Andrea Basso

/13

In short, Musk and Tesla are talking a big game to investors and its wide-eyed fans about how amazing its Robotaxis will be — but its private groveling with regulators suggests that it's fibbing to at least one of those groups.

/12

"Rodeo drivers are trained to always and immediately intervene whenever they believe their vehicles may be about to perform a behavior that may create an unsafe situation for themselves and/or other road users," Eric Williams, Tesla counsel of regulatory affairs, wrote in a letter to Acosta.

/11

In November, Acosta reached out to Tesla after Business Insider reporting previously came out about its secretive test driver program "Project Rodeo," in which it allegedly instructed participants to purposely get the cars into perilous situations and only intervene at the last moment.

/10

CPUC spokesperson Terrie Prosper warned that Tesla can't use an autonomous vehicle to transport the public whatsoever, regardless of whether it has a safety driver and whether it charges for rides.

/9

Then on Friday, Business Insider reported that Tesla was jumping straight into inviting select Tesla owners into the program and charging them for rides — a clear violation of the agreed terms.

/8

To his adoring fans Musk continued to keep up the charade — much to the chagrin of regulators. Before a July meeting, Musk made a post on X saying that the Robotaxi service would come to the Bay Area "probably in a month or two," and claimed that it was just "waiting on regulatory approvals."

/7

In a glaring admission, Blaine said Tesla would use supervised, Full Self-Driving software that's "functionally the same" as the FSD available in regular Tesla cars. FSD is not capable of operating without a human behind the wheel, and is officially classified as driver assistance software.

/6

Apologizing for the incident, Blaine went on to frame the Tesla program as more like a ride-hailing service like Uber, according to Politico, using strikingly different language from Musk's public promises of a robotaxi service that would threaten the leader in the industry, Waymo.

/5

And for all of Musk's boasts of deploying a million robotaxis by the end of next year, Tesla is in reality walking a tightrope with regulators that it scrambled to apologize for suggesting in a social media post that the automaker would be operating unsupervised rides in LA this year.

/4

Also, there's this detail: Tesla's not-a-robotaxis come with a human supervisor sitting in the driver's seat, which is a step backward from its Austin program, which features a safety monitor sitting in the front passenger seat.

/3

Note that we say it's a "ride-hailing service," because Tesla hasn't obtained all the necessary permits to operate a robotaxi service in California. The use of the term "robotaxi" is conspicuously absent in both the company's and Musk's messaging about the Bay Area roll-out.

/2

Email exchanges between Tesla and California regulators obtained by Politico reveal a comical discrepancy between what Elon Musk is saying his Robotaxi services can do publicly, and what the automaker is actually telling authorities behind closed doors.

These Behind-the-Scenes Emails From Tesla Meekly Begging the State of California to Allow Its Horrible Robotaxis Are Unintentionally Hilarious As Elon Musk confidently boasts about his outrageous robotaxi ambitions, his company is privately begging regulators to not clip their wings.

Futurism - These Behind-the-Scenes Emails From Tesla Meekly Begging the State of California to Allow Its Horrible Robotaxis Are Unintentionally Hilarious

Please, sir, don't punish our humble trillion dollar company!

#Tesla

/1

Elon Musk Warns of Losing Tesla Control, Denies Personal Loans Tied To Shares Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA), has expressed concerns over potentially losing control of the electric vehicle giant due to the influence of activist shareholders. What Happened: Musk,...

Benzinga - Elon Musk Warns of Losing Tesla Control, Denies Personal Loans Tied To Shares

In a recent statement on Friday on X, Musk affirmed that he has no personal loans against Tesla stock and reiterated his anxieties about being ousted by “activist shareholders”.

#Tesla

This isn't an Uber ride in a Tesla. It's a Tesla "Robotaxi" ride in the Bay Area last night. I kid you not. 😂

No surprise that $TSLA got booted from the Magnificent 7.

But it's still worth 5.2x more than Uber & 3.5x more than Toyota Motor.

We live in strange times.

The Tesla Files: A whistleblower, a leak, a fight for truth: The Inside Story of Musk's Empire Sönke Iwersen, Michael Verfürden · Audiobook

An excellent listen.

open.spotify.com/show/0KHs1GL...

Tesla Diner is a car wreck of ‘epic’ proportions

Even the three, four, and five-star fan boi reviews on Google have a troubling commonality: they urge readers to avoid the food.

«it feels worryingly like the restaurant is already on life support.»

#ElonQ
$TSLAQ

Ht @protos.com

The lost court case in Miami is now surely helping. Let’s hope this is just the beginning of wonderful justice dealt to Elon Musk, who is responsible for many deaths (not just through Tesla but also through Starlink).

A divestment campaign is already in motion.

IMO big money people cannot be trusted to turn their back on fraud just because it’s the right thing to do. The position has to start hurting them.

Depress Musk brand → Depress Tesla sales → TSLA underwater

Big money must be forced out of its positions

/7

The plaintiffs’ lead lawyer said Tesla’s decision to even use the term Autopilot showed it was willing to mislead people and take big risks with their lives because the system only helps drivers with lane changes, slowing a car and other tasks, falling far short of driving the car itself.

/6

“It’s a big number that will send shockwaves to others in the industry,” said financial analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities. “It’s not a good day for Tesla.”

/5

In this case, the plaintiffs showed Tesla had the evidence all along, despite its repeated denials, by hiring a forensic data expert who dug it up. Tesla said it made a mistake after being shown the evidence and honestly hadn’t thought it was there.

/4

The decision ends a four-year long case remarkable not just in its outcome but that it even made it to trial. Many similar cases against Tesla have been dismissed and, when that didn’t happen, settled by the company to avoid the spotlight of a trial.

/3

The federal jury held that Tesla bore significant responsibility because its technology failed and that not all the blame can be put on a reckless driver, even one who admitted he was distracted by his cell phone before hitting a young couple out gazing at the stars.

/2

A Miami jury decided that Elon Musk’s car company Tesla was partly responsible for a deadly crash in Florida involving its Autopilot driver assist technology and must pay the victims more than $200 million in damages.

Jury orders Tesla to pay more than $240 million in Autopilot crash case A Miami jury decided that Elon Musk’s car company Tesla was partly responsible for a deadly crash in Florida involving its Autopilot driver assist technology and must pay the victims more than $240 mi...

AP - Jury orders Tesla to pay more than $240 million in Autopilot crash case

“This will open the floodgates,” said Miguel Custodio, a car crash lawyer not involved in the Tesla case. “It will embolden a lot of people to come to court.”

#Tesla

/1

Yes, they can do more pumps as long as the big investors like retirements funds still keep their shares and not fulfill their duty vs their members who expect a return for their investment.

Maybe the #TeslaTakedown should focus more on these retirement funds to act and sell their Tesla shares?

It doesn't operate any autonomous ride hailing service. Not in San Francisco, not in Austin.

They can call it what they want, it's an ADAS level 2 (SAE) with either a safety driver or remote controlled with a safety driver in the passenger seat, in case the broken and defective system fucks up!

They can call it what they want. Beyond the simps no one with a sane mind is going to pay money to this stupid ride hail service. If I want a Tesla, I simply select it in the ride hail app and my Uber driver will show up in an EV.

I don't think I ever agreed more with a headline of your video. He's beyond being an idiot, he's so obviously stupid and on top of that, he thinks he's the smartest person in the room. The one that is always right, the one that doesn't need to read anything as he already knows anything!