#Tesla#EVs#AI#Autopilot#SelfDrivingCars: "Tesla Inc. must face a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging that it misled consumers about its cars’ self-driving capabilities, a fresh setback for the electric-car maker just as Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has staked the company’s future on autonomy.
Tesla has been accused of overstating in 2016 that all its upcoming cars would have the “hardware needed for full self-driving capability” and would be able to drive themselves from Los Angeles to New York City by the end of 2017.
“If Tesla meant to convey that its hardware was sufficient to reach high or full automation,” the complaint “plainly alleges sufficient falsity,” US District Judge Rita Lin wrote in an order Wednesday."
Tesla is being sued by the Environmental Democracy Project, which alleges “ongoing failure to comply with the Clean Air Act” at the company’s assembly plant in Fremont, CA. The Bay Area Air Quality Mgt. Dist. previously said Tesla has allowed “unabated emissions” in Fremont. CEO Elon Musk is telling investors these days to think of the company “almost entirely in terms of solving autonomy.”
Having known a few people in my teens and 20s who lived in their VW buses, I've always considered these to be a more practical vehicle than most sedans (and certainly compared to SUVs). And now they are going electric!
@arstechnica I don't know about US, but in EU we're more worried about apocalyptic climate change that is accelerated by people continuing to burn stuff (including, but not limited to, in internal combustion engine cars) than a few car manufacturers having a hard time because they doggedly stuck to designing and making more shitty petrol, diesel & hybrid cars.
Despite the rapid technology advances in #EVs, they still present safety challenges.
One of the inherent issues is the heaviness of EVs – meaning other vehicles bear the burden of absorbing more crash energy in collisions. This dilemma is central to the concept of “crash compatibility,” a well-established field of safety research.
Solutions include lightweight materials, more powerful sensing technologies and safety algorithms, improved seat belts and better airbags. https://theconversation.com/electric-vehicles-are-usually-safer-for-their-occupants-but-not-necessarily-for-everyone-else-223535
If you got upset at me for pointing out that more people died of Covid under Biden than Trump, in large part because Biden rolled back common sense restrictions that were in place under Trump...
Then you'll hate me pointing out that Trump introduced a 25% tariff on Chinese EVs, and Biden is upping that to 100% tariff.
non-existent labor protections, & no real labor unions in Chinese factories = cheap workforce.
worst sourcing standards for raw materials = using cheap minerals from regions with #humanrights & #environmental abuses (see recent Lead The Charge rankings)
As he sat w/some of the country’s top #oil execs at his Mar-a-Lago Club last month, one exec complained how they continued to face burdensome #environmental#regulations despite spending $400M to lobby the #Biden admin…
#Trump’s remarkably blunt & transactional pitch reveals how he is targeting the #oil industry to finance his reelection bid. At the same time, he has turned to the industry to help shape his #environmental agenda for a second term, including rollbacks of some of #Biden’s signature achievements on #CleanEnergy & #EVs.
Read the wild email Tesla is sending to suppliers amid Supercharger chaos
Supercharger projects being cancelled, including halting rollout in the entire country of Australia, including sites that had already been subject to long-term leases and given the go-ahead for construction which will now be abandoned
#Tesla#Sweden#Unions#LaborRights#LaborStrikes#EVs: "Globally, Tesla has fought off any attempts by unions to organize its workplaces and establish collective bargaining. Signing up its employees is a priority for the United Auto Workers, the industry’s largest American union, and for its counterpart in Germany, where Tesla operates a big factory outside Berlin. UAW President Shawn Fain, who won extensive wage concessions from Detroit’s three major automakers with a strike last year, has cheered on the Swedes and called their effort “a blueprint for future leveraging campaigns.” Encouraged by this support—and armed with enough funds to pay the idle Tesla workers for around 500 years—IF Metall has stuck to its guns. The strike has now lasted four times as long as the UAW’s in 2023.
If Tesla had reached a collective agreement when it arrived in Sweden a decade ago, it’s likely nobody would have cared. For IF Metall, which signs hundreds of such accords each year, it hardly would have warranted a public declaration of victory. And Tesla could have rationalized it as an obligatory acceptance of local customs—comparable to removing one’s shoes when entering a Swedish home.
Now the company’s approach risks tarnishing its image in a region at the vanguard of the green transition. Scandinavians are among the world’s fastest adopters of electric vehicles: EVs and hybrids accounted for 60% of new cars sold in Sweden last year. Norwegians, Danes and Finns also buy electric cars at rates far above those in the US. Global automakers are fighting for the business of these affluent customers, who also happen to be broadly supportive of organized labor." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-04-29/tesla-strike-in-sweden-previews-elon-musk-playbook-for-us-unions
Tesla’s relationship with India has also suddenly become tense. Musk’s trip to China appeared to be an implicit snub of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On April 10, Musk had promised to visit India, fuelling hopes about an announcement to build a $3bn electric car plant, only to drop out 10 days later citing “very heavy Tesla obligations”. Nine days after that, he appeared in Beijing.
Longer term, experts are also worried about more clashes between his commercial interests in China and Beijing’s heavy-handed controls on free speech and any criticism of the government. Critics in the US claim he operates a double standard over China and its politics.
During his time in China, Musk used X — despite the platform being banned in the country — to share an audio clip of comedian Jerry Seinfeld bemoaning the negative influence of “the extreme left” and “PC crap” on television comedy. “Make comedy legal again!” Musk wrote, apparently unaware that his hosts in Beijing have recently cracked down on the art form."
I'm sure I'm not the only person in the world who has solar panels on their roofs who has wasted quite some time in the mornings watching the magic of the power coming on.
This smugness is matched by looking back at a bell curve graph of production for the day where you've used up almost everything that the panels have produced and yet drawn almost nothing from the grid.
This is truly one of the more baffling decisions I’ve seen in a long time. Tesla is a leader in charging infrastructure, to the degree that virtually every other carmaker is even adopting its standard.
Then Elon Musk laid off the entire Supercharger team.
In 2021, Elon Musk said the government should end all EV subsidies. Yet new data shows Tesla received more money from Biden’s grants to expand EV charging networks than anyone else — $17 million, or 13% of all EV charging awards.
Elon Musk is betting Tesla’s future on using self-driving fantasies to boost the share price instead of building a real car business. He just gutted the teams working on the Supercharger network (right as other companies are adopting it!) and new vehicles.