Capitalism turning electric vehicles into a horrible, unproductive, ugly symbol of right wing fascism is wild as shit to see in my lifetime.
this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2026
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Technology
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Car manufacturers promoting fascism are sadly a thing though. Ford loved Nazi ideology and let's not even mention German brands.
... oh ... oh dear, oh no.
That's... no. No, don't say that, VW, dear god.
Tbf it wasn't VW, it was a Top Gear joke
Also Berlin to Warsaw in one tank is trivial so it wouldn't be something to advertise anyway
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It kinda makes a lot of sense I feel that they'd fit together. You have a form of transportation that is dangerous enough that requiring government licensing is generally agreed to be desirable, meaning that if its the primary option, a government can effectively take away a person's ability to participate in public life or make a living, and easily justify it on safety grounds. Cars are expensive, so a government can both funnel money to its partners in private industry by promoting them, and subsidize them for the populations it considers "desirable" as a means to seem like it has created abundance and luxury (see how how the VW bug came to be for example). And, a society built around cars is one that tends towards physical separation and isolation between people (because of space inefficient infrastructure and relatively quick travel outside of densely built areas), which promotes distrust of others. Thats not to say that cars are inherently fascist or that most people that promote them do so to benefit that sort of ideology, but that if I was some kind of fascist dictator seeking to control a population, Id probably want to push them into buying and relying on cars.
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Never been able to be sold outside of the US, including Europe or Asia because it would never pass the safety test, says it all.
It also says something about the American safety tests and laws. Americans are so afraid of Chinese cars that pass all safety tests but this unsafe monstrosity roams the streets?
Not only does it fail to pass basic safety tests it's also too heavy to drive on a normal licence in pretty much all the countries of the world. It weighs so much that it qualifies as a truck, not a pickup truck, a six wheeler. It's so heavy it has to take alternate routes around old bridges.
Even if it was legal in Europe, it'd be such an inconvenience to drive that no one would want one.
America only cares about the people buying cars.
Those pedestrians can either buy Canyoneros of their own or go die with the poor.
I just came back from a country full of Chinese cars...I gotta say there were some sexy ass solid feeling automobiles... Saw some tiny ones too, but I feel like I saw more busted rebadged tiny Chevys.
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Had to look up the Edsel to see what a shifter in the middle of the steering wheel would look like.
On the next car I design, the shifter will be located in the trunk. Just to keep things interesting.
The only thing nuttier might be door release handles under the floor mats.
So you own a Tesla, I see.
Nah, but the crash after which four people burned to death while talking to the 911 dispatcher because they couldn't open the doors happened just outside my city.
I've been in cars with electronic doors and the emergency latch is always super obvious, brightly coloured, and in one case glowed in the dark. For some reason Tesla feel the need to hide it.
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I mean ... I don't hate it...
Half of cars today have push-button shifters anyway, and the steering wheel is kind of a fun and novel place to put them.
It’s definitely more intriguing than my boring airbag steering wheel.
I've been driving for years and I've never used my airbag even once. What a waste of money.
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More dangerous than the Pinto, too
The thing the Pinto was famous for, its fuel tank being in the rear and exploring, only killed 27 people according to the NHTSA. So pretty low bar.
If my fuel tank went exploring I'd be worried too
We used to have standards for our vehicles
This is actually really funny, because Ralph Nader literally started his activist career pointing out that they didn’t in 1965.
The book, critical of the automotive industry, argued that many American automobiles were generally unsafe to operate.
Auto manufacturers were eventually forced to add seatbelts and protection for roll-overs.
Nader’s book was cited as the reason to create what became the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
When the original bill was passed,
Speaker of the United States House of Representatives John William McCormack said the passage of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act was brought about by the "crusading spirit of one individual who believed he could do something: Ralph Nader.”
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Ford also voluntarily recalled 1.5 million of them and addressed the fuel tank issue that caused the problem.
"Fixing" the cybertruck would involve offering refunds scrapping them.
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I know I shouldn't judge people without getting to know them but every time I see a cyber truck, I immediately think that the owner must be a gigantic douche canoe.
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Fiero wins again!
It might sometimes be on fire, but unlike a cybertruck you can put it out!
At least the Cybertruck makes sure you don't need to buy a new car, by locking its doors. /s
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Maybe because it can't survive a trip to the carwash
What's that? OTA software update couldn't fix that?!
Like so much over the past decade or so, I really thought it was a joke when I first saw one.
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Probably because the are so noticeable, but I see 2 or 3 of them on my way to/from work. Hard to tell them apart, but that is a lot in the 20 miles I go.
They tend to be concentrated in my experience. Big tech hubs have a higher concentration. I see a lot of them around Seattle for example.
Meta and Amazon employees on their way to build ICE databases and creeper glasses
Mmmhmmm. And Microsoft
I wish I didn't have to see one almost every time I drive somewhere. They are such a standout eyesore that it feels like I see them constantly.
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Fun fact: the stainless steel body panels cannot effectively be repaired or refinished to insurance company standards, so if something should happen to even just cosmetically damage one of the main body panels, the entire vehicle is unrepairable and totalled.
This is one of several reasons why the things are extremely expensive and difficult to insure. And, of course, it tells you how to do your part in making them even more expensive and difficult to insure.
Half of the panels on a cybertruck are just stuck on with glue and can be peeled off by hand.
It doesn't seem like something all that hard to fix, they are falling off on their own already. If only they invented some mechanical way to hold car parts together instead of glue...
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I'd be more worried about the aluminum frame. Aluminum under cyclical stress will fatigue and eventually catastrophically fail. It's why airlines have to constantly test aluminum parts so they can retire or replace them before they fail. It's only a matter of time before cyber trucks start breaking in half while on the highway. It's almost like there's a reason no car manufacturers have made unibody frames out of aluminum before.....
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I saw a swasticar in Stavanger the other day.
aw shucks
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