First, you have to wonder just how many more people must die (as dutifully reported by TeslaDeaths.com) before Tesla is properly banned from public roads?

Tesla Deaths Per Year

Remember, the Ford Pinto had killed around 25 people (as told by Ford) when the entire country had to shift into gear in order to regulate against safety design negligence by car makers.

Front doors jam shut preventing escape or rescue from a burning car? That sounds just like a Tesla! How are they legal?

I mean do we expect a market to somehow adjust itself today such that people stop owning Tesla, as well as stop riding in and around them? I have doubts about such consumer self-correction as I still weekly read news from grieving families who say, too late, they never understood the real risk of their loved ones being burned alive, hit head-on or run over by Tesla.

And on this tragic note about the exploding number of deaths in defective cars, which seem to only be stopped with regulation, Tesla has many shockingly old safety design defects. Consider for comparison an assorted list of high safety models, from far better engineered brands.

• Acura MDX four-wheel-drive
• Audi Q5 four-wheel-drive
• Chevrolet Traverse four-wheel-drive
• Lexus RX 350 four-wheel-drive
• Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan four-wheel-drive
• Porsche Macan
• Subaru Ascent
• Toyota C-HR
• Volvo XC60 four-wheel-drive

There are even more options than these, because it’s apparently easy to post better safety results than the high-priced low-quality “luxury” Tesla. This reference is only to show many cars achieve extremely low death rates in the latest real world results (NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System). In other words, no Tesla achieves what others can.

The IIHS emphasizes another angle on the data as well. They say marketing of the technology has as much to do with high death tolls as the designs themselves, or perhaps even more impact.

The explanation may lie in the image of the vehicles. Luxury cars are associated with ease and comfort. In contrast, the [most deaths] on this list are associated with [dangerous behavior suggestions that] influence how they’re driven. […] Marketing for the Dodge Charger HEMI, for example, focuses on its “ground-shaking” power, its acceleration “bolting off the line” and its “racing-inspired” high-performance brakes, while the Chevrolet Camaro promises buyers the ability to “dominate on the daily” with an “extreme track performance package” and the Ford Mustang offers “adrenaline chasers” the power to “keep ahead of the pack.”

Tesla’s infamously thoughtless “appetite for destruction” strangely isn’t mentioned in this paragraph, even though the brand is regularly posting dangerous behavior suggestions… such as their CEO boasting to customers that “accidents probably won’t happen” when they drive drunk or fall asleep at the wheel.

The latest NHTSA formal defect investigation letter to Tesla that the company must stop false advertising of “driverless” capabilities seems to fit. Tesla might be the most causal relationship of all, given repeated fraudulent safety statements leading directly to high death rates. I’d still argue Tesla engineering defects are a significant factor, however. No other brand has been reporting multiple cases of everyone inside being burned to death (again and again), for one obvious example, given the notorious “death trap” design defect that seals Tesla doors shut after a crash.

Are you driving the deadliest car in the world?

To put it another way, in 1971 a new agency (NHTSA) was pushing the first major safety regulations, against the desires of a hugely popular racist president Nixon. The “pro business” President expressed a list of clear disdains:

1. Environmental protection (“fighting a delaying action”)
2. Consumer advocacy (“Naderism”)
3. Safety regulations (“greatly exaggerated”)
4. “Environmentalists and consumerism people” who he claimed were “enemies of the system”

Most tellingly, Nixon dehumanized people if they were concerned with the environment, literally calling them animals and a threat:

…we can’t have a completely safe society or safe highways or safe cars and pollution-free and so forth. Or we could have, go back and live like a bunch of damned animals. […] They’re not one damn bit interested in safety or clean air. What they’re interested in is destroying the system.

He went even further to turn his comments racist and target Native Americans, as if to build a “white man” argument against environmental progress:

You see, what it is, too, is that we are, we are now becoming obsessed with the idea that … progress … industrialization, ipso facto, is bad. The great life is to have it like when the Indians were here. You know how the Indians lived? Dirty, filthy, horrible.

And so does anyone really think that the Tesla and Trump Whitehouse will reveal anything different than Ford and Nixon did with the Pinto? Hint: Ralph Nader refers to Tesla as manslaughter.

Transcripts reveal for historians how Nixon fundamentally sided with industry over public safety and environmental concerns, viewing regulation as an attack on business rather than an innovation engine for protection of people. He acted to delay critical safety requirements (like airbags) after meeting with car executives, proving himself to be a corrupt (ultimately criminal) President who dangerously prioritized big corporate short-term interests over sustainable investments and public safety.

Related: Tesla topped iSeeCars list of most dangerous car brands

This analysis examines how Tesla and its CEO employ Cold War-era propaganda techniques to potentially undermine American democratic institutions, viewed through the lens of Karl Popper’s paradox of tolerance. The evidence suggests concerning parallels between historical authoritarian technological messaging and current corporate practices that may pose significant national security risks.

Tesla’s deployment of technological theater—particularly in its Robovan and autonomous vehicle programs—bears striking similarities to Cold War-era psychological operations designed to project technological superiority. Consider the historical precedent of robotic transit technology projected by America during the Cold War:

The historical context is crucial. Silicon Valley emerged from Department of Defense initiatives, particularly following the devastating losses during operations like the 1943 Schweinfurt raid. Transportation systems became a key ideological battleground, as documented in Berlin’s tram network history:

When Berlin was divided, the tramway was also split in twain. The West side was managed by BVG-West and the East side by BVG-Ost, later renamed the VEB Kombinat Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVB). The ideological differences between the two regimes were soon manifested on the tramway: before the city was split, women had been allowed to drive trams, albeit mostly during World War I and World War II during labor shortages. But in Fighting the Cold War in Post-Blockade, Pre-Wall Berlin, Mark Fenemore notes that women in West Berlin were banned from driving trams, as well as trains and buses, due to “medical rules.” As a result, authorities on the western side refused to allow a tram driven by a woman to cross into their sectors, and would “[make] the tram wait until a man replacement driver arrived.” In January 1953, large-scale prohibition of women tram drivers coming into West Berlin went into effect. As a result, one woman who was driving a tram was stopped at gun point and told to go back to the east.

This historical precedent of using transportation technology as an ideological battleground finds modern echoes in Tesla’s operations. Consider the 1959 RCA demonstrations, where technological promises served as anti-Soviet propaganda:

All of these electronic miracles are in existence. They are products of the David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton, N. J., and scientists of the Radio Corporation of America are working today to make them available to you tomorrow. Let’s examine the automated house and its amazing Home Electronic Center, which consists of a miniaturized system of all-electronic mechanisms already lab-tested at Princeton. […] RCA engineers call this wonder system the Home Electronic Center Kid, or HECK. […] These are just some of the electronic miracles that you will live to see. They are in the labs today. They will be in your home tomorrow.

Parallels between this historical propaganda and Tesla’s current practices are alarming. Both use grandiose promises of future technology to manipulate public perception and potentially mask deeper political agendas. Moreover, the underlying misogyny present in a 1959 demonstration finds clear echoes in Tesla culture, where women are often marginalized or objectified by a CEO who repeatedly refers to them as “birthing” systems to replenish the white race (e.g. 1943 beheading of Sophie Scholl). This 1959 “Robovac” promotional video literally ends by saying women don’t want to work.

Tesla’s modern incarnation of this strategy is particularly evident in its Robovan concept:

The design’s striking similarity to historical authoritarian transport concepts raises serious security concerns, especially when viewed alongside Tesla’s pattern of unfulfilled technological promises. Since 2016, CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly promised coast-to-coast autonomous driving capabilities, as evidenced in this statement to TechCrunch:

Our goal is, and I feel pretty good about this goal, that we’ll be able to do a demonstration drive of full autonomy all the way from LA to New York, from home in LA to dropping you off in Times Square in New York, and then having the car go park itself, by the end of next year [in 2017]. Without the need for a single touch, including the charger.

The security implications become more acute when considering potential foreign influence. The Robovan’s design bears concerning similarities to the Nazi Breitspurbahn initiative of 1942:

Of particular concern is the possibility that extremist elements within the government may be using Tesla as a vehicle for advancing anti-democratic agendas while evading traditional oversight mechanisms. SpaceX, like Tesla, allegedly may have had Musk as a cover story under a federally funded strategy beneath his antics and outside the accountability of government agencies. The company’s extensive track record of delivering the least safe vehicles while promising the safest, combined with its CEO’s troubling pattern of promoting extremist symbolism, raises serious questions about underlying motivations and potential threats to national security.

Recommendations

1. Implement enhanced oversight mechanisms for technology companies with significant government contracts, particularly those involved in transportation infrastructure.

2. Develop new frameworks for evaluating technological claims against historical propaganda patterns.

3. Strengthen counterintelligence capabilities focused on identifying and mitigating corporate technological theatre that may mask national security threats.

4. Establish robust accountability measures for companies receiving government funds while engaging in public deception campaigns.

The synthesis of historical Cold War propaganda techniques with modern corporate practices presents a unique challenge to national security infrastructure. As technology companies increasingly influence critical systems and public perception, understanding these historical parallels becomes crucial for maintaining democratic institutions and national security integrity.

As I’ve said since forever, VW was a much easier target for America than America was. Dropping a regulator hammer on the Berkeley Professors and Marin Dairy Farmers driving a diesel VW station wagon is like a walk in the park.

Sure, VW got raked over the coals and there was serious fall-out in Germany (e.g., a $4.3 billion fine). In some sense, idling with low emissions isn’t quite the problem people made it out to be, which is why lying about it was such a stupid strategy. But the real story always was that direct action against the huge number of American diesel cheaters was only being signaled instead of enforced — a big overseas takedown on VW was like warning shots that every diesel-head should have heeded immediately.

It’s almost like regulation in Europe somehow emboldened those prone to abuse in America. In fact, on the news of VW getting in hot water, Tesla’s CEO ran out and started operating a huge bank of dirty diesel generators. It was egregiously bad behavior, made even worse by Tesla marketing these generators as clean energy because they were wrapped up and sold as an EV charging station.

And now, finally, wheels of justice are starting to make the rounds on the actual emissions problem being in America. It’s amazing just how intentionally dumb and blind about harms the good ol’ American “tuners” have acted, flaunting laws, even while watching regulators clean up Germany.

Feds Nail Another Diesel Shop With $10M in Fines for Deleting Emissions Equipment: It was caught selling, installing, and manufacturing tuning devices that imitated another company’s products.

So dumb. And of course it was run out of the infamous “what do you mean slavery is wrong” state of North Carolina.

That $10 million seems pitifully low for the intentional harms that generated huge revenues in the 10s of millions. When set low, the fines become rationalized as a cost of doing business instead of a proper prohibition to exploitative practices.

“Those selling defeat devices are willing to pollute the environment so that they can personally profit,” said U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves for the District of Columbia. “Today’s sentencing makes clear that there will be significant consequences for those who traffic in these devices. Anyone considering peddling or installing these devices is on notice of the substantial costs of doing so.”

Fun history fact, the Department of Justice and National Parks were created by President Grant after he won the Civil War, to stop the KKK-minded southern states from trying to profit from massive systemic harms in America including pollution.

Fast forward to today and the Department of Justice is busy shutting down dangerous and dumb North Carolina business models like it’s the 1870s again.

But my favorite part of the story is actually this buried lede:

Rudy’s then started faking these tuners in-house. This involved an $850,000 laptop purchase, as the computer contained the software to convert other tuners into Mini-Maxxes and XRT Pros. Until stopping in July 2018, Rudy’s sold nearly 44,000 imitation tuners and generated about $33 million in revenue from them. All this is as reported by the DOJ.

In 1808 America banned import of slaves so North Carolinians started making them “in-house” (systemic rape of Black women) instead.

See the parallels?

And should we really call it an $850,000 laptop purchase? The computer “contained” valuable software, while the laptop was likely worth next to nothing on its own. The idea someone could license software on just one laptop for nearly $1M tells you just how stupidly lucrative causing intentional environmental harm had become even after the VW takedown.

To put it another way, think about a $10 million fine as the cost of 10 laptops on a diesel cheater’s balance sheet. Is there a business that can afford to buy 10 laptops?

Related: North Carolina was the first to secede to start a Civil War meant to preserve their business of slavery. As the rest of the world was very openly ending slavery towards the late 1700s (shout out to the colonies of Vermont and Georgia), America primarily fought its Revolutionary War to preserve and expand slavery instead. George Washington literally recruited soldiers to fight by asking if they opposed their British King being too progressive and setting free the Blacks in America. And Washington himself went on to keep his slaves even when it became illegal in Pennsylvania, ordering his lawyer to find loopholes that allowed keeping hostages and raping them for profit. Thus we see precedent for the haters in North Carolina who apparently had a hard time accepting a regulation that ended harms. It’s on that note we can see how President Grant was the best President in history. And Washington? An awful cheater. French historians now say he didn’t even fight his own battles.