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Comment by graycrow | Hacker News Reader

Every time there is an article about Tesla, the vast majority of comments here are either too critical, too ignorant, or just FUD. It's too unbalanced, no other company (good or bad) gets such bad treatment here. I see many of the HN audience here are just repeating the media narrative without their own experience or even trying to understand the topic. Yes, Tesla is moving at the forefront of EV development, and yes, sometimes not everything is delivered as promised or on time. But on the other hand, this is HN, we're supposed to love new technology and engineering! Why so negative? It's pathetic.

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Because the explosive rise and sudden collapse of the company's valuation are interesting in and of themselves as a market story.

The valuation of the most valuable car company in the world has fallen 70% in the past year. Tesla has shed more in market cap in the past year than the GDP of most countries. How is that not remarkable?

It's emblematic of the collective insanity of tech investors in the past couple of years - that's the interesting story, and that's where the criticism lies. Tech investors have made comically bad, bad bets industry-wide in recent years, and Tesla has been one of the biggest.

It's not overly critical to think Tesla's valuation has been insane and unjustifiable, or that it's "just a car company". At least saying it's "just a car company" is admitting that there's some fundamentally valuable business behind it, unlike some other money-pit companies out there.

Yeah, some comments here also feel the need to justify that they’re not an “Elon fanboi” if they’re saying positives about tesla which shows how bad it is.

The whole FSD debacle feels like people just arguing semantics and gotchas. I recently watched some videos of FSD operating in tight, hilly and unusual roads in CA. I was very impressed, its obv not perfect, but its fucking cool. People here made it sound like a scam.

As a FSD purchaser, I can tell you that watching videos do not give you the full experience of sitting in the driver's seat while FSD is on. The amount of times I need to regularly overtake control in both urban and rural environments on simple turns is enough to make me not recommend the FSD option to prospective Tesla buyers. At this point, the way it's marketed, I would lean more towards scam than even gimmick.

But do you agree it's getting better with every update?

Each update is erratic with its own set of positives and negatives, I wouldn't say there is a particular trendline. Random.

Musk has decided to be a highly visible CEO. He regularly makes strong, often controversial, statements and is constantly in the media cycle. When all eyes are on you you get higher highs but also lower lows. This is why a lot of CEOs prefer to keep a low profile.

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