The myth of Musk has become increasingly tattered over recent years. He’s no MoTU, not a world-spanning genius uniquely able to bend technology to his will. As the Twitter debacle has made obvious, he’s no more than an ordinarily clever guy who parlayed a family apartheid fortune and some good timing into early Silicon Valley success, who then deployed his one true talent–as a hype man and a skilled approach to the manipulation of gov’t subsidies–to parlay a first fortune into the stupendous wealth he has today.
That talent had its uses: Space X is a real company, and Tesla can, I think, be credited with accelerating the electric car transition. How much credit he truly deserves for either is a question I’ll leave for those who will do the research and reporting. My point here is that this emperor is truly naked, which is a mental image I’m sorry I just created for you.
And no, this is not a post about today’s Twitter horrorshow, in which it seems that Musk has gone all in on enabling and succoring the dissemination of CSAM.* It is, rather, that he’s a common garden-variety con man.
Tesla…decided about a decade ago, for marketing purposes, to write algorithms for its range meter that would show drivers “rosy” projections for the distance it could travel on a full battery, according to a person familiar with an early design of the software for its in-dash readouts.
“Tesla” didn’t decide; Musk did.
The directive to present the optimistic range estimates came from Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, this person said.
“Elon wanted to show good range numbers when fully charged,” the person said, adding: “When you buy a car off the lot seeing 350-mile, 400-mile range, it makes you feel good.”
That’s the classic con-dynamic. Make the mark feel good just long enough to spirit away their cash.
Musk then compounded the fraud. When Tesla owners tried to schedule service to deal with what seemed to be defective batteries, Tesla employees were directed to gaslight them:
…last summer, Tesla created the Las Vegas “Diversion Team” to handle only range cases, according to the people familiar with the matter.
The office atmosphere at times resembled that of a telemarketing boiler room. A supervisor had purchased the metallophone – a xylophone with metal keys – that employees struck to celebrate appointment cancellations, according to the people familiar with the office’s operations.
Advisers would normally run remote diagnostics on customers’ cars and try to call them, the people said. They were trained to tell customers that the EPA-approved range estimates were just a prediction, not an actual measurement, and that batteries degrade over time, which can reduce range. Advisors would offer tips on extending range by changing driving habits.
If the remote diagnostics found anything else wrong with the vehicle that was not related to driving range, advisors were instructed not to tell the customer, one of the sources said. Managers told them to close the cases.
That is, the Tesla response seems to have been, “We sold you vaporware! Sucks to be you.”
IANAL, but to me this at least approaches criminality. It certainly confirms my already firm buying decision. Sometime in the next couple of years I’ll be looking to replace my venerable appliance, a 2013 Toyota Prius plug-in. My wife and I plan to buy an all-electric vehicle once the current ride either turns its toes to the ceiling or my son needs a car.
There were already lots of reasons beyond Musk’s personal wretchedness to avoid Tesla (my son still laughs at the Tesla guy at their Prudential Center showroom who insisted that a visible half-inch rise between panels on a Model Y was “within spec”). But this? Not just the range issue, but the terrifying evidence of service negligence–this is not a company in which anyone should put any trust.
But we knew that.
Have some thread, as open as a manhole cover when you really, really need there not to be traffic.
*I was today years old when I learned that acronym and I find it double-plus ungood that I inhabit a timeline in which such coinages are evoked.
Image: Guy Pène du Bois, The Confidence Man, 1919.