Bonum Certa Men Certa

Tesla and Electric Vehicles (EVs) Are the Proprietary Software of the Automobile World

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Dec 21, 2023

Elon Musk

SO I HAVE A confession. Some weeks ago my wife discovered that across the road from us a large "T" had been erected and it looked like the Tesla logo. Indeed, upon checking online, I discovered they were setting up a showroom (which I can see from my desk by merely standing up). Days ago the large "T" was joined by the full letters set, "TESLA". It is really happening.

But what on Earth are those things anyway? Can the company be profitable? How about the multi-million-car recall (several millions of cars, not cars worth millions)? Also, how many people seriously think Tesla is "green", even after all the whistleblowing and the most basic common sense? Manufacturing cars requires a ton of "dirty" energy, starting with mining (extraction) and even daily operations require a lot of electricity and unless it is derived from wind or sunlight (the facilities for that also require a lot of mining and welding to assemble) we're left merely taking the pollution out of sight, not out of circulation (within the planet, a closed system).

I personally believe that Elon Musk is a good liar. Sorry, he is an excellent liar. A charlatan, a fraud, a scam. Maybe he got that from his dad, who knows, right? Like father, like son. Saying outrageous things and doing bad things for attention.

Musk has mostly amassed money by stealing other people's, either in his early days as a pseudo-entrepreneur, taking credit for other people's accomplishments, or in present days where he relies on foolish, gullible shareholders. It seems that actually making a profit isn't important when you can leverage social control media for "pump and dump" and you can have guaranteed income by stealing taxpayers' money, i.e. national debt (money out of nothing).

Electric car supercharger outside

EVs in general (not just Tesla) openly make or put forth several false promises, with all that crackpot "self-driving" or "autonomous" stuff (I did research into this as a postdoc and can coherently explain why that wouldn't work any time soon). It's either a miracle or a major blunder it was allowed a "green light" here and there, probably owing to bribe-loving politicians and rogue/non-existent regulators.

My prediction is that EVs will be a bit of a passing fad. Right now there are mass protests in southeast Asia over attempts to force adoption of EVs (despite an obvious lack of budget), there's a growing pushback because of disillusioned people, and the total % of cars (actually on the roads) that use electricity - even "hybrid" - remains minuscule, even in rich countries. Given the dire state of the economy, people will have other things to prioritise and not so surprisingly some automobile giants already divest or move away from EVs. Politicians in their 60s promising an "EV" future some time in the next 20 years are talking about times when they lack accountability or completely lack life. We saw similar predictions about "self-checkout" and "smart" meters; don't bet the farm on these.

An automobile revolution would be nice, but a transition to EVs isn't quite it. Doing it for 'cargo cult'-like reasons (marketing, following the herd, social/status climbing) is misguided. Apropos, as this new article puts it: "Like many people this year (1), I tried generative AI on many different sites : Open AI, Google Bard and other clones, the list begins to be too long. But for what ? Are they really what we expect from an artificial intelligence. And what is intelligence vs culture ? For me, it's the buzz of the year but above all , a big marketing hoax !"

Chatbots aren't even new. CG isn't new (like calling VR "metaverse" and servers "cloud").

Back in the 1990s I put a laptop next to me inside the car. It was a lot better than all those "modern" touchscreen things they sell for a hefty price in 2023 (the cost of repairing or replacing one is humongous and they won't last 20 years; forget about spares, they won't make them anymore).

To me, the analogy here as a former driver (I stopped driving) seems apt if we speak about UNIX, POSIX, and GNU/Linux. Cars are too complex and insufficiently standardised/modular. If you cannot make a car that lasts 30 years like the stereo I use right now (or the car my parents in law still drive every day), then I am not interested in it. Old cars could sometimes be repaired, with or without tools, by the owner. Microchips are a regression when the main if not sole purpose of the car is to get around. If you want a computer, then go home and use one.

A friend tells me that such "modern" cars are surveillance capsules as well. See the stalker articles in recent Daily Links.

Elon Musk is not selling you a dream. He resorted to attention-seeking public spectacles (saying high controversial things, just like Donald Trump) to impose a long-term nightmare on you. Look away, walk away.

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete