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He does all this with HUGE government loans and private loans.

Maybe you might want to look at reality. You say they received HUGE government loans. I assume you mean the $465 million dollar loan Tesla received from the Department of Energy. Are you aware that Tesla paid that loan back with interest? The government made money on that loan. Were you aware that the DOE gave Ford a $5.9 billion dollar loan, and Nissan $1.4 billion under the same program?

what marketing campaign? Do I live under a rock? I thought you had to agree to reasonable terms to use the product? Is every manufacturer liable if you misuse their products (Guns?)

I mean here is a great one with his marketing weasel nonsense.

This is not the first Tesla rollover crash I've read about, the other one would lead me to believe that Teslas are in fact safer than average.

And you would be dead wrong All teslas are lemons. If you took Musks cock out of you month long enough you would realize truth.

From this report (chart on page 7), a passenger car rollover (ie - not a light truck) begets a 16% chance of fatality.

This is not the first Tesla rollover crash I've read about, the other one would lead me to believe that Teslas are in fact safer than average. (Click the link and see for yourself, the crash was reportedly spectacular.)

Of the crash in question, Tesla had this to say:

“We received an automated alert from this vehicle on July 1 indicating airbag deployment, but logs containing detailed information on the state of the vehicle controls at the time of the collision were never received. This is consistent with damage of the severity reported in the press, which can cause the antenna to fail. As we do with all crash events, we immediately reached out to the customer to confirm they were ok and offer support but were unable to reach him. We have since attempted to contact the customer three times by phone without success. Based on the information we have now, we have no reason to believe that Autopilot had anything to do with this accident.”

The owner *claims* that the car was in autopilot, but we don't really know yet.

Also of note, the following (from same link):

[...] As reported yesterday, the police investigator on the case, Dale Vukovich, said that he is likely to charge Scaglione after his investigation without specifying the charges.

I'm going to wait a couple of days before making any judgements on this specific incident.

At the worst, it *may be* that autopilot mode isn't appropriate for human drivers simply due to the chance of it being misused. If too many people are relying on it when they shouldn't, then it likely should be taken off the market.

But that's an entirely different situation from Tesla being negligent, or unsafe, or unpromising.

From this report (chart on page 7), a passenger car rollover (ie - not a light truck) begets a 16% chance of fatality.

This is not the first Tesla rollover crash I've read about, the other one would lead me to believe that Teslas are in fact safer than average. (Click the link and see for yourself, the crash was reportedly spectacular.)

Of the crash in question, Tesla had this to say:

“We received an automated alert from this vehicle on July 1 indicating airbag deployment, but logs containing detailed information on the state of the vehicle controls at the time of the collision were never received. This is consistent with damage of the severity reported in the press, which can cause the antenna to fail. As we do with all crash events, we immediately reached out to the customer to confirm they were ok and offer support but were unable to reach him. We have since attempted to contact the customer three times by phone without success. Based on the information we have now, we have no reason to believe that Autopilot had anything to do with this accident.”

The owner *claims* that the car was in autopilot, but we don't really know yet.

Also of note, the following (from same link):

[...] As reported yesterday, the police investigator on the case, Dale Vukovich, said that he is likely to charge Scaglione after his investigation without specifying the charges.

I'm going to wait a couple of days before making any judgements on this specific incident.

At the worst, it *may be* that autopilot mode isn't appropriate for human drivers simply due to the chance of it being misused. If too many people are relying on it when they shouldn't, then it likely should be taken off the market.

But that's an entirely different situation from Tesla being negligent, or unsafe, or unpromising.

Do you have an example of such marketing? I've never seen it.

Read *between* the lines like an actual human being. Not like a pedant trying to win an argument on a technicality.

https://www.technologyreview.c...

http://electrek.co/2016/04/20/...

"During a presentation following the release of the system, Musk said that in good road conditions âoepeople may [remove their hands from the steering-wheel], but we donâ(TM)t advise that.â "

In other words, you can do it, but we don't advise it. "wink wink [cough]lawyers made us say this[cough]".

That is generally the message they are broadcasting.

http://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-c...

" Even with this early version, itâ(TM)s almost twice as good as a person."

He doesn't say, it makes a human driver safer by acting as a useful failsafe. He specifically says it drives better than people do.

Read between the lines.

http://wccftech.com/tesla-auto...

" The feature itself has gained a lot of fame in the recent months thanks to its obvious novelty value and the fact that it is the first hands-off, self-driving technology on the market today."

Ah, but some of this is journalism and press coverage not actually marketing from Tesla. Right. So what? You think Tesla isn't loaning the cars and press kits to journalists? You think they aren't leveraging that mis information...

https://www.teslamotors.com/en...

They fucking link to it right from their own site. This link is on that page:

http://www.cnet.com/roadshow/v...

And this is the caption:
"Tesla doesn't have a fully autonomous car yet. But, with the addition of Autopilot mode, cruising down the highway is now a hands-off affair."

You can't credibly claim that Tesla isn't spreading the word that autopilot allows for 'hands off driving'; despite the disclaimers here and there.

see honey? I told you it wasn't my fault!

The LA Times attacks on Tesla and Musk are nothing but a poorly researched hatchet job, probably funded by the fossil fuel industry in an attempt to discredit Tesla and distract the media from their own failings (such as the fact that the fossil fuel industry receives $5 trillion in subsidies a year).

http://electrek.co/2016/05/12/...

Responding to myself to provide citations and additional details, since there's some (perfectly understandable) incredulity in response to my comment.

Regarding the weld, it's a variety of friction welding that SpaceX developed:
http://electrek.co/2015/05/24/...
http://gas2.org/2015/05/29/spa...

Regarding the crush test breaking the machine:
http://www.wired.com/2013/08/t...
http://www.roadandtrack.com/ne...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

It's also worth noting that Tesla claimed they had achieved a NHTSA safety rating score of 5.4, which was utter and complete nonsense since the scoring is capped at 5 stars. Tesla apparently arrived at that number by totaling up each of the subcategories and ignoring the fact that the total score is capped by design. The NHTSA rightly slapped Tesla for saying they had achieved a score beyond the max, and by no means should my previous comment be taken as an endorsement of Tesla or everything they've claimed regarding their safety record over the years. I was simply sharing a neat tidbit that seemed relevant. Nothing more.

Already in the works:

In an email sent out last night (see below), Tesla confirmed that following the overwhelming number of Model 3 reservations it received, the company is currently âoeincreasing its production plans to minimize the wait for Model 3â.

http://electrek.co/2016/04/07/...