Doesn’t change the fact that your money is sitting in their accounts growing interest for them for likely an entire decade.
Gen2 Roadster down payments of $50k and $250k could have been put into a CD or something and earned $12k and $60k by now.
Instead that’s money Tesla can throw into investments accounts. It’s a scam. You can get a refund but you’re not getting the interest that they earned.
they said production only starts in two years and by now people know tesla is bad with timelines, so if people still preoder they know what they get into and were not scammed, they decided the spot in the line is more important to them than the interest
They’ll take the reservation, hold your money, invest it as their own and make $$$ then “be unable to deliver” and offer it back because they are just that good and righteous of a brand.
Tesla is bragging about 500kw charging coming in 2 years(in very limited circumstances), and this year BYD has installed 10,000 1,500 KW chargers alone.
I feel like something is very wrong how things are being framed. This whole discussion is missing the main point that the U.S. is being made obsolete, and even our largest EV maker is obscuring that fact with shiny headline grabbing supercar prototypes. It’s like a reverse iron curtain and the changes are happening so quickly that it’s becoming genuinely concerning for us in the US. How are our automakers just calmly churning out Model T’s when their entire business model relies on exports to keep their margins, and meanwhile everywhere else is adopting automatic transmissions and fuel injection all at the same time?
"Reverse iron curtain" is just a matter of perspective. Your country is blocking itself of from the world just like the Soviet Union did. No reverse about it, noone else is blocking you off.
The 100% ev tariff makes no sense when many local automakers in the US are cutting back on development and production of local EVs. What’s the point of the tariff if the auto industry isn’t going to use it to catch up?
This is exactly why economists warn against tariffs. Tariffs only work if you have a solid plan to build up the industry and then gradually take them away. It’s exactly what Korea did with cars and electronics.
Biden implemented the 100% tariff, but he also put stringent emissions laws in and subsidies for both buying electric cars and charging infrastructure. Which Trump scrapped. So what do you get when you just have the tariffs and none of the rules and subsidies? A dying industry that won’t be able to export anything and more expensive cars for US citizens.
Even under Biden, I think the tariffs were dumb, but at least he paired the stick with a carrot, as you point out. And as you can see, investments were being made when the carrot was there, and are not being made when the carrot isn't there. So the carrot was the thing that helped investment.
The tariff means that EVs are not competitive, and therefore not a threat to current ICE products. Which for the legacy manufacturers is great as it means you don’t need to invest in new technology to stay relevant and can pay more out in dividends and stock buybacks! Sure, eventually you’ll destroy your company when your product is so hopelessly obsolete that no one wants it even with tariff protections but that’s not going to happen in the next few quarters so who cares, create those short term quarterly gains baby
Using Xiaohongshu during the TikTok ban was fascinating. The perception of the US that the average Chinese person has is wildly inaccurate and it’s exactly because of how the US insulates itself.
It goes back further than that, but the 80s under Reagan was when the belief that “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem” really went into overdrive among the powerful and influential.
Turns out that gutting the Federal government’s authority and power, and ceding more and more of it to oligarchs and corporations that can’t think beyond their personal enrichment or ahead past one quarter has had some….negative impacts for America.
Yet at the same time claiming to get rid of govt.. He tripled the national debt and put nearly $3Trillion into IOUs. The tradition that continues through to today
When I saw that BYD charging video earlier this year where you could see the % increase like a gas pump is when I noticed something is seriously wrong. It’s straight up the future of everything, our society will be reliant on our ability to charge and discharge batteries at such speeds. It’s a paradigm shift in our ability to harvest and utilize energy in the most efficient way, not just for cars, but for everything that moves. And the people leading the US and all of our companies just straight up can’t do it, and won’t even acknowledge that it exists. People joke about “1984” but it genuinely feels like we’re living in some sort of similar hellscape. And in the halls of power, not a single democrat (who don’t understand cars or energy policy AT ALL) or republican(who intentionally weaponize misunderstandings about cars and energy policy) is calling this out publicly. We’re witnessing a scandal of the highest order unfold in front of us, and absolutely nobody in government or the news media is discussing it.
I live in California, and I visited China last year. A lot of innovation originates here, but its adoption in China is miles ahead. USA is a failure of public policy and state investment. The US is blind to the fact that it's already on the back foot.
What were the most interesting differences in innovation you saw between china and California? I visited China 7 years ago, but I wasn’t into electric vehicles or solar infrastructure then, so I didn’t notice anything related to that. I didn’t know about all the surveillance there at the time either. But I went to Kunming, Yunnan, so didn’t go to Shanghai or Beijing.
Talking about Shanghai. The cashless and cardless society (which also has to do with surveillance, to be clear). Electrification of transportation. Not just a vast share of all cars on the road, but also all scooters are electric. Maglev trains. And then just simple things like lack of dilapidated areas that you would otherwise see in places like LA. Safe to walk around. Lots of greenery on every street. It just feels like the whole society benefits rather than the select few.
I think the missing piece here is that the United States is the world’s single largest producer of crude oil — using pre-Iran-war data, roughly 15.6% of the global supply or about 3m barrels/day more than Saudi Arabia. The US is also roughly tied with China in refinery capacity. So it is important to people who influence the political and economic climate that there is continued very strong domestic demand, particularly as the rest of the world electrifies their transportation, transitions to renewables, and global demand for oil drops.
So “obsolete” is financially advantageous: Case in point, the new Federal fuel-efficiency standards that were rolled out a little while ago. They’re touted as potentially reducing the price of new gas-burning cars by some $1300. Hidden in the fine print is that this savings will incur at least an additional $1600 in fuel costs. So it’s not really about reducing costs, it’s about selling more gas.
If you look at US policy through the lens of maximizing the profit extracted from oil reserves and infrastructure before either the oil runs out or the world moves on to renewables, a lot of things suddenly make more sense.
Hate to agree but you’re so right. Big Oil runs this country in so many ways that people will protect them for their livelihood and never mind about saving natural resources and alternative energy…that’s all talk.
It’s pretty much all American tech companies pulling the same stunt. All of their products are getting worse with flashy AI exteriors to distract as much as possible while they cut costs/raise prices and hoard massive profits.
Nothing is really new here. Tesla has been lying about it's products for around 10 years now. Its expected behavior by Tesla, and Tesla alone. No other US automaker does that.
Tesla's primary product is speculation on its stock, not the vehicles that make up almost all of its revenue.
I was mostly starting with the 2016 "self driving" non-sense, but you're right. They had fake range estimators before that that would show a made-up range above 50% battery, and then drop by a massive amount when it'd switch to the real number at 50% remaining.
It was supposed to drive itself in 2016. And be able to drive coast to coast (including charging itself) a year or two after that. And then in 2018 it was supposed to drive itself as a taxi and make money for the owner while you're at work. And the lies go on and on.
The US is becoming Cuba with predominantly ICE infrastructure and a self-embargo. It's like we got 56k modems in the late 90s and said, this is the best, no more! Rotary telephones only! Fax machines forever!
ha yeah... Xpeng G9 SUV can charge at 525kW TODAY, and some BYD models go even higher (1,000kW+) TODAY. Tesla is promising just 500kW in 2028/2029, if it ever delivers.
I guess we are lucky to have a lot of home charging available. It's typical USA bullshit. We are doing "just good enough" that the masses are satisfied. Where places like China are never happy with just good enough and are leading innovation in this area.. I would buy a swappable battery car immediately if it were offered here.
The curtain keeps closing until morale improves... The problem is that US leftist, and Western European progressives at large, are too MAGA piled.
The US ideologically believes in prosperity through classism and natural selection, a survival of biggest lions mindset, and refuses to move forward with equality and progressivism; it thinks forced wealth redistribution makes them weak, even one the bed being wheeled into an ICU. Even some of progressivist actions taken, like DEI, is a blame shifting towards things other than disparity as racism, and had been distractions from the root cause of the phenomenon you're seeing.
The post war progressivism that US and Western Europe pushed was supposed to be a mere antithesis to hardcore MAGA style Christian views, or a controlled opposition even, that are only logically validated but not emotionally accepted. Western Europe since the tail end of Cold War tried to weaponize the perceived stupidity of progressivism by imposing it on Asia as a 4D chess move to confuse and weaken it. And, as it ends up happening, the Asia, which don't find Christianity interesting in the first place, proved it works, and what you see is the natural consequences of that.
That kind of devastating moments will keep happening until US starts to quit those y'all-qaeda thinking, tax the rich, and put those gains on universal public educations until it will be the one to use that "quantity has quality of its own" quote, which isn't necessarily communist from a neutral standpoint, rather than clinging onto the "QUALITY is BETTER than QUANTITY" contrarian spin of it.
Not sure I follow. Would you mind writing this out on a signboard, hanging it over your chest and shouting the whole thing through a megaphone in Times Square so it’s more clear to me?
But if I've heard that the Times Square is quiet as the NYC public library these days, I would have to use like a kilophone or dozenphone than an actual megaphone if I were to actually do that
Tesla was ahead of it's time, but other actors have moved along to overtake them.
I think it will be the same with autonomous driving.
As you point out, it's happening with most(all?) us car-manufacturers. Right now it seems like China are making the best EV's in the world in large numbers, and the batteries have become better and cheaper than anticipated 10 years ago.
BTW: The same thing is happening in Europe. There are more EV adaptation, but the models tend to be more or less outdated before they are put into production.
Recently EU agreed max quotas of Chinese hybrids entering their market.
lol and it says on the site that the deposit is non-refundable. Give us a ton of money to pre-order an imaginary car that we likely will never deliver to you…
Cancellation. Until you complete your configuration of your vehicle after we invite you to do so, your
Reservation may be cancelled at any time through your Tesla Account and for any reason, by either you
or us, in which case you will receive a full refund of your Reservation Payment. The refund will be
returned to the original form of payment. If the original account is no longer open or the funds are r
eturned, Tesla will issue the refund via check in the name of the Reservation holder only.
With SC, people at least have content and playable product. Not great content and not super playable but they have something. Roadster reservation holders literally have nothing
The "rocket" version is invite only and no price listed. Even if you could buy this version you'd most likely never be able to use it on any public road as it would be illegal.
The point of them making this version is to hype up potential buyers.
Key word "hype"
They want to sell the $50,000 regular model.
By the way Elon still sucks. Interfering with the US elections, allowing DOGE to dismantle so many important programs like USAID in turn leading to the death of 400,000 people, promoting Alternative for Germany (AdF) a white nationalist organization
And trying to lie about being the top Diablo player by paying someone to pretend they're Elon is so pathetic.
Elon didn't invent or take part in creating Tesla. He simply bought out the original creators.
And he certainly didn't engineer the new Tesla Roadster.
But try explaining all of this to his die hard fan boys
Fuck, I'd buy a 50k version without the fan system if they offered it, just having a decent looking 2 door ev that isn't the size of an f150 is perfect for me.
Imagine someone buying the "thrust" model (if it were to be made)
And every time they used the thrust feature they would have to replenish the tank as it's only once per use. How lame is that? And I heard it takes a long time to refill.
Wait, is the normal version actually going to be 50k? I was gonna write off the entire reveal, but hell, if they are actually selling a cheaper version without all the fancy gimmicks (as cool as the duct system is), then hell, I'll sell my kidney for one lol, I've been waiting for a somewhat attainable ev sporte car, and 50k would make it so I can maybe afford one a year after it launches.
No 50k is just reservation/order payment. Like the 250 bucks is for model 3/Y. The real price (if it’s ever comes out from the production line) is going to be 250k+
The Elon didn’t take part in creating Tesla is disingenuous. They had NO vehicles to market when he acquired it. Elon is quite literally why Electric vehicles became viable in the US. Not a fan of him, but able to give credit where it is due.
This is hardly news. They did the same thing with preorders for previous cars, e.g. here's what my Cybertruck order confirmation said back in 2019: "You understand that Tesla may not have completed the development of Cybertruck or begun manufacturing Cybertruck at the time you entered into this Agreement and so we do not guarantee when your Vehicle will actually be delivered."
They announced the previous version of this Roadster in 2017 for a 2020 release and this time in 2026 they're saying a 2028 release... and what they chose to show wasn't progress on the actual street legal car... but to instead show they spent the majority of their time and money on the novelty capabilities of non-street legal versions? How are so many people falling for this?
There's still a bit of a difference between "we can not guarantee when your vehicle is delivered" and "we can not guarantee that your vehicle will be delivered".
Ever see those people destroying their supercars because they can't handle the power? If these are ever delivered as shown in the live event, they will end up in the side of a cliff or into\through someone's house.
And a good chunk of Tesla drivers are already pushing the douchebaggery to the absolute limits. People who get these will be even worse.
And nobody is following any laws or sense anymore. Why can Tesla beta test their self driving on the roads? Why can vehicles have handles that don't open doors. These are things that used to not be allowed now it is so common. The world is screwed up.
I am dumbfounded on comments reflecting so much ignorance on MUSKS early April fools joke on so many fools. Fool me one time and then understand who Musk is. He is a pathological lier, wants attention, and has conned buyers with an expensive cost of non existent full self driving. A con man gets you to trust him, believe what he says is true, then opens your wallet and gives him your money. without searching if FSD is fact or fiction the later being true. Is FSD a reality? You know the answer, bury your head and a good cry might work. Cons work because of people that don't think. The roadster has been a joke for years. Dropping down a deposit on a non existent soon to be ev without even a test drive or specs is ludicrous. Ask AI if Musk can be trusted with promises.
Very little truly impresses me anymore. That was crazy impressive. Don’t care if anyone ever gets one - it worth it for the genuine awe I had while watching the car slowly climb vertical, launch upside down, flip and then land.
What was impressive. It wasn’t an actual car. It was hollowed out / non-functioning. The original launch (demo) called for a four seater with removable roof, four seats and a sub 9 second quarter mile with huge (600+ range). That beats a jumping (not flying) gimmick
Its a neat party trick, but its not seriously impressive either. Using fans to create downforce has been around for at least 50 years and the driving an EV upside down thing has been done by the Mcmurty Speirling before.
I would also refuse to call it "flying", its more of a "controlled fall" imho.
I don’t hate on much in life. The new Zelda OOT and GTA VI look amazing. I’m a positively skewed individual. From the car world - excited for the new AMG GT SUV, and the forthcoming Genesis supercar is stunning.
My favorite part are all the people saying they aren’t impressed are also the same folks that said there was zero chance the car would do anymore more than float an inch above the ground.
Yea lmao when someone does so amazing and people gota devalue your success. Your the type of friend to get jealous when your other friend gets a better job 😂
Look buddy, it was an impressive visual feat. I never said it wasnt. I'm just saying you don't need to get on your knees just because you were impressed.
Honestly, what will be super impressive to me is when someone actually makes a sub 50k ev sports car for the masses. Like the charger daytona ev came somewhat close, but its the size of an f150, so less sports car, more classical muscle car, but like if someone could make an sc-01 for north america and Europe for the price of a camaro, I'd be beyond hyped.
They owe too many to people for the referral program - cost em a fortune and they can just put it off indefinitely. If they ever do start actually producing them, I wonder how the allocations will go to those they owe them for free versus people that have paid for them!
Remember the old statement: There are no guarantees in life. How is it you think this doesn’t apply to automotive manufacturing? Add that to the legal climate of assholes that want to sue anyone for anything - > they can’t guarantee anything. Is not that hard to figure out unless you just always want to dawg on people.
Disappointed that Tesla didn't follow through with the second gen Roadster introduced in 2017. That was a true roadster with awesome styling that didn't play into the Cybertruck/ weirdness bs this thing presents.
There’s a difference between “can not” and “will not”. Tesla could guarantee the delivery of a roadster after a deposit was placed, but they will not do so.
For the same reasons I won’t touch any product that’s crowd funded, I would never place a deposit with any company that refuses to guarantee delivery of an item.
Cons are built on trust promises and a large deposit. Time frame not so much. Musk is a sociopathic con man that gas a fictional yet to be produced fully self driving package. Many believed it, paid money and is waiting. Cons work perfectly with true believers. This is what Musk does best, like SpaceX a fukin high risk venture that could be be may be but not.
They’re basically getting more free money. The reveal was a marketing stunt to inflate the stock, distract investors as they push to merge with Spacex. Ill be shocked if they actually produce this vehicle.
At this point, if you don’t see the Roadster for what it is (a scam), it’s all on you. Rarely has Tesla held its promises (20k$ Model 3, 40k$ Cybertruck, automomous cars by 2016, 2017, 2018 etc., Hyperloop stuff etc). In fact, so rarely that it has its own Wikipedia section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Tesla,_Inc.
But hey, none of you knew anything about the Musk documentary that aired yesterday because one tech demonstrator which will never be sold to public was flying. So, the PR stunt worked!
Toyota has been promising somid state batteries ”in a few years” for ten years now as well, but at least they don’t take money from the public based on unfulfilled promises.
look im not by any means a tesla fan, i was when i was 16 and it seemed like a cool affordable means of building electric cars but what does this solve? who is this for? ten years of engineering went into a car that will not exist, is fundamentally incompatible with daily life, and is effectively a bomb that you strap yourself into and hope doesn't explode.
where is the affordable electric vehicle? i thought the reason the government provided tesla with so many subsidies is because they were gonna be the BYD of america. billions of dollars sunk into the richest man on the planet and the best his trillion dollars can do is a shitty truck with an accelerator that gets stuck in the "go fast and die" position, rockets that explode because the engineering process was rushed in order to say "look we did rockets", and a satellite internet service that can be used to fuck over any country at any time that relies on the service. excellent work
You guys do realize that this was stunt right? No one actually saw this car in action it was a video all shown on projection screens to an audience of likely his own employees for the most part.
Remember the hype and stunt involving launching a car into space; where people thought Elon actually launched a car into space only to find out a week later that it was a stunt after he got busted staging the whole thing? Yeah its like that.
Anybody wants to know if this vehicle is real. Just look up with the booster rockets thrusters use as fuel. Then tell me where in the United States you can get that to refill those thrusters after you make it fly for a couple seconds, and seconds of flight is all you're going to get.
The ground clearance necessary to drive down the road and to give it the suction for the downforce necessary for the vertical walls are not Even close
It’s compressed CO2 I think… either way it doesn’t matter because that kind of pressure in a car would make it a bomb. It’s not road legal for multiple reasons.
216
u/shm4y 22h ago
At this point anyone putting in a reservation 100% deserves whatever happens to them honestly