9 January

Noah Smith is an American economist. As he describes here in great detail, despite Musk being a bit of a tool, on technology he’s led the world. Which is why he’s now the richest man in the world. The Chinese are copying his work with EVs, renewables and batteries, and will dominate the world as a result. America is over, in that race, because it can’t escape the modern adolescent adult world of social media, where everybody is an enemy of somebody else, and teams fight each other all day, every day. Trump sees Tesla-type technology as ‘Greenie’ plots, as many do here too. Like nobody got past Year 9 in maturity. I skipped Year 9 at school, maybe that helped me in my own development. I advocate for Tesla technology because it’s brilliant technology. Go Chinese or Korean or German etc. EV instead if you want, those are great too. They’re all copying Tesla and playing catch up still. Tesla is a whole ecosystem, which is part of its genius. It’s cars, home batteries, Superchargers (over 75,000 worldwide already) - and all of it just works, in the most beautifully designed way. Some will still jump over every teething issue with the self-driving technology. It’s optional, you don’t even need to include it. It’s common for those who resist progress to demand utopian perfection from the new thing that the old thing is miles away from. I’ve tested it extensively myself, as have many others, and it’s astonishing. It makes far fewer errors than human drivers, and the errors it does make are usually human error (people not paying attention). It’s a neural net, constantly updating its intelligence based on the experience of millions of drivers. Something human drivers never do, road deaths from human drivers are climbing. I would rather share the road with cars using this technology than with any human drivers, who are almost universally woeful, particularly when they think they’re good. The road is like a Year 9 playground, a pissing contest for status. Tesla has just changed its warranty to 5-year unlimited kms on its cars, with free roadside assistance for those 5 years. Some may say other carmakers have had that for years, or even better. But those cars all needed regular servicing. Teslas never need servicing, and are like riding a roller coaster in terms of fun to drive. Just go electric, in cars and solar and home batteries - everything. Go with whatever brand floats your boat. Teslas still dominate EV sales because once people do the research, they realise they tick all of the boxes, now. Live the revolution. Most humans miss them until their old world has been taken away from them, and then wonder why they waited.