Tesla Pulling Out of Supercharger Leases After Firing Entire Supercharger Team

https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-pulling-out-supercharger-leases

by addaon • 2 years ago

22 14 2 years ago

cbeach• 2 years ago

Futurism has a history of one-sided attacks on Elon Musk’s reputation, rather than substantive journalism.

My favourite was their “Elon Musk thinks Cannibals are Invading the United States” story which made it to the https://elonbad.com front page.

addicted2• 2 years ago

So here’s the timeline of your “favourite”.

NBC Tweets (https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1768075901802066036)

Elon Musk and conservative influencers have spread unverified claims to millions, smearing Haitian migrants as cannibals as they endure deep uncertainty about the future of their country and family members still there.

Elon Responds (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1768172021580480967?s=20)

What do you call this? https://x.com/RoeMasterNYC/s/RoeMasterNYC/status/17676699431...

Linking to a video that was removed by X itself that includes claims that Haitians practice cannibalism.

So half the claim is proven by Musk’s own words that he believes Haitians practice cannibalism.

The second, less important, half of the claim is whether he believes Haitians are “invading” the U.S.

I cannot find any evidence of him having used the term “invading” in this context but he himself in addition to the false claims of cannibalism is claiming that there is at the very least a likelihood that there are cannibals amongst the immigrants. (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1768057534651269328)

If wanting to screen immigrants for potential homicidal tendencies and cannibalism makes me “right wing”, then I would gladly accept such a label!

—————

So other than the use of the hyperbolic term “invading” (which Elon Musk has used for immigrants in general in the past so it’s not completely inapplicable), everything else about that article seems accurate based on Elon’s public tweets themselves.

_hcuq• 2 years ago

Yeah, they shouldn't bother. Elon needs no help in destroying his own reputation.

eureka-belief• 2 years ago

If you think this is an example of one-sided journalism and want to convince anyone else if your position (as opposed to coming off as a one-sided musk supporter who compresses all musk critics into a single group and then strawman them), perhaps you could make a case why the firing of the supercharger team is actually the smart move here.

paulddraper5• 2 years ago

It's by definition one-sided journalism, because there was no other side :)

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The Supercharger program got heavily deprioritized.

Tesla still plans to grow the Supercharger network, just at a slower pace for new locations and more focus on 100% uptime and expansion of existing locations
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1785406795814510785

Electric car charging stations exist only through subsidization.

Tesla got only 17% of the federal NVEI grants (which they were disappointed by, given that they sell more electric cars than every other automaker combined).

So rather than burn their own cash to build charging networks, Tesla will let the other interested actors do it, as Tesla focuses on building cars.

---

Musk had already announced that Tesla would be laying off 10% (so ~14,000 people), in a corresponding adjustment to year-over-year sales.

Musk said that he would not keep any executive "who retains more than three people who don’t obviously pass the excellent, necessary and trustworthy test." He and Rebecca Tinucci (supercharger lead) disagreed over what changes to make. Musk decided to clean slate rebuild the Supercharger program. (No, not every single person will be gone.)

barfbagginus2• 2 years ago

I think appealing to the sensibility of musk supporters is a false pretense. They support musk for internal reasons and have no real stake in his success or their own credibility.

They really don't care how incredulous their audience is, so long as there's someone more foolish than them. And if musk really failed, they could fixate on someone else. Thus they can't be influenced by the ethic of credibility. They're still going to put forth their 42-Dimensional Chess theories.

But all this ends up being entertaining, and less likely to trick the gullible. Therefore I propose it's better to encourage them to give the most outlandish take possible, rather than a more credible one, for the reason that the absurdist takes are funnier and less likely to convert non-supporters.

paulddraper5• 2 years ago

Sidestepping the ironies in the above comment.....

One does not have to be "Musk supporter" or even agree with this action in general to offer reasons for it.

Intellectually honest people can ask and answer these questions.

fred_is_fred• 2 years ago

Here's the actual source article:

https://electrek.co/2024/04/30/tesla-pulling-back-supercharg...

addicted2• 2 years ago

This looks like a more detailed link.

https://electrek.co/2024/04/30/tesla-pulling-back-supercharg...

Pulling out of expanding the supercharger network is genuinely surprising to me. I’ve seen the supercharger network to be the equivalent of oil for Tesla, except they would have massive first mover advantages in being the oil suppliers.

paulddraper5• 2 years ago

The difference is that oil makes money. Like, a lot of money.

Charging station networks are not some highly strategic play.

Charging stations rely on subsidies. Of which Tesla recently got a disproportionately low share.

bink• 2 years ago

The difference is that oil makes money.

Oil companies might, but gas stations do not.

Tesla Pulling Out of Supercharger Leases After Firing Entire Supercharger Team

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