Said Ars comment comes from someone whose history is openly pro Tesla, pro Musk and denigrating of any competitors, offers no sources, and is in contradiction to numerous other sources.
We get it, "Tesla Bad." They are the only automaker selling EVs at volume besides Chineses automakers (which are limited to the Chinese auto market), and they are what consumers are preferring (with the Model Y being a best seller in various large markets). You might not agree with consumer preferences, but their dollars and how they vote with them are what matter, while regulators are sufficiently tolerant of Tesla's various Autopilot driver assist flavors (AP1, AP2, AP2.5, Enhanced Autopilot with Auto Lane Change) as well as their Full Self Driving beta to not require they be pulled from the US consumer fleet.
One can be "Elon musk is not a decent human being" but also "Tesla makes EVs people will trip over themselves to buy, and we need as many popular EVs as possible to contribute towards solving for the transportation emissions component of climate change." PR pieces do not destroy demand for petroleum or reduce combustion emissions, EVs shipped do.
Regulators are also sufficiently tolerant of MB's efforts (sorry, "puffery"):
> currently certified for use in California and Nevada
Yes, MB (who I have no love for) is ramping up EV manufacture. Tesla beat everyone to the punch.
> Tesla will sell ~2M units, 4x total Mercedes Benz annual volume.
Huh, going to disagree there:
> 2022 (January to December): Mercedes-Benz Passenger Cars delivered 2,043,900 vehicles
I stand corrected, and appreciate the correction as I strive for accuracy. My stat was wrong, pulling from a quarter vs the entire year. Tesla shipped almost as many EVs as Mercedes Benz shipped entirely, vs 4x.
What does that have to do with autonomous driving? The statements "Tesla makes more electric vehicles than Mercedes-Benz" and "Mercedes-Benz has a better autopilot program than Tesla" are in no way contradictory.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...