Late Stage Capitalism

generative AI vs just AI...is this the difference?

(Mirror.)

After a little over a year on the market, sales of the 6,600-pound vehicle, priced from $82,000, are laughably below what Musk predicted. Its lousy reputation for quality–with eight recalls in the past 13 months, the latest for body panels that fall off–and polarizing look made it a punchline for comedians. Unlike past auto flops that just looked ridiculous or sold badly, Musk’s truck is also a focal point for global Tesla protests spurred by the billionaire’s job-slashing DOGE role and MAGA politics.

“It’s right up there with Edsel,” said Eric Noble, president of consultancy CARLAB and a professor at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California (Tesla design chief Franz von Holzhausen, who styled Cybertruck for Musk, is a graduate of its famed transportation design program). “It’s a huge swing and a huge miss.”

Judged solely on sales, Musk’s Cybertruck is actually doing a lot worse than Edsel, a name that’s become synonymous with a disastrous product misfire. Ford hoped to sell 200,000 Edsels a year when it hit the market in 1958, but managed just 63,000. Sales plunged in 1959 and the brand was dumped in 1960. Musk predicted that Cybertruck might see 250,000 annual sales. Tesla sold just under 40,000 in 2024, its first full year. There’s no sign that volume is rising this year, with sales trending lower in January and February, according to Cox Automotive.

And Tesla’s overall sales are plummeting this year, with deliveries tumbling 13% in the first quarter to 337,000 units, well below consensus expectations of 408,000. The company did not break out Cybertruck sales, which is lumped in with the Model S and Model X, its priciest segment. But it’s clear Cybertruck sales were hurt this quarter by the need to make recall-related fixes, Ben Kallo, an equity analyst for Baird, said in a research note. Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The quarterly slowdown underscores the fact that when it comes to the Cybertruck, results are nowhere near the billionaire entrepreneur’s carnival barker claims.

“Demand is off the charts,” he crowed during a results call in November 2023, just before the first units started shipping to customers. “We have over 1 million people who have reserved the car.”

In anticipation of high sales, Tesla even modified its Austin Gigafactory so it could produce up to 250,000 Cybertrucks a year, capacity investments that aren’t likely to be recouped.

“They didn't just say they wanted to sell a lot. They capacitized to sell a lot,” said industry researcher Glenn Mercer, who leads Cleveland-based advisory firm GM Automotive. But the assumption of massive demand has proven foolhardy. And it failed to account for self-inflicted wounds that further stymied sales. Turns out the elephantine Cybertruck is either too large or non-compliant with some countries’ pedestrian safety rules, so there’s little opportunity to boost sales with exports.

“They haven’t sold a lot and it’s unlikely in this case that overseas markets can save them, even China that’s been huge for Tesla cars,” Mercer said. “It’s really just for this market.”

Story from 2011

Eat The Rich!

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/8106285

https://truthout.org/articles/socialism-is-gaining-popularity-poll-shows/

"Neoliberalism breeds psychological distress by working to obliterate solidarity, the very essence of humanity, while converting the right to physical and mental health care into an exclusive and costly endeavour – an arrangement that only aggravates mental health stressors for those of lesser socioeconomic means."

elon can't have a W...outer-space doesn't want him there

maybe the project table was upside-down and things ended in the wrong way

Grok, Elon's already comically biased AI tool, has been tweaked recently to very inorganically start spouting off white genocide rhetoric at random. This is to support the narrative that white afrikaners are being mass murdered in South Africa, when there really isn't any evidence of that.

This is another one of those "Invent an atrocity and then call everyone saying it's not what's happening a genocide denier" type deals. Shit's fucked.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/7856387

I found this to be ubiquitous in capitalist countries - not even the bare minimum effort to curb COVID while spouting Sinophobic nonsense about conformity & an authoritarian government doing lockdown, meanwhile they dismantled data collection & reduced messaging about COVID to it being a seasonal flu (it's not).

Not only this, but having COVID infect so many people made the entire population more susceptible to whatever comes next. Now people talk about COVID as if it's in the past, but never identify it these days - they just say they have a "bad flu"

cross-posted from: https://lazysoci.al/post/25670115