The present is often exhausting and never more so than when tech execs angrily wave their styluses around in an attempt to convince everyone that they have the right view of the future. It reminds me of my favorite joke from the show Silicon Valley, wherein one tech exec proclaims that his company’s mission is to make the world a better place and that “I don’t want to live in a world where someone makes the world a better place, better than we do.”
While I think many, or most, of the people involved in big tech companies do want to improve our existence, our current political and economic system typically rewards companies that collectively gain market share at the expense of everything else. “Don’t be evil” only gets you so far.
I mention all of this because Tesla CEO Elon Musk replied to a tweet/x post/whatever stating that the refreshed Model Y consumers seem to be waiting on isn’t coming out this year. That’s news! You’d be hard-pressed to find his note because it’s buried under an avalanche of anti-OpenAI/anti-Apple posts.
Oh, totally coincidentally, a judge in California is allowing a case from the California Department of Motor Vehicles — which alleges that Tesla made false statements about its driver assistance features — to continue. But Tesla isn’t the only one under investigation. The U.S. Senate is broadening its review of BMW for its use of parts from banned suppliers, and a federal monitor is investigating United Auto Workers leadership.
Everyone is suspect! Except us. I think. We’re the good ones. Right?
The New Model Y Isn’t Coming Until 2025 At The Earliest, Maybe
No Model Y “refresh” is coming out this year.
I should note that Tesla continuously improves its cars, so even a car that is 6 months newer will be a little better.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 9, 2024
The Tesla Model Y is the most popular electric car in the world. Here in the United States it enjoyed roughly a third of the total market in Q1, followed by the Tesla Model 3, and at a great distance the Ford Mustang Mach-E.
In terms of performance, style, range, and price, the sometimes affordable (or at least cheap to finance) Model Y is hard to beat, which is why no one has yet beat it. Still, it’s old. The Model Y is slowly losing market share to the plethora of other options. While it’s only been four years since the launch of the Model Y, numerous vehicles have come into the market since then and the refreshed Model 3, while being a cheaper car, is kinda nicer.
Musk, in his reply above, makes the point that the company’s cars are continuously improved, which is sort of true of every car company, though Tesla does seem to update its cars with a higher frequency than others.
Good luck finding that tweet, though, as CEO Elon Musk went on a tirade after it was announced that Apple would partner with OpenAI, stating that he’d essentially ban the devices from his many companies:
If Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level, then Apple devices will be banned at my companies. That is an unacceptable security violation.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 10, 2024
Musk has long been a proponent of more AI safeguards, but at the same time, he is trying to ramp up AI at his company X so fast he’s reportedly taking chips away from Tesla.
This week, @xAI will open source Grok
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 11, 2024
One of Musk’s concerns seems to be that Apple will be taking your data and sharing it with OpenAI which, yeah, that’s a big deal!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 10, 2024
But, isn’t Tesla also asking for huge amounts of data so that it can build robotaxis, which is what Musk says is essential to the future of his own company? Sure, he’s not sharing it with other people (that we know of), but Tesla is collecting gigs of data from its customers.
It feels like the fast pace of media means the Tesla Model Y news gets buried a little bit behind this OpenAI battle.
Tesla To California Judge: Full Self-Driving Is Just A Goal, Not A Real Thing You Can Buy
Imagine naming your company’s products over what you hope they’ll eventually do:
We’re calling it the “EZ Bake Oven” but, currently, it can only bake about 80% of the time and if you look away from the oven for a few seconds it might explode and kill you if you don’t quickly take over.
This is essentially the argument that Tesla made to a judge in California where the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles is arguing that both Autopilot and Full Self-Driving are misleading names for a product sold to consumers in the state.
The Bloomberg report, via The Detroit News, has a great tidbit:
Tesla’s lawyers also contended that marketing its vehicles as having full self-driving “capabilities” is not an assertion that the cars are currently fully autonomous, but rather a statement that they will be capable of driving themselves in the future after software updates.
FSD, like a Mets pennant, is one of those things that always seems to be close to reality while also always never happening. One day! Anyway, a judge didn’t buy the argument and is allowing the California DMV to go forward with its case.
U.S. Senate To BMW: Get It Together
Last month the Senate Finance Committee called out BMW for importing about 8,000 Mini Coopers into the United States with parts from a banned supplier. BMW said it would replace the parts and stop selling cars with those parts here as its supplier has been accused of using forced labor in violation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
Senator Wyden, chair of the committee, seems unconvinced that BMW has done a job, or at least that’s how it sounds based on this report from Reuters:
On Monday Wyden, in a new letter to BMW North America CEO Sebastian Mackensen, asked if the automaker has completed its examination of its supply chain to determine whether other products it imported contained parts from Chinese supplier Sichuan Jingweida Technology Group (JWD).
“Is BMW certain that it is not currently importing vehicles containing components produced by JWD?” the letter said, asking for answers by June 21. Wyden also wants any actions taken by BMW “to address any cars or spare parts containing JWD parts improperly imported by BMW” after December 2023.
There’s no scarier question than ‘are you sure you aren’t still committing crimes?’ from a guy who has a whole staff whose job it is to find out if you committed crimes.
UAW Execs Under Investigation For Retribution
The United Auto Workers have a federal monitor whose job it is to make sure that the UAW, which saw numerous leaders go to prison over various scandals, doesn’t relapse. The current President of the UAW, Shawn Fain, got elected partially on a platform of being an outsider.
And now that he’s in? According to the federally-appointed monitor’s report, it’s not going so well. First, there’s a claim from the UAW’s Secretary-Treasurer that Fain’s crew had her power stripped in retaliation for not approving certain expenditures. Additionally, there have been allegations that an executive board member has been embezzling funds.
From the report, it doesn’t sound like the UAW is doing itself any favors:
Although the Union has cooperated in making UAW employees and senior leaders available to be interviewed by the Monitor’s investigative team, the Union has not cooperated in producing documents that are relevant to the investigation in a complete and timely manner, instead requiring the Monitor to conduct those interviews without the benefit of the full production of potentially relevant and contemporaneous documents.
The Monitor has attempted for months to garner the Union’s cooperation in gathering the information needed to conduct a full investigation, but the Union has effectively slow-rolled the Monitor’s access to requested documents.
In the words of Chamillionaire: Not a good look.
What I’m Listening To This Morning
Yesterday, my daughter asked me to play the “Hero” song and I didn’t assume it was Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out For A Hero” but it turns out, yes, that’s what she wanted to hear. We’ve now listened to it about 20 times. Man, Bonnie Tyler doesn’t have to go that hard but Bonnie Tyler only has one speed and that speed is “going as hard as any human being who has ever lived.” The Grand Canyon is in this video and even the Grand Canyon is like “Bonnie, you can take 10% off there if you need to.”
The Big Question
How much should we care about what Elon Musk says?
Topshot: Library of Congress, Tesla
I don’t buy the whole “continuous improvement” as a replacement for larger refreshes and redesigns. As much as the model cycle is built around the idea of planned obsolescence, there’s something to be said for major redesigns that allow for more significant updates and distinct generations/facelifts that allow for easier repair and troubleshooting down the line. This just smacks of an automaker being unwilling or unable to devote the time and resources to comprehensively update their existing products.
Tesla keeps the sheet metal the same, which as an owner I prefer; it keeps the cars from looking dated, and it keeps the cars from getting uglier over time (see: Subaru, Toyota, VW).
Tesla makes major changes under the skin: gigacastings, LPF batteries, pouch cells, new computers all introduced while the 3 and Y were in production. Hell, they even release major feature updates, for free, to existing customers: they upgraded my charging speed from 120kW to 150kW to 200kW, precondition battery on navigate to charger, multi-stop navigation, web browser, …
Musk’s entire problem here is that he is in a legal fight with OpenAI —a company he used to have a major stake in—over management direction or some such and that Apple went with them instead of the competing company he formed after (or bought, I forget and don’t care enough to look it up). He is a shallow, petty, thin-skinned, little man, so every damn thing he rails about can be filtered through the “how was his minuscule ego personally injured by the target?” There is never anything beyond that because there is nothing more to a narcissist.
“Man, Bonnie Tyler doesn’t have to go that hard but Bonnie Tyler only has one speed and that speed is “going as hard as any human being who has ever lived.” The Grand Canyon is in this video and even the Grand Canyon is like “Bonnie, you can take 10% off there if you need to.” “
This is fucking great 😀
We should care enough about what he says to not do business with him.
The upside is that it means the Model Y can keep a stalk for turn signals a bit longer. I drove a refreshed 3 this weekend at a utility sponsored EV drive, and further proved to me that buttons on the steering wheel for turn signals are a horrible idea. I liked how the 3 drove, and the one pedal driving felt more natural than some of the other cars, but the Tesla is too different inside for me. I don’t want every function buried in a screen or limited to a couple buttons on the steering wheel. I really shouldn’t have to dig into a menu to adjust my side mirrors.
I like to say that I’ve never been in a vehicle that didn’t want me there less than a Tesla and each iteration is just getting worse in that regard. I want to drive my car and the Tesla is all “lol, no, in fact get in the backseat please”. But of course it can’t even drive itself so it just feels adversarial.
Well I feel dumb. Kept refreshing the page looking for the morning dump banner, but didn’t notice it buried under the Tesla and it didn’t pop with that color filter.
Came here to say this. Took me a while extra day to find it.
Can we have a “big question” like, “How much should we care about new allegations of corruption at the UAW?” instead of giving more headspace to Musky? Yeah, he sucks, Tesla would be better off without him, etc. etc. But the UAW is supposed to represent the workers and what the execs do matters.
If the UAW wants to represent more workers, they need to stop acting like the dues belong to the executives. They need to limit the executive power and implement bylaws to ensure that they spend their time and money on things that support the people they represent. Sell the union retreat and put the money in the strike fund. But instead, they act like it’s their own piggy bank. It’s hard to convince people to join you when they look and all they see is a long history of corruption that appears to continue today.
*shrugs* I rant about the other stories all the time. Go off anyway, I say.
I VERY much misread that the first time, maybe there is a better way to say it.
Is it just me, or is it odd that we’re hearing complaints from the UAW’s federal monitor now that it’s actually working and organizing like a labor union, and not in absolute collusion with the automakers?
It’s just you. 🙂 The complaints are also coming from the Secretary Treasurer who was stripped of her power for refusing to approve certain expenses. It looks like they had a couple successes and decided to take a victory lap on the union’s dime. The monitor should call out the corruption whenever it happens. It just so happens that that’s now.
The UAW is the union that other unions don’t like. And those so-called “police unions” that regularly crap on the idea of accountability.
That car looks like a pregnant frog and is produced by a company led by a malignant narcissist child.
Not to fit my username this embarrassingly, but the model Y had always been one of the ugliest cars on the road to me. Like if you sculpted a hard boiled egg for minimum drag and dyed it an uninspired color, and it came with a tech bro inside.
Before Elon crazied his company out of the running for me, I wanted a Model 3 but the lack of a hatchback was a deal breaker. Then the Y came out which should have solved that problem but just look at it. Yuk.
Hey, now. I feel insulted on behalf of hard boiled eggs here.
It always looked like a Model 3 that really, really needed to fart. Just a lazy, bland design.
I really like the way the Tesla cars look (although they were better with faux grilles, fight me!), but the styling doesn’t translate well to crossovers at all.
I don’t really follow Elon so I’d say not much.
Tesla/SpaceX have done some really impressive things, but how much of that is Elon guidance and how much is the great engineers they have.
I’d really be curious how well Tesla would do without Elon, imagine if they didn’t put Falcon wing doors on the X how much easier it’d be to make and how much better it would have sold, or if they didn’t have to build the Cybertruck and could’ve updated the rest of their fleet, maybe even come out with a new roadster. But we may never know as he seems locked to it.
Yeah I am glad Starlink has actually been getting decent internet to rural folk who were stuck with old crappy satellite providers or hoping they could get 5g signal. House I am selling in VA only gets satellite and starlink was a godsend compared to crap like hughesnet. Sure it is not anywhere near as fast as the Comcast that was just ran to my house in Indiana but it is much better then the crap DSL I used to have in Indiana before Comcast.
Elon’s problem isn’t with Apple’s security. Because, Apple has put stock price were their mouth is, and has actually told US government to get lost when comes looking for some information. Elon, will give your Nan’s location for a drone strike in exchange for what ever we call retweeting now his rhetorical question on why (insert authoritarian political party) is actually super based. This Elon’s classic gaslighting thing. Like when he calls himself a free speech absolutist, then bans the word cisgender, because it interrupts his ongoing echo chamber that he paid alot of other people’s money for.
Elon’s problem is Tim Apple and friends are infringing on his path to become Tech Jesus. Elon would love nothing more than being the person collecting all your data. It’s a power that even 56 billion dollars can’t buy. And you can do stuff with that, and get more power. Then the people will finally accept he is the Holy Tony Stark, and only he can save us. Guy is just an Authoritarian Narcissist, who believes he alone can save us from ourselves. Like the time he wanted to go submarining in a Thai Cave, and some dude who was an expert in the whole underwater thing, just did his thing. So he called the dude a pedo for no reason. His direct compliant is devoid of meaning. He’s just being pissy someone did a thing first.
They need to kick Elon out of Tesla, he clearly has too much on his hands and is not only delaying important changes for the compnay but also taking resources out to help the other companies hi manages.
I’m not sure whether it was here or /r/cars that someone pointed out it would be the best thing for the company in the long term but devastating for the stock price as it’d be the catalyst for Wall Street to finally start valuing Tesla as an automaker rather than a tech company.
To me, the stock price doesn’t matter. Enron was “the most valuable company in the world” too, but it was based on smoke and mirrors, just like Tesla.
You know this. I know this. Elmo knows this. Tesla knows this. Tesla shareholders know this.
The muskrat is all but saying the quiet part out loud because he’s hoping the shareholders fear the unraveling of the house of speculative cards more than they fear paying him billions. He might be right. The valuation has a LOT farther than $56B to fall before it’s reasonable again.
It’s likely coming in ’25. That’s not too bad at all. Especially considering that the Model Y is still arguably the best of out it’s respective competitors.
The Model Y is now in its 5th model year, a major refresh should have happened last year, 2025 will be 2 years too late, and, frankly maybe only a year or so ahead of when it should be due for a total redesign/replacement
Tesla took a page from the 1989-2003 GM large car playbook. They updated everything under the skin while leaving the skin and interior looking the same. Example: 1994 Pontiac Bonneville has a 160 hp V6. 1995 looks identical but has a OBDII 205 hp V6 and electronically controlled transmission. 2022 Model Y has Hardware 3 and rock hard suspension while 2023 has Hardware 4 and a retuned suspension. It’s the ghost of NUMMI at Fremont.
how’d that work out for GM?
Not terribly in the short term. Their target market kept on buying large cars until SUV’s and bankruptcy ate their lunch in 2007-2008. They did refresh the H-body for 2000 and the W-body for 2003. New skins but quite similar powertrains.
Love him or hate him (nah, not here!! ha) it IS important to hear what he has to say and see what he does. Tesla is the alpha dog in EVs, SpaceX is thriving as the main space program globally, Starlink has 5,000 satellites in space, he employs (depending on the day) something like 130,000 people, twitter still is one of the “Big 3” in social media, and on and on…
Pretty tough to deny that he wields more power than many actual countries in tech, culture, and finance, so for that alone, it’s a wise decision to at least keep tabs on him.
*even if you feel like you must qualify it with Nazi/drug addict/racist/nepo baby/moron etc. for the hundredth time
Ideally, nothing. Tesla’s various stakeholders would toss him out of the company for no longer caring about its core products (cars, folks: these are cars when we’re talking about a car company) and misappropriating company resources for Twitter’s stupid AI garbage, among a multitude of other reasons why he’s no longer fit to run it. They’d give him the largest possible pair of middle fingers for having the audacity for asking for a ludicrous pay package after consistent underperformance and show him the door. Again: Tesla (and SpaceX, for that matter) is a brilliant company in need of a frickin’ responsible adult, and Elon is as far from a responsible adult right now as you can get.
In our current timeline where bad men typically see no consequences for their actions: lol lmao lol I hate everything.
Musk’s time estimates and feature promises aren’t reliable at all, but I am inclined to believe him that nothing is going to happen with the Model Y for a while. Dude has checked out from the Tesla role. Anyway, anything that comes out of his mouth needs to be taken in the context of his prior actions (and inactions) and low level of competency as a leader. I don’t think every gaffe and off-tune fart needs to be reported on, but when he says something major related to his companies, it needs to be presented in that context.
Unfortunately, even the bigoted garbage he sharts onto Twitter demands being taken seriously, too. We’ve gone through years of naïvely thinking, “nah, nothing could get that bad again” and lo and behold, the most extreme ideas from the farthest right political fringe are being taken seriously, gaining a foothold among fanatics and being put into law. Now you’ve got this frickin’ guy — with an inconceivable amount of money to support whatever the hell he wants to — admiring the AfD of all parties and cozying up to Trump. It can get that bad. We’re seeing it get that bad. And we, as a wider society, need to stand up against all of that.
While I enjoy the sepia, I nearly skipped today’s Morning Dump because I initially saw it as an article about the Tesla Model Y refresh being delayed. I’m surprised how much the color change made me skip right past the logo.
tbf, the logo was partially obscured by the car. I almost skipped it, too.
Same, the car over the logo and monochrome I just about missed it.
I third this. I had to hunt for TMD, and I don’t like my lunch getting cold while I hunt. This one was a bit too obscure, but good job at making it so.
The TMD top shots have gotten so in-jokey that if I hadn’t been a member and had them explained to me I would have no idea why they’re doing these silly things. I appreciate the little easter eggs that they throw into their pictures from time to time, but when you’re making your images actively worse for the sake of an inside joke that most people aren’t going to get you’ve gone too far.
musk really is a dumb whiney baby.
Elon will only say things that are in his best self interest. He wants to ban one AI because it has a market foothold, where his AI does not have a market yet. Do people actually believe that AI on the twitter app, will share less info then Apple will with OpenAI? There is no difference, there is no betterment of humanity, this is just jockeying for market position in the future.
Absolutely. Of the two companies, I trust Apple’s stewardship of people’s data a hell of a lot more than Twitter’s, and that’s not because I’m especially optimistic about Apple. Musk got worried about misuse of AI right about the time he realized he was significantly behind the competition, and he’ll keep repeating that line until market share improves. Then he’ll be right back to preaching the benefits of AI-driven tech.
At this point his only hope of keeping Tesla on track is developing his own AI quicky enough (faster then everyone else) so that he can maintain market dominance in “self driving”. That is not where things currently stand in the AI space. Just imagine how little value would Tesla would have if it were purchasing AI from another company in order to provide self driving. This is what Elon is fighting, and every comment made that slams what someone else is doing, is simply keep to his share value high.
Correct. When Tesla’s “FSD” seemed to be at the top of the heap, Musk had no concerns about the use of AI or customer data. Once he was behind, he started talking about restricting AI development. Now that he doesn’t see a path to catch up, he’s trying to spread distrust for the competition.
Since a lot of his fans are also general fans of tech, I wonder how many eyes are going to be opened about his grift. I’m hoping that a lot of tech folks realize the hypocrisy of distrusting OpenAI while pushing a (worse) competing product.
I removed a ton of my personal information from Twitter shortly after that purchase was finalized. Elon’s shown time and time again on that site that he has no respect for user privacy or producing a stable, secure product. Remove any of the sensible, more knowledgeable, and calmer heads in the way of stupid decisions in a Musk company, and that’s what happens. apparently. Tesla and SpaceX thankfully have competent talent behind the scenes that stand in the way of some of Elon’s stupidest ideas from time to time (…even putting their jobs on the line a la the charger network head), but Twitter-“AI” is a pure, Elon-fronted hubris product that I don’t expect to go any differently than Twitter at this point.
Then again, I trust that glorified chatbot with Elon’s vanity answers hard-coded in as much as I trust any of the others: none at all.
Are you a Tesla shareholder? Then you should care insofar as what he says affects the stock price.
Are you reporting on Tesla vehicles? You should mostly ignore Musk, as he has a tendency to make claims that do not hold water.
Are you considering a Tesla purchase? You should actively ignore Musk to avoid unrealistic expectations.
Anyone else? I wouldn’t seek out Musk news, but it’s hard to avoid. And it may provide helpful context when the crypto and Tesla fans in your life are saying things that seem a little untethered.
Pretty much everyone is indirectly a shareholder of Tesla, since almost every major MF & ETF has holdings. I wasn’t happy when they joined S&P cause then its even harder to avoid exposure to their stock. I started moving $ out of Fidelity funds as many of them are heavy on Tesla and Fidelity is Tesla’s #1 institutional holder.
That’s a good point. Unfortunately, it’s really hard to completely avoid Tesla, and really hard to divest when 401(k)s and such rely on those those funds. Ugh.
+1 for the sepia topshot
Retrobution? Is that an intentional play on words and I missed it or just a typo?
Retrobution seems like it would be intentional, since it would be caught by any spellcheck. I guess because it’s retro to return to having corruption issues in UAW leadership?
That makes sense. My brain clearly isn’t working today, I’d say it’s too early, but it’s almost noon so that excuse doesn’t feel valid.
Clearly I was reaching for an explanation. Looks like it’s been fixed.
We really shouldn’t care at all what Mr. Krabs says in his own echo chamber
Can we please jettison him to Mars sooner rather than later? Just yeet him in that direction and let him figure it out himself.
That or let him build himself a submarine to visit the Titanic.
If he’s going to claim to know better than engineers, programmers and other experts despite having none of that expertise, well then — pitter patter. Put your vessel for exploring an inhospitable environment where your mouth is.
Titanic’s appetite for rich victims was clearly not abated in 1912, she demands more souls. Since Musk knows soooo much about submarines he should have no problem getting down there. As a Titanic nut I would love to see him try, but I think getting launched into space is more his style.