Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

thedrive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 162 posts

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#51

Post by AndrewBissell »

maest wrote: post #38
AndrewBissell wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shorting Tesla actually pays a rebate right now, because the stock is cheaper to borrow than the interest paid on the cash proceeds from selling it up front.

Tesla is one of the most shorted stocks around. There is no way you can get a rebate just by shorting the name. You're probably thinking of the rebate rate, which is the money received by people long Tesla who are lending it out.

Tesla is also one of the most widely held stocks around which means there is an ample float to borrow for shorting. Interactive Brokers pays a rebate.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#52

Post by sjwright »

meritt wrote: post #19
pfundstein wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article is very light on content and details, I couldn't find any other sourced either. It would be interesting to know the circumstances around it running the red and "losing control".

I mean it just happened 2 hours ago, so pending a formal police report, I imagine details will indeed be light. Here's aftermath footage and bystander details: https://twitter.com/JennyGShao/status/1153066059802402816 These sort of unfortunate accidents happen every day but any self-driving vehicle will be scrutinized. If the driver was in control and ran a red light, they're obviously at fault. If the AP went haywir…

> If the driver was in control

> If the AP went haywire

It's disingenuous to imply that these are the only two possibilities, or that they are even mutually exclusive. The driver is always responsible for the operation of the car. Even if AP was engaged, AP never takes control away from the driver.

Remember, AP isn't a licensed driver.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#53

Post by Tistel »

I have not been in a Tesla with Full Self Drive (FSD) and I was hoping someone here can confirm/deny my theory. The theory is that there will be this dangerous trough with the FSD feature. So at the no FSD end of the speactrum the driver is engaged mentally trying to safely get to were they want to go. At the other end of the spectrum, with fully working FSD that is better than people can drive you are are by definition safer. But! In the middle you have this dangerous middle ground. Its dangerous because the car is doing say 85% of the work, but, you need to be eagle eyed to grab the wheel and/or hit the brakes when the FSD falls into the 15% not working part. The fact that the car is doing most of the work is going to lead to people being bored and spacing out and not being ready to hit the brakes. For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki9RK_JDtIg. To anyone who has spent time in a FSD car, is that the case? Or is it sufficiently fear inducing that you pay super attention?

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#54

Post by choppaface »

imfromit wrote: post #30

Can someone explain to me (a simple European scrub) why these sorts of lawsuits seem to invariably target Elon directly? Surely they should be directed at Tesla, you know the company that employed them? Does adding Elons name to the lawsuit actually do anything in US law? Or is it merely to gain publicity by adding celebrity to a complaint?

In at least one instance, there's evidence that Musk personally instigated an effort to use a Nevada Sheriff to retaliate against a whistleblower: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19378658

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#56

Post by sjwright »

inlined wrote: post #28
hndamien wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AP is driver assist, so if the pedestrian isn't at fault, then the driver is at fault. Edit: Looks horrible. I hope the cameras caught the action and can apportion blame appropriately.

Also, current AP doesn’t support stopping at lights. The best it does is blare alarms if it thinks you are going to blow one. So unless the driver has some beta software, I can’t imagine AP being blamed.

If the driver knowingly had beta software and was testing it at high speeds on city streets, and they weren't paying attention to stop the car careening through a red light, then the driver is even more culpable because the manslaughter was premeditated.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#57

Post by pfundstein »

sjwright wrote: post #52
meritt wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it just happened 2 hours ago, so pending a formal police report, I imagine details will indeed be light. Here's aftermath footage and bystander details: https://twitter.com/JennyGShao/status/1153066059802402816 These sort of unfortunate accidents happen every day but any self-driving vehicle will be scrutinized. If the driver was in control and ran a red light, they're obviously at fault. If the AP went haywir…

> If the driver was in control > If the AP went haywire It's disingenuous to imply that these are the only two possibilities, or that they are even mutually exclusive. The driver is always responsible for the operation of the car. Even if AP was engaged, AP never takes control away from the driver. Remember, AP isn't a licensed driver.

AP does actually "take control away" in that it performs some emergency safety maneuvers automatically. For instance it can swerve to avoid an imminent collision with another vehicle, but would it swerve into a pedestrian?

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#58

Post by bryanlarsen »

kec wrote: post #12
kemiller wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla’s stock is shorted FAR more than any other company with comparable market cap. 30% of outstanding shares are shorted. It’s bonkers.

But which is the more likely causes of this: That TSLA is the victim of an evil coordinated effort to cause the company to take, or just that 30% of the market genuinely believes they're overvalued. Given they have a higher market cap than either Ford or Honda, I'd be betting on the latter....

Equity value (market cap + debt) the real measure of company valuation, since debt holders are owners too.

Ford's EV is 145B (42B market cap + 103B debt).

Tesla's EV is 56B (44.5B market cap + 11.5B debt).

Ford and Honda are still valued considerably higher than Tesla.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#59

Post by ryandrake »

ghostly_s wrote: post #8
vikramkr wrote: post #4

Tesla (or at least Elon) has a terrible habit of engaging with critics in deeply unproductive ways, such as all the anti short seller stuff they pulled. It makes them look very defensive and seem like they feel vulnerable/cant face the criticism, and maybe it's because they actually are vulnerable and doing things that merit short selling and whistleblowing. At least from a PR perspective you dont want to engage like…

If you have any examples of companies who weren't doing something unsavory and had a recurrent problem with whistleblowers I'd love to hear them.

Well, whistleblowing, by definition, requires the target to be doing unsavory things. Otherwise, it's just "leaking" and many companies have ongoing problems with things like product plans being leaked.
Post reply on HN