I think for a lot of people (this is just my personal opinion), it is based on arrogance of the leadership at Tesla. Especially their dismissals of the rest of the car industry which has been around for decades and knows a lot about how to build cars and wild predictions that turn out to be empty. I think lot of people have become emotional about this and want to see Tesla fail just because of the arrogance displayed by its CEO. There’s an equal amount of emotions on the other side though. People who support Tesla no matter what and dismiss all negative facts.
Ask HN: Why do so many people want to see Tesla fail?
31–40 of 44 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why do so many people want to see Tesla fail?
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People who short Tesla stock have become an industry. Tesla is a volatile stock and they've made seriously good money on the dips. So they have a vested interest in amplifying all bad news about Tesla. Sounds like Ken Lay at Enron. He continued to blame shorts and the media even after bankruptcy and criminal conviction. Enron wanted to convince people they were a low-risk cleaner-energy (natural gas) company. In re…
> Waymo is at about 1 driver takeover per 10,000 miles. Tesla is nowhere near that 2 Questions: 1) Anyone know what Tesla is at for km/takeover? 2) Is Waymo still testing inside tightly limited zones? If so I kinda feel this is unfair to compare controlled zone vs nationwide wherever customers choose.
1) Tesla does not report their numbers, though one person who went for a ridealong in the autonomy day demo reported one takeover in 20-minutes [1], so at least once every 10 miles.
2) Waymo does testing on a lot of types of roads. They reported 1.26 million miles in CA last year [2]. It's not possible to apples-to-apples compare this to Tesla's numbers because Tesla does not share their data. Musk even turned down an analyst's request the other day for details backing up his claim of autopilot safety [3].
Tesla/Musk are being unreasonable when they claim stats show their system is 40% safer or 2x safer than normal driving because they are comparing to NHTSA stats which include all classes of cars (including motorcycles), all road types (whereas AP is mainly used on divided highways), and all weather conditions (nobody activates AP in the snow, I hope, and I doubt many do in rain).
[1] https://youtu.be/2BZHXh1nbWc?t=450
[2] https://medium.com/waymo/an-update-on-waymo-disengagements-i...
Re: Ask HN: Why do so many people want to see Tesla fail?
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People who short Tesla stock have become an industry. Tesla is a volatile stock and they've made seriously good money on the dips. So they have a vested interest in amplifying all bad news about Tesla. Sounds like Ken Lay at Enron. He continued to blame shorts and the media even after bankruptcy and criminal conviction. Enron wanted to convince people they were a low-risk cleaner-energy (natural gas) company. In re…
Elon Musk is certainly a conversation piece... but same as Travis Kalanick with uber, Tesla could kick him out... What about the Tesla though? What about electric cars or Solar?
A lot of great people work at Tesla and Solar City. Unfortunately they are kept from their best by a CEO who hides data [1] to protect his own image.
I could not say why Musk has not been replaced, other than, he's been good for the stock and that is Wall Street and the board's focus. Travis kind of agreed to remove himself, didn't he? In this bull market, I expect Musk would need to do the same, and so far he still feels he's the best driver.
Re: Ask HN: Why do so many people want to see Tesla fail?
#34People who short Tesla stock have become an industry. Tesla is a volatile stock and they've made seriously good money on the dips. So they have a vested interest in amplifying all bad news about Tesla. At times as some have commented Elon has been his own worst enemy. It's messy but he's inventing the future with Tesla and SpaceX. I've got a friend with a brand new Tesla. He took bets a while back on when the first f…
Did he have to stop at all ? Make any turns ? If he didn't, I'm not sure what point he was trying to prove as every car on the market can be driven with "one finger on the steering wheel".
Re: Ask HN: Why do so many people want to see Tesla fail?
#35Tesla is just a cult of personality around Elon Musk. Most of its supporters, especially its die hard supporters, are just people that love Musk. He’s kind of an arrogant prick though, hence all the haters.
And yet Tesla produces a game changing product in it's industry against literally all odds. Hard to say how much of it just requires a certain brand of crazy.
Re: Ask HN: Why do so many people want to see Tesla fail?
#36I think for a lot of people (this is just my personal opinion), it is based on arrogance of the leadership at Tesla. Especially their dismissals of the rest of the car industry which has been around for decades and knows a lot about how to build cars and wild predictions that turn out to be empty. I think lot of people have become emotional about this and want to see Tesla fail just because of the arrogance displayed…
I think at least some set of people feel that at some level the arrogance matches the achievements. I'm certainly sympathetic to this argument.
Re: Ask HN: Why do so many people want to see Tesla fail?
#37> The only thing I'm wondering is why are there soooooo many people that want to see Tesla fail?
There are probably some people that want that (including people who have a financial interest in it, like shorters or people with long positions in competing firms), but it's also very easy for people who have positive aspirations or expectations of Tesla to mistake (or sometimes, misrepresent dishonestly) reporting of negative facts or negative expectations with wanting to Tesla to fail.
You see a similar thing very much in other fields, too (the most common egregious example being political allies of the status quo regime in a nation accusing people who advance the view that the existing policy will fail for the nation of wanting the nation to fail.)
Re: Ask HN: Why do so many people want to see Tesla fail?
#38ELI5: disruption is difficult
Re: Ask HN: Why do so many people want to see Tesla fail?
#39$10M+ of funding by the Koch brothers to manufacture outrage against Tesla? https://cleantechnica.com/2018/08/26/tesla-musk-hit-by-trife...
Wow that some of the most effective PR money ever spent then, isn't it?
Re: Ask HN: Why do so many people want to see Tesla fail?
#40I think for a lot of people (this is just my personal opinion), it is based on arrogance of the leadership at Tesla. Especially their dismissals of the rest of the car industry which has been around for decades and knows a lot about how to build cars and wild predictions that turn out to be empty. I think lot of people have become emotional about this and want to see Tesla fail just because of the arrogance displayed…
I agree... my impression is that people want Elon to be "taken down a notch". Tesla's failure is merely the vehicle (heh) for that comeuppance.
It's interesting to note that SpaceX, another Elon venture, seems to have much more goodwill. I attribute this to the fact that Elon has been much more humble about every rocket launch ("we'll be happy if the payload makes it to orbit, forget about that landing nonsense") as opposed to the extreme rhetoric around the cars ("it will drive itself!")