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.

  • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    14 hours 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.

    • BakerBagel
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      14 hours ago

      Damn, sounds like nationalizing an industry leads to lower costs and cheaper products.

      • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        13 hours 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@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          11 hours 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.

          • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            8 hours 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.