I have seen a lot of tesla vandalism online the last few days and I’m kind of on the fence about it.
I’ve seen several examples locally here in BC, Canada.
I think totally warranted at newly purchased teslas going forward. Also it serves as a deterrent for potential future buyers.
But vandalizing a car that is a few years old I think is lame. Those driversare already being punished enough by driving something around that’s worth less than scrap.
You must log in or # to comment.
ITT: americans who are way too much into private property
That’s vandalism?
Older Teslas- no, Cybertrucks - absolutely yes.
Everyone who bought a Cybertruck knew exactly the kind of person they were buying from and made that concious choice
moral? hell ya.
smart? no. cameras. odds of a tesla owner, especially of the ‘truck’, reacting in a calm and rational manner is not low.
yes
They are bad consumers and should feel bad about it. All for it.
To me and you it might have been obvious how evil the twitter guy was even a decade ago but most people were clueless.
One of the smartest and nicest guys at my work drives a model x which I always have to use as a reminder that they are not really all bad people.
The actual article instead of just a screenshot.
https://jalopnik.com/gateway/did-bugs-really-force-the-first-car-recall-in-history-1851753888
When he called a hero a pedo. That flipped the switch for me.
Absolutely!! What a fucking reveal that more people should have taken seriously.
But the Cybertruck was a ridiculous vehicle even before it was available.
Normally yes but not now.
No. It doesn’t hurt Tesla, it just hurts an individual, and you don’t know their reasoning for buying the car in the first place.
Many Tesla owners are Uber drivers who got their Tesla through Uber because they didn’t have any other car to use. And they usually don’t get a lot of choices on that car they get. Damaging their car is damaging their livelihood.
Obviously that’s not the case for every Tesla owner, but I’m not about to risk ruining the income of somebody who is likely already struggling, just because I’m mad at a billionaire nazi. And neither should you.
If you want to break things, break things that matter.
It does hurt Tesla. People don’t want to buy a car likely to get vandalized. One incident won’t make a noticeable difference, but if people think it’s okay to vandalize them it absolutely would hurt sales regardless of your opinion of the morality of it
No, it doesn’t hurt Tesla. There’s no such thing as bad publicity; if there was, Tesla’s owner wouldn’t have been able to throw up two nazi salutes at the inauguration and then be given access to all of the American people’s personal data.
Who do you think gets paid when the owner repairs the car? Tesla makes money every time somebody scratches up a Cybertruck.
Future sales is what increases stock. Including perceived future sales. Big example now is BYD and how stock has risen in anticipation of countries not being able to keep them out forever while ramping up production alongside improved battery tech.
There’s a big reason why most companies are incredibly protective of their brand image and traditionally have CEOs keep as much of a blank slate as possible. Most companies pivot towards being faceless with a replaceable CEO as opposed making the CEO their mascot for this reason. It can lead to a huge target on them if things go sour.
There’s no such thing as bad publicity; if there was, Tesla’s owner wouldn’t have been able to throw up two nazi salutes at the inauguration and then be given access to all of the American people’s personal data.
Look at Tesla stock it’s literally dropped >20% since he did that. You’re literally giving an example of how it does. “No such thing as bad publicity” is not a real thing. The Hindenburg didn’t help the zeppelin industry.
If you’re gonna do it, do it right. A brush with some heavily salted water, then paint your sign on it, then you know it’ll stay.
Then their insurance will fix it and all our insurance rates will go up.
I’m not sure cybertrucks are insurable
Just keep doing it untill it’s no longer covered by their insurance.
That’s not how it works here.
Car insurance here is a crown corporation who as far as I know, cannot do that.
My hot take? No, it’s not
You’ll never change a mind with cruelty. You are merely selfishly expressing your anger
Best case scenario, this person now feels bad about buying a Tesla, but is now stuck with the car. They will likely have to waste resources fixing it and it may happen again. Sure, you could assume they’re rich and can afford to fix it but that wastes literal resources extracted from our planet to fix or replace the car. And if someone buys the used version they’ll have the same problem and may not be quite as rich the next time someone vandalizes the car.
More likely scenario, you piss the owner off and they dig in deeper. That’s just how humans work
Alternatively, you can view vandalization as, essentially, a sin tax. If the person is willing to pay the cost to keep their current setup whatever… but vandalization will provide an economic motive for the victim and others around them to revise their behavior.
Hey, let’s just… let the market decide.
I do agree that you’re unlikely to make the vandal change their beliefs, but given enough vandalization you’ll end up stealing Musk’s money.
Caveat: other than the original Roadster, I’ve never considered Teslas good cars. The Cybertruck might be the dumbest vehicle made in the last 40 years. SO, on to MY hot take.
I’ve spent years and years restoring a 1973 Porsche 914 from a bucket to a beautiful driving machine. Blood, sweat, tears, and money. Hard earned money and my own blood, my own sweat, and my own tears.
It’s unbelievably pretty now. It looks expensive. It drives like a bat out of hell on rails. It’s everything I strived for.
If someone vandalized it, it would be pike gouging at my heart. Writing words in any dust in it would scratch the paint.
With that out of the way, I’d still laugh if I saw a vandalized Swasticar.
A bit of a scary thought, not predominantly due to finger biting over those cars specifically. I’m just imagining the kind of violence we might inflict on each other in the coming years.
For instance, pretend tomorrow’s headline is… oh , say:
One third of 1% of all Teslas have been vandalized each day every day for the past week, and activists promised to maintain the strict schedule.
How long would it take before we saw some significant White House action? And what might a social response look like in the streets? Would any Priuseses be safe?!
overall?
In the grand scheme, yet another darn distraction?
499 other companies in the S&P 500 to worry about as well, and… other stuff :)
If the person is willing to pay the cost to keep their current setup whatever… but vandalization will provide an economic motive for the victim and others around them to revise their behavior.
Unless you’re completely destroying the car beyond repair (thats serious felony material), your vandalism is actually acting to enrich Elon Musk. Where do you think replacement parts for a vandalized Tesla will come from? The victim will be forced to buy those parts from Musk even if they hate him.
I don’t care about changing hearts and minds. That time is long past. I want them afraid to express fascism in public. Is that too much to ask? Yes, for losers and pansies it is.
wastes literal resources extracted from our planet to fix or replace the car
This is the big part for me. The car exists. It’s made. That can’t be undone. Making it unsafe (from vandalism) to drive, the only remaining option is for it to go to waste, for the most part. Sure, it can be recycled, but that’s still wasteful compared to continuing to use it.
My hot take: yes it’s perfectly acceptable.
You are only partly correct when you say “cruelty doesn’t change minds”. I’ll up that and say that you cannot change the mind of a jackass who buys cyber trucks, no matter what you do.
What you do is show them that there are consequences to their choices, that they’re not somehow immune like they think they are on Facebook or on their preferred social media echo chamber.
And if that doesn’t change their minds or makes them consider their choices much more carefully, then they fucking deserve it.
EDIT: also, that’s written in the dirt, isn’t it? Is that what we call vandalism nowadays? What do you call it when the french burn a few cars down when protesting, a world war? Just go wash the shame off, you slob…
I am really glad this is the top response. I came in here expecting a very different top comment. Something of encouragement and some bs rationalization about why it’s ok.
If it’s not your stuff and you don’t have permission to touch it there are very few reasons why you should ever touch anything that isn’t yours.
I couldn’t have said it better. I feel terrible for my parents right now. They bought a Tesla a few years ago. A good portion of my teen and early adulthood was spent going to the junkyard to get parts or spending hours trying to revive a part we couldn’t replace because we had no other choice. I was so happy when they were finally able to get a new car for the first time in 30 years. It wasn’t what I would buy, but my dad has always been a tech nerd and this was his dream car. Now they’re scared to visit me in the city because someone might scratch a swastika into their car that they’re now embarrassed to drive.
With the price of these things they could have afforded a new car way before they bought that Tesla.
Yes, that’s how it works when one thing is more expensive than another thing. But people do save up money through one part of their life to spend during another part of their life. And they aren’t the only people who used to think that Tesla’s were cool tech cars.
It was a reply to OP saying they were so happy their parents were able to buy a new car for the first time in 30 years. They were able to buy one way before that, they just wanted a luxury car, I would have said the said thing if it had been a Mercedes or a Cadillac.
This is a common misconception. Not that I’m trying to get anyone to purchase one, but they are the most affordable electric vehicle on the market. I just bought a Prius last year and it was more expensive than their Tesla. They maybe could have bought a GMC or something, but part of this is that they wanted to be done with constantly fiddling with a shitty car. By saving a bit longer, they have achieved this and I don’t blame them.
Eh…
45k and up for a model 3
A Bolt is under 30k
When you mentioned buying used it really got me thinking.
I bet this could kill resale value so bad that used tesla might actually be technically the most frugal thing to drive soon. Would you buy a $10k used model 3 if you were in the market for an EV??
When something breaks, it’s going to cost you more than you paid for the whole car. Cost of ownership is an important factor in the long run.
You’ll never change a mind with cruelty.
You’ll never change the mind of the one you are being cruel to. But you might change the minds of some observers.
That’s basically the entire Republican platform right there.
look around you zorque, it’s working
Honestly the cyber truck vandalizes itself, why even risk the legal consequences.
Writing something in dirt is one thing but spray painting, scraping, or damaging something is a dick move.
Yes, they bought a stupid vehicle from a company run by a controversial person, but that doesn’t mean you can be a terrible person and damage their property as if they have anything to do with Elon.
You want to go after Elon by proxy? Vote, write your government officials, protest, and continue to not by his products.
He is about as ‘controversial’ as his Nazi salutes.
Let’s clarify. It is perfectly acceptable to vandalize Elon Musk. We are here discussing the morality of defacing vehicles he did not invent, but somehow manages to get paid for anyway.
I’d argue that giving money to a Nazi is the actual dick move. people reminding you that you’re driving a swasticar is actually doing you a solid
There’s people with teslas long before Elon started spaceX. You can’t really judge them for the car they are using…
except I can, who’s gonna stop me? sure, I will judge them less because of attenuating circumstances but they could sell their car and buy another one. providing Tesla with data from your car and also paying subscriptions is unethical once he came out as a Nazi
but they could sell their car and buy another one
You can’t be serious… Yeah they should lose money with the exchange.
Also, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-w-pdqwiBw
I wouldn’t want to interact with anyone that wants to buy a Tesla now.
Even writing in the dirt on a new car can fuck up the clear coat.
You are correct, but a cyber truck is raw stainless and can’t meaningfully be damaged by wiping dirt on it.
Also cant be washed. Ha
But it can when they take it through the car wash after lol
controversial person
way to minimise a fucking Nazi. I’m sure hitler was called a “controversial person” in the 1930s too.
I’m reading these comments and realizing just how many assholes after on lemmy.
People on here actually justifying vandalizing someone’s property.
Oh they’re wealthy so it’s ok.
Oh commenter doesn’t like person a so it’s ok to hurt person b property.
Fucking hell people are assholes.
Yeah. Lemmy was ok for a few months after the api exodus but seems to have shrunk down to some really, um, I guess immature people? Maybe fringy angry self righteous people? I’ve been coming back less and less often and it seems to be getting worse, but there is the occasional gem and I’m never going back to the bad place.
Writing in the dust is not vandalism. FFS!
The question asked was what I thought of vandalism.
And yes I agree writing in dust is not vandalism
That’s not the question
Ya I’m glad I posted this because these responses are actually wild.
Right now, Lemmy is unfortunately full of a few dozen small, super-passionate echo chambers. People get very emotionally charged takes that can sound nonsense to anyone outside their bubble—but to them, it’s considered the absolute reality of the situation
I haven’t actually seen a thread that proves this more than this one. These people are ok with fucking up other normie people’s shit.
Guys this war isn’t amongst ourselves. You figured out how to post on lemmy. You should be way smarter than this.
One that’s already purchased? I could go either way.
A lot full of cars at the dealership? All bets are off.
I happen to know where a ‘graveyard’ of unsellable teslas is within 20 miles of where I live. The company has insurance on them though, I guarantee it.
I thought teslas whole shtick was bypassing stealerships. you know, before they where Nazis.
They still have dealerships more or less. They also have to store the cars somewhere before you take delivery.
They don’t just poof on your doorstep after you click buy.
“Dealership” may be the wrong word, but they have “showrooms,” with plenty of stock, all over the country.
