. I won't be cancelling my order anytime soon or not support their product unless their corporate culture and response to others goes negative