@Concerned_Catgirl Eh, he's at least using his money to push technological improvement, which is better than what what most millionaires do. Including improved renewable energy and electric car technology, which are really important technologies. Seeing as most other rich people tend to go for "lets spend our money on more money" and "Lets lobby the government to make everything shitty", I think he's coming out ahead. :/

@Angle @Concerned_Catgirl Tesla's electric cars are shit-tier iirc

@a_breakin_glass @Angle @Concerned_Catgirl That really depends on your definition of shit-tier.

Their initial quality control is absolutely shit-tier - malaise-era American levels of bad. (It seems that after the fact, things get fixed, though.) Their treatment of independent service (straight-up not providing any info on it, tying things to the mothership) is also incredibly shitty.

@Concerned_Catgirl @Angle @a_breakin_glass ...however, there's another way to look at it. Teslas are in some ways shit-tier *cars*, but they're not shit-tier *electric cars*, if that makes sense.

Tesla is the only carmaker making EVs that can fully replace most people's internal combustion cars, really. They're the only one that deployed the infrastructure necessary to do it, for one.

Most automakers see EVs as something they're forced to make.

@a_breakin_glass @Angle @Concerned_Catgirl The closest competition for Tesla is the Chevy Bolt, with similar range to Tesla's shorter range offerings.

However, doing a long distance trip that requires charging en route in a Bolt is nearly impossible, or at least much slower, due to a lack of public fast charging - and GM's CEO has zero interest in deploying that infrastructure, because their gas and diesel offerings can't use it.

@Concerned_Catgirl @Angle @a_breakin_glass If you're lucky and get 80 kW+ DC chargers on your route, you can get 90 mi of range in 30 min. (Note that Tesla's Supercharger network can do almost twice that rate of charge.)

More likely, you might find 50 kW chargers - even slower. Oh, and these fast chargers tend to be ruinously expensive.

But, you're also most likely to only get 7.2 kW chargers - 8 hours for a full charge. Not really practical for roadtrips.

@a_breakin_glass @Angle @Concerned_Catgirl And then, because the Bolt is a cynical attempt to comply with government mandates, GM cut some major corners on things.

The most notable example is the seats, which have almost no padding, and plastic frames that are extremely narrow, and dig into a lot of people. These are literally the second worst seats I've sat in in a vehicle.

@bhtooefr @a_breakin_glass @Concerned_Catgirl Oh! What about Tesla releasing their patents? I take it that wasn't everything? :/

@Angle @a_breakin_glass @Concerned_Catgirl As far as I'm aware, Tesla released all of their patents for good faith use by other automakers. (As I understand, this is basically a patent non-aggression pact. Sue them for violating your patents, and your patent license is revoked.)

However, at least until recently, the other automakers don't want to make EVs. They see them as things that they're forced to build because of California, really.

@bhtooefr @a_breakin_glass @Concerned_Catgirl What about random people? Can I access Teslas patents? Or am I confusing open patent with open source? :/