Aren't people starting to get tired of Tesla's constant defensiveness? I feel like we have one of those blog posts every week. Frankly Tesla has great products and doesn't need to act so defensive. Thoughts?
They're addressing the issue of public perception. Electric vehicles are new, untried and untrusted. This means that there are two arenas where it is in Tesla's interest to have strong public support: Consumers, who do not want to buy cars which are rumored to be unreliable, and investors who don't want to extend credit to a company which is likely to have customers turn their back on it.
Tesla has experienced multiple smear campaigns from different angles and motivations over its short history: Top Gear presenting the Roadster in an unfavorable and inorrect light, the New York Times lying about the car's performance in winter conditions, multiple news outlets overstating the fire risk of their li-ion battery packs. The fear of the public getting an incorrect picture of its reliability and safety record is very much grounded in reality.
No. Their insight sheds light onto the struggles that a disruptor has to deal with in order to break through a heavily entrenched cartel (actually overlapping cartels).
This is highly pertinent information for like-minded initiatives.
In a world where media is uncritical and takes everyone's viewpoint with the same value, Tesla makes sure that they provide counterpoints to everything someone might want to stick on them, and more. That way, the reporting will always be half on Tesla's viewpoint, or more. Unless there's a dishonest journalist, or Tesla is fucking up and they're dealing with a journalist with critical thinking skills.
Stonewalling, 'no comment'ing basically just gives the playing field to the other side. Also, at this point, countering bad publicity properly gives Tesla more media coverage. Not everyone knows Tesla outside of tech circles yet.
What's unusual is that you're reading from a news source (HN) that features every small step Tesla takes. That's not the mainstream experience. :)
Tesla has experienced multiple smear campaigns from different angles and motivations over its short history: Top Gear presenting the Roadster in an unfavorable and inorrect light, the New York Times lying about the car's performance in winter conditions, multiple news outlets overstating the fire risk of their li-ion battery packs. The fear of the public getting an incorrect picture of its reliability and safety record is very much grounded in reality.