Tesla broke US labor law with anti-union efforts – watchdog Tesla has been ordered to correct its unlawful labor practices, and its supremo Elon Musk must delete a related tweet from three years ago. In a ruling issued on Thursday, the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) concluded that Tesla violated federal labor law in its efforts to discourage workers from unionizing. It …
Well he created the need for a workers union.
He did for ceworkers without providing for any protections for COVID-19 and insisting it was just another day at work, whilst becoming even richer.
His tweets itself show he will threaten.
He is a terrible egomanic - from the crypto stuff to get back at the SEC, the paedo stuff because someone else got the limelight.
The guy seems disturbed and constantly throwing up tantrums. I wonder what he will do to retaliate with the NLRB.
Tesla cars apparently have the lowest reliability and worst build quality of all vehicles in its class and/or price bracket. So he isn't even doing a very good job, other than priming the twitterverse for his stocks on Robinhood.
It's not really surprising that Tesla cars are crap. The big auto makers have had over a century to figure out how to make cars, and most have only started to do a good job of it in the last 30 to 40 years. some still haven't got it figured out.
The Tesla bubble is going to crash hard once the big guys steamroll past them with their ability to easily churn out a years worth of Tesla sales in a week.
I believe that Tesla has by far the best charging infrastructure for electric cars, which is one reason they sell so well. Sadly my next car will probably be a petrol engined one. I need to be able to travel the 190 mile round trip to my parents and back without re-charging at a reasonable speed on the motorway, and no affordable electric cars can yet manage that.
Making cars super reliable etc. might not be as important as some people think. A few years after the Model T Ford was built, Henry Ford sent engineers all over the USA to check all the abandoned vehicles and find out what was wrong with them.
They came back with a load of faults, noting lots of things that had broken. The one major thing that was still serviceable in every car was the crankshaft. Good Old Henry instructed his team to make the crankshafts of thinner metal, as they were too reliable and therefore a waste.
Of course, some Ford cars were reliable. Bonnie and Clyde (the robbers) sent Ford a letter praising the V8 as their getaway car:
https://www.google.com/search?safe=strict&rls=en&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=Bonnie+and+Clyde+letter+to+Ford&client=safari&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiU65KTxNDvAhWRtHEKHeFLDFoQjJkEegQIBhAB&biw=1807&bih=987&dpr=2
I wonder whether Elon has a similar letter?
I guess that your parents don't have electricity then?
Or
That you never stop for petrol on your trips to/from them?
Perhaps you need to organise your life a little better? Leave a little earlier, take a break on the trip, answer the call of nature and charge your car up just enough to get home.
You seem to be one of those who are afraid of change. Afraid to try new things...
My Mother lives 160 miles away from me. I get there in my EV, and most times, I take her shopping. a 50kWh charger in the Lidl car park gives me more than enough charge to get home while we shop and have lunch together in the cafe next door. It gets her out of the house for a few hours. Sadly not done that for 6 months but I'm hoping to do that trip very soon.
I guess that your parents don't have electricity then?
Perhaps they live in Texas?
My Mother lives 160 miles away from me. I get there in my EV, and most times, I take her shopping. a 50kWh charger in the Lidl car park gives me more than enough charge to get home
That's nice, although 2hrs in a supermarket isn't my idea of fun. But what happens when EV's are more popular, and you can't get a slot at a fast charger?
People are afraid of change precisely to the extent that they cannot foresee what kind of BS problems they are going to have to deal with.
I personally don't like those gimmicky retracting door handles, you know what happens when that nonsense wears out and becomes glitchy and you have to crawl in through the trunk?
I'll tell you right now that your #1 problem is going to be me laughing in your fool face for buying into that crap!
>"I personally don't like those gimmicky retracting door handles, you know what happens when that nonsense wears out and becomes glitchy"
A bill of two thousand of switzerlands finest, that happens. Twice so far. To be fair, JLR also has retracting handles, but come at only 1/3 of the bill.
And of those that do, not everyone has the electrical connections necessary (or even an available slot in their consumer unit) to support a 50kWh+ vehicle charging point.
And what about homes with more than one car? Or is that not allowed in our rosey new future?
The best most homes can do right now is a 13A trickle charger, if your car supports it, which is fine for overnight charging but pitifully useless if you need to be going anywhere in the next 12+ hours.
Don't even get me started on the lack of grid infrastructure to supply the necessary power to charge huge numbers of EVs. And no, "smart grid" is not a solution. It's a lazy workaround tossed about by utilities to avoid making the necessary power generation and infrastructure upgrades.
And of those that do, not everyone has the electrical connections necessary (or even an available slot in their consumer unit) to support a 50kWh+ vehicle charging point.
50kW, not kWh...
The best most homes can do right now is a 13A trickle charger, if your car supports it, which is fine for overnight charging but pitifully useless if you need to be going anywhere in the next 12+ hours.
Which gives you roughly 3kW, so with an EV with a 100kWh battery, 33 hours or so for a full charge. So a 300 mile round trip at the weekend might mean fun trying to find a fast charger, if you need the car to get to work on Monday. But looking on the bright side, those that can work from home won't need to spend as much time or money recharging their EVs.
And no, "smart grid" is not a solution. It's a lazy workaround tossed about by utilities to avoid making the necessary power generation and infrastructure upgrades.
Blame Ed Milliband and his Climate Change Act for that one, then subsequent governments creating energy 'policies' to promote windmills, which are unreliable & intermittent. Which then necessitates trying to spend huge amounts of money to try and create a 'smart' grid to solve the problems created by 'renewables'. And of course those same policies penalise more reliable, efficient generation that wouldn't require billions for infrastructure upgrades.
Which is kind of what the Texas fiasco demonstrated. People that depend on electricity suddenly had to do without in the energy capital of the US. EVs and decarbonisation 'policies' just make repeats of that outage inevitable.
"I guess that your parents don't have electricity then?"
They do, what they do not have is a car charging place nearby. And I do, sometimes have to stop for the hugely expensive petrol at service stations on the way to or from them. It takes about 10 minutes in total to refill the car, pay and get back onto the motorway.
"Perhaps you need to organise your life a little better?"
Ah, well, yes, I've been trying to organise my life better for the past 50 years, I've read books, had some CBT, taken anti-depressants and several other things I'm not prepared to admit to on this website (none of them involved illegal activity though). These have not changed the fact that although I do love my parents they drive me nuts, so I need the option of a quick getaway if they are stressing me out.
"You seem to be one of those who are afraid of change. Afraid to try new things..."
I read this web site about new and exciting developments in IT and science and post on it far more than I probably should. and take New Scientist on subscription. I research pure mathematics (diophantine number theory and cryptography despite my PhD being in mathematical logic). The last book I read was Bernard Williams' "Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy" (ISBN 978-0-415-61014-8)*. When it is open I will be one of the first at the climbing wall (I have an annual pass), unless I can book a haircut first. The last CDs I bought were The Samples (Could it be another change), The Ramones (Blitzkreig Bop) and Mozart's clarinet concerto (Martin Frost - truly superb). I have only managed to kill one of my houseplants (out of five) so far in the last 12 months. My favourite Arctic Monkeys song is the 'B' side to 'I bet you look good on the dancefloor' ('Bigger boys and stolen sweethearts"). When I need something to work, I do like to assess whether it will. Current EVs that I can afford do not work well enough to satisfy my needs. Yeah, I'm truly terrified of change, new things like DAB radio (I got one ages ago) {\sarcasm alert}.
I'm sorry that you have been unable to visit you mother recently and hope your next visit goes well (and that everyone can get out of lockdown safely asap).
All the best!
*Main conclusion - he could have done with a much better editor.
Yes, range is a problem with pure-electric1 vehicles for me too.
I couldn't consider an EV unless we had an adequate network of battery-swapping stations. I'm not sticking a bunch of two-hour recharging stops into one of my 800-mile trips. If "refueling" can't be done in, say, 15 minutes, then it's not feasible for my use case.
1And the hybrids we have now are just dumb. I'm not buying a car with a dual powertrain. Just an electric powertrain with internal-combustion electrical generation, like a diesel-electric train engine, and I'll consider it. You'd get some nice savings from not needing a transmission, and the generator would have a much narrower load range so it could stay in the efficient zone.
Yes, range is a problem with pure-electric1 vehicles for me too.
I would love an all electric vehicle, but I live in an area that gets to -29C and stays there for days. the diminished range in cold weather plus the rural area I live and work in would preclude that. Looking at hybrid until the battery range in extreme cold is over 400 miles, or until I move to an urban setting without the need to travel for my livelihood.
If it gets down to -29C you need to consider the effect on the range of heating as well as just locomotion. A few years ago I was stuck in a winter traffic jam for over 6 hours (trucks could not quite get up the steepest part of the A327 into Reading). It was so cold I was starting the engine just to keep warm. But it was nothing like -29C.
In the same event a work colleague had to collect his teenage daughter from school and took so long to get home that her iPod ran out of power and they actually had no option but to talk to each other!
Back in the 70's when I spent some time in Ottawa I could not start my car on cold mornings without plugging it in. The parking lot at work had plugs at each spot for block heaters. Advances in cold starting has eliminated the need for all those plugs in parking lots, but it shows that when the need exists it can done.
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Why do any employees need Unions [ which were indeed necessary centuries ago --- pious rolling of eyes --- but now all the demands of those 19th century workers have been fully met, and we have those government regulations to ensure good practice ( because bosses sheerly love government regulations ) ] when they can rely on the benevolence of the masters to see them right ?
I think the need for unions is becoming stronger by the day, not so much for disruptive actions such as strikes and walkouts but more more having the collective strength to fight against the lawyers of more and more companies that seem determined to make Scrooge look like an amateur.
With many businesses, you could easily merge HR with normal Resource Management as the humanity becomes less significant.
As a representative of the International Amalgamated Movement of NOTaries, Advocates and LAWYERs, I object to the slur perpetrated just against my brothers and sisters who stand strong in solidarity and opposing those who would slander the characters of those engaged in the legal profession. Or indeed those who cannot afford the fee.
Almost all of them are. A poke in the side of a reminder for those who believe:
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
If you think a rich person ever thinks about anything but themselves, or any benefits beyond what it does for themselves, then you are world-class naive.
You seem to be assuming that the Indian government could have followed through with that threat...
It's not as easy as it sounds. Munich tried, and they had to switch back after a couple of years (at insane cost). And India is about a thousand times bigger than Munich.
Actually the contrails are worse than the pollution:
"The streaky smears of cloud that criss-cross the sky in the wake of aeroplanes may look too wispy to cause any harm. But we now know that these condensation trails, or contrails, make an outsized contribution to global warming by trapping heat like a downy jacket."
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24933260-800-aircraft-contrails-are-a-climate-menace-can-we-rid-the-sky-of-them/#ixzz6qXJEoXw4
And frankly Ive never really understood how planting a few tress, necessarily at ground level, can compensate for burning kerosene at 36000' in anything less than decades, but hey, what do I know? I'm not Nigel Farage (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/28/nigel-farage-appointed-to-advisory-board-of-green-finance-firm ).
>"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
It's very easy for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, same way as a billionaire can.
Just Google "Byford Dolphin" (other search engines are available)
"The latest must-have among US billionaires?
A plan to end the climate crisis"
Musk has pledged $100m in loose change as prize money for carbon capture technology.
Bezos to give $10 billion for worthy climate initiatives
Gates has written a book
I suspect Larry would still go for a super-yacht
You hit the nail right on the head.
TAX DEDUCTIBLE
That is the name of the game for the super-rich in the USA. They are evading over $1T in taxes each and every year. The IRS has been stripped of the funds needed to go after the likes of Bezos, Ellison etc. Instead, they audit the middle class and wallop them with huge fines for even being $1.00 out in their returns.
Musk's $100M for carbon capture is never going to be claimed. It is a load of hot air. (Carbon capture that is)
Tax deductability for charitable donations is a slippery one
If I make 1 million, am liable to pay 250k taxes and I give 100k to charity, then I still hace 750k for myself. The only difference is instead of 250k to teh government, 150k goes to teh government and 100k to the charity. Many rich people get around this by setting up a charity for whatever they want and donating to it, essentially being able to have a tax-free pet charitable project. The way you see it depends completely on political orientation.
On the more socialist side - Charities are effectively picking up the slack of where government programs can't reach, it's effectively a privatisation of social security. If people were paying taxes instead of donating to charities, the government could afford to expand social security. Resources would be directed where most needed, not towards the most shiny vanity projects.
On the more capitalist side - private charities can be more effective and flexible to meet changing demand, and are more efficient that government needs.
Personally I think that government social security and healthcare needs to be well enough funded that everyone's basic needs are met. Private charities are important supplements to this, and can work together with government departments, but they shouldn't be billionaires playthings (in other words, I wouldn't leave social security policy to be defined by philanthropists).
Have a tax deduction for charitable donations, sure, but cap it at something like 20k or 50k. If someone is genuinely interested in charitable giving they will give it anyway. If they are wankers just looking for likes, I'd rather they don't donate it and get taxed on it.
Gates without a doubt.
The number of 'rivals' he put out of business in different ways --- including buying them up and then not producing the wares; his rent-seeking on every sold PC regardless of whether it had his OS, which was a copy of the Standard Oil 'rebate' model; and his hatred of Open Source ( even for vaccines... ) make him a villain for the ages. And no amount of 'doing good' on his terms bypassing all other governance with vast stolen millions can ever amend.
Plus IE4.
.
You should also have included Bloomberg and Bezos. Both vile.
"The decision also directs self-styled "Technoking" Musk to delete a May 20, 2018, tweet because it implies workers must give up their stock options if they unionize."
They want Elon to delete that wrongheaded (and illegal) posting? Why? It' seems far more appropriate to have the tweet tattooed on Musk's forehead and forbid him from having it removed for some reasonable time interval -- five years perhaps.
Together, they control 40% of the wealth of the USA according to Senator Bernie Sanders
Both have a hatred of Workers rights. Neither is afraid of spending loads of money trying to keep their business Union free.
The Tesla believers will be gnashing their teeth at this. In their eyes, Musk is the new messiah and can clearly walk on water, turn water into wine etc etc.
I did own a Tesla Model 3 for a few months. Build quality was crap, pure crap. Very reminiscent to BL cars of the mid 1970's. Sold it and now drive an E-Tron.
Build quality was crap, pure crap. Very reminiscent to BL cars of the mid 1970's.
Something like this?
https://youtu.be/78b67l_yxUc?t=40
(To be fair, the registration implies the vehicle is from 1966)
Does John Cleese have a Tesla? May be we'll get an updated video
Dont knock BL!
I had a coupe of Trimphs from the 60's a few years back.
They rusted like hell (I used to keep old Volvo bonnets/hoods as cheap spares for welding new bits in from time to time - galvanised! - though I didnt know about Zinc poisoning....) All cars of the time did the same.
The machines were completely bullet proof mechanically, though. The basic engineering came from the 1940's-1950's and were simple to maintain, and I could actually get into mine (so could most other ppl if they knew how to bypass the locks!)
They did have some great names. "Triumph Dolomite Sprint" is a fine name for a model, right up there with "Humber Super Snipe" and "Jensen Interceptor". Or, say, "Mitsubishi Delica Spacegear", one of which someone near here has for sale – to my great frustration, since there's no way I can justify buying it. (There have been some decent American car names too, but the British and Japanese seem to be the best at it.)
And what does Tesla give us? "Model S". Wow, Elon, that's some daring nomenclature.
When a state dares to challenge Musk, he can just threaten to take his business to another state. When a federal agency challenges Musk, he can just take his business to China, where he has ~5 years before every production idea of value is lifted, the supply chain is fully scoped, and the top employees move to the Chinese competitor. Time for Musk to take Xi up on that offer of citizenship.
When a federal agency challenges Musk, he can just take his business to China, where he has ~5 years before every production idea of value is lifted, the supply chain is fully scoped, and the top employees move to the Chinese competitor.
Of which there are already several. Including this one-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zaMGF_Ydmc
The Xpeng P7, which to my mind looks better than the Tesla. Not sure if this video means Xpeng's going to launch it in the US market, but already seems to have been selling well in China.
Complain all you like about Elon Musk, but without him, there would not be an EV revolution going on right now!
Anyone who believes differently, is fooling themselves.
Ford and GM have gone to extreme lengths to put a stop to EVs.
Car dealerships are trying really hard to stop Tesla selling directly to customers - by law!
Rubbish. EVs are growing because the technology is finally ready. Musk has made some contributions to that tech, but nothing that wouldn't have appeared anyway within a few years.
Crediting Musk with creating some kind of revolution is like crediting Napoleon with masterminding the French Revolution. It's pure revisionism driven by a personality cult, no more.
EV with batteries is a dead end. Too many downsides. Bad range, a heavy dead weight, too long to charge, hard to recycle, pollutant when produced, and with few or no interest for climate if electricity is produced from coal or gas.
In ten years they will be replaced by hydrogen-powered cars.
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