When Reuters reported in April that Tesla had scrapped plans for a long-promised, next-generation $25,000 electric vehicle, the automaker’s stock plunged. Chief Executive Elon Musk rushed to respond on X, his social-media network.

“Reuters is lying,” he posted, without elaborating. Tesla’s stock recovered some of its losses.

Six months later, Musk appears to have backed into an admission that Tesla dropped its plans for a human-driven $25,000 car. He said in an Oct. 23 earnings call that building the affordable EV would be "pointless” unless the car was fully autonomous.

  • @Grimy
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    16 days ago

    Every country subsidized their auto industry, it’s just that all the benefit goes directly to ceos except in china apparently.

    Ford received 9 billion in June.

    • @[email protected]
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      -116 days ago

      Ford received a loan to use toward building new factories for EV production. In China, Ford would owned by the government and funded with taxpayer dollars directly.

        • @[email protected]
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          116 days ago

          Sure, when that rationalization comes with lax environmental regulations and zero worker protections along with heavy subsidies that expire just after their last competitors close up shop. What are you left with then?

          • @Grimy
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            16 days ago

            It’s better to keep private companies in charge of environmental regulations and worker protection, they will self-regulate.

            God knows they won’t mouth fuck us the moment they have a monopoly at least.

            • @[email protected]
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              016 days ago

              Where is that the case? Dumping toxic shit into the water/air and using slave labor is one of the reasons why they can sell their cars so cheaply. This person is trying to claim it’s due to rationalization alone.