That’s simply not true, the last couple of years quality is up massively. The highland Model 3 is fine really, sure there are some things Tesla could’ve done better, but that goes for most manufacturers. I drive one and I haven’t had any big issues, I do have some annoyances though, but there are also things the car does way better than its competition. People also seem to forget that Tesla was pushing out over the air feature updates while VW was manually updating their ID3 range on the parking lot in the docks.

The Model 3 and Y in its current state, at its prices before these wild discounts and 0% financing, is objectively a very competitive car and would probably made the top 3 list in every country in 2025 and possibly 2026. Let me put it differently, if Ford sold the Model 3 and Y, it would outsell any other vehicle on the planet. The only reason the Model Y will not be the best selling car this year is Musk and by extension the direction the US took with the elections. At least here in Europe, people don’t really want to buy a Nazi symbol of a car. And frankly, if I could get rid of mine today, I would, not because the car is bad, but because of the Nazi in charge.

“But the low sales numbers were just potential buyers delaying their purchase, because the new Model Y will release soon.”

Safe to say that we finally have evidence that people weren’t delaying. It’s also not the car either, the car is fine and very competitive. I drive a Model 3 and I drove a couple competitor cars, therefore I know Tesla is up there with the competition. That is Volkswagen, Toyota and the large volume brands, I don’t view Tesla as a luxury brand like BMW and Mercedes though.

So what else is there? I’d wager having a Nazi as CEO doesn’t help sales at all. I’m in a mid class bubble in The Netherlands where many in my bubble can afford or even actively looked at purchasing a Tesla, all of them say the same thing: I do not support Nazi’s and by extension try to buy as little US made products as I can. This is the same customer base that 5 years ago would definitely have bought a Tesla in a heartbeat. Tesla will continue to lose with Musk at the helm.

I guess Trump doesn’t help, but it’s also easy to point the finger. If eating at a fast food chain is no longer fast, cheap nor food (let’s be honest). Is it then strange that sales are declining?

It’s even become mandatory by communities in some games, which is something I hate with passion. For instance, many MMORPG communities are on Discord these days (e.g. Guild Wars 2, more specifically the raiding scene).

So I subscribed to these communities and started using Discord. I still don’t get the appeal, it’s a cluttered mess all over the place and it doesn’t feel intuitive to use. Maybe I’m getting old…

Curious if this argument also works for other situations? “I didn’t file my taxes, because it would take too long”.

Interesting, so how did they feel when Elon did the “Roman salute”? Romans basically walked around in skirts as well…

Ah well, I think reason left the US long ago.

Naive Dutch guy here: can’t you just refuse the receipt? Here they ask you if you want the receipt, and you can simply say: No, thank you.

I’m curious: why?

Removing IP law just feels like it would only benefit those with the resources to scale new technology quickly. It basically kills all start ups.

edit: word

What do you mean? I checked my doorbell camera and you always leave house at around 8 am and return around 5.30 pm, nothing out of the ordinary? /s

Well, not banned explicitly, they just didn’t pass the safety regulations all vehicles must adhere to. Main issue is pedestrian safety, due to the sharp edges of the panels.

This isn’t as much about the social media platforms, competing with those is relatively feasible. This is more about the professional infrastructure market. Microsoft Azure, AWS and Google Cloud. There isn’t really a European competitor there, the US dominates this market. We have a huge trade deficit on these services, which Trump “conveniently” didn’t include in his trade war analysis.

Basically the only reason I read the article is to know if they needed a “backdoor” in encryption, guess the don’t need it, like everyone with a little bit of IT knowledge always told them.

I’m just in awe about those 28% and 33% tax brackets. I’m in the 49,5% bracket here in The Netherlands. That being said, I’m fortunate to be in it.

This reads like the post Brexit articles. What do people expect to happen when they vote for something?

Want to setup a more privacy friendly solution?

Have a look at Home Assistant! It’s a great open source smart home platform that recently released a local (so not processing requests in the cloud) voice assistant. It’s pretty neat!

Tesla was ahead 10-15 years, sure. But they mostly lost that lead. Yes, their software is great, but at the same time Tesla doesn’t seem to be able to do basic car features right. For instance, it doesn’t have a rain sensor and relies on the front facing camera to detect rain. I can tell you from experience that it doesn’t work as well as a sensor. It’s even worse when it detects rain, while it is completely dry. But you cannot turn the wipers off, because then you won’t be able to use cruise control anymore. Cruise control, which by the way (non FSD) is shit in comparison to the competition.

The tablet might be a couple years ahead of the competition. The value they bring in bang for buck with a great feature package is also greatly competitive. But the car is behind when it comes to just normal car things. I have buttons on my steering wheel as indicators for fuck sake, a problem we already fixed when we were still prosecuting Nazis.

Mostly in the US though, but unfortunately the US is leaking :(

In some weird way, snuggles and comedy-roasts seem to be the perfect punishment for Trump. Not the easy way out, but humiliation, which is the only thing he is afraid of.

Not sure if we can really blame Steve Jobs for this though, he wasn’t around when things turned to shit. The iPhone he introduced was merely a phone, web browser, email and music player.

I think it’s fair if we blame Tim Apple for this and the other big tech CEO’s of the recent past.

As a Model 3 (2024) driver, I fully agree! Meanwhile I finally nailed down a little over half the instances where it might phantom brake, so I’m more prepared. A common theme is cars moving within their lane while driving next to them. Even if they don’t cross the line into my lane, the car will still brake abruptly.

Why bother having cruise control if you cannot use it comfortably and always have to rest your foot above the accelerator anyways?

This is then only regarding phantom braking. Another dangerous thing is the automatic speed adjustment of the cruise control. I have this set to “off”, but the car seems to completely ignore that setting. It happened multiple times that the car changed set speed, both up and down. Imagine driving 130 on cruise and the car sees a sign that says “90 when asphalt is wet” but it’s dry. The car thinks it’s 90 and slams the brakes.

All I want is just dumb cruise control for cruising and traffic aware cruise control in traffic jams, is that too much to ask?