[clyde]

Originally Posted by FC

I am not one to pass judgement when I don't know all the information, but I will say that as product development engineer Tesla just reeks of a company that puts stuff out there when it's not quite ready for prime time. That's not to say they don't make good vehicles or don't have great technology. But Tesla does push "cool" and new features in a way a neat consumer products may be marketed. I'm amazed they are getting away with doing that with vehicles.

I think this is one of the cases in which the NHTSA's safety standard's are simply too antiquated to properly assess all the risks of EV's and since they have the agility of Stonehenge, they may never catch up to the the industry. It will be left to the car companies' internal safety risk assessments to put an "appropriately safe" product out there.

All that said, if it weren't because Tesla has so many fanbois, Musk may have killed the company a while ago with all the careless tweeting. The level of hubris amazes me.

Originally Posted by John V

Elon's hubris is part of what created the fanboi culture. See the similar god-worship around Steve Jobs and Apple.

Originally Posted by JST

I’m not going to defend Musk’s statements about the capabilities of the system, which I think are irresponsible. Nor am I going to defend his post-accident tweets, which I think (as a person) are ghoulish and (as a lawyer) are really a bad idea.

But this accident, based on the facts as I understand them, doesn’t seem like a particularly good candidate for blaming Tesla. This isn’t a scenario where the driver inadvertently exceeded the systems capabilities, like that guy in CA; it sure sounds like the operator of the car took multiple steps to defeat the Tesla systems that (should) prevent this, like...not sitting in the driver seat at all.

So I’ll co-sign your concern about these systems. In fact, I don’t trust any of them, but I especially don’t trust Tesla’s. This accident, though, seems like pure idiocy on the part of the driver/passenger.

A couple thoughts:

Setting aside all things government regulation or enforcement related, I would think that jury verdicts would play a role in establishing what is "appropriately safe." I have not followed closely enough to have any clue why there have not yet been any high-visibility lawsuits, outcomes or milestones yet.

The Musk playbook, its cult-like fanboi culture, its victim blaming, its whataboutism, and its subject changing reminds me quite a bit of someone else who recently spent four years being every day's top story and his disciples utter devotion to him and his lies.