Are Tesla Gigafactory Berlin's days numbered? • Hacker News Board

Re: Are Tesla Gigafactory Berlin's days numbered?

#61

Post by pstuart » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 9:16 PM UTC

disqard wrote: post #46

toomuchtodo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s always been this person, the wealth just amplified it. Sometimes the wrong people fall into power. Sometimes we trust the wrong people. Most of life is luck. Take the ketamine, wealth, and sycophants away, he will still be this person. But without the power. Human condition is tricky.

I think you have a point. I often think of Tony Hsieh (Zappos founder/CEO), who was a much more grounded and humble person before he became extremely wealthy. Perhaps he had the tendencies/propensities (that ended his life) dormant all along, and his wealth suddenly boosted those deadly habits. He went from this: https://youtu.be/jJ5k_Byd9Fs?si=XeYpu-rUNos_dwgI ...to this: https://straightforwardinteractive.com/2020/…

His story really is a tragedy. We have a long way to go to properly treat mental health issues as a health issue (no different than allergies, cancer, etc), and to eradicate the stigma of acknowledging, accepting, and ultimately addressing them.

Re: Are Tesla Gigafactory Berlin's days numbered?

#62

Post by nebula8804 » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 9:22 PM UTC

panick21_ wrote: post #31

nebula8804 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man the US is the last giant standing. If the capitalists lose there, its game over. Before the events of the last few years I thought that maybe ultimately they were going to run to Israel or China if they lost the US. Both places are on shaky ground so probably not. If the US falls to Democratic Socialism, we could have a European style system across the entire western world. I hope to see it in my life. Maybe that…

Very strange assessment. First of all Europe isn't democratic socialism. Its social democratic and in pretty much every European country the social democrats kicked out the socialists from the party or marginalized them. By the actual numbers, social spending and so on, the US isn't that incredibly different from Europe. And Europe is by any definition capitalist. And the US has plenty of regulation, so its not reall…

Yes what the Bernie people are proposing isn't really a 1:1 match of what Europe has. Thats too ambitious and only a small percentage of the left even believe we can strive for that. The rest of the progressive left is thinking smaller because they feel that some progress is better than nothing.

>By the actual numbers, social spending and so on, the US isn't that incredibly different from Europe. And Europe is by any definition capitalist.

Do you live in the US? The US is the worst of all worlds, spending (ie taxes) similar to Europe in many respects but the value is extracted at many layers along the way so the results are nowhere near what Europe can produce. Just look at the outcomes from healthcare, education, infrastructure etc.

>And the US has plenty of regulation, so its not really unchecked, its just differently checked.

You are just describing a symptom of the overall problem. Regulation is a tool that can be used incorrectly to further the goal of unchecked capitalism. Example: NYC elected a Democratic Socialist recently and he talks about corner store small business owners having to deal with extra permitting and regulation that affects them more than bix box stores because every little expense hurts them more than the big guys, this naturally leads to the small business more likelihood of failing when competing with the big guys. Its regulation weaponized due to corruption.

>This is just incredibly simplistics marxist 'stages of history' thinking and almost completely useless. If the US adopt European regulation we wouldn't 'enter a new era'.

ok. We've tried everything else and its failing. So there are really only two directions. We either try to check unrestricted capitalism or we just accept that the old way of living that we all went through will not be coming back ever and it was just a footnote of history.

Re: Are Tesla Gigafactory Berlin's days numbered?

#63

Post by testing22321 » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 11:18 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #36

testing22321 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They’ll end up selling it to a German automaker who isn’t anti union None of them can compete with BYD.

The German government cannot afford to lose domestic auto production (it employs ~770k workers), even if they must subsidize and be protectionist. I suppose BYD could buy it as well.

The German government and the US government are going to do everything they can with tariffs and nonsense to protect their domestic auto manufacturers.

It means those people will not have access to better, cheaper vehicles, and it will all be for nothing in the end.

Re: Are Tesla Gigafactory Berlin's days numbered?

#64

Post by pseudohadamard » Sun, Jan 11, 2026, 8:04 AM UTC

pstuart wrote: post #12

toomuchtodo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ego and lack of emotional intelligence is a hell of a thing. Global electrification continues without Tesla (~20% of global auto sales are EVs, ~50%+ in China, as of this comment), a casualty of hubris. https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/the-ev-leapfrog-how...

Drug abuse, boundless wealth, and surrounding yourself with sycophants can skew one's perception of reality.

I also think of him as a ten-year-old boy with access to infinite amounts of other people's money. Embarrassing stunts like "let that sink in" is the sort of thing my friends and I would have done at age ten thinking we were being awfully clever and witty, but no-one past the age of about fourteen or fifteen would still think that. And stuff like the Cybertruck is what you'd expect if you gave a ten-year-old (or Homer Simpson) some pencils and paper and said "draw your dream vehicle".