Tesla is committing automotive suicide • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#341

Post by ndsipa_pomu » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 10:19 AM UTC

mrguyorama wrote: post #303

Qwertious wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DeLorean was a stupidly-expensive car that had a lot of maintenance problems, decided to use an unpainted stainless steel exterior and had corrosion issues as a result, but is remembered despite all of this engineering mediocrity due to its unusual stylistic choices. I'm guessing Tesla's cybertruck will be the DeLorean of the 2020s.

The delorean is only remembered the way it is because of Back to the Future. Without that movie, it would be a pub trivia question. Is anyone going to make a generation defining movie that features the Cybertruck? God I hope not, I can't take such powerful satire right now.

Maybe a remake of Idiocracy?

(Last night I rewatched Radio Free Albemuth and it seemed too relevant to the current mood in the USA. PKD was truly a prophet of the modern age).

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#342

Post by jfyi » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 10:30 AM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #52

p-o wrote: post #2

What makes this move even more incredulous is that none of the two market they want to move towards are proven markets: - Waymo is generating less than 150m in 2025. - Consumer robotics is an absolute unknown. How can the transition be rationally justified? Let alone the valuation.

They haven't said it explicitly. But the reason that Waymo can add five cities this year is very likely they are at least at break even on opex. They likely reached that point sometime last year and it seems to have held up. So I wouldn't call robotaxi service unproven. But I would call the idea that you can claim to be running a robo taxi service without depots, cleaners, CSRs, and remote monitoring that can handle…

>They haven't said it explicitly.

This seems to be a major strategic decision of Alphabet pretty much across the board. I have only recently noticed the stark contrast to the constant hype trope you see in their competitors.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#343

Post by bzzzt » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 10:37 AM UTC

NetMageSCW wrote: post #176

rf15 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lane keeping is also tremendously dangerous, if the system gets confused on e.g. construction sites. I hated how much I had to fight the car not to swerve into the huge barriers running along the middle of the original road layout.

Like many (many) things, it is all about the implementation - not all lane keeping assist thinks it knows better than the driver.

The problem is knowing which lane keeping assist systems are good and which are not. Every dealer just treats it as a 'checkbox' item and implementations vary by model and year.

Had a Kia loaner a few years back that to my surprise tried to actively kill me by repeatedly steering into oncoming traffic on a provincial road. I really prefer steering myself to last-second correcting a temperamental computer.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#344

Post by jfyi » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 10:41 AM UTC

mekdoonggi wrote: post #37

api wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumer robotics strikes me as an engineering tar pit so deep it leads to hell. If full self driving is hard due to the long tail of unusual special cases, this is orders of magnitude worse. Take FSD but multiply the number of actuators and degrees of freedom by at least 10, more like 100. Add a third dimension. Add direct physical interaction with complex objects. Add pets and children. Add toys on the floor. Add r…

Also, how will these robots make money? They are a less capable human. Humans who aren't skilled don't make much money.

Humans who aren't skilled require training regardless of how "unskilled" the task is.

Humans that are chronically unskilled also don't learn well, somewhat as a rule.

Humans that don't make much money have a high turnover rate from burnout. Additionally, those that can learn typically leave for greener pastures.

The bar isn't terribly high. Efficiency of scale in production will solve this eventually. I think the likely outcome is robots building themselves first.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#345

Post by dissent » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 10:55 AM UTC

I bought a new Model Y a few months ago.

On the whole, it's a great car, it really is. They've pretty much nailed the fundamentals. It's opinionated, not unlike Apple, but if the opinions work for you you'll enjoy the car.

But there are shortcomings, and they are jarring. The parking sensors basically don't work at all due to being vision only - and apparently can't be made to work properly. The lane change and reverse warnings are just crap and may as well not be there. My previous car implemented these to perfection, but I cannot trust the Tesla. The autopilot is a gimmick that offers you nothing but increased risk - and there's no way in hell I'd trust FSD for car that can't accurately detect the distance of my house when parking. The big touchscreen is great for passengers, but outright dangerous for drivers.

Having said all that, it seems strong emotions around Musk and Tesla cause people to want Tesla to fail. They want the car to be bad. There is so much motivated reasoning around this brand that it's hard to take any article like the above, or half the comments in this thread, seriously.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#346

Post by amanaplanacanal » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 10:58 AM UTC

jfoster wrote: post #299

q3k wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been hearing this 'Tesla has so much data!! Tesla FSD and robotaxis any day now!!' bullshit for probably a decade now.

They are certainly far behind their original schedule, but do you mean to suggest that they are not making progress? If the original schedules hadn't been made public knowledge, the progress they have made would seem quite fast-paced.

If Waymo didn't exist, maybe.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#347

Post by godelski » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 10:58 AM UTC

Nevermark wrote: post #322

godelski wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 her…

I'm not asking for a parts list, I'm asking for math

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#348

Post by dissent » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 10:59 AM UTC

the_sleaze_ wrote: post #4

BYD is slapping the EV industry around like a gorilla, Tesla simply cannot compete in any meaningful way. Waymo has achieved profit per unit and people are happy to see driver-less taxis in their city and pay for the service. Tesla also cannot justify valuations based on automotive sales/subscriptions alone - they were always going to have to pivot. They're in a tight spot and they need to do something drastic.

I was in the market for an EV due to great tax advantages. I assumed BYD would be the sweet spot, but test drove a Tesla for comparison.

I ended up with the Tesla. It is hands down the better vehicle and I'd be very surprised if anybody seriously thought otherwise. There wasn't very much in it price wise so that wasn't a factor.

The BYD (Sealion 7) wasn't even a bad car. It's a good car. But it's inspired and just a little gaudy. It felt like a conventional SUV with an EV powertrain. The Tesla felt like the future.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#349

Post by frm88 » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 11:05 AM UTC

dissent wrote: post #345

I bought a new Model Y a few months ago. On the whole, it's a great car, it really is. They've pretty much nailed the fundamentals. It's opinionated, not unlike Apple, but if the opinions work for you you'll enjoy the car. But there are shortcomings, and they are jarring. The parking sensors basically don't work at all due to being vision only - and apparently can't be made to work properly. The lane change and rever…

There's also the various reports of federal technical supervision instances that attest Teslas have the highest failure rates:

Germany: https://www.autoevolution.com/news/tuev-report-2026-tesla-mo...

Denmark: https://fdm.dk/nyheder/nyt-om-trafik-og-biler/tesla-skandale...

Ireland: https://www.rsa.ie/road-safety/statistics/nct-statistics-and...

At some point you have to acknowledge the data as facts.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#350

Post by dissent » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 11:14 AM UTC

frm88 wrote: post #349

dissent wrote: post #345

I bought a new Model Y a few months ago. On the whole, it's a great car, it really is. They've pretty much nailed the fundamentals. It's opinionated, not unlike Apple, but if the opinions work for you you'll enjoy the car. But there are shortcomings, and they are jarring. The parking sensors basically don't work at all due to being vision only - and apparently can't be made to work properly. The lane change and rever…

There's also the various reports of federal technical supervision instances that attest Teslas have the highest failure rates: Germany: https://www.autoevolution.com/news/tuev-report-2026-tesla-mo... Denmark: https://fdm.dk/nyheder/nyt-om-trafik-og-biler/tesla-skandale... Ireland: https://www.rsa.ie/road-safety/statistics/nct-statistics-and... At some point you have to acknowledge the data as facts.

I kind of don't really care, as long as I get good service if my car is affected. I'm not defending them here. The next few years will tell if it was a bad buy or not. So far I'm really happy with it.

My point was there's a huge anti-Tesla bias entirely as a reaction to Elon Musk. It's emotional, not rational. It's not objective criticism of Tesla. Sure, there are some awful moves he's made, vision only, FSD claims, but if it was another car company it wouldn't even be on HN. Wasn't so long ago that VW (a manufacturer literally started by the Nazis by the way!) were caught falsifying their emissions.