Land of the Giants | The Verge

The future of Tesla is in China

2023-08-30T09:00:00-04:00

The road to a world with only electric vehicles doesn't run through the US. It runs through China. In China, nearly 30 percent of all car sales are EVs. In the US, it's just 7 percent. How did China so thoroughly smoke the US when it comes to EVs?

It had help from a certain American company called Tesla.

In the sixth and last episode of Land of the Giants: The Tesla Shock Wave, we explore how China took the lead in global EV sales with a lot of help from the government in the form of subsidies for lithium batteries. We also examine how China used Tesla to kick-start its own homegrown EV industry - and how it has since outgrown Elon Musk's …

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The false promises of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving

2023-08-23T08:00:00-04:00

Back in 2016, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stunned the automotive world by announcing that, henceforth, all of his company's vehicles would be shipped with the hardware necessary for "full self-driving." You will be able to nap in your car while it drives you to work, he promised. It will even be able to drive cross-country with no one inside the vehicle.

But while Musk would eventually ship an advanced driver-assist system that he called Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta, the idea that any Tesla owner could catch some z's while their car whisks them along is, at best, laughable - and at worst, a profoundly fatal error.

Since that 2016 announcement, hun …

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Tesla’s ‘ultra hardcore’ work culture — as told by its employees

2023-08-16T09:00:00-04:00

Ever wonder what it's like to work at Tesla, the biggest, most exciting car company in the world? Elon Musk is known for setting lofty goals and expecting nothing short of perfection from his workers. He often urges his employees to go "super hardcore" or "ultra hardcore" - an ethos he recently brought to X / Twitter.

But that ethos has real-world implications for the people who work at Tesla. For the second episode of Land of the Giants: The Tesla Shock Wave, we talked to the employees who often bear the brunt of this "hardcore" work culture. And their stories may shock you: extremely long hours, unsafe working conditions, harassment, scan …

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It’s Tesla versus everyone else in the race for EV dominance

2023-08-09T08:00:00-04:00

For years, Tesla was synonymous with everything cool, high tech, and futuristic. But is it still today?

"Teslas used to look cool and now they don't," said Jessica Resler, a Brooklyn resident recently shopping for an EV who eventually settled on a BMW i4. "And they've become the Uber car of the city."

In case it wasn't clear, no one wants to be known as "the Uber car of the city." Previous designees include various Toyotas - Prius, RAV4, etc. - a brand that's more synonymous with terms like "functional" and "within my budget" than "cool."

But maybe it's a good thing, a sign of forward progress, that Tesla is shedding its cool persona and …

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How Elon Musk took over Tesla using money, strong-arm tactics, and his own popularity

2023-08-02T08:00:00-04:00

Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard and Elon Musk at the launch of the Tesla Roadster in 2008. | Image: Getty

The story of Tesla and Elon Musk can be traced back to the early 2000s, when Musk was ousted as CEO of his first company, PayPal. That incident taught Musk a crucial lesson about the importance of being in control, even when it wasn't your own company.

In episode two of Land of the Giants: The Tesla Shock Wave, we talk to Tesla's original co-founders, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, as well as several of the company's earliest employees, to tell what is essentially an origin of the electric automaker - but also of Musk himself. We learn how Musk was brought on as a crucial early investor but soon used his clout, money, and even a few s …

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The ‘monster’ car that almost broke Tesla

2023-07-26T06:00:00-04:00

In 2016, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stood on a stage in Los Angeles to introduce the company's new car to the world: the Model 3. There was just one problem. The car didn't exist yet.

In episode one of Land of the Giants: The Tesla Shock Wave, we're diving into the tumultuous production of the Model 3, Tesla's first electric car for the masses. Tesla became a giant in the auto industry based off the success of the Model 3, an affordable EV that seamlessly blended cool tech with an affordable price. But the car very nearly drove Tesla out of business - and, along with it, the company's capricious, bombastic leader, Elon Musk.

Remember that in 2016 …

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How Tesla almost went out of business — and then broke the auto industry

2023-07-19T10:08:39-04:00

During the development of the Tesla Model S, one top engineer would tick off certain milestones in his mind whenever the tiny, almost bankrupt startup would hit certain goals. A particular number of cars built, for example. And one milestone he distinctly remembers is when the Tesla team completed more than 9,000 cars.

Why? Because that's all the cars DeLorean ever made before it went out of business. Today, Tesla is rewriting the future more than any DeLorean ever did.

The new season of Vox Media Podcast Network's award-winning narrative podcast Land of the Giants is debuting next week, and it's all about Tesla. Tesla has become a giant …

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Your next swipe might be on an AI chatbot

2023-02-15T09:00:00-05:00

People are burned out on dating apps. In reporting Land of The Giants: Dating Games, we spoke to dozens of daters who are tired of navigating several apps at a time, optimizing their profiles, and facilitating dozens of conversations that go nowhere. So where do singles go from here?

The final episode of our series explores the hottest trend in tech - artificial intelligence. We'll speak with the CEO of a Gen Z dating app that allows users to train avatars to go on dates for them: "You don't have to get dressed up. You don't have to go out to a coffee shop or a bar to meet somebody to discover in the first 5 minutes you're not compatible." …

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Can ‘niche’ dating apps save us?

2023-02-08T09:00:00-05:00

These days, there are dating apps for just about everything you can imagine: from specific religions, ethnicities, and political beliefs to various lifestyles and hobbies. You can find a dating app for vegans, one for rock climbers, and even one for professional clowns.

But these apps face a particular challenge. They have to find enough users and build a strong enough community to survive. And they have to do that in the face of Tinder-owner Match Group, which has its own growing portfolio of narrowly-focused apps, too.

The most successful niche dating app outside of the Match Group umbrella is Grindr, a publicly traded company with 11 mi …

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What ‘feminist Tinder’ promised

2023-02-01T09:00:00-05:00

An early slogan from Bumble encouraged users to "be the CEO your parents always wanted you to marry." Since its founding in 2014, the company has billed its app as the more empowering dating service for women - one where women message matches first, and women are in control. It's earned Bumble the moniker of "feminist Tinder." And Bumble has been more than happy to play into that marketing.

But almost a decade on, Bumble can still feel as tired and broken as other dating apps. And it often seems like that feminist twist is more marketing fodder than meaningful change to how our apps run our love lives.

Episode four of Land of the Giants: D …

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