Tesla profits drop 43% in Q3 (arstechnica.com)

It's like everyone has completely forgotten Musk was up on stage with the US president doing nazi salutes just a couple of years as ago.

So whilst a car's ability to sense and react to its environment may be at least as sophisticated as that of a plum tree, it's hard to see how it would meet the legal threshold for sentience in the same way that, say, a lobster does.

More to the point - if Musk genuinely believes that his cars are capable of suffering, why isn't he doing anything to prevent them from being harmed?

The last holdout being the USA, where the gov't is preferentially giving tesla their marketshare instead of letting open competition work in favour of consumers.

But like japanese cars, this will eventually also take root.

> - helping Russia killing Ukrainian civilians;

Have you read a single thing about Starlink usage in the Ukraine conflict?

Because if you had, you'd know that Spacex has actively geofenced usage to allow it within Ukrainian territory but disallow it in Russian and Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory, instituted a whitelist policy coordinated with Ukrainian forces to whitelist Ukrainian terminals but disallow Russian terminals acquired through the black market

https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-ukraine-russ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russo-Ukrainia...

They literally provide connectivity to Ukrainian forces and actively try to prevent usage by Russian forces but the moment they put any caveats on how the tech is used, like disallowing its usage by fast-moving objects or for offensive weapon guidance, they are "helping kill Ukrainian civilians".

Perhaps they should have just said Starlink would not work with defense/war usage at all and sat the conflict out and geofenced all of eastern Europe, like many protesters at Google ask their leadership to not do any defense industry deals. Would that have been better from your perspective?

You are actively spreading misinformation.

MANY EVs sold by renamed automakers, and even good chinese brands.

https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Tesla

From my recollection, the car door handle's that Tesla "innovated" are so unsafe that China has now banned hidden door handle designs. Some articles on related deaths due:

https://www.statesman.com/business/article/tesla-door-handle...

https://www.autonews.com/automakers/teslas-futuristic-door-h...

And then I recalled the insanely high fault rate with Tesla's from a report from Denmark: https://fdm.dk/nyheder/nyt-om-trafik-og-biler/tesla-skandale...

2025 Vision statistics for electric cars:

Car model | Total number of cars | Approved | Conditionally approved | Inspection | Percentage of care

Tesla Model Y | 2,394 | 1,281 | 44 | 1,069 | 45%

Tesla Model 3 | 8,564 | 5.438 | 189 | 2,937 | 34%

VW ID.4 | 7,121 | 6,292 | 651 | 178 | 2%

And so I googled for a few minutes and found some more stuff, like a reuters investigation into coverups, german reporting of defect rates as well, UK defect rate reports, a US investigation too.

Here's your AI and human assisted summary:

# Overview of the Tesla Inspection Issues

Data from mandatory vehicle inspection agencies in Europe and federal investigations in North America show that relatively new Tesla Model Y and Model 3 vehicles are failing safety tests at unprecedented rates. The issues stem from high vehicle weight, a lack of traditional annual service schedules, and component material choices.

## Key Regional Inspection Data

- Denmark (FDM): Danish roadworthiness data reveals that 45% of 2021 Tesla Model Ys failed their first periodic vehicle inspection. The primary culprit is excessive play in the suspension and wheel hubs. [https://fdm.dk/nyheder/nyt-om-trafik-og-biler/tesla-skandale...]

- Germany (TÜV Association): In official vehicle inspection reports, the Tesla Model Y ranked dead last out of 110 models with a 17.3% serious defect rate at its first 3-year check. The year prior, the Tesla Model 3 ranked worst out of 111 models with a 14.2% failure rate. [https://marqstats.com/insights/germany-tesla-model-3-tuv-ins...]

- United Kingdom (DVSA): Vehicle standards data shows thousands of combined first-time MOT inspection failures for Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, largely driven by premature chassis strain.

## The Primary Defects Found

The high failure rates are consistently tied to three mechanical areas:

- Suspension and Control Arms: Extreme battery weight combined with instant motor torque causes suspension ball joints and lateral control arms to experience accelerated wear, loosening, or catastrophic snapping.

- Brake Disc Degradation: Because Teslas rely heavily on regenerative braking, physical brake pads and discs are rarely used. In damp climates, this lack of friction causes the brake discs to corrode heavily, failing mechanical efficiency tests.

- Headlight Misalignment: High rates of faulty factory headlight alignment frequently fail strict European beam leveling tests.

## Regulatory and Legal Impact

- Federal Safety Probe: The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is actively investigating roughly 1.2 million Tesla Model 3 and Model Y vehicles following over 150 customer reports of front suspension parts snapping while driving.

- The "Driver Abuse" Cover-up: Investigations by Reuters revealed that Tesla internally recognized these global suspension defects for years but actively instructed service centers to blame consumers for "driver abuse" to deflect warranty payout costs. [https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-mu...]

PS: I am not parent commenter, and this separately to the famous gesture with the arm that E.M. did, what can be guessed that harmed the sales.

There’s also DOGE and all the related stock manipulation that happened, the tweet promising funding to take TSLA private which obviously made people buy the stock, the ru[n|i]ning of Twitter for political gain, the creation of teams in Tesla to convince owners not to come investigate battery/range issues under warranty, etc.

Probably not quite to Theranos levels, but I can see the pattern.