I think it's more simply that the market of people who want an EV and can afford a Tesla is now saturated.

BYD is continuing what Tesla started: getting cheaper while scaling up battery and car production.

The market is there for worse and much cheaper electric cars, just not mainly in US.

I think some of that demand is there in the US. My daily needs for a car would be satisfied with 100 mile range, allowing for a pretty generous buffer. I also sometimes need to drive beyond the range of an EV without wanting to think about recharging delays or possibly getting stranded.

I'd consider owning a very cheap small EV for my daily needs, but not at the prices they command today. Even something like a Nissan Leaf is far too expensive for that.

>I'd consider owning a very cheap small EV for my daily needs, but not at the prices they command today.

Is that due to EV prices or car prices in general? I guess it depends on where you are and what price you pay for electricity. But I also think a lot of people haven't internalized the price inflation of new and used cars in the last 4 years. A second generation Leaf with less that 25k miles can be had for less than $15,000, and it is should be eligible for a $4,000 used EV tax credit (if your income is under $150k):

https://www.carvana.com/vehicle/3348306?refSource=srp

I should probably sit down and do the math on elecricity vs. gas and the payback time, but for reference I am something of a bottom-feeder when it comes to cars. I have pretty good success with used ICE cars in the $4-6k range. I look for southern cars with no rust/salt damage. They are out there, but you won't find them on Carvana.

My current daily driver is a 20 year old Mercedes E class that I bought for $4k. It's a V8 and takes premium gas, but I average close to 20mpg and don't really drive enough miles for that to be a huge dealbreaker. With $4/gal gas I might burn $8/day with typical driving. That might be roughly 10 kWh in a Leaf? I don't know what the losses are in charging but if that's 20 kWh to recharge, that would be maybe $4/day? So I'd save maybe $80/month if I drive 20 days a month? That's all very wild guesstimating but seems like it would take 10 years to pay back the price difference, also considering that I could not really drive the Leaf on any longer trips at all.

Charging efficiency is ~85% efficient. As far as I can tell, when it comes to used cars in my area, $10k is the new $4k. No way would I buy a $4k car any more, and I'm in the market for a beater for a kid's car. $4,000 buys a 2003 Toyota Corolla with 250,000 miles and 9 previous owners and some moderate damage according to CarFax.

You have to look around but better cars are out there. I bought a '04 Mercedes E500 for $4k about 2 years ago. Had about 160k miles, no rust. Was it perfect, certainly not. Had some wear and tear but fundamentally was a solid car. I still see them in this price range today.

I totally get that someone might not want to deal with the unknowns and risks of a 20 year old car.

Good to know that the charging efficiency is better than I guessed. I'll have to run the numbers again next time I'm needing a car. EVs have an appeal, no doubt. But for me they have to make economic and practical sense.

German cars tend to be cheap because maintenance costs are crazy. The have more parts, and each part is more expensive.

You could easily get hit with a mechanic bill for greater than the value

40 miles is about 10kWh, yes, which would be 11.5kWh at the meter. I pay 7cents/kWh, so you're paying about 10X per mile as I am for fuel. I've driven old BMW's, and I had to budget about $3k/year for maintenance & repairs, I imagine your Merc is similar. So you're spending $400/month for your "cheap" car.

A 3 year old Tesla for 20K would likely save you a considerable amount of money.

I do my own maintenance and repair and don't spend anything close to that (not counting my time, but it's a hobby for me). Insurance and registration is also cheaper.

>should be eligible for a $4,000 used EV tax credit (if your income is under $150k):

This is only true if you do a joint file. If you're a single filer, it phases out once your income is above $75k, or $112k for heads of household.

Yes, thanks for the correction.

There are at least four other competing Chinese electric car companies. Let’s not forget them, the rest of the world won’t.

The cars are actually quite nice. I have no complaints. It’s possible that maintenance issues will emerge later, but that has already happened for Tesla. At this point we can’t claim they’re lower quality.

The US market is there for a cheap, nice electric car. Tariffs make it untenable.

Perhaps if they had delivered a cheaper Tesla instead of a robotaxi that nobody asked for, won’t meet the needs of 90% of people wanting a taxi, and isn’t anywhere near ready to operate on public roads, the market would have expanded.

How about instead we offer you a $100k "truck" that can't do basic truck things, misses every single claimed feature, and has such poor basic engineering competency that it had at least one whistleblower?

Oh and it's stupid ugly as well.

My prediction is that Elon will be forced out of Tesla one way or another and then the company will quietly release a truck that will look vaguely like a Model S, but truck shaped and sized. It will be popular.

CAN Tesla still design cars? They haven't done so in like a decade.

Also Tesla cannot force Elon out, the stock would crater so bad. Also the board is 100% in his pocket, did you not see the nonsense with his "pay package"?

The main reason stock would crater so bad is that Elon is amazing salesman of shit he doesn't have and shit he has that doesn't work. His replacement would have to be just as savvy of a "salesman" to sell investor on "robotaxis" and other BS that leads to such an evaluation

That truck always reminds me of that Simpsons episode, where Homer designs a car.

I mean, it's not even like they have "delivered" a robotaxi, they have announced it and done a very controlled demo, but things they have announced in the past (like the new Roadster) have just not materialised, and their promise of full unsupervised self driving "next year" for the last seven or so years is now infamous...

Not to mention that even if you can afford a Tesla, my understanding is that the non-Tesla market has just gotten much better than it was over the last few years.

For a while, if you wanted a long range EV you could actually cross the country with, Tesla was it.

That's just not true anymore -- I'm coming up on year three with my non-Tesla, and it's been perfect, road trips and all.

Tesla still has its brand recognition and inertia in its favor, but it's tougher for them when you can get equally good if not better cars elsewhere.

May I ask what kind of car it is and where the road trips are from/to?

The last time I rented an EV in the SF Bay Area (a year or two ago, a Leaf), I had trouble even finding enough charging stations just to get around the area, like from SF to the South Bay and then to Santa Cruz. The few chargers I did find had several broken stations, multiple people waiting in line for the one working one, and it was very expensive. We wasted hours of time on that experience.

Has it gotten significantly better since then?

The public fast-charging situation is a lot better for anything that that has a CCS1 or Tesla/NACS port. Which is pretty much everything that isn't a Leaf. The 2011-2025 Leafs use the bulky CHAdeMO port for DC fast charging, which didn't catch on. The completely redesigned 2026 Leaf should be transitioning to NACS though.

https://www.motortrend.com/cars/nissan/leaf/2026/

...also, pretty much anything other than the Chevy Bolt will fast-charge at a rate at least 2-3 times faster than the Leaf and possible even faster than that (depending on model).

I am incredibly relieved to hear that the Leaf is finally getting a redesign.

I chatted with a poor fellow in a Leaf trying and failing to charge on the single sad broken CHAdeMO plug at a station, and was just thinking... yeah, Nissan sold you a bad car, I'm really really sorry.

VW ID.4, road tripping around the northeast (NJ/NY) and midwest (to/fro Michigan).

In your case, the Leaf is the single EV that should never be or have been sold or rented out since around 2020. It's ancient and is the last EV lacking support for the major fast charging plugs in north America, so I'm not surprised you had charging issues! I'm really sorry they gave you that car!

Ah, I didn't know the Leaf was particularly bad. Guess I was just unlucky / uninformed. Good to know! I'd love to get an EV someday.

Which one?

VW ID.4! Definitely not the best car in the segment, but the best car at the time for the price. It's really been a dream of a vehicle!

I'd argue inflation and high interest rates have a large impact too. When every day necessities (shelter, food, healthcare, education) are +30% at a minimum, there's not a lot leftover for fancy cars for most Americans.

Economic self strangulation induced via the wealth gap. Its going to be economically impossible to build anything but luxury shoes next.

I could explain to a child how printing new money causes inflation, which we did twice since COVID.

How does the wealth gap cause inflation?

I don't claim to be an economist, but direct stimulus payments to Americans totaled about $2100 on average. The US economy is worth trillions annually. I'm sure the stimulus checks made a small bump on inflation in the short term, but they couldn't possibly drive sustained, systemic inflation. Unless you're talking about the broader fiscal packages for supporting businesses/unemployment benefits during COVID when you say "printing new money?"

Printing new money means spending money that doesn't (yet) exist.

If there is 1 trillion dollars in the possession of all humans and the government buyys a trillion dollars worth of good with new money, all previous money os jow worth half it's previous value.

It massively inflates asset prices which disproportionately benefit those who are already wealthy (they also have easier access to capital).

> I could explain to a child how printing new money causes inflation, which we did twice since COVID.

We've printed money a dozen times in the 30 years prior to 2022. Economists predicted that all of them would cause inflation. None of them did.

In 2022 we had money printing and a supply side squeeze. Insisting that the inflation was caused by the money printing rather than the supply side squeeze takes incredible chutzpah.

The money printing in response to COVID followed by the the infrastructure bill were at a scale not seen before and shouldn't be so easily dismissed in reference to previous deficit spending.

Germany (and others) printed at a lower rate. If it was a momentary phenomenon, they would have appreciated against the dollar and seen less inflation. Instead they depreciated against the dollar and saw more inflation.

Because they had a greater supply shock.

edit: monetary phenomenon. Autocorrect ugh.

I don't think so.

At least from my personal experiences I know of at least a dozen sales that 3 years ago they would have made hands now. People compromise and buy what are clearly worse cars to avoid the Tesla brand. A friend just brought an ioniq a few months ago, same friend who was salivating over our Tesla a few years ago and kept talking about buying one endlessly. Guess why they didn't buy one..

Heck. I'm one of those people. We were customers for life. But my wife who loves our Tesla won't agree to ever buy one again. So we're back to VW. Yay...

I wish they would get rid of Musk. It would be nice if Tesla was just a car company.

I feel the same about Starlink, sadly. And unlike Tesla there are no real alternatives.

Man, I wish Musk would just stay out of the limelight and enjoy his private life inventing new industries and taking the occasional Mars vacation or whatever. There was really no need to jump into the deep end the way he did.

I don't think Tesla can get rid of Musk.

If investors saw Tesla as just a car company the stock would collapse. Musk keeps making promises and breaking them, but it seems to pump the stock thus far.

> don't think Tesla can get rid of Musk

They can't and they shouldn't. Tesla has a solid business. It just looks like it may have capped out its growth prospects in the U.S. and Europe. (In vehicles.)

Tesla is certainly a solid memestock. It’s hard to say whether they have a solid business. If they dumped Musk, the stock would crash and they would have to install competent governance instead of continuously gaming the system. But that would be a better outcome for consumers.

They have a solid business. It's just not the world-changing fantastic future that Musk talks a big game about. That's fine. But "solid business" is not what has manufactured Tesla's ridiculous market cap.

If Tesla's valuation reflected its value as a regular car company like, say, Toyota, it would be vastly lower. Shareholders would lose oodles of money.

And it seems to US/European companies will ever be able to compete in China again. So what’s left?

> It would be nice if Tesla was just a car company.

What is Tesla?

If it was just a car company, it wouldn’t have the P/E ratio it does. It’s a technology company that makes cars (and self driving systems, AI, and robots).

davidw wasn't implying that it was a cause, just commenting.

1. The electric car market grew in 2024 in the US.

2. Tesla is one of the more affordable electric cars.

I want an EV and can afford a Tesla and I will never buy anything from Elon Musk as long as I live exactly because of his behavior.

>I think it's more simply that the market of people who want an EV and can afford a Tesla is now saturated.

Very likely, but I know of at least one person (me) who didn’t buy a Tesla due to what the parent comment brings up.

> rare to see, on the other hand, someone insert themselves into politics quite so loudly, and in such an extreme way.

Publicly sure. I assume it’s always been this way though. And I’m more concerned about the ones we’re unaware of.

> Publicly sure. I assume it’s always been this way

Then you're misreading history. You have to go back to the age of the robber barons to find private individuals with the power to shut down the government [1].

[1] https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-congress-bipartisan-dea...

I guess it speaks more to his utter lack of social skills than anything how he has managed to convince both the far left and far right he is simultaneously an Elder of Zion super-Liberal enemy as well as a white supremacist fascist enemy. Comments supporting both readings keep popping up as replies and then get insta-flagged.

You have almost no far left in the US. You have extreme ID politics (that are distributed on the far right, the right, the "extreme center" and socdems) and a bastardized radical center[0] that include almost every politicians, even those who appear socdems or far-right. And here i'm using far-right to designate people who want to come back on minority rights, and i separate it from the right.

(Because when supposed "far left" organizations use the word "empowerment", i just facepalm, that's "third way" bullshit imho)

I think Musk doesn't really understand his politics, and that's what hurt him. He should be in the extreme center (with Hillary, or Bush), but he was caught in ID politics for a long time.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_centrism

I am not in the US but thanks for the info.

> You have almost no far left in the US.

Overton window.

Obviously "left" vs "right" depends on the geography and time period. Otherwise, it becomes very hard to talk about politics.

Not really, historically far-left is the revolutionary left, the one you see organize global strikes (they don't believe in representation democracy, only in direct democracy, bottom up, so it is _very_ rare to see them participate in elections). Since global strikes are forbidden in the US, you'll have to define it by its negative: anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist always, anti-globalist sometime.

You have some groups who have a far-left affects in the US, but honestly since the BPP and the Rainbow Coalition they are either ideologically weak or ineffective.

So I can understand the distribution of this definition, what % of governments in world history have been far-left?

Practically, no government, at least not long-lasting one. Far leftist see the state (and government) as innately oppressive. So some will say Russia from 1917 to 1921, I kinda disagree. Some communes were far-left though (communes are a better echelon for far-left ideas in general), the oldest were the platformists in Ukraine, they fought against Germany (Lenine sold Ukraine to them, Ukrainian anarchists disagreed), then the Russian white army, then lost to the Russian red army. Way more recently, some far-left adjacent communes debuted in Mexico, because Mexico constitution allows them to exist, but they're still within a state (they mostly self-organized to repel cartels extortion). Think Israeli kibbutz.

Imho this is 'normal'. Far-left ideals do not seem to work at large scale.

> only in direct democracy,

I thought far-left is typically vanguardist and doesn’t believe in any type of [real] democracy? Dictatorship of the proletariat and all that stuff..

Dictatorship of the proletariat is supposed to be in theory a transition period. In practice, once you get the power, you keep it.

Other on the far left will rather go a more local route, destroying state structure (as state is oppressive by nature) in the beginning to create a collective bottom up.

I'm not saying any of this is a good idea btw, it's just that far-left has fled the US a long time ago. If you aren't revolutionary, you aren't far-left.

Or maybe he just has a balanced centric view on most matters?

Do you really think that being at odds with both extreme ends of the political spectrum is a bad thing?

He isn’t being read as being at odds with the extremes, he is seen as extreme. I personally don’t think he’s extremist, he reminds me of myself when I was an edgy, poorly socialised 12 year old except with billions of dollars. Hence the comment about social skills.

To your second question, I’m not sure where you’re getting that I would think that so I’m unsure how to respond in a helpful way.

It's not a bad thing if someone is at odds with both extremes because they are in the center. It is a bad thing if they are at odds with both extremes because they are one extreme on some issues and the other extreme on the rest of the issues.

It's like how a house that is averages 68℉ (20℃) by being 68℉ (20℃) all day is a lot more pleasant than house that averages 68℉ (20℃) by being 50℉ (10℃) for half the day and 86℉ (30℃) for the other half of the day.

What issues do you find he is extreme on?

1. The result of the 2020 election is a big one

2. Supporting Germany's AfD, which e.g. backs "complete closure" of EU borders

3. Recently started advocating for a far-right loser in the UK (Tommy Robinson) who has multiple convictions including assault, assault, assault, mortgage fraud, contempt of court, and use of a false passport to enter the US

4. Continuing to insist that the Twitter Files showed that Dems stifled the Biden laptop story even after Matt Taibbi (who Musk hired to release the Twitter Files) wrote: "there’s no evidence - that I've seen - of any government involvement in the laptop story."

1. I don't understand how that's evidence of an extreme view. 2. That does seem extreme, probably a good example. 3. I didn't know anything about this topic, but at a first glance it seems like there is a lot more going on here than the way you are framing it. 4. I didn't know Matt Taibbi said that, interesting...

You are disengaged from consensus reality if you don’t understand why thinking the 2020 election was in any way fraudulent is an extreme view.

I agree but I think s/he showed good faith with the rest of the comment and shouldn't be flagged.

GP's surprise that Taibbi (author of the Twitter Files, hired by Musk) said "there is no evidence of government involvement in the laptop story" is great evidence of the fact that many people just live in informational wormholes.

Thank you. I think someone (or maybe multiple people) just mass flagged all my comments, including ones that I struggle to see as controversial. My curiosity and questioning of the "consensus reality" apparently really upset someone.

Doesn't exactly make me more confident in their opinions, if when I question them or try to understand them by comparing my own views people attempt to silence me unjustly (I didn't break any HN rules as far as I can tell, and I checked).

I spend about an hour a week on HN, and about another hour a week combined mixed between reddit, twitter, NYT, reuters, and probably a couple others I am forgetting. Just trying to get a pulse of what's going on across a wide range of sources.

Most of my time consuming information is reading books and listening to podcasts. I have listened to several Elon musk interviews (Lex Fridman mostly).

Does this explain my "information wormhole"?

> when I question them or try to understand them by comparin

You didn’t do that in good faith, though. Just entirely handwaving his support for far-right parties in Europe can’t really lead to any productive discussion? Can it?

I don't understand. How is it that my comment can't lead to any productive discussion?

I don't know anything about that AfD party, why Elon supports them, or their policies. At a glance it does appear the Elon supports them. I am taking the previous commenter at their word that the party backs "complete closure" of the EU borders, but I can't confirm or deny it yet. I haven't looked into it yet. At a glance it does seem extreme (from an Overton window perspective) for Elon to be backing a political party that wants to break up the EU.

How was my previous comment handwaving? I have to expand into all of the above instead of summarizing my impression in order for me to not be handwaving?

Like... what?

Or maybe I don't understand what you are saying. Are you saying that Elon is claiming that the 2020 election was fraudulent? Because if you are, then its news to me. I didn't know he held that stance.

Regular posting of antisemitic memes on Twitter is pretty extreme

I can't imagine how it's not extreme to retweet any of the white supremacist shit I've seen him retweet

> Do you really think that being at odds with both extreme ends of the political spectrum is a bad thing?

He's also at odds with much of the centre. Musk picks fights, and not particularly strategically. The comment about his lack of social skills is spot on.

[flagged]

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Sure - I'll try harder. But I think the post you're responding to is entirely factual and reasonable under the circumstances.

The upside of having an outspoken public figure at the head is that he's in charge and takes ownership. It's pretty wild that you can have some failure in your Tesla, and you can just tweet about it and if its a compelling issue you'll get the CEO to respond and address it directly. Imagine trying to get the attention of someone from Ford.

I don't know if you can have it both ways. Either you're a faceless soulless corporation and you're dealing with PR people and can't get a straight answer, or you're dealing with someone in founder mode but you'll have to hear their political opinions if you choose to use the social media platform they also own.

In other words, I don't think him being eccentric and generally disagreeable is unrelated to him building great products and companies. I wish more founders were eccentric and taking risk rather than trying to squeeze out every last dime of profits by outsourcing or cutting corners or the million other marginal things an MBA program will teach you to do.

> I don't think him being eccentric and generally disagreeable is unrelated to him building great products and companies

Within the domain of the private sector, yes. The paedo comments were distasteful, but that's about it.

That changed when he became a political figure. (And a partisan one at that.) Musk, the brand, has fundamentally changed in a way that more resembles Soros or Murdoch than the bipartisan tech titan he was.

Your definition of "distasteful, but that's about it" is likely substantially understated from just about everyone else in the world.

> Your definition of "distasteful, but that's about it" is likely substantially understated from just about everyone else in the world

Social media isn't most of the world.

I don't like it. But I also don't like most of social media. Musk faced no consequences for his paedo comments. He is facing consequences for his partisan activism. That's the difference between being a public and political figure.

> Social media isn't most of the world.

Not sure why you think this implication applies to my comment. If he yelled the comments in a public square, my comment would be the same.

> my comment would be the same

As would mine. It's distasteful. But it brought and brings no consequences. Categorically distinct from his partisan activism.

Our definition of "no consequences" is very different, apparently. Have a good one.

He was never a tech titan. He’s always been a racist emerald mine heir who lied his way into everything. You really need to read this book to get your head adjusted properly on Musk:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludicrous:_The_Unvarnished_Sto...

You know who he donates to and know what he thinks. I'd prefer the other billionaires that just donate in private or buy a newspaper that until recently openly endorses candidates and has selective coverage of events based on politics

> I'd prefer the other billionaires that just donate in private or buy a newspaper that until recently openly endorses candidates and has selective coverage of events based on politics

Sure. This isn't most prospective EV buyers. It's not a coincidence that the most-popular car colours are white, grey and black [1]. At the end of the day, most people don't want a loud car.

[1] https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/what-are-the-best-car-colors-...

He can also disable your car remotely if you mess around with the innards too much. Or otherwise target you for harassment if you annoy him.

> He can also disable your car remotely if you mess around with the innards too much

And will.

Like if you poke around and find the existence of a new model car...

They'll remotely force downgrade your firmware, and remotely disable ports on your car so you can't upgrade it again.

> Or otherwise target you for harassment if you annoy him.

Or hold press conferences if you are in a fatal accident to make sure you get the blame, not whatever garbage happened to pass for Full Self Driving. And blatantly lie in the process. "The vehicle had been warning the driver about inattentiveness before the accident". No, Elon, the vehicle fired ONE "hand on steering wheel" warning, and it was EIGHTEEN MINUTES before the accident.

> It's pretty wild that you can have some failure in your Tesla, and you can just tweet about it and if its a compelling issue you'll get the CEO to respond and address it directly.

I'd imagine just regular old good customer service would suffice but, you do you.

Regular good old customer service used to be pretty great, but it’s gone way down hill in the last couple years.

Same. I wish we can go back to the time of "I respectfully disagree with my esteemed opponent".

More than anything I'd just be embarrassed to drive in a Tesla. I can't believe the level of brand damage he did in such a short period of time.

But they have been doing it forever. Soros, Epstein, SBF, Bezos... Your ideal is noble but perhaps a little naive.

>someone insert themselves into politics quite so loudly

Soros and Epstein did it quietly. I’d wager that most people have never heard anything from Soros himself or know what he has actually done, but merely have heard that he uses his wealth to influence politics. Usually as an attack against an idea or group. Epstein is certainly not known for influencing politics. And quite frankly, flew under the radar for the general public until the end of his life in 2019.

People outside tech or finance would not know who SBF is unless you told them exactly what he did and then maybe they’d remember a news article about it.

Bezos might be the best example you provide, but I don’t think he rises to the loudness of Musk.

Why is Musk be loud about his politics worse than other billionaires being quiet but equally active in the political scene? It's good to know where these people stand.

There's a difference between being loud and purchasing a seat at the table.

All the others purchased seats too, they just keep quiet about it.

The quiet billionaires put up something they care a great deal about. Musk's nonsenses in the US can be interpreted many ways but his screwing Germany and the UK with his incoherent stoner thoughts is basically letting off steam at everyone's expense because a lot of people are too stupid to understand how compartmentalized success is and that he doesn't necessarily even know who he is talking about.

Multiple things can be bad at the same time. Those other billionaires are off topic in a post about Tesla. Musk isn't.

> Why is Musk be loud about his politics worse than other billionaires being quiet but equally active in the political scene?

Musk's involvement is on the level of e.g. Rupert Murdoch or the Adelsons. It's well beyond even most billionaires' political activities.

I'm not denying that. I think it might open some people's eyes to the reality that we live in.

In the same way that murderers should get some credit for opening people's eyes to the reality that there are other murderers.

The wealth inequality is growing in the US, while lower class is struggling. The kind of wealth Musk, Bezos, Gates have should be taxed a lot higher. They have teams searching for loop holes. The system is unfair for the average guy.

How did ALL federal agencies target musk? He is literally getting funding from the government.

Exponential phenomenon and power laws are natural laws.

Check out Youtube views of Top creators vs Median creators. You observe the same phenomenon.

Incredibly stupid to punish success. Also incredibly stupid to focus on inequality (which is natural) instead of making the standard of living for all higher. Also stupid to think that economy is a zero-sum game. But this is all par-for-course for ZERO-sum thinking

> He's only extreme if your view points are extreme left

Musk's policy positions are all over the political compass. While I wouldn't call him a right-wing extremist (that's where Loomer et al live), he's certainly a right winger in the political company he keeps and supports.

> Hello downvotes

"Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading" [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> he's certainly a right winger

There's nothing wrong with being a right winger, unless you live in a silo that is intolerant to it.

> Hello downvotes

I literally don't post to HN because it's such a silo. Commenting on downvotes is done to try and get people to second guess their knee jerk reaction. Mods can block the comment if they want, I'll just continue my shift away from HN.

> nothing wrong with being a right winger, unless you live in a silo that is intolerant to it

No, but it's obviously going to alienate a large swath of the consumer base, i.e. most people able to and interested in buying an electric car.

> Commenting on downvotes is done to try and get people to second guess their knee jerk reaction

It's the only reason I flagged your comment.

Also, really? Do you think a speech is stronger if it ends with "obviously everyone in this room is going to disagree with me"?

> most people able to and interested in buying an electric car

For what it's worth, I've wanted a tesla for many years. I haven't pulled the trigger because of the cost. I'm not sure how many right leaning techies there are out there, but we do exist. And when I worked on the West coast I learned pretty quickly that there are consequences if I share my political views. No clue how many more there are like me, but I'm certainly not the only one.

> Also, really? Do you think a speech is stronger if it ends with "obviously everyone in this room is going to disagree with me"?

I think free speech is strongest when differing views are tolerated. The fact that people feel they can't share their opinion is what damages free speech. I'm just trying to express that I feel I can't on HN, but I do feel some obligation to in an effort to be a good citizen. I wasn't aware of the rule. I also think it's comical that it's used to remove an otherwise reasonable comment entirely (this just punishes those who have different opinions from the main HN audience). I've learned that commenting on anything political here turns into a big distraction, so I was trying to take part but avoid some of the backlash.

> not sure how many right leaning techies there are out there, but we do exist

Of course. But not enough to sustain Tesla's growth requirements. (The same would be true if Musk came out as a leftist.)

Mass-market brands practically have to be anodyne. Alienating any significant customer group undercuts the economies of scale.

> The fact that people feel they can't share their opinion is what damages free speech.

I guess I should shut up about how stupid I think Elon is, I wouldn't want to offend anyone after all!

After criticizing Israel he was "invited" over there, was completely deferential and wore the symbol of the Israel army in interview.

Sorry, a real antisemite wouldn't do that. What likely happened is that his comments were taken out of context and deliberately misinterpreted by the "left" (i.e., corporate and establishment friendly) media.

Instead of "left", you can call them liberals or radical centrists, but that would include part of the Republicans as well, and people on the democrat party who really believe in what they say/think.

My preferred is "extreme centre" but that's a bit more niche, and i think pretty much unknown for the anglo world, although Tariq Ali wrote a book on it[0] which is too political for me (i like the politics inside, but the issue is that the only english book that talk about this term is pretty much marked politically when it should be universal[1])

[0]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39705210-the-extreme-cen...

[1] But that's not surprising, it kinda confirm my theory about politics and propension to read outside/academic sources

and yet he supports the AfD, far-right "influencers", re-platformed actual nazis, doesn't think j6 was terrorism. the only reason he isn't antisemitic is because he hates muslims more, but either way it's all fascism and racism and none of it is right.

This lacks any and all context. What's the relevance?

the "dark MAGA" bit was very unusual, not sure what musk was thinking there

It's pretty common in third world countries.

The blue tribe are especially riled about Elon Musk belonging to the red tribe… because Musk once belonged to the blue tribe.

To tribal types, there’s nothing worse than an apostate.

I could sit down and have a great conversation with, say, Mitt Romney or GWB, I bet. I'd learn something about the world and how they view it and their thoughts and ideas.

The white supremacy stuff is just trash though. That's not "tribes", it's unacceptable.

> The white supremacy stuff is just trash though. That's not "tribes", it's unacceptable.

Are you really branding Elon Musk a "white supremacist?" Based on what? Some ill-advised retweet of a crank on Twitter?

The "but that's not the real Musk" game doesn't work anymore. They aren't "ill-advised" retweets. They are who and what he is. Increasingly they are all he is. Musk is the crank on Twitter.

Musk spends all day, every day showing you who and what he is. Believe him.

Here are two exercises for you:

1. Musk is keen on criticizing many governments, both foreign and domestic. Can you find for me a single criticism of the Chinese government from Musk?

2. Musk likes to spread conspiracy theories. Musk says he is a technologist. Musk says he knows a lot about computers. Musk says the last thing he would do is trust a computer program:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/musk-pushes-debunked-...

Can you reconcile Musk's position that he would never trust a computer program with his claim that Tesla has a full-self driving computer program that does full autonomy (this time for sure!) and everyone should trust it (it will save lives!) and buy it and rent it and hail a robotaxi?

1. Why are you singling out China? Are you racist against the Chinese?

2. He was explaining that you cannot trust a computer to authenticate voters, and he's right.

Are those two points really the best evidence you have that Musk is a "white supremacist"?

> 1. Why are you singling out China? Are you racist against the Chinese?

So that's a "no" then. How do you account for that?

> 2. He was explaining that you cannot trust a computer to authenticate voters, and he's right.

No, he was falsely claiming that the 2020 election was rigged by Dominion voting machines. You haven't managed to reconcile the disconnect here.

You failed both exercises. Do you want to try again?

I'll wait.

If you keep breaking the site guidelines like this, we're going to have to ban you. We've already asked you more than once not to.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please don't perpetuate flamewars on HN. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

What flamewar. We're getting at the truth.

Getting at the truth is always uncomfortable. It hurts.

Okay, dang, my bad - I should never have replied to the comment in the first place.

You don't have the intellectual honesty to admit to what's true, but you crumble the moment you're threatened.

This is unimpressive.

We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and ignoring multiple requests to stop.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

What is true matters more than your threats and your bans.

Indeed it does.