I don't think Tesla anything so particularly bad, globally, in terms of employee treatment that it would prevent it from playing a large role in a carbon-free transformation... look at the stuff we'd be replacing in this.

It doesn't even stand out as a particularly poor work nationally.

Tesla the org will outlive Elon. We thank him for his exceptional efforts to accelerate the transition to clean energy and mobility, personal issues aside that need no mention. Just as people like him squeeze others to get as much as they can, we should hope for the same: the largest amount of progress delivered at the lowest amount of harm caused until he’s moved on.

It’s about maintaining everything in tension sustainably. No excuses, there are no heroes.

(early Tesla investor because climate change is existential, no current exposure, none planned)

Actually Musk was not the founder of Tesla, nor is Tesla likely to be a major car maker in the future. It is basically a terrible car maker know for its poor quality, on par with Chrysler and the like. It is likely destined to be own by some other car company eventually.

> Actually Musk was not the founder of Tesla

Such a tired trope. For all intents and purposes Musk is absolutely a founder of Tesla.

> It is basically a terrible car maker know for its poor quality

And someone should tell all of the satisfied Tesla customers how terrible quality their cars are https://electrek.co/2022/06/15/tesla-tops-list-most-satisfie...

| Tesla the org will outlive Elon.

You cannot know that for sure. Maybe we find the holy grail, or maybe the company doesn't survive idiocy of its fake founder.

Nobody is forced to work at Tesla or SpaceX or any Musk company.

I love the mission. I would never work there. They expect grueling hours and a level of commitment that I don't want to give.

It is not abusive to voluntarily work somewhere. It is not abusive to have a culture of work that is way more intense than the average workplace.

The level of Urban's golem-think [1] that exists around Musk because he himself sometimes says stupid things is seriously unbelievable.

[1] https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/tim-urbans-whats-our-proble...

No, but they're forced to work at other companies that are inspired by Tesla, or outright coerced into adopting the same practices or perish due to market forces.

I don't think you can blame that on Tesla so much as the rest of "the market", if even that. Tesla is not a monopoly, after all.

SpaceX and Tesla are both in the top 5 of companies new graduates want to work for. SpaceX is number 1 by a large margin.

> nobody wants to live in a carbon free world if every company is as abusive as Tesla to its employees.

What? I would gladly live in such a world, and I imagine the majority of people on the planet would as well.

> nobody wants to live in a carbon free world if every company is as abusive as Tesla to its employees.

I don't see that at all. I mean, by any reasonable standard Tesla is... just another employer. It's true that the tenor of the discussion around them is quite frankly batshit. But... they're just a company. Every big corporation has a laundry list of terrible accusations, that's just the way capitalism works.

I mean, take Musk and all his nonsense off the board and tell me if you really believe Tesla is a worse place to work at than Walmart or FedEx or UnitedHealth or wherever. I just don't see it.

So... yeah. Bring on the carbon-free world of occasionally abusive capitalist overlords, please.

The carbon free world of point to point passenger rocket travel on methane rockets.

Carbon neutral.

I thought HN of all place is free of faked outage or ignorance?

Even if Starship was the dirtiest of a rocket (it isn’t), a rocket flight is only as dirty as a B777 flight, thousands of them happening everyday.

Try this exercise. Measure how much carbon incurred by an activity that you absolutely love, such as playing video game, and see how much you could contribute by not doing it. A lot of activities is worth doing, even if there is inevitably carbon cost, even if you don’t think it’s worth it.

Fuel is one of the cheapest portions of launching a rocket. There’s much bigger problems to solve on that front until they start launching commonly. Once they do then moving to sustainable methane won’t be an issue.

Also what’s the alternative right now? Hydrogen made from the same methane by steam reformation? We don’t even have long range aircraft running on anything but jet fuel, which is more polluting than methane.

Nothing about Starship is incompatible with carbon neutral fuels.

They are supposed to be operating commercial passenger flights by 2028. There is no way it is carbon neutral in 5 years.

They will have to be launching commonly long before they put hundreds of passengers on flights in 2028 (their timeline).

The point of Starship is Mars; Mars cannot be done with Starship in the absence of a box that fits in its own cargo bay, and which takes in sunlight, CO2, and water, and outputs methane and oxygen.

Fortunately some French scientists figured that out how to do that 126 years ago.

They are spooling up commercial passenger rocket flights (for cross-continent travel) in 5 years and won't likely have renewable sources by then, they have already put in or filed to put it pipelines for petro industry gas sources in Texas.

"Spooling up"? It's currently an un-launched prototype that isn't yet human-rated let alone passenger rated.

Why do you think they can move faster on that than on tech invented prior to the birth of the oldest currently living human?

They gave the timeline for entering passenger service competing with long haul aviation back in 2018, sayijg within a decade. Years later they reconfirmed that timeline.

You're willing to buy his estimate for a timeline about a thing you don't like (I've seen him talk, even he knows his timelines are optimistic, and he shows much the same optimism about FSD) while totally ignoring the thing invented before any living human was born and which is already deployed in various places?

Why?

Well first off, that's Elon time dates, and secondly even if you take it at face value, 5 years does seem reasonable to me for when substantial carbon neutral methane may start getting made.

> , 5 years does seem reasonable to me for when substantial carbon neutral methane may start getting made.

Like this?

> All Tesla Supercharger stations in regions affected by California power outages will have Tesla Powerpacks within next few weeks. Just waiting on permits.

And:

> Over time, almost all [superchargers] will disconnect from the electricity grid.

> Tesla Supercharger will over time allow you to travel anywhere on pure sunlight for free

It really doesn't make sense to disconnect them from the grid if they aren't next to tons of solar, their physical footprint often isn't big enough to capture enough.

I'm not sure why you changed the topic suddenly. Did you mean to reply to someone else?

Ah yes Tesla the worst company in history to some people. Wait till they find out about every other company in existence

Other than a few very high profile lawsuits I don’t get where the idea comes from that Tesla is “abusive” to its employees. I have friends who work there and they never mention any issue or are trying to leave. I think it’s a combination of: 1. Europeans not familiar with US labor laws and seeing common things in the US, but only seeing them reported from Tesla, and 2. Reporters pouncing on any labor claim against Tesla as if it’s already certain it’s true. For example the well known “Tesla whistleblower” that was widely reported was found by the judge to have lied about many things and was ordered to pay Tesla.

Even the notable labor relations board case that Tesla lost was about employees attacking other employees with racial slurs (usually Hispanics on blacks which is common in California) and low level management not doing anything about it. Yes it’s bad but it’s not “Tesla is abusing it’s employees” and Tesla long ago took corrective action as the lawsuit has been going on many years.

So I’m still struggling if the perception I’ve seen on the internet about Tesla is just people misinformed of the US or if it’s something else.