Tesla will voluntarily recall three million vehicles in China. The doorhandles don't work right. The driver monitoring systems don't work right. Those are two things you'd want to work right.
Voluntary is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Regulators told them to fix it. Tesla said sure, we were totally going to do that anyway. Very voluntary. Like when your wife voluntarily suggests you stop drinking on weeknights.
The doorhandle issue means the doors might not open properly in a crash. Driver monitoring means the system that's supposed to watch you isn't watching you. So you can't get out of the car and nobody knows you're not paying attention. Perfect.
Three million vehicles. In China alone. That's not a defect. That's a business model. Build the car, sell the car, recall the car, fix the car, pretend it was always fine. Repeat until everyone forgets or buys the stock anyway.
Retail traders saw this news and bought more calls. They read "voluntary recall" and thought it meant Elon was being generous. They read "driver monitoring deficiency" and assumed it was a feature. They wired their Robinhood accounts another two grand and picked strikes so far out of the money they're basically donations to theta gang.
The doorhandles fail and the cameras don't work, but the stock moved up fourteen cents on no volume at 3:47 PM because someone's algorithm got confused. That's the market pricing in full information. That's efficiency.
If your Tesla traps you inside during a crash while the camera watches nothing, just remember you're not stuck in traffic. You're not stuck in a burning car either. You're disrupting personal transportation, and that's what matters. The doorhandle will be fixed in six to eight weeks, pending parts availability and shareholder approval.
Photo by Joshua Fernandez on Unsplash
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