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Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 19, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Will Elon throttle me if he finds out I’m short Tesla stock?

You probably meant this as a joke, but I'd be wary of buying a car from a tech company. What happens in X years when they shut the servers down that it wants to connect to? Or what happens if your account gets banned?

Tesla employees have been caught sharing videos from the cameras on the cars. That tells me that a) they can access whatever you can, and b) there isn't much stopping even individual employees screwing around with people's cars, neither in terms of IT security or company culture.

What happens in X years when they shut the servers down that it wants to connect to?

Or when they decide that actually, heated seats should be a subscription, and force-disables that feature remotely.

Or you get a software update to Autopilot, and then the weird intersection you've been driving through just fine for years all of a sudden stops being recognized, and now it tries to drive you into the barriers at 70 mph.

Tesla is not a [tech] company that prides itself on actually serving the customer.

The reason I decided I'm not going to get a Tesla was basically like this. They updated the UI in a software update so that the defrost function was no longer on the screen, but in a menu. I already thought that having a touchscreen instead of physical controls was a horrible idea, but I was barely willing to tolerate it if the UI didn't change. But since they are willing to just push out UI changes like that, I'm never going to buy a Tesla. It is flat out dangerous to have to stare at a screen (because they moved shit on you) while operating essential features of the car.

Oh yeah, and that's ignoring the fact that those software updates render the car undriveable while they install.