College Students Say Tesla Is Canceling Summer Internships | Entrepreneur
www.entrepreneur.com
Amid mass layoffs and cost-cutting initiatives, Elon Musk's electric vehicle company has reportedly begun taking back internship offers just weeks before the summer start dates.

“Tesla Is Reportedly Revoking Internship Offers to College Students Weeks Before Their Start Dates: ‘I Spent Thousands On Housing’”

  • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.worldEnglish
    762·
    2 months ago

    I admit I own a Tesla. Given all the recent erratic behavior:

    • Not only will I not recommend Teslas to anybody who might ask about it, I will warn them to look at company & CEO behavior over the years, and actively discourage others from buying one.
    • When the time comes, I will not be replacing my current car with another Tesla. I will still likely go with an EV, but by then there should be significantly more good (better) options available.

    About the only way I’ll change either of these will be for Elon to step down and completely remove himself from any control over Tesla. But I don’t see that happening and I certainly won’t be holding my breath.

    • voracitude@lemmy.world
      292·
      2 months ago

      I at least don’t blame you. They used to be the best EVs that you could get. May I ask what model year and how you like it as a car, independent of Musk’s PR shenanigans?

      • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.worldEnglish
        261·
        2 months ago

        ‘21 Model Y long range. Overall it drives well, and the supercharger network is really nice. We took it on a trip up & down a good portion of the east coast last year and never had any issues charging it. We have a couple 30 lb dogs that love going for rides, so things like dog mode are really nice as well.

        Things I really do not like:

        • The reliance on cameras for all sorts of features like auto high beams and auto wipers on top of traffic aware cruise control (aka autopilot) (and full self driving, if you have it). I regularly have the wipers go off on clear, sunny days. The auto high beams are so unreliable I don’t use them, and that means no autopilot at night. I have no faith in even trying out FSD because of how glitchy everything else is.
        • The minimal use of physical controls. I have to take my eyes off the road just to switch wiper speed/mode.
        • Software updates have, more than once, changed my settings for things like autopilot without warning, and I’ve only discovered it when driving and turning autopilot on.
        • The maps have lots of routing issues. It shows roads in my neighborhood that don’t yet exist (new development under construction), regularly routes me wrong ways (there’s a left turn near my home that it thinks it can’t take so it tries to route me two sides if a triangle as a result), and on our road trip we found a stretch of highway that it thought it couldn’t drive on and kept trying to route us along side streets. And there’s no way I know to report these issues so they can be fixed. Apps like Waze make that trivial.

        Pretty much all of these are reasons why I refuse to even try FSD and discourage others from using it. About the only way I’ll give it another chance is if a truly independent third party tests it and says all these issues have been resolved.

        • bl4kers@lemmy.mlEnglish
          221·
          2 months ago

          Software updates have, more than once, changed my settings for things like autopilot without warning, and I’ve only discovered it when driving and turning autopilot on.

          I feel like this point can’t be overstated enough. When I need to go somewhere, I shouldn’t need to reorient myself because the car receives software updates all the time. A device that’s constantly changing is inherently unreliable, even if technically it’s improving over time.

      • Lichtblitz@discuss.tchncs.de
        102·
        2 months ago

        Teslas were the “best”, as in the only option for what they did. They were never the “best”, as in better than existing products for what they did.

        Being first to market for such a long time was an incredible feat and it speaks volumes that their position isn’t much, much stronger at the end of it.

        • johnyma22@lemmy.ml
          1·
          2 months ago

          I agree w/ the “best” argument but I don’t agree with the “first to market” argument… There were a notable amount of electric cars in the UK before Tesla became a thing. Perhaps things in .de are different…

          I did notice in Berlin just a few weeks ago that you guys don’t really seem to be pushing for clean air zones in major cities unlike a lot of the UK which given your progressive population came as a surprise to me.

          • Lichtblitz@discuss.tchncs.de
            6·
            2 months ago

            Sure, there were electric cars. But if I remember correctly, Tesla was the first to deliver the whole next-gen package with an every day, everywhere car, plus charging stations plus the whole automation. If you wanted that, there was no way around Tesla for quite a while.

            • johnyma22@lemmy.ml
              1·
              2 months ago

              RE “next-gen” “every day” “everywhere car” I can’t comment because they don’t really make a quantifiable point.

              RE Charging: In the UK we had charge at home infrasatructure w/ .gov compensation and charging points at businesses/supermarkets/petrol stations way before a specific branded Supercharger infrastructure started arriving.

              RE “whole automation”: What do you mean? What point of Tesla is more automated than an Audi or BMW for a UK daily commute? Autopilot simply doesn’t work for the vast majority of UK commutes and has been shown to be a poorly operating application with a potential incoming ban.

              I think it’s important not to rewrite history to fit a narrative.

    • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
      191·
      2 months ago

      Same here. For me, not only has the CEO been erratic as all heck, the tech has stalled out and I don’t see any improvements and the other car manufacturers are quickly catching up and in some cases surpassed Tesla.

      It’s really sad to see the company fall so badly, so quickly but that’s what you get when you let a completely unhinged person be in charge without checks. Still nice to see his money at least kick start the EV industry to where it is today, good and bad.