"Oh, the Insanity!"

Discussion in 'Tesla' started by bwilson4web, Aug 4, 2018.

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  1. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web Well-Known Member Subscriber

    Credit to Herbert Morrison describing the Hindenburg disaster, I was scanning recent Tesla YouTubes and by accident stumbled across a 'short' or 'bear' presentation. Mostly silly assertions like 'if Tesla is a fraud, how come they report half a billion dollar losses each quarter.' Then I had to stop and replay from 4:45

    • "Jay Van Sciver" claims once Musk declared himself a Republican, Tesla test drives fell off.
    So where on the Monroney sticker do we find the political affiliation of the CEO?

    Then he asserts the Venn diagram of Trump fans and Tesla fans does not overlap.

    Sorry, three strikes were too much for me. No doubt there are more 'tall tales' in this video. No doubt there are more 'tall tales' in this video. Let the usual suspects parrot them.

    Bob Wilson
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2018
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  3. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    Well, the classic (and often parodied) quote from an eyewitness to the Hindenburg disaster is "Oh, the humanity!"... not "Oh, the insanity!"

    But if you really want to list all the insane claims from the anti-Tesla FUDsters... that's going to be a long list! Some of my favorites from years past:
    • Tesla is producing more cars than they can sell, and are selling these extra cars on a "gray market" and/or as direct fleet sales. (Odd how the FUDsters never can come up with even one single VIN number for these supposed extra cars...)
    • Tesla is faking its SEC filings, hiding the fact that it's about to collapse. (We see that conspiracy theory FUD pop up on Seeking Alpha very nearly on a daily basis.)
    • Tesla making cars is just a front for fraudulent stock sales, or a "Ponzi scheme". (I think it's downright hilarious that they claim that making the car -- the Model S -- which has received more "Best car of the year" reviews than any other in history, and even several "Best car ever made" reviews, is just a front for a stock fraud! :p :confused: :rolleyes:)
    And then there is the rather predictable progression:
    • The 2008 Tesla Roadster is just vaporware; Tesla will never actually make or sell it. (I just revisited the "Tesla Death Watch 3" blog post the other day, from June 2008. So clueless it's hilarious!)
    • The Model S is just vaporware; Tesla will never actually make or sell it. (See, for example, "Tesla Death Watch 40"
    • The Model X is just vaporware; Tesla will never actually make or sell it.
    • The Model 3 is just vaporware; Tesla will never actually make or sell it.
    • The $35,000 base Model 3 is just vaporware; Tesla will never actually make or sell it.
    • The Tesla Semi is just vaporware; Tesla will never actually make or sell it.
    Obviously the anti-Tesla FUDsters never get tired of being wrong! :p o_O :cool:

    Go-Tesla_Logo_med.jpg
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2018
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  4. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web Well-Known Member Subscriber

    I was surprised to see such an obvious disconnect from reality right after the Q2 report. The initial title, "HEDGEYE", suggests a Hedge Fund advocate (may they rot in red ink Hades,) but the 'analyst' was just making stuff up. Earlier this morning I was thinking about his Venn diagram claim that "Tesla and Trump supporters don't overlap."

    Of course not as many of Trumps MAGA supporters as seen in the recent Tampa rally are not in the intellect or income level where they could afford, much less understand a Tesla:
    [​IMG]
    “Stop lying!” shouted a man in an American flag T-shirt, one of dozens of Trump supporters who hurled invective at the assembled press corps. Facing the reporters’ work space — and away from the stage where Mr. Trump was set to speak — they flashed middle fingers and chanted “CNN Sucks!” as Jim Acosta, a CNN White House correspondent, attempted to speak on-air.

    Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/01/business/media/trump-press-jim-acosta.html

    Bob Wilson
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2018
  5. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    Well, I wrote a partisan political rant about The Orange One, but then deleted it. That's off-topic for this thread.

    How about we stick to all the lies, big and small, that the anti-Tesla smear campaigners keep repeating about Tesla and its cars? That's a pretty big topic right there!

    Please. :)
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2018
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  6. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web Well-Known Member Subscriber

    No problem. It was the snarky, Venn diagram comment from the YouTube . . . of course I might as well have shouted it at the computer screen for all the good it would do.

    Bob Wilson
     
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  8. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    I think it's also worth repeating here part of what Clean Technica's Zachary Shanhan had to say in a recent, highly significant article very relevant to this subject:

    First of all, let’s be clear — Tesla is such a popular company now that many people in the media have to cover it or feel inspired to cover it who know very little about the company, its products, its history, or its finances. Some of those reporters and opinion writers may think they got up to speed quickly, got the story straight, and rightfully came in with boxing gloves on to bash the tech/car company. The problem is that those people often didn’t get the full story, may have consumed and digested absolutely incorrect information, and may be out of their depths in the general topics they’re briefly covering (manufacturing, finance, cars, technology, etc.). I would say that, by and large, these people aren’t evil — they’ve just been misled. However, the original sources driving the narrative do likely have ulterior motives, in my opinion.

    Here at CleanTechnica, we’ve tried to dig into the depths of Tesla’s products, financing, manufacturing, and consumer demand for nearly a decade. We don’t have all the info we’d like, so I’m not claiming that we always get the story right, but we do routinely see that other media outlets are lacking a great deal of context and have false facts. Many of them have picked up a certain narrative that seems plausible for a while but then crumbles with more information. That doesn’t mean they’re evil or in conspiracy with Big Oil, but it is a problem for society and does reflect poorly on their media outlets and the media in general.

    [...]

    Just as Tesla is on the verge of quarterly profits that essentially shut down the shorts, however, there has been a blitz attack on the company and its image from multiple corners. A longtime auto journalist who wrote a positive review of the Tesla Model 3 for the Wall Street Journal was reportedly harassed so much about that review that he deleted his Twitter account. Why are there so many Tesla haters on Twitter? The company is building superb electric cars. Whose toes is the company stepping on?

    Aside from attacks on positive Tesla stories like that, there have reportedly been cases of underhanded UAW campaigns against Tesla (printed to wide readership by The Guardian, one of my favorite media outlets, and others), cases of insider sabotage at the factory and misleading leaks that led to negative media reports, and a great deal of spin about Tesla finances (which most reporters covering Tesla are not equipped to personally evaluate).

    More members of the new-to-Tesla or loosely-following-Tesla media would do well to separate the misinformation from accurate information and not be misled on the context by people who have put millions or billions of dollars down betting against Tesla.
    Full article at Clean Technica: "Tesla Shorts Are Scared, Exposed, & Desperate — Memo To Media: Don’t Be Duped"

     
  9. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web Well-Known Member Subscriber

    The July 23 article was good advice. Still the August 1st earnings YouTube and SEC filing really put the nail in the coffin.

    I don't like it but there is a low threshold for speculative articles that later turn out to be inaccurate.

    Bob Wilson
     
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  10. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    "Earnings YouTube?"

    I guess you mean the audio recording of the quarterly Tesla conference call with investors and analysts? Was there video accompanying that, or just audio?

     
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  12. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    Well, it's not like this is anything new. Dirty little secret in the newspaper industry: Many "articles" are written by advertising firms to advertise their products, or by "think tanks" to promote their political position, and run by newspapers because that gives them column inches without having to have their reporters write them. In other words, they're used as filler without acknowledging to the reader it's info from a third party that hasn't been fact-checked by the newspaper.

    Now, that's not to say that every newspaper has done that. Maybe the mighty New York Times never stooped that low. But many newspapers did, and so far as I know, still do. It's probably no different with online media outlets. In fact, with the blurring of the line between professional journalist and amateur blogger, it may well be more commonplace for online news sources.

    At least when InsideEVs runs an Evannex or Electrek article, they put a prominent disclaimer early in the article to acknowledge the source.

     
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  13. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web Well-Known Member Subscriber

    More PowerPoint charts with bullets they cycled through. Just caution when searching for it because YouTube has copyright violated versions posted by rip-and-burn thieves. Here is the thread with the links I use:
    https://insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/tesla-q2-earnings-call.2820/

    I didn't want to 'dirty up' the General forum as I knew the usual suspects would have done it first. One clue about the unfaithful, they respect subject, forum, and thread boundaries as much as their adherence to accuracy (i.e., no respect at all.) A by-product, they 'sloppy post' trying to fool new members and visitors which often leads to them being noticed by the powers that be.

    Bob Wilson
     
  14. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    Yes, I've noticed the Usual Suspects placing their threads in the General category instead of in the proper category where it belongs, presumably as a tactic to get more people to read them. Unfortunately, that probably works for them.

    Well, we can hope they offend the Powers That Be sufficiently to get banned. Unfortunately, that seems to be a very slow process, and also unfortunately, it seems that shortly after one is banned another troll appears to take its place. Is there some Internet "law" that says trolls must be evenly distributed on all forums? ;)

     
  15. Just to be clear, we don't run Electrek articles. We do use them as a source occasionally, but never as a sponsored post or contributor. Personally, I avoid that site as much as possible.
     
  16. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    Thanks for the correction, Domenick.

    It's no surprise that people who actually write articles for IEVs, as you do, pay more attention than I do to the difference between quoting from an offsite article, and reprinting it.

    I'm not sure what the term "sponsored post" means in this context. Is that the same as reprinting an article first published (or simultaneously published) on another website?

     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2018
  17. Usually, a sponsored post is one written by an outside concern, often promoting the goods or services that it offers. They should be clearly marked as a sponsored post, so readers can apply an extra layer of skepticism when they "consume" it.

    I refer to Evannex posts as sponsored because, although they typically aren't selling their products in their posts, they do sell EV-related products, and so can benefit financially from their appearance on the site.
     
  18. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web Well-Known Member Subscriber

    It ends with a wimper: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/06/unsworth-vs-musk-pedo-guy-defamation-trial-verdict.html

    A jury decided that Elon Musk had not defamed British caver Vernon Unsworth in a Los Angeles federal court on Friday.

    “My faith in humanity is restored,” said Musk in court after the verdict was delivered. The jury deliberated for only an hour before delivering its verdict in the case, which went to trial earlier this week.

    Lesson learned: Don't make a twitter 'bar fight' into a Federal case.

    Bob Wilson
     
  19. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    When a social media flame war escalates to a lawsuit, only the lawyers win.

     
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