Fucking stocks are like gambling. There's no rhyme or reason to them.

I totally agree. While I do have a Google account, I haven't used it in many months, and my tablet and phones have never been signed in to begin with. I guess you might consider my mobile Android devices as 'virgin' devices, and I don't mean Virgin Mobile.

I did break my hiatus from Google briefly tonight, just to ask Google Docs to write a document to compare and contrast AI slop versus reality..

https://lemmy.world/post/42327274

Anyways, I'm done with Google again for as long as I can avoid it. But I'm still leaving the account active, if for no other reason than my YouTube videos (not like I'm even making any money off my random stuff)..

A lot of people are too alienated from everything, or can't make relationships between brands and what's behind them, because everything not directly visible in front of us is too abstract for them, and there's those who are like "all brands are terrible, it won't make any difference anyway". Well, and there's the nazi sympathizers...

Way too many, fuck that Nazi and his shit company

I've been considering getting an electric car, and have been researching good models, and I can't believe how many places are still recommending Tesla. I know the fediverse is far lefter than most other places, but I thought at the very least the general population had stopped trusting Musk and his scams.

Great

To be honest, coming from a near-launch Tesla Model 3 into the current EV market... most alternatives available in the US suck for various reasons.

I had a Polestar 3, which was great, until the AC was inconsistent on the Driver side. Only had it for 45 days before it was in for Service at Volvo 150 miles away... And has been there since last April. Still paying on it every month and having to maintain insurance... I'm still trying to get it returned as a lemon via lawyers now nearly 9 months later. In the interim I went through several Volvo, Kia, Mercedes, and Hyundai EV rentals, and talking to a coworker who has an EV Mustang. All of them felt like EV afterthoughts made just so they could say they have EV options.

The American brands almost exclusively use the same base vehicles and even interiors as their non-EV options and thus there are arbitrary things that just don't need to be there and make it feel like they're just making a car to say they have one (which is exactly what they're doing).

For instance, my biggest pet peeve is having a Start/Stop button as if the thing still had an engine. There's no need to have it since the cars are on all the time anyway. Its just an unnecessary step both when getting in and leaving the car. And it artificially prevents you from interacting with the vehicle like rolling down windows or the roof cover while it's "off". It's small, but just shows it wasn't designed to be an EV, they just took the same shit from before and dropped an EV powertrain in and called it a day.

Several brands also use the same outsourced platform like GM's Ultima platform. So every one of those vehicles feels the same regardless of the brand it's under, or the slightly different exteriors. The interiors are nearly identical and use GM parts regardless of brand. The Honda Prologue that I got after my Model 3 while waiting to see about new offerings in a few years, doesn't feel like a Honda at all. It drives and feels like a Chevy Blazer. Because it is.

The only EVs I've driven that actually felt like they took advantage of being an EV were from EV companies, no legacy automakers. Tesla, Polestar, Lucid, Rivian. Everyone else the vehicle felt like an afterthought, especially after driving a Tesla for nearly 5 years, and those were often at 1.5-2x the cost for fewer bells and whistles. My current Prologue purchased before the EV credits went away was almost the same cost as my Model 3 back in 2018, and it's nowhere near the same quality or capability. And that's saying something if you know Tesla quality.

Some people already bought them and can’t afford to flip them for another car in this economy. Some are in leases that haven’t expired yet.

Tesla sales will continue to decline until Elon leaves the company. There’s too much competition in the electric car space now.

Depends on where you are. Maybe they did.

I've heard that if you spray them with a mix of vinegar and salt, that they'll likely start rusting and even short circuiting not too long after.

Both of these products can be purchased with SNAP/EBT food stamp benefits for anyone interested.

Or so the rumor goes...

House of cards

The big change is Chinese EVs coming into Canada. Tesla sales tanked after Heil Hitler but it's only a matter of time before they enter the US. Tesla only made money for years selling carbon credits.

Those crazy margins lasted for like 2 quarters until it was revealed that one of the main ways they managed it was severely under allocating warranty. It was a neat trick, until vehicles actually started to come back with warranty claims and they realized they literally make the least reliable and most expensive to repair cars on the market. IIRC they were allocating like 1/3 of what Toyota does per-vehicle, which is absolutely insane given the kind of vehicles they make. Hence why they became insanely stingy with warranty claims, and you saw tons of in-warranty repairs being allocated to "goodwill" which is a distinctly different pool from warranty allocation.

The entire company is built on fraud and shell-games with SpaceX/Starlink/Boring Co. and Musk has straight up admitted as much. No one gives a shit and a judge literally ruled he's allowed to do it because line go up.

I can rant for hours about all the insanely sketchy stuff they've done solely for a one quarter boost, and plenty of other stuff where their cost-cutting directly resulted in loss of life.

It's simple in its principal, really..

• you have multiple companies
• one company (A) have some supply for some product
• on the other company (B), you create demand for that product (i.e. for its operation)
• thus, under your control, you make company A and B enter a trade agreement
• as someone who brokered that deal, you get rewarded (e.g. from brokerage fee, or commision)
• sometimes, by having a massive increase in sales, the stock for company A would increase, thus you can sell a little bit of it, which you can later buy back after the stock price goes back down
• profit

Some facts:

• even though they're your companies, you are a separate entity from them, and they are each its own entity
• the money comes from the investors as well as profit, remember that they are separate
• no, you cannot just take all the companies' money, since even though they're yours, there are corporate structures and other people at stake preventing that

So you basically come up with some excuse for moving stuff around, then you come up with some excuse to siphon off some of that good stuff.

He’s Elizabeth Holmes on a global scale. He grifts money from the governments