Tesla is committing automotive suicide • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#321

Post by fallingfrog » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 7:54 AM UTC

I wonder if he has some kind of dementia brought on by excessive consumption of ketamine? Or perhaps it's just that he has surrounded himself with people who will never tell him no. Sort of like a lot of dictators do where they have executed everyone around them who could give them pushback and therefore they end up living in a fantasy world while their people starve.

What I'm wondering at this point is why the investors in Tesla are still riding this crazy train. Blaming simple market manipulation seems far fetched. Mass hysteria and delusional beliefs are common enough in the stock market but reality eventually sets in and this bubble has been inflating for a long time. The people who lose the most are going to be the small investors- the really ruthless hedge fund bros will probably walk away unscathed.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#322

Post by Nevermark » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 8:01 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #320

Nevermark wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You seem to not even understand the very basics of heat transfer. Basic physics: The moon is very cold in surface shadows and below the surface. It is an enormous pre-chilled heat sink. The surface is also the support structure for any scale of radiative cooling with the same heat physics as orbit, but much better for larger and enhanced radiative engineering. For example, heat pumps can centralize waste heat energ…

Great, now do the math and let's talk

Things scale so differently, we don’t need a parts list to make a general tradeoff relationship.

Of the moon and orbital, orbit is much closer and will be cheaper to start with.

But a lunar site would scale to much greater mean density and unlimited total capacities. And be much cheaper for reasons I gave, at some threshold scale.

Neither is easy, and it’s not at all clear that either is actually better than down here. Especially with nuclear efforts and funding rising quickly.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#323

Post by nailer » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 8:01 AM UTC

perardi wrote: post #278

nailer wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology sometimes takes longer than estimates.

And in Musk’s case, “longer” means “abandoned”. Like the cheap model 3. Or the Hyperloop. Or swappable batteries. Or X as an everything app that includes banking.

In everyone else’s case too. This was supposed to be a Startup News site. Instagram was supposed to be a way to check into cool places in your neighbourhood and see who was around.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#324

Post by t0mas88 » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 8:15 AM UTC

Alive-in-2025 wrote: post #140

z2 wrote: post #7

Tesla also announced they will be discontinuing the basic lane keep + adaptive speed cruise control they helped pioneer in cars sold going forward. But this is now a standard (free) feature even in basic vehicles like the Toyota Corolla. Why would they intentionally cripple their vehicles to the point hat they would be inferior to most cars today? Then I learned that Musk's incentive pay has a 10 million full self-dr…

Unless they dramatically reduce the price, they won't get to 10 million any time soon if ever. This article discusses paid subscriptions info releases in the earnings report, https://electrek.co/2026/01/28/tesla-discloses-fsd-subscribe... 800k paid subs in q4/2024, about the same in q1/2025, 900k in q2/2025, 1 million in q3/25, and 1.1 million in q4/2025. Let's call that 100k growth per quarter in 2025, and currently…

Expect Musk to throw a tantrum and demand to get 80% of his payoff anyway or he'll leave. And nobody should be surprised if the board gives in, they've been selected to be on Musks side no matter what.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#325

Post by ETH_start » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 8:45 AM UTC

mekdoonggi wrote: post #71

notfried wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that it doesn't need to be consumer to start off. You can build specialized robots that deliver value at a massive scale. Imagine a "Prep Cook" at a restaurant, there are millions of these around the world. If the Optimus can do that job for a price of $1,000/month, that's likely to be more efficient and better quality than a human can do. And there has to be many jobs like this.

A million robots making $1k a month is $12b a year, but you need to actually produce the robots, maintain them, train the AI, own the data centers. Also, if you take 1 million jobs, do you think that might cause demand to drop for services?

No, automation doesn't reduce jobs, i.e. doesn't reduce consumer spending, as consumer spending is determined by output, which automation boosts.

The savings from automation in a particular sector are spent elsewhere — wherever services are more costly (in labor). That's the dynamic behind Say's law, which shows that spending on less automatable jobs like barbers and physical therapists increases as automation reduces costs in other sectors of the economy.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#326

Post by davidguetta » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 9:04 AM UTC

The discontinued models were 3% of the sale. It's not "suicide".

Also if they feel self driving is sufficient, why would they bother with inferior stuff

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#327

Post by habinero » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 9:22 AM UTC

Nevermark wrote: post #76

TacoCommander wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parallel steps: Step 1: SpaceX IPO Step 2: Trillion dollar payout Step 3: Nothing matters any more

SpaceX is rockets, now global satellite internet, ... To credibly harness off-world resources at any scale, there are going to need to be automated refueling depots and many kinds of robotic automation for resource extraction. With the Asteroid Belt looking amazing for quantity and accessibility of resources. That would also completely remove the lid on how many $ trillions of market cap SpaceX could accrue. So I fin…

Elon's not doing any of that and never will lol. You're vastly underestimating the cost and complexity of doing anything in space.

Sure, an asteroid theoretically has eighty quadrillion dollars of whatever, but you're going to spend ninety bajillion getting anything there and back, plus you'd ...well, crater the market even if you did.

We're not hurting for heat sinks. There's the entire ocean to work with, for one.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#328

Post by habinero » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 9:46 AM UTC

Nevermark wrote: post #304

godelski wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Simple cooling sinks, dense I think you need to go back to physics class. You seem to not even understand the very basics of heat transfer. You need more than "cold". I'll give you a hint, the problem is the same problem as "in space no one can hear you scream." I'll also mention that the moon isn't very cold, except on the dark side. In the moon's day the temperature is 120C and at night -130C. The same side of th…

> You seem to not even understand the very basics of heat transfer. Basic physics: The moon is very cold in surface shadows and below the surface. It is an enormous pre-chilled heat sink. The surface is also the support structure for any scale of radiative cooling with the same heat physics as orbit, but much better for larger and enhanced radiative engineering. For example, heat pumps can centralize waste heat energ…

> The moon is very cold in surface shadows and below the surface. It is an enormous pre-chilled heat sink

Technically true, but not really. "Radiative cooling" is heat loss through thermal radiation and it's really ineffective. We use air cooling / water cooling for a reason.

Satellites and spacecraft are engineered to make sure they can shed enough heat and they use a fraction of the power a datacenter would. All that energy eventually gets turned into heat, and it has to go somewhere.

It's a ridiculous idea that's never going to make even a tiny bit of economic sense.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#329

Post by habinero » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 9:51 AM UTC

TacoCommander wrote: post #35

this_user wrote: post #10

They had the first mover advantage, but then Musk lost interest in the company and let it just sit there for the last five years or so without making sure that they have a future-proof product pipeline and that those products are actually being delivered on a reasonable schedule. Now they are increasingly turning into an EV also-ran while their moonshots are unlikely to work out any time soon. Realistically, he shoul…

The end game is the SpaceX IPO which will make him a trillionaire, and then he doesn't need Tesla any more.

His entire wealth is basically paper anyways.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#330

Post by habinero » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 9:55 AM UTC

scottyah wrote: post #253

Qwertious wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More examples, please! Reusable rockets is the load-bearing example, I don't think that argument works without it. You could maybe squeeze in "he kickstarted the EV market".

maybe? Tesla is the biggest reason there are any electric vehicles on the road today, I haven't heard of anyone (knowledgeable) who has even hinted otherwise. I can understand not liking Elon, but trashing the companies he's formed and the marvels they've created is just proof you don't value a truthful understanding of the world.

Elon bought Tesla, he didn't start it.