1y ago

Tesla warns that a federal probe into whether it exaggerated the range of its cars may lead to a 'material adverse impact on our business'

fortune.com Tesla warns that a federal probe into whether it exaggerated the range of its cars may lead to a 'material adverse impact on our business'

Earlier this year, Reuters reported that Tesla had created a special “diversions team” to avoid dealing with complaints from customers about their vehicle ranges.

Tesla warns that a federal probe into whether it exaggerated the range of its cars may lead to a 'material adverse impact on our business'

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1y ago

Tesla warns that a federal probe into whether it exaggerated the range of its cars may lead to a ‘material adverse impact on our business’

fortune.com /2023/10/23/tesla-doj-investigation-car-vehicle-range-personal-benefits/

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93 comments

I guess this is approaching the "find out" phase.
VW/Audi group fucked around with emission tests, and they found out.
- They found out what? Their business wasn't affected at all as far as I can tell. They should have been broken up and shut down but instead they got caught doing the same thing AGAIN.
  So yeah, not sure what Tesla is going to find out other than "money means you can get away with anything", which Musk already knows well.
  And just to be clear, I own a Tesla. I just got it back from the shop after ELEVEN MONTHS because those fucking tools would rather sell more cars on false promises than divert some parts to repair the cars they've already sold. I love that car but I'm selling it. Nobody should go anywhere near Tesla cars until they get their supply chain shit together.
  
  Did they loan you another car during that time, or were you stuck paying on a car you couldn't use for 11 months? I'd consider suing if it was the latter.
  
  A lot of businesses get away with shit, but the emissions scandal did lead to some big fines and criminal investigations into the upper most management level.
- Yes, they found out that there's no real drawback to falsifying statements.

That's the point Tesla... next time dont lie about your range.
- Honestly the range isn't even an issue. Yes they did something wrong, but IMO in terms of misleading customers it's not at the top of the list long list. They have all this horseshit about "full self driving" that they stick all over their website with pretty animations and graphics.
  Then you actually read into it and the fine text says "oh by the way, it's technically just a slightly suicidal/homicidal level 2 ADAS that nobody has signed off on, and that Tesla can yank it out from under you at any time, and thst WILL be conveniently forgotten about and valued at $0 if you decide to trade in your car with tesla, but it's cool brosky just do it for the likes"
  
  A lot of the venture capitalist driven industry has been fueled by an ask for forgiveness not permission move fast and break thing philosophy tesla included. It's about time the law start catching up with them instead of caving to their will because its a TOTALLY NEW idea because an app is involved.

"If you tell our customers we misled them, that would be bad for our business!"

So, basically... "an investigation into whether we lied to customers in order to sell them stuff would have an impact on our business". Well, yeah, that's true. Shockingly, customers don't like being lied to about the quality of the goods they're buying, and hearing that there's enough indication of lying to warrant a full probe into it would make future customers hesitant to buy. While wrongdoing hasn't been proven yet, I can't imagine this probe would be happening "just in case" Tesla lied - there must have been a high volume of complaints from customers who aren't happy. The precedent set by not investigating would be awful. It'd basically say businesses can claim whatever they like about their products, because being caught lying about them would always have the consequence of "material adverse impact on our business".

He warns? Does he now? I know that bashing journalists is a rightwing ting, but these dudes are really complicit in all of this shit. How the hell do you come up with that kind of headline? He warns
- @MayonnaiseArch @Five This is why people argue government officials shouldn't hold individual stocks. He is hoping there are enough people in a position to gut the investigation who own a lot of Tesla stock.
  
  Bingo! If accountability hurts the bottom line, then The Big Money will argue against accountability in any form.
  Big Money got a mighty voice.
  Big Money make no sound.
  
  Hurts 401k's too.

For a "genius", he sure is slow on the uptake.
- He sure is lucky for someone so stupid.
  
  I have to wonder if the entire concept of the business savvy billionaire is just a case of survivorship bias. Not for all of them, but a lot.
  I mean, if you get the population of the civilized world together and have them start flipping coins, plenty of people are going to get heads 20 times in a row. Or if they’re from a rich family maybe they only have to get 10 heads in a row.
  (Used round numbers for illustration. 20 heads in a row is only about 1 in a million, 10 heads is one in a thousand.)
  
  The world tends to find that having an extraordinarily wealthy parent makes its own luck.

If the truth about your business hurts your business, you don’t have a good business.
- Are you seriously suggesting that a company (tesla) that does 50 billion in sales is NOT worth three times the value a company that does 250 billion (toyota)?
  The Tesla valuation is such a fucking joke. They are a "bigger" company that Toyota, Honda, or Ford despite not even doing a fraction of their outright sales, and likely making less on every single one of those sales. Their only advantage is that they were making electric cars before it made economic sense to make them. Now that everyone else is jumping in they are going to die on the vine because people can get a real EV that costs half of a Tesla and actually works.
  Tesla DID have a chance of leveraging their early market presence by either introducing a higher quality or cheaper vehicle that could compete with their new competitors. Their existing presence could have captured enough of the market to stand against them if they had a product that was in the same league. Instead they made the fucking Cybertruck.
  
  Right, so it’s a bad company, like I said.

Yes, that’s how consequences work.
- So the purpose of a federal investigation is to ensure the thing being investigated is shut down by the investigation?
  
  If the offense is found to violate federal law, there should indeed be consequences. Hence the investigation part — to determine the extent.
  That’s how enforcing law works.
- Only for prime under a certain income threshold.

@Five
"Well hey, now, let's not get hasty. If you investigate me for crimes, you will find that I committed crimes! That would be bad for mee. Is that really what you want?"

Yes, that is the point, Tesla.

then maybe you shouldn't have lied to your customers about your cars
- If it were an established fact that they lied it’d be over

IE "we lied, but don't tell nobody!"

Yeah that's how it works, you fucked around and something something

So it has the intended effect.
- Man you guys love this “gloves are off” stuff don’t you?
  
  What do you mean?

Well yeah buddy, that's why you used fraud to increase profits.

Why are there so many comments that start with "@five"? I feel like there's something about how the site works that I'm misunderstanding. Isn't the user who posted the article automatically notified when someone posts a comment?
- I think that's from mastodon users, and how mastodon works when replying. I haven't personally used mastodon though, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
  
  That's correct. @aral@mastodon.ar.al discovered and boosted the post, and it snowballed across the Tootiverse. They're all pinging @Five because that's how Mastodon does post replies.
- appears to be mastodon users simply formatting their responses as if this was a mastodon (microblog) post instead of lemmy post, which is nbd.

@Five Oh good.
What he means is that being found out for lying will impact how much people believe him.
Well no shit Sherlock.

@Five Fancy way of saying "we can't win without cheating"

Is that how that works? /s

Good. Fuck that chowder-head #fascist.

Oh no! Anyway.

@Five Most Si valley businesses are built on exaggerated claims. You don't work your way to wealth. You lie and pillage your way to it.

You gave warning a whole new meaning.

Elon = moron*c^2

Looking forward to the mob using that as a legal defense.

This sounds a lot like a threat.

- What is this?

@Five @voron I can’t wait until this vile grifter is in prison.

🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles: ::: spoiler Click here to see the summary Tesla says it has received requests for information and subpoenas from the US Department of Justice related to potential personal benefits violations, the advertised range of its vehicles and personnel decisions.
The Wall Street Journal in September reported that federal prosecutors are investigating perks provided to Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk going back as far back as 2017, including a project described as a glass house for Musk.
Earlier this year, Reuters reported that Tesla had created a special “diversions team” to avoid dealing with complaints from customers about their vehicle ranges.
The filing warned of “the possibility of a material adverse impact on our business” should the government pursue an enforcement action.
The subpoenas add to a mounting number of government probes into the electric-vehicle maker.
In September, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Tesla alleging that it has been “tolerating widespread and ongoing racial harassment of its Black employees” at its Fremont, California, plant.
Saved 21% of original text. :::

https://media.tenor.com/Wv9QRUTqJOAAAAAd/liar-liar-jim-carrey.gif

Tough shit.

@Five I see no downside to the Incel’s car business being investigated.

@Five I get a kick out of the #liberal people still defending #tesla
- I get a kick out of liberal people defending liberals.

@Five hahahahahahahahahaha, we wouldn't want that 😄

@Five 🎻
- @aral @Five
  
  @noodlejetski @aral @Five The cutest version 😆
  
  @noodlejetski @aral @Five reminds me of Reservoir Dogs.
- @aral @Five How many billions did deliberately making misleading claims cost VW, again?
  
  @ianbetteridge @aral @Five For those wondering just like me, the answer is a bit complicated, but in terms of settlements paid:
  On 28 June 2016, Volkswagen agreed to pay $15.3 billion to settle the various public and private civil actions in the United States, the largest settlement ever of an automobile-related consumer class action in United States history.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagenemissionsscandal#Privateactions

@Five Cry me a river Elon Musk

@Five
@aral

@Five Didums.

@Five So put into 5 words it's Tesla admitting:"Every single word is true"? I've no idea why else it should have "adverse impact". And if so, it SHOULD have that impact – to keep others at bay and protect those who're not billionaire man-babies.

@Five lying is another word for marketing

@Five
The SEC might also look into the question, whether repeated false claims about Tesla's self-driving capabilities had an impact on the company's share price.