Sometimes when I report on the absolute dumpster fire of Tesla product management, which produces dumber and dumber products of feeble engineering, I like to think back to when I was just a young boy growing up on the rough and rugged no-compromise Kansas prairie…

Back then, when we were asked to handle a “Death Ride,” we were dealing with genuine survival situations, not fantastical white-glove racist colonization scenarios. Kansas dirt trails meant rescue teams weren’t coming—sticky clay mud, mixed with locust thorns punctured tires to halt any rushed attempts. We faced real-world engineering meeting honest environmental challenges, something that seems increasingly absent in Tesla’s fee fraud fantasy futurism.