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Comment by dilyevsky | Hacker News Reader

You take the population of vehicles in the field A and multiple it by the probable rate of failure B, then multiply the result by the average cost of an out-of-court settlement C.

A times B times C equals X.

If X is less than the cost of a recall, then we don't recall.

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Nine times out of ten it's an electric razor, but every once in a while it's a dildo. Of course it's company policy never to, imply ownership in the event of a dildo... always use the indefinite article a dildo, never your dildo.

You forgot the factor for PR cost

So long as they can continue to sell as many as they can manufacture, the PR costs are $0. The bill might come due in a few years though, by lowering the peak of their growth potential.

tell me more mr durden

Assume we lived in a communist society instead. How would you view the problem differently?

Act to prevent maiming and killing customers and the public even if it costs the company more money?

I'd say that Tesla is unfairly putting the burden of defective vehicles on consumers and externalizing the cost of their failures.

It's a quote from Fight Club

You'd be less likely to recall, because there's no longer a risk of lawsuit.

Interesting,

In either system I don’t think I would take resources used for lawsuits into account and get the vehicles fixed (or replaced, until they are safe).

We have the responsibility to care for each-other.

I agree; not saying what I'd do. Just answering the question of what would likely be different in a communist society, based on real world examples. The value given to human life seems demonstrably lower on average.

Why would a communist society not have a risk of a lawsuit?

In all the attempts that have been tried there was no separation of judiciary power (generally it’s a lot easier to murder and rob millions of their property when this is the case) so good luck suing the state that controls all courts

The reality is, we likely wouldn’t have this particular problem because we wouldn’t have Tesla. Capitalistic incentives are what drive that kind of innovation. We would, however, have a whole slew of other problems, as evidenced by historical attempts at communism.

I think humans are curious beings.I don’t think it would stifle innovation. Quite the Contrary, more effort will be spent on useful innovation rather than profit seeking.

If only we lived in a world that had alternatives to US "capitalism" and Soviet "communism".

But alas, these are the only possibilities. /s

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