Tesla electric car sales plunge again in Australia – Model 3 down more than 81 p

He relocated to Texas specifically because it was a friendlier judicial environment for him. Even in the incredibly unlikely event this approach worked and the court ruled against him, he'd just relocate to a state that offered him a better deal. There is no accountability in our present system for someone like Elon Musk. Too rich, too connected, too powerful to touch.

European courts could, Latin American as well, possibly Asian for the international markets, which would then be pressure on the American HQ and courts as the international market is, last I checked >50% of their sales. Likely less so now, since they are dropping so heavily in every market (including China, as of this morning, plunging by 49%^1 - China _made_ up ~25% of their sales).

^1 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/tesla-stock-...

Literally any of them? I don't even get this comment at all.

The G in ESG stands for governance.

A couple of years ago it was a meme to ask why Tesla got poor ESG scores compared with random fossil fuel producers.

Part of the answer was the Governance of Tesla being really bad.

Another part was Musk just refusing to file the paperwork to get a decent score. Which he wouldn't get away with if the governance was better.

>> Are car sales in general down?

>Apparently not [1]

>[1] https://www.marklines.com/en/statistics/flash_sales/automoti...

Your source says the opposite?

>Passenger car sales of 12,783 units in January represented a 22.2% decrease from the same period in 2024, SUV sales of 52,748 units represented a 5.9% increase

In Europe it varies by country, but in general Tesla is down while EV sales are up or steady.

> Figures published towards the end of February by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) showed that Tesla sold just 9,945 units in January, a 45 per cent fall from 18,161 in the same month a year earlier – and despite a 37 per cent growth in overall EV sales.

https://thedriven.io/2025/03/04/tesla-sales-continue-to-plum...

The article however is discussing year-over-year.

> The plunge in Tesla electric vehicle sales has continued into February, according to the latest official data, with combined sales of the Model Y and Model 3 EVs plunging 71.9 per cent in the month of February, compared to the same month a year earlier.

Meanwhile EV sales appear to be UP globally year-over-year (in this case, January 2024 to January 2025)

https://rhomotion.com/news/global-ev-sales-grow-by-18-in-202...

For February probably not, they might have cared less about the "Heil Musk" stuff than we in Europe did. I guess for March Canada however might make it to the top 5...

Not really.

In the last couple of years the German automakers completely missed the trend towards EVs had only had a laughable product palette. This also causes them to close a lot of factories in Europe, and that is still happening right now.

But you have to keep in mind that the market for EVs is growing. So, once Tesla closes their factory, Volkswagen & Co will be more than happy to hire those workers.

And of course, with arson attacks on Tesla stuff becoming common over here, the factory might go up in flames soon, anyway.

At least when it comes to Germany, I can clearly say: No, it's not. An employee of the Tesla dealer for the Frankfurt region told me that he's got "less than 10" people on his list to call once he has the new Model Y in the show room.

February 2024, not 2014 :)

He still hasn't got his $56 billion pay package, right? I imagine he'll at least want to prop the stock up until he gets that.

About half his net worth is Tesla, but it fluctuates.

Teslas already have an always-on cell modem. Unless you live in the boonies, adding starlink isn't going to make you more trackable than you are already.

> nothing prevents the mad man from using Tesla cars and Starlink for surveillance

Forget surveillance: refusal to support. (Bricking has no plausible deniability.) If you don’t do X, Y and Z I will be forced to geoblock your country; if that causes cars to stop driving so be it.

Any and all dependence on the US is now a liability to the remaining democracies.

i say this as a tesla owner, knowing that getting rid of my tesla doesn't necessarily help anything..... and having bought my car despite Elon (certainly not because of him) a handful of years back.

Tesla's value gives Elon his money which also gives him his power. For obvious reasons Elon is VERY associated with Tesla. People are viewing purchasing a Tesla as giving Elon money, which isn't totally wrong but isn't as direct as people as saying either.

In the case of Tesla the threat is Elon himself and how he chooses to use his power. The cars (in my opinion) are not a threat IRT surveillance etc. I think its easy enough to cover the cameras etc. Of course I can be wrong, as I often am.

In the case of Starlink.... being able to use communication and internet access during an emergency to make money, or use it for influence is pretty powerful. particularly as the US govt (which Elon is a part of) pivots towards an alliance with Russia, starlink is a massive liability that Ukraine cannot count on AT ALL. Nothing is stopping Elon from pulling access to starlink at the behest of Putin. America is already pausing anti-russian activity IRT cyber attacks etc under the guise of "good faith during active negotiations". Why wouldn't starlink be next? Why can't starlink be used to suppress access to things. Remember the stories about ISPs injecting ads into content that they didn't own? Why can't starlink just start serving propaganda and misinformation instead of actual content?

These are a threat because they are not being used for the good of humanity and civilization. Elon has deluded himself into thinking that he knows what is best for the world and is using his power/money/influence/technology to assert those ideas and opinions onto the world.

Until we have literally any evidence to the contrary, Elon, Trump, and Putin can all be named interchangeably

> How exactly are they a threat to the free world?

First by playing 'free market' and getting bilions in incentives from taxpayer money. And then they will be a threat by the time Tesla will lock you into a subscription model and starlink sell your data to the government the first time it will feel threatened.

Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.

> Starlink is helping Ukraine.

The company owned by the dude who wants immediate Ukraine surrender and threatens Ukraine armed forces with disconnecting them?

Oh so helpful.

Starlink isn't helping helping Ukraine out of the goodness of Elon's heart; he's being paid millions of dollars to provide a service. It's just another business deal for him that he can spin into good publicity as well. His public comments have made it very clear that he doesn't care about the Ukrainian people. Given that he's co-leading an administration that is completely aligning itself with Putin I don't expect that to continue for much longer. As soon as the payments stop, and possibly even sooner, that service will be gone.

You might remember the reason a bunch of this started is that Starlink would not help Ukraine unless Ukraine agreed not to hurt Russia too much.

It certainly seems as though many people's opinion of FSD is very much out of date. I recall riding in a friend's M3 in 2020 when he attempted to demonstrate FSD (or whatever it was called at the time). We didn't make it more than a minute or so before he had to deactivate it. When I picked up my M3 years later, I assumed FSD would still be mostly vaporware.

I honestly can't believe how good is has gotten. It's not perfect and I maintain full awareness of what it's doing, but it performs incredibly well 95% of the time. It's really nice to feel like you're being driven by a mostly competent driver everywhere you go. Really, it makes about the same number (or less) of mistakes as other people I've driven with, but the mistakes are of a different sort, and after a while you develop an intuition of the situations that are going to challenge it.

According to Out of Spec, Huawei system in Avatr 11 is better than Tesla.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuDSz06BT2g