NPR doesn't take paid advertising. They don't get demo cars or paid trips to review them. No ties to the industry.Pleasantly surprised by a brief segment on electrification that aired on NPR this morning:
U.S. car makers are going electric and trying to change the world in the process
Car companies are following Tesla's lead and reshaping themselves as high-tech, climate-friendly electric automakers. GM and Ford are among the manufacturers who made big announcements recently.www.npr.org
They started off chatting about Barra's lofty promises, but actually pivoted to discussing Tesla and their lead, finally concluding:
Rare to hear this kind of talk in the mainstream media.
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Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable
- Thread starter AudubonB
- Start date
Yep I heard it too on the Alexa, felt good to hear some honest and logical reporting for a change!
Wanted to add a fun stat: so before the pandemic hit I had counted around 30 families that had a Tesla at the private school I work for in Dallas and I'm sure it's over that to date. Just this week I have seen two PLAID Model S in carpool. Very exciting. 
The North and South Carolinas would be the place on the East Coast of the USA. There already is some auto infrastructure, and it has the combination of low costs and higher worker availability. Alabama is possible too.
Florida actually has higher costs and lower worker availability.
It is also relevant that in GM's few remaining non-NA markets are in:
China, where SAIC really is the force, thus supporting Buick through China domestic designs, often sold nowhere else, but with some exports to the US and elsewhere
Korea- through the Daewoo acquisition, supplied Asian RHD markets but quite them, and Gm Korea is not thriving at the moment.
Brazil- highly successful with almost all models designed in China or Korea, but built in Brazil. Mostof their success is by building the most popular taxi models in Brazil (the Chevrolet Spin, Onix and Cruze) and a highly successful pickup, the S10.
That boils down to GM having pretty much low end cheap models in China and Brazil (>50% of sales) and the North America steadily losing market share.
it takes no great analysis to explain why @AudubonB found out GM seems not to have made consistent profits for decades.
They, like Ford, are retreating from the global markets bit by bit. Retreat has never been successful as a business strategy.
Just for reference Ford stays committed to the UK and GM stays committed to Brazil, while GM quit the UK and Ford just quit Brazil. GM is losing profitable share in Brazil because of Chery and Hyundai, among others while Ford in the UK is losing share to quite a few competitors, including Tesla.
larmor
Active Member
NPR has had it out for tesla and Elon over the past 8 to 10 years. Alas, i listen to SCPR-NPR nearly every morning, and have not heard anything positive on Tesla BUT will definitely keep an ear out to hear this.Pleasantly surprised by a brief segment on electrification that aired on NPR this morning:
U.S. car makers are going electric and trying to change the world in the process
Car companies are following Tesla's lead and reshaping themselves as high-tech, climate-friendly electric automakers. GM and Ford are among the manufacturers who made big announcements recently.
They started off chatting about Barra's lofty promises, but actually pivoted to discussing Tesla and their lead, finally concluding:
Rare to hear this kind of talk in the mainstream media.
Pezpunk
Active Member
i don't commute anymore, but when i did, NPR's only mention of Tesla that i can recall was a near-daily reference to its stock price movement by Kai Ryssdal on Marketplace, which was generally fact-based and objective. Granted it's been a few years since i've had to sit in traffic each evening.
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I'm at 99 but low miles so likely still down the list a ways. Might need to go out for a leasurely joy ride at lunch time.
Edit: Sounded too aggressive driving.
Heads up (a repeat of a two weeks ago): we do not need to know everyone's safety score
Update to the Tesla app on Android was available this morning, so I can finally see my safety score.
(Posting this for anyone else who was waiting for the Android update).
Right. Which demonstrates that the unfavorable media coverage of Tesla over the years is less about ad dollar influence and more about the journalism community being in a liberal echo chamber. Almost all of my friends are in that bubble, and they have been critical of Tesla and Musk for years. Instead of cheering Tesla for its environmental impact, they focus on a multi billionaire making cars for the rich. Tesla has not done much on the PR front to change that narrative, but I’m not sure it would matter. The echo chamber is so strong that changing a negative narrative is very hard.
But the better journalists will be influenced by very strong facts. Tesla’s recent good quarter in contrast to reduced sales of ICE cars is a wake up call.
jkirkwood001
Active Member
I still don't see it. Is the prerequisite that I have FSD and that I've pressed The Button? Not sure why they would need to restrict this. I could still be interested in, say, what my son's Safety Score was even if I'm only on EAP, or whatever. I mean, it's not like Tesla should be advertising "No FSD? No worries! Drive UNsafe!"
Correct. You have to explicitly grant them permissions to track your data, and the only current way to do that is with "the button" which requires FSD. (Since you have EAP you could subscribe to FSD for a month for $100 if you wanted to see your score.)
edit: scratch that you are in Canada, and "the button" is currently only available in the US.
woodisgood
Optimustic Pessimist
Anecdotal from a few days ago but in support of your point: A good friend, who is a SF employment attorney, was asked about the recent jury verdict over group text. Their response?
“Not surprising. They deserve it. It’s a terrible company, poorly run and terrible to work for. And the cars have quality issues.”
I would definitely classify this person as a sheeple in other areas of life but the passion in their ignorant response was a little surprising.
StealthP3D
Well-Known Member
It was not up to Elon when he brought EVs to the mass market, he started at the right time to hit the market at the proper window which was defined by the lowering price curves of batteries and high power silicon to drive the motors efficiently enough to have enough range/cost to satisfy the market. The right time to start tackling climate change was before Elon was born.
What I think is undisputable is that if Musk and team did not do what they did, when they did it (founded in 2003), there would be no guarantee anyone would have done it (and certainly, not as effectively). All of the EV startups we have today were spawned by Tesla and the ones that started within a handful of years after Tesla are still a decade behind in terms of being able to build in high volumes and most of them will never achieve high volume production.
Tesla started at exactly the right time to stand a chance of smashing all the substantial barriers to entry imposed by big auto. If Elon and team had left it to Ford, GM, Toyota, VW, etc. they would still be telling us there was no market demand for EVs. You can bet the farm on that!
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woodisgood
Optimustic Pessimist
On a day where even ARK ETFs are up 2-3%, TAN ETF up 3%, S&P up 1.5%, TSLA up 0.5%.
Yeah ok.
Yeah ok.
Agreed, I have been surprised by NPR's negative reporting on Tesla to date. Kai Rysdall in particular has been disappointing in this regard and has routinely questioned Tesla stock valuation, safety, culture, poked at Elon, etc. Doubt NPR is being intentionally malicious, probably just falling victim to outside FUD due to their lack ofsubject matter expertise. For example, reporting questioning the overall greenness of EVs due to batteries. There is probably a little of the all billionaires are evil liberal bent at play too. Even is this billionaire is trying to save the planet. Disappointing...
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We can reduce the need for transportation, for sure. And given Elon's intelligence and talent, I'm sure he can get Tesla to help in that regards. Maybe their bots could be part of the solution, I don't know. There must be other ways than "making bigger cars clean".
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